61–70 of 117 posts
I have a really hard time believing that this will pass constitutional muster if this ever the use of this device ever gets challenged or gets into the court system. One's home is generally sacrosanct -- there are some exceptions, but those are few and far between.
Once they know what they need to, then they'll make up a "legal" construction for how they got that information.
My first reaction is that Anne Frank's diary would have been much shorter had this technology existed then.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's called metal.
Can you elaborate?
http://www.range-r.com/FAQ/index.htm
The RF bands they're using apparently don't go through metal so well.
That device is more useful for firefighters than for cops. Firefighters need to find people inside burning buildings. Looking for trapped people is one of the more dangerous jobs in firefighting. The fact that it's being sold more to cops than firefighters indicates that cops are getting too much money for tactical gear. The device is a fairly basic Doppler radar, although the sensitivity is impressive. Someone might…
That device is more useful for firefighters than for cops. Firefighters need to find people inside burning buildings. Looking for trapped people is one of the more dangerous jobs in firefighting. The fact that it's being sold more to cops than firefighters indicates that cops are getting too much money for tactical gear. The device is a fairly basic Doppler radar, although the sensitivity is impressive. Someone might…
would the huge increase in heat in such burning buildings hinder the usability of a Doppler radar? I would guess so, as different temperature should mean different speed of sound.
That device is more useful for firefighters than for cops. Firefighters need to find people inside burning buildings. Looking for trapped people is one of the more dangerous jobs in firefighting. The fact that it's being sold more to cops than firefighters indicates that cops are getting too much money for tactical gear. The device is a fairly basic Doppler radar, although the sensitivity is impressive. Someone might…
Someone using a new account named throwawayranger did that and posted the results, but the comment was promptly killed because it was a new account posting via TOR.
For those without "showdead" enabled, here is the content of the dead post:
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L-3 Communications RANGE-R Operator's Manual http://blockyourid.com/~gbpprorg/mil/wall/RANGE-R-1.pdf
Internal Photos http://blockyourid.com/~gbpprorg/mil/wall/RANGE-R-2.pdf
External Photos http://blockyourid.com/~gbpprorg/mil/wall/RANGE-R-3.pdf
Test Report http://blockyourid.com/~gbpprorg/mil/wall/RANGE-R-5.pdf
Handheld Radar Frequency Scanner for Concealed Object Detection U.S. Patent 6,950,054 http://blockyourid.com/~gbpprorg/mil/wall/US6950054.pdf
Useful for a no nock entry, but not much more.
The bigger issue is the number of tactical police raids on private homes, plus some of the other technologies in development and currently available.
Stingray, which is currently in use, acts as a portable cell tower. All cell phone calls in the vicinity of a stingray unit get routed through the mobile cell tower, warrant or not.
My first reaction is that Anne Frank's diary would have been much shorter had this technology existed then.
The fact that the next evil dictator could have access to tools like this is reason to be vigilant not to let an evil dictator come to power and to be sensible about how we use these tools today to stop them being used in ways we think are unreasonable. It is not a reason to suggest we shouldn't have the tools.
As disturbing as the police use is, I am more disturbed by the possibility (inevitability?) of devices like these, and similar audio devices, becoming so cheap and readily available that even basic privacy from strangers while in your home becomes a thing of the past. It seems to me that before too long anyone could pick up audio and video devices for a couple hundred bucks that would allow them to see you in your ow…
Technology eavesdropping in new ways is a similar "forbidden knowledge". While it may not be a weapon itself, when it becomes simple and cheap enough that containing the forbidden knowledge becomes impossible[2] we face the potential disruption of some of the very foundations of society.
The question isn't if the average person will gain access to cheap and powerful eavesdropping technology, or weapons as powerful as atomic bombs, or even worse technologies that we haven't discovered yet. The question is if society will be ready for when those technologies grow and become a cheap commodity.
The general purpose computer already did this, and other electronic devices like the one mentioned in this article are experiencing this transition right now. Biotech seems to be ramping up and I suspect we will see the biotech equivalent to the "cheap personal computer" in the near-ish future. The point is we, as a species, really need to learn how to deal with these technologies now, or a future "mass shooting" might instead be an "engineered plague" or "20 kiloton bomb".
How do we deal with these threats? I don't know. But I do know trying to keep technologies bottled up as "forbidden knowledge" is at best only a delaying tactic. I suspect that "fixing most social problems" (racism, extreme poverty, etc) is probably a prerequisite. I personally like Roddenberry's idea of fixing most of the basic physical needs with technology; it won't fix everything, but it would probably be a good start. Unfortunately, it is easy to succumb to a defeatist or nihilistic attitude when faced with these problems. Even Feynman thought[3] the success of the Manhattan Project necessarily implied that civilization "would all be destroyed very soon anyway".
For me, I try to remember that we can't predict change[4], and worrying about things we cannot change is a waste of time and energy. Big problems grow out of small problems, so I focus on those small things that I can change. There is a real risk that technology will happen faster than our ability to assimilate those technologies, but we should try anyway, because the alternative is to give into natural selection as yet another species that didn't adapt to its environment fast enough.[5]
[1] This post is not about the 2nd. Please, there is no need to re-open that highly-charged debate.
[2] "information wants to be free", or at least hard impossible to contain.
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgaw9qe7DEE#t=1114
[4] See James Burke's ("Connections") non-teleological view of progress
[5] aka the speciation of humanity. I highly recommend Bruce Sterling's exploration of this type of "end result" for humanity in his novel Schismatrix[6]. (this is where my username ("pdkl95") comes from...)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kyllo v. United States [1] Law enforcement used a thermal imaging camera to detect hotspots consistent with marijuana growth inside Kyllo's house. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that this was a 4th amendment violation. [1] http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2000/2000_99_8508
First thing I thought. This is exactly the same. Unless someone starts commercialising mass sales of radars, this is basically inadmissible in court. For those who don't know, the basis for ruling thermal imaging an unreasonable search is that most people don't have high-resolution thermal imaging devices (so you can't assume you're being watched that way)