Feds about to launch a huge cracking target?

[liberator]

Re: Feds about to launch a huge cracking target?

...Although I do not really have an issue with the backscatter idea, I think I would take another airport out of town to avoid the machines based on principle. I feel like next we will have to wear a pink tut and recite the pledge before getting on a plane....

It just got much, much worse. Today the UK Sun newspaper is reporting that the cops over there now have the brilliant idea of mounting X-ray backscatter cameras on lamp posts all over the place. Excerpts:

"OFFICIALS are bracing themselves for a storm of public outrage over their controversial X-ray cameras scheme.

As part of the most shocking extension of Big Brother powers ever planned here, lenses in lampposts would snap “naked” pictures of passers-by to trap terror suspects."

I realize that I'm terminally skeptical of motives. That said, I find it useful to compare the motives of a couple of privacy threatening programs. For example, there are huge financial rewards for handing out speeding tickets, versus the huge financial drain of this X-ray stuff. Therefore I would expect a cash cow program like automatic speeding tickets issued on the basis of cell phone tracking to be funded before this type of sanctioned privacy invasion program got funded. But the situation is in fact reversed. Why would that be? Since this cash drain has priority over the cash cow, it makes me wonder what the real goal is. I take it as a given that it's not the stated goal of stopping terrorists, since it would be essentially useless for that purpose, and the authorities just can't be stupid enough to think otherwise.

Maybe I'm just not being charitable. At the very least the potential for official and unofficial abuse seems stunning. It would certainly be the straw that broke my back regarding where I choose to live. The total loss of any notion of search being preceeded by probable cause and a court order, which now seems like a quaint notion in the US constitution that may have been applicable decades ago but is now widely ignored, would be enough to have me move away from a place that had the will and the means to ignore it in all aspects of life. The airport searches without probable cause, which go back over 30 years in the US, are just one more negative aspect of modern flying that has me avoid air travel as much as possible.

It really is interesting and depressing to consider the loss of privacy in my lifetime that has occurred with the confluence of political will and technology.

[The Dark Tangent]

Re: Feds about to launch a huge cracking target?

I think it is now time for everyone in the UK to take a big breath, meditate..

.. and then go read the three short stories by David Drake "Lacey and his friends"

http://www.amazon.com/Lacey-His-Frie...e=UTF8&s=books

The world Lacey lives in is a world where there is mandated 24 hour recording and monitoring of all accessible space, everywhere. He is a detective who uses these collected recordings of all activity to solve crimes. It's pretty dark and grim, not all shiny and high tech. It's interesting how smart criminals will still commit murder under the constant surveillance.

It was written decades ago, but is looking closer to reality in London!

[converge]

Re: Feds about to launch a huge cracking target?

In other news, 'City Makes Bank Selling Content For Intarweb Voyeurs!'

[tr1gger65RUS]

Re: Feds about to launch a huge cracking target?

Greeting everybody.
This is my first post on defcon forums, so... first of all, i'm quite sorry for my language, it's not my native one.
I'm not personally concerned with the mentioned problem, but may be someone is interested in my "russian" point of view.

I think that described increased security is not an only benefit will be gained with the advent of this technology. i'm quite sure that some forces are interested in remaining people's fear of some kind of threat. i think it's clear what i'm talking about.
next:
"he system will be configured so that the X-ray will be deleted as soon as the individual steps away from the machine. It will not be stored or available for printing or transmitting" - this seems to be suspicious because of "human factor"

[liberator]

Re: Feds about to launch a huge cracking target?

Don't worry about distribution of the explicit images of yourself obtained via backscatter X-ray imaging. There's just no possibility of these images ever getting out. NOT!

Updated info. Here is an excerpt:

Feb 23, 6:35 PM (ET)

By TERRY TANG

PHOENIX (AP) - The Phoenix airport on Friday became the first in the United States to test new X-ray technology that can see through people's clothes and show the body's contours with blush-inducing clarity.

New article is here.

[VAX_to_PBX]

Re: Feds about to launch a huge cracking target?

Home Land Security has secretive intentions! They plan to data mine the images, and sale them to clothing designers, body jewelry designers, and tattoo equipment manufacturers.

I'm not even into marketing, or data mining, and I can tell you with confidence any information that comes from these x-ray images has no practical use in business, and/or government statistics gathering. Selling them as stock photos online is a whole other story.

(NOTE: No offense, but this subject presents itself as sensationalist bullshit. What is anyone gonna do with a x-ray image of a persons body, or even a regular image? Aren't there real issues to be discussed? All this does is keep a national guardsman from feeling my crotch at the terminal. If a criminal gets there hands on a copy of the image they might stare at it with an evil eye at worst.)

"Feds about to launch a huge cracking target?" Putting Trained killers there with Military Spec weaponry was more interesting. This topic is like announcing they changed the bottle on the water cooler in the breakroom at work.

[Floydr47]

Re: Feds about to launch a huge cracking target?

Saying that Homeland Security has secretive intentions is much like using the phrase 'military intelligence", it's the government for pete sake. Personally, I have no objection to a national guardswoman feeling my crotch at the airport, it seems like the perfect way to meet women who will have no great expectations at a future date, and by the way, when did they change the bottle on the water cooler in the break room, and more importantly, why didn't I receive a memo?

[VAX_to_PBX]

Re: Feds about to launch a huge cracking target?

I kind of agree with you on the whole using the term intelligence when referring to most government branches being an oxymoron thing.

It's not that the government as a whole are morons. It's just the public front people like key decision makers, and all the politicians have off the shelf ideals, and off the shelf responses to everything.

The NSA for example have some of the top mathematicians, and physicists in the world, but the people who give them orders manipulated there way through an education like a jock through an IT career, or a conformist through a counter culture.

I don't know everyone has there own perspective on enlightenment, and knowledge. In genuine reality though it's safe to say most people can't cut it when you give them significant roles in in the world. That doesn't keep them from perpetrating though.

[Floydr47]

Re: Feds about to launch a huge cracking target?

True intelligence is a thing to be respected. Inventiveness, pioneerism, and real problem solving skills are things to be admired and emulated. Far too often in today's society people only give the answers that they feel will please the boss and further their careers while great discoveries and ideas fall by the wayside. There is a huge difference between intelligence and knowledge. Knowledge can be learned by rote, intelligence is a gift that comes from deep inside the reasoning process of the mind. Just because someone has knowledge that they learned from a book doesn't make them intelligent. Pavlov proved that. My father always told me that "all the book learning in the world ain't worth a damn if a man don't have the intelligence and common sense to back it up." I often look at the people I consider to be knowledgable and wonder whether what I am seeing is true intelligence or just another mass produced trained monkey with a degree. An intelligent employer will expect those in his employ to exceed his own intelligence and to break new ground and not just feed him tried and true concepts.