Total Surveillance! - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

ARTelevision · 06-03-2003, 06:23 PM

If you've been following the trends in the recent mind-control discussions here, it's time to update our idea of what's possible - and how soon it will be here.

.....................

Pentagon Tool Records User's Every Sense
Mon Jun 2, 3:06 PM ET

AP

WASHINGTON - Coming to you soon from the Pentagon: the diary to end all diaries — a multimedia, digital record of everywhere you go and everything you see, hear, read, say and touch.

Known as LifeLog, the project has been put out for contractor bids by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the agency that helped build the Internet and that is now developing the next generation of anti-terrorism tools.

The agency doesn't consider LifeLog an anti-terrorism system, but rather a tool to capture "one person's experience in and interactions with the world" through a camera, microphone and sensors worn by the user. Everything from heartbeats to travel to Internet chatting would be recorded.

The goal is to create breakthrough software that helps analyze behavior, habits and routines, according to Pentagon documents reviewed by The Associated Press. The products of the unclassified project would be available to both the private sector and other government agencies — a concern to privacy advocates.

DARPA's Jan Walker said LifeLog is intended for users who give their consent to be monitored. It could enhance the memory of military commanders and improve computerized military training by chronicling how users learn and then tailoring training accordingly, officials said.

But John Pike of Global Security.org, a defense analysis group, is dubious the project has military application.

"I have a much easier time understanding how Big Brother would want this than how (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld would use it," Pike said. "They have not identified a military application."

Steven Aftergood, a Federation of American Scientists defense analyst, said LifeLog would collect far more information than needed to improve a general's memory — enough "to measure human experience on an unprecedentedly specific level." And that, privacy experts say, raises powerful concerns.

DARPA rejects any notion LifeLog will be used for spying. "The allegation that this technology would create a machine to spy on others and invade people's privacy is way off the mark," Walker said.

She said LifeLog is not connected with DARPA's data-mining project, recently renamed Terrorism Information Awareness. Each LifeLog user could "decide when to turn the sensors on or off and who would share the data," she added. "The goal ... is to `see what I see,' rather than to `see me.'"

One critic sees a silver lining in the government taking the lead.

"If government weren't doing this, it would still be done by companies and in universities all over the country, but we would have less say about it," said James X. Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology, which advocates online privacy. Because the government is involved, "you can read about it and influence it."

DARPA's Web site says the agency investigates ideas "the traditional research and development community finds too outlandish or risky."

But in LifeLog's case, some similar technology is already being funded and researched by well-heeled outfits.

Professor Steve Mann of the University of Toronto has spent 30 years developing a wearable camera and computer, progressing from intricate metallic headgear to dark frame eyeglasses and a cellphone-sized belt attachment. He's working with Samsung on a commercial version.

And Microsoft's Gordon Bell scans his mail and other papers and records phone, Web, video and voice transactions into a computerized file called MyLifeBits. The company may include the capability in upcoming products.

Neither Mann nor Bell intends to bid on DARPA's project. Bell said DARPA wants to go further than he has into artificial intelligence to analyze data.

The Pentagon agency plans to award up to four 18-month contracts for LifeLog beginning this summer. Contracting documents give a sense of the project's scope.

Cameras and microphones would capture what the user sees or hears; sensors would record what he or she feels. Global positioning satellite sensors would log every movement. Biomedical sensors would monitor vital signs. E-mails, instant messages, Web-based transactions, telephone calls and voicemails would be stored. Mail and faxes would be scanned. Links to every radio and television broadcast heard and every newspaper, magazine, book, Web site or database seen would be recorded.

Breakthrough software would automatically produce an electronic diary that organizes the data into "episodes" of the user's life, such as "I took the 08:30 a.m. flight from Washington's Reagan National Airport to Boston's Logan Airport," according to the documents.

LifeLog's software also "will be able to find meaningful patterns in the timetable, to infer the user's routines, habits and relationships with other people, organizations, places and objects," DARPA told contractors in an advisory.

Walker said DARPA has no plans to develop software to analyze multiple LifeLogs. But DARPA advised contractors that ultimately, with proper anonymity, data from many LifeLogs could facilitate "early detection of an emerging epidemic."

Dempsey, the privacy advocate, says his concern is that users ultimately won't control LifeLog data.

"Because you collected it voluntarily, the government can get it with a search warrant," he said. "And an increasing amount of personal data is also available from third parties. The government can get data from them simply by asking or signing a subpoena."

He cites examples from current technology such as traffic cameras and automated toll booth passes that police already use to trace a person's path. Dempsey questions how LifeLog's analytical software will interpret such data and how Americans will be protected from errors.

"You can go to the airport to pick up a friend, to claim lost luggage or to case it for a terrorist attack. What story will LifeLog write from this data?" he asked. "At the very least, you ought to know when someone is using it and have the right to correct the `story' it writes."

___

More on this:

www.darpa.mil/ipto/Solicitations/PIP_03-30.html

Bell's Microsoft project: http://www.research.microsoft.com/ba...yLifeBits.aspx

Professor Mann's page: http://wearcam.org/

............

I'm a realist, this is OK with me.
Why?
Because it's inevitable.
It's probably not OK with most of you though, right?

Shokan · 06-03-2003, 06:38 PM

I dont have anything to add, as I agree with you. But I have a question for you....where do you find all these news articles?

The_Dude · 06-03-2003, 06:39 PM

heard about that, andi thoguht it was pretty cool

krwlz · 06-03-2003, 06:50 PM

It is absolutly NOT ok with me!! I try to be a realist, and therefore I realize that whatever fight I was to put up would mean nothing, but that doesnt mean I lay down!! There has got to be poloticians who see this as bad out there!! Hopefully they do not lay down either!

You all know damn well it will be applied to unwilling people sooner or later! And that is a violtation of every right we have!

sixate · 06-03-2003, 07:11 PM

The only problem I have with this is just how much money is gonna be wasted on something this fucking pointless. Don't we have something better to use money on?

juanvaldes · 06-03-2003, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by sixate
The only problem I have with this is just how much money is gonna be wasted on something this fucking pointless. Don't we have something better to use money on?

would you say the same thing 30 years ago when they wanted to create the ArpaNet?

I don't see the point, and if you can just turn the camera off how can they ensure it *does* do what they want, create a comprehensive log of your day to day life?

I also wonder how they intend to record and store all this data.

BBtB · 06-03-2003, 11:22 PM

Whats the arpanet? I don't worry about this to much. We are years and years away from forcing people to wear this snit. Beyond just the costs (what would the goverment be trying to prove by shoving millions of dollars of electronics on you?) you also got to remember that the only true way to watch all this is for people to sit down and phsyicall watch it. That means for everyone that had it for constant survialence you would need one person for each person. OR lets just say they just wanted to keep a more casual but still consant eye on you. Then it would be more like one person could watch 10 people at a time. Or maybe they pour another 15 million into some complex software that just sets off bells whenever you have an illegal ... thought (however they would messure that) then it would still require one person watching per 100 people being watched (to counteract all the false alarms and to spend some time watching people who alarms aren't going off... just in case) What I am saying is it may happen. And it probably will. But I will be dead or atleast really old when it does. These are just new tools for the same old tricks. The goverment could just as easily opress me without them.

ARTelevision · 06-03-2003, 11:54 PM

History of ARPANET

guthmund · 06-04-2003, 12:48 AM

I'm all for "LifeLog." Maybe we could get the politicians for the first run

It's experimental stuff playing in the "real world." It looks to be a pretty interesting sociological experiment.

Kudos, if it works.

I doubt that they're going to foist this on society as mandatory, regardless of what the conspiracy folks will tell you.

As for inevitablity.....It's inevitable that you die.....doesn't mean you have to lie down and wait for it.

ARTelevision · 06-04-2003, 02:49 AM

guthmund,
when I assess something as inevitable, I include the possibilkity of a successfully waged struggle against it.
If I assess that possibility as pitifully small, then the outcome remains inevitable.

SecretMethod70 · 06-04-2003, 03:04 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by krwlz
It is absolutly NOT ok with me!! I try to be a realist, and therefore I realize that whatever fight I was to put up would mean nothing, but that doesnt mean I lay down!! There has got to be poloticians who see this as bad out there!! Hopefully they do not lay down either!

You all know damn well it will be applied to unwilling people sooner or later! And that is a violtation of every right we have!

So long as the only two political parties in power are the Republicans and Democrats you won't see anything like this be stopped. Areas like this are where I'm decidedly liberal, but the fact is, in my opinion, the Democrats are too wrong and too ineffective in other areas to get enough power to permanently prevent things such as this.

When other parties enter the fray - parties with the *somewhat* greater technical savvy that the Democrats have over the Republicans, but also the fiscal conservativism of the Republicans - then perhaps we can see a change in power and a change in the direction things like this are going.

Of course, that would require people to vote and to do so based on what they believe - even if they know their candidate will lose - that time at least. And unfortunately this isn't how Americans vote. They vote based on ignorance. Based on the idea that "these are my two choices, which one am I closer in agreement with?" and "my vote will be wasted if I don't vote for someone who has a chance."

Well your vote ISN'T wasted if you don't vote for someone who has a chance THAT election. In fact, a waste of a vote is voting for the person whom you agree with less but has a greater chance at winning, because doing that causes your beliefs to lack representation, the people who share your beliefs to lack support (financially and socially), and those people's chances of eventually getting the presidency or any sort of political power to lie stagnant rather then incerase over time.

Sorry about that rant - this is a touchy issue with me.

guthmund · 06-04-2003, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ARTelevision
guthmund,
when I assess something as inevitable, I include the possibilkity of a successfully waged struggle against it.
If I assess that possibility as pitifully small, then the outcome remains inevitable.

I guess I read too much into it. Most times your replies are on a completely different level than I operate at and I don't know whether your I should take your words at face value or not.

You live, you learn right?

ARTelevision · 06-04-2003, 11:23 AM

guthmund, absolutely!

...was just a detail...

I respect your willingness to wage the good fight and, truth be told, I'm doing some revolting on the side. My part, however has to do with pointing out our self-inflicted wounds. We have a fighting chance but I don't admit that unless prodded...

Tom Thumb · 06-04-2003, 11:39 AM

I saw that on Fark a while ago, yeah.

It's scary as hell, really, and I'm glad I live in Canada, though I don't think it'll make much difference.

mrlayance · 06-04-2003, 10:32 PM

Yea, I read that today. Very crazy and scary

Nad Adam · 06-04-2003, 10:54 PM

Hey, this will come evetualy anyway. It's funny that this kind of thing is okayed for goverment funding but something truly useful as stemcell research is considerd unethical (and banned?).

juanvaldes · 06-04-2003, 11:20 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Nad Adam
Hey, this will come evetualy anyway. It's funny that this kind of thing is okayed for goverment funding but something truly useful as stemcell research is considerd unethical (and banned?).

software systems don't venture into the radars of religious groups that control our governemnts. Thus they care not about it and there is no firestorm around it (vs Stem Cell for instance).

06-03-2003, 06:23 PM	#1 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	Total Surveillance! If you've been following the trends in the recent mind-control discussions here, it's time to update our idea of what's possible - and how soon it will be here. ..................... Pentagon Tool Records User's Every Sense Mon Jun 2, 3:06 PM ET AP WASHINGTON - Coming to you soon from the Pentagon: the diary to end all diaries — a multimedia, digital record of everywhere you go and everything you see, hear, read, say and touch. Known as LifeLog, the project has been put out for contractor bids by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the agency that helped build the Internet and that is now developing the next generation of anti-terrorism tools. The agency doesn't consider LifeLog an anti-terrorism system, but rather a tool to capture "one person's experience in and interactions with the world" through a camera, microphone and sensors worn by the user. Everything from heartbeats to travel to Internet chatting would be recorded. The goal is to create breakthrough software that helps analyze behavior, habits and routines, according to Pentagon documents reviewed by The Associated Press. The products of the unclassified project would be available to both the private sector and other government agencies — a concern to privacy advocates. DARPA's Jan Walker said LifeLog is intended for users who give their consent to be monitored. It could enhance the memory of military commanders and improve computerized military training by chronicling how users learn and then tailoring training accordingly, officials said. But John Pike of Global Security.org, a defense analysis group, is dubious the project has military application. "I have a much easier time understanding how Big Brother would want this than how (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld would use it," Pike said. "They have not identified a military application." Steven Aftergood, a Federation of American Scientists defense analyst, said LifeLog would collect far more information than needed to improve a general's memory — enough "to measure human experience on an unprecedentedly specific level." And that, privacy experts say, raises powerful concerns. DARPA rejects any notion LifeLog will be used for spying. "The allegation that this technology would create a machine to spy on others and invade people's privacy is way off the mark," Walker said. She said LifeLog is not connected with DARPA's data-mining project, recently renamed Terrorism Information Awareness. Each LifeLog user could "decide when to turn the sensors on or off and who would share the data," she added. "The goal ... is to `see what I see,' rather than to `see me.'" One critic sees a silver lining in the government taking the lead. "If government weren't doing this, it would still be done by companies and in universities all over the country, but we would have less say about it," said James X. Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology, which advocates online privacy. Because the government is involved, "you can read about it and influence it." DARPA's Web site says the agency investigates ideas "the traditional research and development community finds too outlandish or risky." But in LifeLog's case, some similar technology is already being funded and researched by well-heeled outfits. Professor Steve Mann of the University of Toronto has spent 30 years developing a wearable camera and computer, progressing from intricate metallic headgear to dark frame eyeglasses and a cellphone-sized belt attachment. He's working with Samsung on a commercial version. And Microsoft's Gordon Bell scans his mail and other papers and records phone, Web, video and voice transactions into a computerized file called MyLifeBits. The company may include the capability in upcoming products. Neither Mann nor Bell intends to bid on DARPA's project. Bell said DARPA wants to go further than he has into artificial intelligence to analyze data. The Pentagon agency plans to award up to four 18-month contracts for LifeLog beginning this summer. Contracting documents give a sense of the project's scope. Cameras and microphones would capture what the user sees or hears; sensors would record what he or she feels. Global positioning satellite sensors would log every movement. Biomedical sensors would monitor vital signs. E-mails, instant messages, Web-based transactions, telephone calls and voicemails would be stored. Mail and faxes would be scanned. Links to every radio and television broadcast heard and every newspaper, magazine, book, Web site or database seen would be recorded. Breakthrough software would automatically produce an electronic diary that organizes the data into "episodes" of the user's life, such as "I took the 08:30 a.m. flight from Washington's Reagan National Airport to Boston's Logan Airport," according to the documents. LifeLog's software also "will be able to find meaningful patterns in the timetable, to infer the user's routines, habits and relationships with other people, organizations, places and objects," DARPA told contractors in an advisory. Walker said DARPA has no plans to develop software to analyze multiple LifeLogs. But DARPA advised contractors that ultimately, with proper anonymity, data from many LifeLogs could facilitate "early detection of an emerging epidemic." Dempsey, the privacy advocate, says his concern is that users ultimately won't control LifeLog data. "Because you collected it voluntarily, the government can get it with a search warrant," he said. "And an increasing amount of personal data is also available from third parties. The government can get data from them simply by asking or signing a subpoena." He cites examples from current technology such as traffic cameras and automated toll booth passes that police already use to trace a person's path. Dempsey questions how LifeLog's analytical software will interpret such data and how Americans will be protected from errors. "You can go to the airport to pick up a friend, to claim lost luggage or to case it for a terrorist attack. What story will LifeLog write from this data?" he asked. "At the very least, you ought to know when someone is using it and have the right to correct the `story' it writes." ___ More on this: www.darpa.mil/ipto/Solicitations/PIP_03-30.html Bell's Microsoft project: http://www.research.microsoft.com/ba...yLifeBits.aspx Professor Mann's page: http://wearcam.org/ ............ I'm a realist, this is OK with me. Why? Because it's inevitable. It's probably not OK with most of you though, right? __________________ create evolution

06-03-2003, 06:38 PM	#2 (permalink)
Shokan Addict Location: Canada	I dont have anything to add, as I agree with you. But I have a question for you....where do you find all these news articles? __________________ Legalize it.

06-03-2003, 06:39 PM	#3 (permalink)
The_Dude The GrandDaddy of them all! Location: Austin, TX	heard about that, andi thoguht it was pretty cool __________________ "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." - Darrel K Royal

06-03-2003, 11:22 PM	#7 (permalink)
BBtB ClerkMan! Location: Tulsa, Ok.	Whats the arpanet? I don't worry about this to much. We are years and years away from forcing people to wear this snit. Beyond just the costs (what would the goverment be trying to prove by shoving millions of dollars of electronics on you?) you also got to remember that the only true way to watch all this is for people to sit down and phsyicall watch it. That means for everyone that had it for constant survialence you would need one person for each person. OR lets just say they just wanted to keep a more casual but still consant eye on you. Then it would be more like one person could watch 10 people at a time. Or maybe they pour another 15 million into some complex software that just sets off bells whenever you have an illegal ... thought (however they would messure that) then it would still require one person watching per 100 people being watched (to counteract all the false alarms and to spend some time watching people who alarms aren't going off... just in case) What I am saying is it may happen. And it probably will. But I will be dead or atleast really old when it does. These are just new tools for the same old tricks. The goverment could just as easily opress me without them. __________________ Meridae'n once played "death" at a game of chess that lasted for over two years. He finally beat death in a best 34 out of 67 match. At that time he could ask for any one thing and he could wish for the hope of all mankind... he looked death right in the eye and said ... "I would like about three fiddy"

06-03-2003, 11:54 PM	#8 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	History of ARPANET __________________ create evolution

06-03-2003, 06:50 PM	#4 (permalink)
krwlz Fledgling Dead Head Location: Clarkson U.	It is absolutly NOT ok with me!! I try to be a realist, and therefore I realize that whatever fight I was to put up would mean nothing, but that doesnt mean I lay down!! There has got to be poloticians who see this as bad out there!! Hopefully they do not lay down either! You all know damn well it will be applied to unwilling people sooner or later! And that is a violtation of every right we have!

06-03-2003, 07:11 PM	#5 (permalink)
sixate Registered User Location: Somewhere in Ohio	The only problem I have with this is just how much money is gonna be wasted on something this fucking pointless. Don't we have something better to use money on?

06-04-2003, 12:48 AM	#9 (permalink)
guthmund big damn hero	I'm all for "LifeLog." Maybe we could get the politicians for the first run It's experimental stuff playing in the "real world." It looks to be a pretty interesting sociological experiment. Kudos, if it works. I doubt that they're going to foist this on society as mandatory, regardless of what the conspiracy folks will tell you. As for inevitablity.....It's inevitable that you die.....doesn't mean you have to lie down and wait for it. __________________ No signature. None. Seriously.

06-04-2003, 02:49 AM	#10 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	guthmund, when I assess something as inevitable, I include the possibilkity of a successfully waged struggle against it. If I assess that possibility as pitifully small, then the outcome remains inevitable. __________________ create evolution

06-04-2003, 11:23 AM	#13 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	guthmund, absolutely! ...was just a detail... I respect your willingness to wage the good fight and, truth be told, I'm doing some revolting on the side. My part, however has to do with pointing out our self-inflicted wounds. We have a fighting chance but I don't admit that unless prodded... __________________ create evolution

06-04-2003, 11:39 AM	#14 (permalink)
Tom Thumb Crazy Location: In a self portrait	I saw that on Fark a while ago, yeah. It's scary as hell, really, and I'm glad I live in Canada, though I don't think it'll make much difference. __________________ My name is marketing. Now buy my product.

06-04-2003, 10:32 PM	#15 (permalink)
mrlayance Upright	Yea, I read that today. Very crazy and scary __________________ sig for rent

06-04-2003, 10:54 PM	#16 (permalink)
Nad Adam Psycho Location: Sweden	Hey, this will come evetualy anyway. It's funny that this kind of thing is okayed for goverment funding but something truly useful as stemcell research is considerd unethical (and banned?). __________________ Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. - Psalms 137:9