Gawd, what about the poor bloke who's just nervous because he's flying to a huge make or break sales presentation, or to a job interview? Big brother... Mike Gammon ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger James" <ejames@xxxxxxxxx> To: <AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2003 4:00 PM Subject: Detecting hijackers by seat of the pants > Detecting hijackers by seat of the pants > By Fred Reed THE WASHINGTON TIMES > > In New Scientist, the British journal of science and technology, I discover > that the British are developing a terrorist-detecting airline seat. Yes. It > will monitor behavior to see whether you might be a > hijacker. "Intelligent airline seats could automatically alert busy > cabin crew to nervous, shifty passengers, who might be terrorists or > air-ragers," says the magazine. The alert seat is being designed at > Qinetiq, a firm working under contract for the Ministry of Defense. It will > use an array of pressure-sensors built into the seat to monitor the > passenger's movement. A computer will alert the airplane's crew to anyone > who seems agitated. In the future, says Qinetiq, further sensors may > monitor such things as the passenger's body temperature and the moistness > of his skin to help the computer decide whether he is dangerous. > > Other benefits are that the seat could flash a light to warn flight > attendants that the passenger had been in one position too long, which > might lead to deep-vein thrombosis. When I began writing about > technology, the technology interested me. Now, often, it's the underlying > psychiatry. Airline seats that monitor our mental states? Have we quietly > gone nuts? > A Qinetiq slogan: "The future? We are already working on it." Do you > suppose we could get them to stop? Another comforting idea being developed > to help us behave is the "Distributed Digital Video Array." These are > interlinked cameras that recognize people of interest and track their > movements. The Department of Defense has given a contract to the Computer > Vision and Robotics Research Laboratory at the University of California at > San Diego to develop them. > The idea is that interlinked cameras, connected to computers, would > recognize suspicious activity, like a car stopping by the fence surrounding > a sensitive installation. The computer would then alert a human operator. > > One sees where this is heading, fast. A geeky friend of mine who works in > related fields told me, "They want to be able to recognize you when you get > off the plane and track you automatically wherever you go. They'll do it. > It's doable. And you'll never know it." Now, who "they" are is debatable > and what they want is speculation. But the capacity for smart, automated > surveillance is there. And it will improve fast. There is big money in > anti-terrorism now, including federal grants for research. Further, the > technology for the near-total elimination of privacy happens to be useful > for a wide variety of profitable and legitimate tasks. Computerized > recognition of faces exists. It works. How well it works is debatable. > Companies like Viisage have been selling face-recognition systems for some > time. > > Computers can already visually track moving objects. Years back, as a > police reporter, I saw a helicopter-borne video camera that could lock on > to, say, a particular white car among many others on a freeway below the > helicopter. The idea was that a human watcher would soon lose a car > among many similar cars. The computer didn't. This is proven > technology. Computers can read license plates, given of course a > reasonable angle and lighting. This is not new. It's just optical character > recognition. Linking cameras and their associated computers is, of course, > perfectly easy. > Would networking all of this be of real use in catching terrorists? > You'd think so. A terrorist scouts a petroleum farm in hopes of blowing it > up, the cameras notice, one of them along the road gets his license number > and passes it to other unobtrusive cameras at all the exits, a central > computer notifies the FBI, and he gets tailed. Says me, a lot of this stuff > will work. I'm just not sure I want it to. > > > *************************************************** > The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com > Roj (Roger James) > > escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx > Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com > Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ > Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ > Mas Site: www.tntisland.com/tntrecords/mas2003/ > Site of the Week: http://www.carib-link.net/naparima/naps.html > TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt > ********************************************************* >