Where the next tryanny will REALLY come from. Hint: It won't be Bush.

[Silverhair]

Imagine this world: You get up in the morning, as you leave the house it records and reports that you have left and locked up, you car reports you getting in and starting it, your personal movement all day are tracked to within 50 meters accuracy, your purchases during the day are recorded, both all items and that you personally made the purchase, if you talk to anybody at any time the conversation is being monitored by computers looking for code words and the person you talked to is recorded. You return home, and the house reports that you are home, then you left again in a few minutes. You went for a walk, unafraid even though the neighborhood used to have a high crime rate only a few years ago. Now, there is no roberies at all. You even wear your jewelry. If it is stolen the theif can't sell it anywhere, so they don't bother. Illegal drugs are a thing of the past too. You meet an aquaintance and chat some. He is unhappy with the gov't and talks to you. You recgonize this as a dangerous meeting and tell him how good the gov't is. He mentions that he has had some bank trouble lately, his account is messed up and other things just don't seem to work right. You walk away, fast. Home again, you fix a meal and relax for a movie, a nice love story on TV.

Most people here on DU don't understand the aims and how an effective tryanny works. First, you want to keep the economy running so you can have the funds needed. You don't want to interfer with the average person but you do want to squash the dissenters. And you want to squash them early, before they can organize. The things we normally think of when we think of totalitarian gov'ts, the heavy police presence, the interal passports and checkpoints, the restrictions on communications equipment, are all attempts to get intelligence on who and where the dissenters are, and of their degree of danger. Only the occasional crackpot dictator goes as far as Pol Pot, Idi Amin, or Saddam Hussien or Kim Jung Il, and destroy their own country. The new tryanny will have to tools to get the intelligence it wants and take action, while not disturabing the ordinary person.

Those tools are being made now. Your cell phone will soon be able to track your movements. http://www.msnbc.com/local/kxan/M334287.asp Just a minor modification in the circuitry can make them into eavesdropping devices. Wal-Mart is trying to get suppliers to put a RFID on all items sold to WM. RFID has applications in fighting terrorism too. http://www.rfidjournal.com/ Everything made will have it's own chip to ID it. A scanner driving through the neighborhood can tell everything everybody has. You will have you own personal implanted RFID, www.4verichip.com so you won't need to carry ID, or credit cards, or money. Just wave your hand under the scanner to be recgonized.

All of these tools exist now.

You will be able to read but if you start making a diet of "bad" material, you will show up on computer programs and will be watched more closely. You will still be OK, until you start to talk to others about "bad" things. At first the control will be subtle, and then increasingly heavy.

And the people will buy all of these things for themselves for the protection they offer, and will demand that these security measures be implemented. They will pay for them themselves, from corperations. The gov't will be asked by the citizens to "supervise" the system.

Elections? Of course there will be "elections". But with that kind of control, will there be an real choice in the candidates? The dangerous radicals will never find their voice. The candidates will be nearly identical, and you may as well flip a coin. Besides, they won't have any real power anyway.

On the upside, war will be a thing of the past, as it upsets trade too much. All countries will be able to do away with nukes, and terrorism will also cease. And corporations will rule the world.
Gov'ts will be mere figureheads.

[DUreader]

1. Let it be tested out on public officials first

All public officials shall be monitored 24/7 for a trial period

of 1 thousand years and then we will vote on wider use of this tech.

[SharonAnn]

6. No, they always exempt themselves. Won't happen to them.

Might happen to us.

[Muddleoftheroad]

20. It will

It will be in all products. That's what the marketers want.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

28. Which is as it should be

If the stuff's going to be universal, then we'll be able to get access to it. Whether the Powers That Be want us to or not.

Or, in the words of pop culture: Let us use the weapon of the Enemy against him.

[creativelcro]

64. it will: look at judge Dredd

[Nlighten1]

2. These products are nothing.

Just wait until your body is filled with "bio-nano processors". You will long for the day when all you had to worry about was being tracked by your cell phone.

[Silverhair]

3. Yeah, but I was restricting myself to current technology.

I didn't want to go Sci-Fi, even near future Sci-Fi.

[Nlighten1]

7. It isn't sci-fi anymore...

it is real and it is here. It will still be a number of years before we see the human trials but it will be VERY interesting to see what happens then.

[Wonk]

10. Maybe even sooner than you think

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=778103

[Nlighten1]

13. Yep but...

these are still just informational tools designed to give the banks and large corporations more and easily accessible data on your consumption.

The bio-nano processors go much further. I'm writing an article on it right now for my blog.

[Silverhair]

25. I would be interested in learning more about them.

Could you give me some references?

[Nlighten1]

30. Gladly

Emporer_Norton would do well to read this too.

http://itri.loyola.edu/ConvergingTechnologies

There is a PDF file to download from there and read.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

35. Oh, cool, the WTEC white paper.

I've been looking for a copy. Thanks!

I can see how utterly totalitarian this is, after all:

"Improving Quality of Life of Disabled People using Converging Technologies"

"Engineering the Science of Cognition to Enhance Human Performance"

"Non-Drug Treatments for Enhancement of Human Performance"

"Mind Over Matter in an Era of Convergent Technologies"

This is nothing but pure Orwell. Really.

[Silverhair]

23. Very well, I mean on the market now stuff.

I am sure there is a lot of stuff in development that I don't know a thing about.

[Eloriel]

4. That is unfortunately

a very chilling, and too, too dead-on post, Silverhair.

Eloriel

[Emperor_Norton_II]

5. Woohoo! Evil Technology!

Wake me up when our new robot overlords figure out how to sort all the bewildering array of information out into a form with which they can oppress the masses, mmkay?

It never ceases to amaze me, the level of FUD this place is capable of generating...

[Silverhair]

8. Not that hard. You watch for patterns in the data, and then...

spot check the patterns for key elements. That can be done by computers. Once it reaches a certain alert level a human would be brought in to evaluate. This would require less manpower than is currently used in police work, as the cops would now be in comfortable settings, checking on data. They wouldn't waste time patroling. Most people live their lives in patterns. You go to work the same place at the same time, see the same set of people, etc.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

11. Not that hard? Really?

Not to mention less labor-intensive than police work. How does that work?

How does it account for disinformation - like, say, 99% of the Internet?

How does it account for false positives - like, say, the recent fiasco with face-recognition software?

How does it account for a place where - *gasp* - there are no magic cameras?

I think that you think this technology is way more powerful than it actually is.

[Nlighten1]

14. Oh great...

You don't have any idea what you are talking about do you?

[Emperor_Norton_II]

16. More than you, it seems.

You're the one calling me a luddite. :D

[Nlighten1]

17. Please explain.

Because so far you have done absolutely nothing to prove your point except emit hot gas. :)

[Emperor_Norton_II]

19. From the top? Okay, we can do that.

1) You can put a camera on every streetcorner and a chip in every brain, all of which are happily sending data to your local police office, but somebody has to process that data. Worse, they have to process it in a timeframe that allows for immediate action. We can't do that. Not yet, at least, and the technological path that would allow for such information processing power has its own... difficulties.

2) A sidebar to processing that data is seperating the information you want from the false positives, random noise and deliberate disinformation that comes in off the afformentioned cameras and chips. That secondary processing has to be done by fieldwork, and it is not a duty that requires less law-enforcement - if anything it would require more cops on the beat.

3) Where there is a camera, there's a way. If you don't think that armies of skript kiddies wouldn't look at street cameras and headchips as challenges to subvert - or just fuck up - then you are woefully undereducated on the realities of the computer culture.

Now, I know that I'm throwing cold water on your pants-wetting terror fantasy of Omnipotent Corporate/Government Power, and I'm sorry for that. But, y'know, reality kinda has that effect.

[Nlighten1]

29. You completely miss the point.

Why am I not surprised? Yes, someone will have to look at the data. The data, however, can be stored and reviewed at leisure.

And you started off this conversation poo pooing the advances in technology that could lead to a much more powerful big brother device and now you are trying to dodge your initial statement.

Saying, "we can't do that...not yet" ends the discussion. It can get done and it will be done and the time is probably a lot closer than we all think.

Privacy, as we know it today, will be non-existent in the coming future. It won't be a matter of cameras on street corners...they will be literally every where and recording everything.


So far you have yet to prove your point that the technology can't be used against us.


Still waiting...

[Emperor_Norton_II]

32. I miss the point?

So far you have yet to prove your point that the technology can't be used against us.

Of course it'll be used against us! Just like every other goddamn technological advance in the last century has been used against Us by Them! But you know what the fun part is? We can use it right back.

That's the wonderful thing about technology: Anybody can use it. The technocratic New World Order can deploy all these surveillance toys, and we can hack them. We can build countermeasures. We can build our own versions and spike the Capitol Hill water supply with 'em. That technology is also around the corner. Christ Almighty, instead of whinging on endlessly about how you're being stomped on by the Evil Technocratic Corporate State, you could learn how to fight back. Don't bitch about cameras, figure out how to hijack the transmission. Don't whine about omnipresent RFIDs, hack the buggers and learn how to spoof the frequency. If you're really worried about this, you could actually, y'know, DO SOMETHING instead of cowering in fear.

And Big Brother is overfuckingrated anyway. You can cover the world in cameras but that doesn't stop the guy in the monitor room from jacking off to Internet porn or playing the latest Everquest clone. The human element will invariably fuck up everything a totalitarian state tries to accomplish.

[Nlighten1]

49. You have serious flaws in your debate.

There is a possibility that we will all have access to this technology but there larger chance that the government may create laws forbidding certain access to technology as a "National Security" issue.

I spend very little time here "whining on endlessly" (BTW you have a problem with being far too melodramatic with your language, this is the first time in over a year that I have addressed this topic so it can hardly be called "whining on endlessly)

Most of my time is spent offline pursuing these topics in the real world. I consider myself some what of a expert on the topic of Information Technology and Nano-Technology.

You think Big Brother is over rated basically because you are ill-informed.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

51. It may be flawed, but at least I have one.

government may create laws

Which, of course, is the end-all-be-all of the situation. There's a law, so we can't do it anymore.

God! Damn! Have you never, at any point of your life ever considered doing anything illegal?

so it can hardly be called "whining on endlessly

Maybe not you, but every single time this subject comes up on DU, you get the exact same prattle about "oh my god, we're devolving into a corporate police state, we're all doomed, what a world what a world."

I consider myself some what of a expert on the topic of Information Technology and Nano-Technology.

Color me unimpressed. Who's Marvin Minksy? K. Erik Drexler? Bill Joy? Vernor Vinge? Bruce Sterling? Frank Tipler? Ray Kurtzweil? Do you know who these people are? Do you know what their relationship is to Information Technology and Nanotechnology?

[Name removed]

52. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

57. Aw, c'mon

Surely you see that you're in a perfect spot to make me look like a damned fool, don't you? Answer my questions - you don't even have to get them all right - and you'll show your expertise for all the world to see. Stand vindicated, man! Surely it can't be beyond an expert in Nanotechnology to tell me who K. Erik Drexler is, can it?

[Nlighten1]

58. I'm more interested in actually discussing this...

you on the other hand just want to agitate and act like a jerk. I'm sorry I don't have the time or the inclination to indulge you in your fantasy. Maybe trying growing up a little bit so we can actually have a conversation.


mmmmm k?

Thx

drive through now...

[Emperor_Norton_II]

59. I am discussing this

Part of this discussion entails that we know what the hell we're talking about. You have claimed upthread to consider yourself an expert on Nanotechnology and Information Technology. Okay. Fine. Now you've got to back that statement up.

I have not claimed expertise on the subject. However, in the interests of fair play I'll lay my credentials out first. I do not have degrees in the subjects listed, however I am extensively read in lay works by the individuals I listed upthread. I have been interested in biotechnology, nanotechnology, information technology, AI, the Singularity, etc. for about six years, and still keep abreast on the cutting edge topics when I can. If pressed, I'd probably call myself Viridian, although I'm not an actual member - I simply agree with the goals.

Okay, that's me. Pretty heavy lay understanding of the subject but nothing on the level of a strong technical understanding.

You can go next. Any time.

[Silverhair]

31. Not that hard as you make it sound.

1. You don't need real time police response. Why bother with that? That would be way too expensive. Your objective is to stop the dissident cells from forming, to ID dissidents while they are in the formative stage. That stage usually last a pretty good while. So it doesn't matter if you ID the growing dissident today, or next month.

2. Camera? Don't need a lot of those. Video information is bulky and hard to manage and hard to interpret without a human. Spot checked audio from the cell phones is sufficient, along with where you hae been and what you are buying, and what you have, and whatever you car may be programmed to report.

3. Hackers? Todays computer subculture lives in a risk free, (almost) enviornment. but if hacking carried really serious penalties, and was know to carry them and have them seriously enforced, hacking would die out - fast. Such a system would correctly view hackers as an EXTREME threat, and wouldn't think twice about eliminating them. Becoming an anti-gov't hacker could have fatal consequences.

4. More cops. See my response on who is really involved in crime prevention.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

38. Well...

You don't need real time police response. Why bother with that?

Nominally you'd be selling this massive surveillance network to the public on the assumption that it'd be used to stomp "real bad guys" - you know, mobsters, murderers and perverts - and as such it'd be kinda useless if it wasn't capable of real time response.

Hackers? Todays computer subculture lives in a risk free, (almost) enviornment. but if hacking carried really serious penalties, and was know to carry them and have them seriously enforced, hacking would die out - fast.

I'm sure Kevin Mitnick would be pleased to hear that the hacking subculture is risk free.

[Silverhair]

44. Answers to those objections:

Response time: How fast are those same types scooped up now? The system would shut down the profitiability of crime. All transactions would be cashless, nothing could be fenced because of the RFIDs. How would you sell a kilo of coke? The perverts, rapists and such would still exist and have to be dealt with. But even they would be easier. The company that makes verichip is trying to figure out a way to get it to transmit GPS data, but since I am confining myself to off the shelf stuff - then it isn't a far stretch to have everybodies' DNA on file in a database. That's already being done in the UK for all criminals. Once you ID the perp, then you code his account to alert a officer the next time he buys something. So on hot cases you could get the fast response time, on the other stuff, a few days or weeks is fine.

Right now hacking is very low risk. Very very few hackers are being prosecuted. So you can name one hacker, or even a few, that are in trouble. Compared to the large number of hackers, that's not very many. If hacking became very high risk, the subculture would vanish real fast. How many drug smugglers are there in Singapore?

[Emperor_Norton_II]

47. The Zen question: How many drug smugglers in Singapore?

The answer is, of course, more than the authorities are willing to cop to.

Which, incidentally, brings up an important point. That being: The United States does not exist in a vacuum. How many of the recent Serious Problems with internet security have originated from inside our country, and how many are caused by agencies that this System would be able to catch and "punish severely?"

[Silverhair]

54. In my original post I posited this system as Global. n/t

[Emperor_Norton_II]

55. Ah, yes. Nicely unfeasable.

I had forgotten.

[Silverhair]

62. Now, yes. But many corporations are multinational conglomeates

and in about twenty or thirty years you could have this level of cooperation. It won't happen tomorrow obviously, but I can see it developing. It will happen peicemeal.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

63. Conglomerates, yes. Cooperation?

Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen. Corporate entities are fierce and territorial creatures, not used to cooperation when competing could possibly destroy a rival.

Unless you get One Corp to Rule Them All - something about as unlikely as the UN becoming the planet's ruling power - I predict that you will not see cooperation on the level needed to make this system a global phenomenon.

[Silverhair]

67. Corps are very capable of cooperatin when it is in their own

interests to do so, even while they remain competitors in other areas.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

69. But this isn't in their mutual interest.

Corp A wants to Rule the World. So does Corp B, Corp C, etc. They all have bases of operation in random thirdworldistans which they use their mighty powers to utterly control with an iron fist, etc. Each corp has a system not unlike what you've described to maintain an information database.

Why do they cooperate? Only one of them can come out on top, after all.

What is more likely than Corps A-Z cooperating - which does not benefit them - is each corporate entity staking off their own little chunk of territory and controlling it and defending it as they see fit. In short, the same sort of nationalist lunacy we deal with today, only under a different name and weirder borders.

[creativelcro]

65. I totally agree with Emperor.

Anybody who has had anything to do with the NSA realizes that even nowadays, all they can do is just dump all the info in a big pot and save it for later...

[Silverhair]

21. Answers to your questions:

Cheaper than current policing: This one is easy. Have you purchased gas for you car recently using just your credit card? Of course you have. There was no cashier involved was there? You just swiped your card at the pump. The machine won't turn on until it has an account number to pump the gas to. That eliminates drive-offs completely. The cashier's real job was not to help you, it was to guard the gas. Every cashier that you see has the real job of guarding the merchandise. But if every item has an RFID on it, then you can push your shopping cart up to cart-scanner, then wave your hand under the scanner, make a few selections on the touch screen, and you are on your way. If you try to leave without payment the door scanner sounds an alarm and takes your picture and reads your verichip. It knows who you are. Then an attendent comes over to see what the problem is. Say good-bye to all the cashiers at the supermarket and in your favorite store. You didn't know they were really guards did you? I bet you thought they were there to help you. Most guard positions would eliminated also. If a thief can't fence what he steals because the RFID shows that it was sold to Joe and he is Sam, then he won't bother to steal. Forget about those armored car companies for the same reason. Such a society will be cashless. (How much to you actually use cash for anyway?)So now you have LOTS of people available for other work. They won't be doing police/guard work anymore. With a few exceptions.

Disinformation? When you actually buy something, that's not disinformation. You bought it, and the system knows what you bought. So you start reading a lot of subversive stuff, and meeting the same people, and turning off your cell phone? And there is also that thread on DU about Microsoft wanting to have software in every new car on the globe? A little bit of programming there could give lots of useful info. None of that would be disinformation. Further, disinformation has problems for the user. The other people in you contact group have to be able to tell disinformation from legit stuff. By that time your patterns would have revealed you because you would not be starting out as a trained operative, while the monitors are trained.

False positives? Thats when you bring a human into the loop. At the first human level they would only screen for errors. They would not be action takers. Those hits initially evaluated as true positives would be passed up to a more experienced monitor.

Magic cameras? I never said anything about cameras. Stop lying about what I said. I spoke only of existing technology and potential applications.

The only thing still lacking in the way of technology is the programing to handle that much data. But it is coming. Look how much data your home computer can handle now, compared to the Commadore 64, and many of us can remember well before they were cutting edge.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

27. Of cabbages and kings.. or Emperors

On disinformation: How about using somebody else's credit system to make purchases? Identity theft is not something to sneeze at as a crime, but also it adds disinformation to the system. I mean, if I steal your identity and use it to buy a thousand bucks of Ann Coulter porn and a lifetime subscription to The American Spectator, it doesn't matter to The System that you're not the one doing it, right? You bought it and the system knows what you've bought.

On computing: The hurdle to allow for real-time processing of this level of data is coming, but it's not going to be something that can be run passively off some sp00k's desk machine. Or even a mainframe. In fact, I would wager that that program would be very... different from your copy of MS Access.

[Silverhair]

34. ID Theft? Didn't you read what I wrote?

Kind of hard to steal my identy when it is a chip inside my body. No other ID, just the verichip. You would have to be inside the system. Against that kind of crime, internal corruption, there would be no defense. Except that you better have the OK of the higher-ups because I don't think they would like lone wolves.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

37. I did read what you wrote.

You would have to be inside the system.

No I wouldn't. All I have to do is access the system, and with omnipresence comes an unlimited number of places from which to do that. Haven't you heard of warchalking or wardriving?

[Silverhair]

40. I am sure that the system would have it's defenses, and

remember that the penalty would be very very severe. They would consider hackers as their primary threat. And you don't get to be a competent hacker overnight. You would be ID as a developing threat early on and watched. If possible, they would bring you into the system. If you still stayed out, and started becoming hostile, you would be taken care of.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

41. Uh, yeah.

You would be ID as a developing threat early on and watched.

How?

No, seriously.

Most crackers, skr1pt k1dd13s and other digital lowlifes - at least, the ones I associate with - aren't equipped with cellphones, or regular phones, or credit card systems. They buy used components, or they trade hardware and software between themselves, or they go dumpster-diving. They steal cable for TV and Internet. They spoof phonebooths to make calls.

All of that boils down to this: they evade every last part of your security system just going about their everyday business. How in hell do you stop something like that with RFID chips and the cashless society?

Answer: You don't. You can't.

[Muddleoftheroad]

43. You don't get it

Sure, they could escape SOME detection. The more they did so, the more they would be flagged as a troublemaker.

The government would have basic records for everyone. Naturally, they would establish benchmarks for things like earning and spending and living arrangements, etc. The more you tried to live off the grid, the more they would suspect you of doing something illegal.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

45. One of us doesn't, that's for certain

I could go to work, come home, go shopping, pay the rent, buy a couple of DVDs, etc. All of which would show up on the System as being one of the boring masses.

At the same time, I could dumpster-dive for computer hardware outside a Gateway dealership (don't laugh, most of my friends have built server farms out of salvaged Gateways), swap programs and operating systems with friends outside the US, and leech Internet access off the unsecured wireless network my otherwise clueless neighbor has running in his den. None of these things would show up on the System.

Right up to the point where I use a rehabbed laptop to make the security cameras at Last National Bank start showing Teletubbies reruns.

It's not a question of dropping completely out or staying completely in.

[Silverhair]

48. And sooner or later, you would screw up, get caught and...

be eliminated as a threat to the system. When you build your system from salvaged parts, you won't have the most modern toys. The corporations toys will out perform yours.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

50. The toys don't matter

It's how you use 'em. If I can spoof an RFID signal using parts from a remote-controlled toy car, then all the OmniCo ultratechnology suddenly means exactly fuck all.

If I can warchalk a sweet spot to hack into the OmniCo intranet and get locked out, then down the block there's another sweet spot owned by an OmniCo subisidiary. Bam, I'm right back in.

Technology is only as good as the people who use it. If the people who use it are arrogant and incompetent, then even stuff on the level of Star Trek is utterly useless against a skilled opponent armed with an intimate knowledge of hardware and software.

[Silverhair]

60. So you are super bright and the corps are all dummies?

I think that about says it all.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

61. No, I am sneaky and the corps are fat and lazy

Which they are now and don't show any signs of becoming any less so anytime in the future.

This actually brings up a point that's been nagging me through this entire thing. Who the hell's supposed to be running this system?

The government - or should I say THE GOVERNMENT? On a system of global scope?

The corporations? Which corporations? Are they cooperating in unholy alliance, or are they doing what corporations do best?

Feasability of the technology or covering the world with it aside, this bit makes absolutely no sense at all.

[Silverhair]

66. Same difference.

As regarding which corps: Sorry the crystal ball is getting a rather fuzzy picture on that one. It shows only the structure in place, the possibility.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

68. No, not really.

Sorry the crystal ball is getting a rather fuzzy picture on that one.

Uh-huh. You realize, of course, that the boogeyman here is completely insubstantial? And for a well-rendered description of the Tools of Oppression, too. Funny, that.

Christ almighty, you could've said "The Irish" were going to control this system and have it make just as much sense as "The Government" or "The Corporations."

And another thing: Why the hell would "The Corporations" bother with setting all this up to squelch dissent? Jesus, I'd use this thing to advertise to dissenters, increase my profit line by bringing in those bad boy rebel dollars.

[Nlighten1]

9. Your summary...

IS FOR ME TO POOP ON!

Seriously, you sound like a luddite.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

15. Wait, *I* sound like a luddite?

I thought everybody knew I was the guy who supports the technological speciation of the human race Right Goddamn Now.

And yet I'm called a luddite. Some people...

Personally, I for one welcome our new robot overlords. If I'm extra-subservient maybe they'll download my mind into a computer and let me be an agent for the Matrix, natty suit and everything.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

42. I rarely find myself erring on Emperor Norton's side in a debate

But I agree with him here and think the point he made with the FACE-IT technology is well worth addressing.
FACE-IT was purchased by local governments with poor results and therefore is ow being relied upon less.

While I think Silverhair makes some very interesting points, the opener of the thread reads like something (no offense to Silverhair) WIlliam Cooper would have written. Don't get me wrong, Cooper was NOT WRONG about everything.

The point is...even if you robotize everything, there is NO way for the technology to be 100% accurate and no existing technology could physically MANAGE nearly 400,000 citizens.

This won't happen if it does in my lifetime. I'm not concerned. It doesn't mean someone won't try. John Poindexter comes to mind when reading this.

[Silverhair]

53. My response

I don't know who Cooper is. I can't give an intelligent answer there.

FACE -IT? All face recgonition programs rely up on video data which takes a huge amount of processing. Even in the human brain the visual part of the brain is rather large. The speech part is much smaller. The major worlds intelligence agencies are known to use speech recgonition software to listen to giagantic numbers of phone calls, listening for keywords.

The system could not be completely robotized. At some point humans would have to enter the loop. But you have eliminated all of the cashiers in stores, and most of the worlds security guards, and armored car companies as not needed so you have lots of people that could be available for the lower levels of the decision loop. They would sort out the obvious false positives and send the maybes on up the chain.

When? I figure for about 30years from now. I should be gone by then, but most DUers won't.

[tkmorris]

12. Well.....

While I'd certainly agree that there are some crackpot theories arising from threads on DU, this isn't one of them. Not even close.

Everything mentioned above is already in existence and is being used as far as is possible currently to track dissidents. You are correct that putting all of that data into useful form is a herculean task but literally billions of defense department dollars are being poured into solving that problem as we speak. Scoff at your own risk my friend.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

18. I scoff, therefore I am

Information collecting is easy. Anything with a more developed nervous system than a paramecium can do it. Information processing is a far more difficult thing to handle, especially on something of the scale needed to create the Happy Happy Nice Police State.

I'm sure They're hard at work trying to figure out a way to sort the wheat from the chaff, but I'll bet you that any success will get away from them pretty damn quickly, especially if it's a centralized network.

[Muddleoftheroad]

22. OK, let's start with the basics

The businesses want to put RFID in everything and they will try.

I for one, won't buy it. Either I will find a way to tear them out of every product or I will help launch counter products that advertise as NOT having RFID.

Failing all that, I will buy a big honking magnet and walk around with it at all times. I will go in stores and zap out tons of RFIDs.

This actually scares me a lot because it will sneak in under the radar as EASE OF USE and LIFESTYLE -- not Big Brother.

Yes, the data folks are right here and that the more data you gather, the more complex the world is and the more people it takes to find out stuff.

But I don't want that stuff findable. I already have a bogus store card so my purchases can't be tracked. I don't want the government OR private business able to track my every move. I don't want them to know what I buy, where I shop, when, etc.

More and more, I am buying things with cash. But, we all know, that is one of the things they want to put RFIDs in. The Europeans are also discussing this for the Euro.

[Mr.Green93]

24. take your Soma

n/t

[PSU84]

46. A gram

is better than a damn! ;)

[IranianDemocrat]

26. Drugs are very bad.

.

[jpgray]

33. Television is so much more cost-effective as a control device (nt)

[onecitizen]

36. Sheeesh I'm not gonna sleep tonight.............

my son was talking about some very similar things this weekend. Scary stuff for sure.

[Solomon]

39. And cash money will be illegal.

Everyone, (except the underclass) will have credits.

[dusty64]

56. They will put an implant

in my body only after its dead and cold, I'm not kidding.