NSA good guys

dan at geer.org dan at geer.org
Thu Apr 17 19:09:36 PDT 2014


 | 
 | 	It may be possible, in the not-so-distant-future, to record
 | 	people in ultra high definition from a mile away, but the
 | 	'technology'  can be rendered rather useless with somthing
 | 	like...this
 | 
 | 	http://ramitia.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/japan-face-masks.jpg
 | 


At this time, it is possible to do facial recognition at 500 meters,
iris recognition at 50 meters, and heartbeat recognition at 5 meters.
A newspaper open on a table can be read from orbit.  DNA samples
can be matched in under half a hour.  Your smartphone can identify
your gait, your face in that selfie, the idiosyncracies of your
typing, your fingerprint and/or anything else you wish to lay on
the screen.  Light fixtures in public venues provide light but also
house a camera, sensors for CO/CO2/pollutant emissions, seismic
activity, humidity & UV radiation, a microphone, wifi and/or cellular
interfaces, an extensible API, an IPv4 or v6 address per LED, a
capacity for disconnected "decision making on the pole," and
cloud-based remote management.  Every cow you eat is tracked cradle
to grave with RFID tagging under the National Animal Identification
System, the infrastructure for which handles 100 million cattle and
works for any mammal, of which you are one.  Any newish car is
broadcasting several Bluetooth beacons as is your newish iPhone.
Forensics can now match photo to camera as crisply as matching
bullet to barrel.  The Smart Meter soon to be imposed on your
electric tap will know everything you own, and report.  More and
more people you meet will be part of the system -- that wearables
like Google Glass are so readily detectible is just a brief moment
in time.  Cars are soon to be mandated to implement wireless
vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle to infrastructure (V2I)
communications using extensible protocols intended to include
route-based payment now that too many people are driving green cars.
Your various insurers will buy your data for a pittance of discount
but will also know when, say, blood pressure for everyone in the
house or the neighborhood rises together.  A wife may not be impelled
to testify against a husband, but cannot her digital exhaust be
subpoenaed to the same effect?


But you know all that, paper hospital masks notwithstanding.

--dan




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