hello CJ,
i have heard the UK is the surveillance capital of the world,
at least in terms of CCTV density and from what you indicate
much further ahead with license plate readers at every juncture,
where in this city, only a few intersections have automated
license plate readers for speeding or red light ticketing, if not
mistaken. perhaps this higher density is the future, then, that
is attempting to be advanced as infrastructure itself, where
each traffic light and eventually eventually every streetlight
is a sensor base for such 'accounting tools' of the state
(somewhat like voting in reverse, polling negative dynamics,
ubiquitous surveillance infrastructure as new damocles sword)
in the US there are radio frequency transponders for toll booths,
and high-occupancy vehicle lanes (drive faster in special highway
lane if multiple people in car) and black boxes for insurance. i do
not have a motor vehicle though assume stickers include RFID
for access and scanning, say for parking badges, etc. and then
GPS and all that, cellphones, everything indicates an existing
capacity to track, if these elements are active & functioning
i was tending to think somewhat obliquely about this, such
that, it is as if 'everything is above board' with surveillance tools,
tactics, and techniques. as if it is in a catalog available as PDF,
versus never on the books, that it is part of a black program or
black project infrastructure. and this likely involves vehicles in
some undocumented way, as would even be reasonable if the
threat model involves needing to locate car Z without a person
having a cellphone or transponder, who is going to detonate
a nuclear suitcase, and you need to locate that car. and so
under those circumstances, how do you do that, immediately
compare and contrast an unequipped car, no gps, no cellphone,
nothing. what is the likelihood that a car is driving around in this
day without a signature that could be identified remotely, as if
the car is some special autonomous platform for moving about,
outside of a security context even, as if a special realm of
privilege that is safe from surveillance. to me this is not very
realistic as a starting point, given the larger context, and thus
consider the lowly photocopier by contrast, or the basic printer
used with a computer. even these devices are not autonomous.
there are hidden watermarks that allow tracing and copies of
any scans and printouts, that level of invisible tracking that
could be activated/reviewed if need be in a security scenario
so too, vehicles. with certainty. why would a piece of paper
require such tracking and not a mode of individual transport.
and must it require an add-on or is it a hidden functionality
or parameter. must it be an overt, agreed upon, legislated
device that is on the dashboard (say gps or cellphone else
blackbox), or might it be invisible, built into the car itself,
embedded as a hidden data parameter that can only be
accessed by knowing how to access & read the output
my view of this is civilizational, development of culture, in
the framework of Lewis Mumford who placed technological
events in a ecological context, as a series of processes in
that various actions combine to result in a given artifact or
tool, it is not made out of whole technological cloth, instead
requires planning, logistics, assembly, and involves issues
not only of design though also materials, procurement, etc
in this way, mining, the going into the earth to get raw
materials and resources that are refined into metals or
separated into other elements, say diamonds for giant
circular saw blades separated from stone, or also into
geological surveying for natural gas, oil, water, steam
in geophysics context for power generation, uranium.
this is, like with the Bronze age, a leading, cutting edge
of civilization, development, its technological advancement
pre-uranium mining, post-uranium mining, consider how
culture may have changed in awareness, capacity, etc.
hydrogen, or other advances in science, tools, technology
so, an artifact and assemblage/ecosystem of computers
today are likewise tied into this process of mining, esp.
of rare earth minerals, gold, silver, that make circuitboards
and various transistor or other unique electrical insulator/
conductor, or magnetic properties harnessed to compute
with, create screens and displays with, stronger metals
Ford automotive, manufacturing plants of the earliest
assemblyline for car manufacturing, was based around
logistics of lining up, not only workers on the line to piece
together cars in a coordinated, orchestrated sequence, it
also involved movement of raw materials, their processing,
shaping of the steel, trains and railheads, smelters, and
electrical generation of power, such that the entire system
functioned as a gigantic machine, humans and technology
in fluid interaction and then figuring this out in total detail;
thus mass produced low-cost high-tech vehicles for sale
the economics where ecosystem-based dynamics, the
calculus was figured out via Taylorist principles (related
to electrical light and clocktime and machine efficiency)
and so it was highly connected to this mining of material,
which then flowed through this system, and eventually was
output into a vehicle as product of the production process
part of this issue of raw materials is that, they are valuable
and oftentimes wars are fought over natural resources, so
they are a leading edge of civilization or national development
as they feed into the organization/organism that needs and
requires that 'data' to flow into the system and be processed,
as part of a transformative value chain that starts as another
fragment and then combines with others into an integrated
entity or design of some kind. this is somewhat like today,
say where just-in-time manufacturing and FABs in Taiwan
are used to limit production to only what is ordered for given
computers, getting that level of control over production and
use of resources, though still tied to fluctuating prices, yet
also not in control of the total process, instead distributed
or differentiated across various industries and geographies
which is why the shipping container is perhaps so symbolic
of world order, of ecosystem/ecological world-scale dynamic
part of this situation is the securing of resources, which
can have diplomatic or contested relations that potentially
could threaten the state if lost, or benefit if more is gained
so the military is likely highly connected with these realms,
whether overtly or as substructure. they likely are attuned to
the finest detail of parameters as it relates to state security
or its planning and development. i do not believe they could
feasibly be disconnected. most obvious oil. its relation to war.
in other words, any natural resource that feeds into this system
that sustains the state and the state requires for its security and
ultimate survival is inherently in a military and defense context.
these are not separate industries, in my view or understanding,
because the military must have knowledge of how they function
and be able to employ them in offensive and defensive scenarios,
there is overlap between civilian and industrial and military, also
hierarchy by law, such that these realms can be managed by
the military in times of war, say for factories to produce other
material such as car factories to make tanks, planes, weapons
(cf. legally require PC manufacturers to install surveillance tools)
so there is always the implicit relation between industries that
access natural resources and develop them, that the military
has a structural connection and can take over their management
within certain parameters or goals aligned with war agendas, etc
so imagine this as a layer that may not be overt or activated yet
it is always present, always a potential variable in any given item
or thing or situation to do with the state. anything. prostitution to
drugs to canned soup to making placemats. it is a condition or
existential situation of the state in relation to all of its dynamics,
and how these could be changed in various situations and how
they could be leveraged differently, for better or worse, given
their management, orchestration as a single giant ecosystem
now at world scale, perhaps beyond cold war boundaries and
into another realm of organization, say humans vs. enemies
if you take an infrastructure view (itself nearly totally military,
roads and highways planned and built for military strategy,
GPS, telecom) there is likewise a context in which vehicles
exist and move about, that is inherently military and defense
oriented, else perhaps indicates parallel or unknown systems
that have priority and are related hierarchically with existing
systems (spectrum allocations, for instance). so whether or
not observable, ordinary spacetime & place already exist in
this military context because it is managing the civilian area
that has developed inside its parameters. as if nested set.
or so it is assumed, based on 'security requirements' that
there is another communications system, another GPS than
only the consumer version, likely quantum computers existing
beyond consumer technology for massive data processing, and
various other hidden parameters that could suddenly begin to
'manage the chaotic situation' of the state in a defensive or
war context - which is actually the legal situation that exists
and has been signed off on by representatives of the state
the aspect here is that it may not all be visible or need to
be spoken about to exist as 'legal' in terms of defense or in
a military context, especially say if the context involves that
of insurgency and running counterinsurgency operations on
home soil, where such dynamics cannot be acknowledged
for security reasons - and yet if there was some aspect or
weakness in the system as designed, that could actually
in some fundamental way knowingly threaten the state in
the way it exists -- it is probable some action would be
required and would be taken to ensure it is dealt with,
not ignored due to conventional rules, laws, consensus
the military view in terms of defense and security is its
own consensus, in a way that precedes voting of citizens.
people and institutions who fight and die and defend are
operating in different parameters than those who seek
their own enjoyment or wealth firstly, as a state of mind
and so, people may be obvious to this as a context, that
they could be walking around in a war-zone that is passive
or occurring within bureaucracy, because the situation has
not been defined externally yet, the trigger has not occurred
to divide the masses and so everything appears unified at
the same time a real threat of terrorism exists in ambiguity
my point was that, in this scenario, when there is a need
to identify a given vehicle in a context of satellites and of
antennas (50 yrs now), that it is probable that vehicle ID
exists in some way that is a hidden parameter within the
vehicle platform, some antenna or some burst transmitter
that sends back a qr-code like signature if pinged, such
that if need be, data could be gathered beyond having
an active device requiring a battery to handshake signals
if - that is, it is an actual threat to the state. having the
ability to drive a car around without anyone being able
to track it because a person avoids leaving a known trail,
say by no use of cellphone, no gps.
now this may be totally wrong. and maybe it requires a
mechanic connected with special police operations to
plant a bug or tracker on a targets car, yet in a context
of mass surveillance and invisible antennas, given such
priority to identification of items, down to paper and scans,
how likely is it that a car is autonomous & not trackable?
not in the context of rule of law of police. in the context
of, there are no rules, a nuclear bomb is going off, the
military is involved - what are the options...
"you cannot find the car?
WTF do you mean you cannot find the car?!"
i do not believe that is going to be unthought about by
the manufacturers who may have a military dimension
or review of the security or defense issues involved if it
were necessary or could be implemented without any
legal or other issues, of use only in a layered threat
model where it is legal yet hidden, for such tracking
if it does not exist, it probably should exist and would
be frightening if it did not, in the nuclear suitcase scenario
"we could not track the car, we lost a major metropolitan city"
given the QR-code signature parallel, a ping of a very large
geography by satellite network could find a needle in haystack
if a moving vehicle or not, potentially, as with millions of stars,
say via gathering the energy and sending it backwards again
as an encoded relay. if you can get the signal from Voyager
out of the solar system on a fraction of a billionth of a watt,
it is likely a car could reflect data though perhaps the issue
of parsing or gathering it is not realistic. which is why there
may be more use to cellular towers, who knows. there is
artificial radiation everywhere that could be used for this
type of monitoring and tracking while remaining hidden,
undocumented, beyond the threshold of observation
so if a photocopier has tracking of both scans & printouts,
and a computer printer likewise, watermarking the paper,
just to track it if need be- why would vehicle be immune
from this, especially given their importance to tracking.
it seems completely unlikely it is not built into vehicles
as part of this total process, including a security/defense
military aspect within a society of mass surveillance as
the terms of relation, where friend and foe are citizens
in the larger sense of ecosystem then, cars implicitly
belong inside this military framework, their connection
with resources, manufacturing, and tracking of people
of interest or threats to the state is probably part of the
military dimension that likely exists unaccounted for
there would be no public legislation about such things.
they would just exist, signed off in some secret committee
and used only within certain parameters and not others
the tell would be if such systems existed and begin to
be employed or deployed in police state tactics, and
this is where the NSA surveillance seems to tread
such that this security and defense infrastructure is
being used for political advantage, exploited, abused
to consolidate power beyond the law, as if the head
of the state itself in a hegemonic or dictatorial mode
the military exists to crush these kinds of situations
(yet it may not be the military visible on the television)
