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Science Technology

Sensors Gone Wild 208

tulanian writes "forbes.com has an interesting article on networked, intelligent sensors. It mentions an experiment done by DARPA where several dozen magnetic sensors were scattered along a road and passing vehicles could be identified by their magnetic signatures."
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Sensors Gone Wild

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  • Now not only do they know how many people drive down the road, they also know their approximate wealth based up what they're driving? Yea....
    • by RobertB-DC ( 622190 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:50PM (#4634704) Homepage Journal
      A number of suburbs of Dallas, Texas (including Carrollton [carrollton.tx.us], where I work) are using computerized magnetic sensors to monitor traffic. They're temporary installations -- a box about 4" x 6" x 1" high is placed in the center of the traffic lane, and covered with a thick sheet of what looks to be asphalt-impregnated duct tape.

      When they're done with the traffic survey -- 24 hours, typically -- the city engineers cut out the sensor, leaving the tape that was stuck to the ground. You'll see these squares all over town -- they don't seem to disintegrate for several months, even after heavy traffic driving over them. The busiest intersections have several of these leftovers.

      A Dallas Morning News [dallasnews.com] article a year or so ago detailed the city's use of the boxes, and noted that they could derive detailed information about the vehicles by their magnetic signatures. I didn't put 2 and 2 together, though, until Slashdot came to the rescue...

      Dallas is one of the most insanely vehicle-as-status-symbol regions of the country (according to friends who have lived elsewhere). I thought that Carrollton was simply doing a traffic survey no different than the pneumatic roll-over count... but if you can tell a '82 Chevette [chevettes.com] from a brand-new Cadillac SUV [stopsuvs.org], it adds a whole new dimension.

      Anyone want to bet against the cities prioritizing road repairs based on relative driver income, as opposed to mere number of vehicles?
      • CONSPIRACY ALERT! CONSPIRACY ALERT!

        Oh, wait. This is slashdot. Move along, please, move along.

      • Ahhh...

        But would you really want to inconvenience all of those high-powered rich snobs by making them wait in lines while you tear up their favourite road to make it better? They'll just get pissed about having to go around the construction and about the slowdown it causes. Then the next day they'll be back to complaining about all of the potholes.
      • i'll take that bet - come visit oakland county, mi anytime. one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, one of the
        crappiest road systems. both in overall design and in
        quality. almost like the world's largest test track for
        the big3 automotives located here. hm...
  • Is this good? (Score:2, Insightful)

    Eventually large swaths of the earth will communicate with the digital realm using millions of miniature sensors.
    Sounds like 1984 to me...the privacy issues here are a serious concern.
    • Don't worry... the tinfoil hat you're wearing will keep you from being sensed. All sensors can be fooled... Some systems of sensors are just a little better than others... You just need to know what they measure and send them crappy information.

  • Wear and Tear? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Malicious ( 567158 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:16PM (#4634545)
    So does this mean, when your car begins to rust out, and it's magnetic fingerprint changes, you'll cease to exist?
    • by broller ( 74249 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:18PM (#4634558)
      So does this mean, when your car begins to rust out...you'll cease to exist?

      No, quite the opposite. You'll just be scattered along the roads and eventually you'll be everywhere!
    • Along the lines of software license registration when your car takes some type of heavy metal loss, i.e. Heavy rust, part removing yet not debilitating car accidents, etc.. you will have to bring your car to a DOT facility so they can resignature your vehicle. Please note that if the DOT facitility is not your imediate next destination your vehicle will simply stop working. It's good for you; we promise
  • it gets worse... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Obliterous ( 466068 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [sremos.nwahs]> on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:17PM (#4634552) Homepage Journal
    a very MINOR operation by the car manufacturers could give each automobile a distinct magnetic signature, similar to a magnetic VIN. I dont think I'd want them able to track My driving habits...
    • by wkitchen ( 581276 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:26PM (#4634597)
      I dont think I'd want them able to track My driving habits...
      More important than my driving habits, I wouldn't want them tracking when/where I go. And no, I don't have anything evil I want to hide. It's just that it's none of their business what churches, political events, social events, etc. that people attend. That may not be their intent, but the potential for abuse bothers me.
    • wouldn't the contents of the car alter the signature? potentially just the number of passengers inside could alter the signature, or certainly power magnets could. so then you could outlaw travel with large amounts of magnetic material (already an interesting proposition considering cars increasing reliance upon computer systems), but it gets pretty hard to outlaw electricity and metal...
    • Re:it gets worse... (Score:3, Informative)

      by treat ( 84622 )
      I dont think I'd want them able to track My driving habits...

      You think they can't already do this, by tracking your cellphone?

    • a very MINOR operation by the car manufacturers could give each automobile a distinct magnetic signature, similar to a magnetic VIN. I dont think I'd want them able to track My driving habits..

      Wouldn't it be very easy to alter this signature? I'm sure it could be hacked fairly easily. If people want privacy, they can dive the millons of perfectly good used cars. If such a scheme was implemented, which is probably highly unlikely, unless Ashcroft becomes president.

    • I dont think I'd want them able to track My driving habits...

      You think that they can't already track you? You do realize that you drive around in a car with a unique identifier on it already - the license plate. There are cameras up all over the city, even in small cities these days. If "they" really wanted to track you, they could.

      Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want, but the average public these days just doesn't realize how much of their life is being recorded into some database.
      • License plate reading technology will keep getting better - the main limits are camera deployment, image quality, and CPU, all of which keep growing. Image quality grows partly because of cheap camera resolution increases, though partly because of careful deployment at good reading angles. But if you don't already have a transponder on your car for one of those automated toll-collector systems, they can always add one to your license plate - no need to have the auto manufacturer involved.

        If you're only collecting occasional data, rather than full scans of everybody, technology's been there for a while. A couple years ago, when San Francisco was going to close the Central Freeway, they spent a week videotaping license plates of cars that took it, had a bunch of convicts at the local prison read the plate numbers, and sent everybody a postcard saying that they were planning to close the freeway and please find an alternate route to work. Did the job just fine.

    • I don't know. If they were to sell my driving habits to advertisers, so that billboards posted along my route to and from work were specifically tailored to products and services that I was interested in. . .

      Somebody slap me? Please?
  • by pro-mpd ( 412123 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:17PM (#4634553) Homepage
    Are there any insidious uses for this technology? There always are, but realistically what?

    I could kinda see this being used for speed checking using the time elapsed between passing different sensors (like VASCAR) if the sensors could differentiate certain cars.

    Or knowing where you are at any given time. Hmmm.

    Any other suggestions?

    • actually, that particular example would be a good thing. Current radar or laser based technology does have a tendency to make mistakes. It means both a small proportion of drivers getting speeding tickets erroneously, and a need for police departments to allow for a "speed rebate" - a margin of error which means you won't be stopped if you speed a little. And as any behavioral psychologist can tell you, if you have an 'accepted' margin for wrongdoing, it will lessen the respect and compliance for serious transgressions within the same field.

      There are of course numerous far less benign uses for this, though. /Janne
    • I could kinda see this being used for speed checking using the time elapsed between passing different sensors (like VASCAR) if the sensors could differentiate certain cars.

      You could also do that with EZ-Pass transponders, or for that matter, when you get a toll ticket, it's got the time you entered onto the highway printed on it, and then when you leave the highway, they see how long it took you to get to the exit. But, no one does it. So perhaps nothing to really worry about.

    • Border watch (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Jetson ( 176002 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @11:32PM (#4635451) Homepage
      I could kinda see this being used for speed checking using the time elapsed between passing different sensors (like VASCAR) if the sensors could differentiate certain cars. Or knowing where you are at any given time. Hmmm. Any other suggestions?

      There are sensors just like these along various stretches of the border between British Columbia, Canada and Washington, USA where the two nations have parallel streets separated only by a shallow drainage ditch. They are presumably there to detect when cars stop to toss bags of marijuana over the border.

      • Wow. Roads that run parallel? And they are expecting people to stop on them? Wonderful. :) Now I know what I have to do in order to retire... Move to BC, get some shady friends, and then build a fairly consistant trebuchet. The trebuchet would be relatively quiet, as would the bags of organic matter hitting the ground. Now the trebuchet would be hard to explain, but that's what the SCA membership would be for.
  • by ThogScully ( 589935 ) <neilsd@neilschelly.com> on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:18PM (#4634555) Homepage
    I can imagine that many of the uses for these listed could be great, but over-reliance may be a problem. While it would be nice if everything like this worked like in Star Trek, I can imagine a story in the future where someone calls 911 about a bridge that looks about to collapse that is ignored because the sensors say the bridge is fine.
    • I can imagine a story in the future where someone calls 911 about a bridge that looks about to collapse that is ignored because the sensors say the bridge is fine.

      How many bridges collapsed last year? In the same period, how many electronic gadgets failed? Fail safe is false positive. It won't work till the sensors are monolithic and embeded within the structure itself, such as part of a composite build up layer. I've got little faith in conventional epoxy on steel strain gauges to report anything but false fails. Critters, frost, dew, corrosion and gremlins will break them.

      The "Smart Dust" project refered to in another post and the goal of pervasive audio, visual, chemical and other monitoring is a much more disturbing notion, however. Combined with intelligent local filtering, such a network would enable personal tracking and monitoring of all "suspicious" people and conversations. It would be like a giant prison with robot gaurds to keep us all correct. Lierally, no place would be private and there would be no need for the embeded "ID tags" some fools seem to desire.

  • I will not be sensored! My rights are on the line here! I can say whatever I want!

    Fellow /.ers, we must not let sensorship continue. First the MPAA and RIAA are against us and now DARPA. Its time we started speaking out against such sensorship. Now there hypeing "intelligent" sensorship? Since when is sensorship smart?

    Talk to your congressman or woman and tell them that you don't like sensors. Surely, we can make a change if we all work together.

    Now that you've read my post, here's a little note for the dimwitted: it's a joke!
  • 1984? (Score:5, Funny)

    by GimmeFuel ( 589906 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:20PM (#4634564) Homepage
    Big Magnet is watching you...
    • "I like to be conservative about things, but in a way [sensor networks] could be bigger than the internet. The net is relegated to a small screen and a keyboard. This will detect who you are and where you are. The whole analog world will interface with the net," says Clark Nguyen, a professor of electrical engineering on leave from theUniversity of Michigan to develop sensors for the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

      DARPA has made sensors a top priority, putting up $160 million of its own money and $500 million in matching funds from other U.S. government agencies....the data being sent (video, audio, chemical signature)

      But don't worry, top heads are working on the implications.

      ...The implications of this are so huge that we need to get sociologists and legal people thinking about this early," says Roger T. Howe, the director of the Sensor &Actuator Center at the University of California at Berkeley.

      I'm told that the University of California at Berkely has a copy of 1984 in the library. Someone there might have read about what happens when sensors are so pervasive that it's possible to listen to someone's every word and gesture. Orwell, however, did not imagine intelligent machines such as Carnivore, which could filter "suspicious" paterns and people from the noise. Double plus good purgewise.

      People must bellyfeel crimethought. Double plus good kill terrorist and five unidentified accomplices, one US citezen without trial. When big brother knows, everything you do will be easier, safer and more fun.

  • Anybody else try and read this article and not have the faintest idea what it was about?
    • by Anonymous Coward
      Anybody else try and read this article and

      I'm going to stop you there and say probably not.
    • I am trully surprised the editors would let a tech link from Forbes pass. I used to read the mag (or should I say rag) when I was in college and during my first years at work, hoping to understand why the hell all top business people read it and swear by it. After almost seven years of reading and trying, I have yet to reach a conclusion on whether the tech editors are clueless or criminally stupid

      The vast majority of tech articles on Forbes are written for your everyday clueless CEO who wants to see ideas. Whether they work or not, is besides the point. Whether they are good or not is completely irrelevant. This article, although interesting in a "what if" kind of way gives little detail.

      Forbes is to be avoided on tech issues. If you want good tech news from a business perspective read the Economist. Or slashdot.com :->

    • The article was about catching all the squirrels trying to steal berries!
  • Hertz, et al? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sprlmnl ( 165349 ) <(moc.oohay) (ta) (lnmlrps)> on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:20PM (#4634567)
    Doesn't anyone remember the article about the car rental companies monitoring the GPS systems they had installed? Going too fast? Going to Mexico? Going to an anti-anything rally?

    When will someone get around to inventing the 'cone of silence' so we can have our privacy back?!
    • cone of silence (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Cyno01 ( 573917 )
      I remember reading some short, asimov i think, where this guy invented this device that canceled all sound waves within like a 10 foot radius. He invented it so you could get a little peace and quiet, but the device ended up being banned after people went around using them to blow bank vaults without anyone hearing the explosion/alarm.
    • When will someone get around to inventing the 'cone of silence' so we can have our privacy back?!

      It's right here, [zapatopi.net] it's usually shaped more like a hemisphere but I'm sure you can make yours into a cone if you like.

      P.S.
      I agree with you about the rental companies. I just thought giving the link for the cone of silence was amusing.

      -
    • Going to an anti-anything rally?

      If you're really so concerned about your privacy, and keeping the government from knowing you oppose its policies, maybe you should stop showing up to rallies. I mean, it's one to thing to say that you're afraid that if the government can spy on you, they'll be able to know your closely-guarded political beliefs, or your secret conspiratorial meetings. But hey, if you're walking down Pennsylvania Avenue with a big sign that says "No to war with Iraq," chances are the government can figure out that you're against going to war with Iraq, even without Big Brother. :)
  • by Joe5678 ( 135227 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:22PM (#4634577)
    The sensors sound pretty cool from the article, they mention the military wants to scatter them over a battlefield so they can collect info about where the enemy is, but I wonder how hard it would be for the enemy to just jam the network, or send out a bunch of bogus data into it.
    • Believe it or not the military actually have some experience in the area of jammed / faked Comms.

      Although getting mil standard crypto into such small devices might be hard. Then there's the high possibility of them falling into enemy hands and the crpyto key being open to comprimise.

      Ignore what I said, you may have a good point.
      • Well, crypto would be virutally useless in this application for the military, they're not sending out communications, only recieving them. I cannot see any good reason why the military would want to use any sort of encryption on these... And... Fall into enemy hands? Remember, some of these sensors are so small they're essentially invisible, totally invisible to the naked eye. So I doubt that any of your concerns are all that valid.. Not to trash on you or anything though, you had some good thoughts and ideas, I just don't think it will be an issue.
        • by BeBoxer ( 14448 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @08:42PM (#4634876)
          Well, crypto would be virutally useless in this application for the military, they're not sending out communications, only recieving them. I cannot see any good reason why the military would want to use any sort of encryption on these...

          Actually, there are two very good reasons why the military might want to use crypto. One is that if the sensors are actually providing useful info, the enemy might also find that information useful. If you drop sensors onto the front line, and then manage to advance the line, well now the sensors are transmitting information about the location of your own troops. So you would definitely want that encrypted.

          The other is to ensure the integrity of the information. Remember, crypto has more uses than simply preserving privacy. Your sensor array wouldn't be worth a whole lot if the enemy could transmit false data. If you can't trust the sensors, you can't make decisions based upon the data you get back. Imagine if your enemy could inject fake data saying that nothings moving when in fact they are advancing? Or saying that their tanks are miles away from their actual location?
          • That still leaves the problem of blocking the actual (true) data. I would also assume that the sensors would be re-collected and re-used so that the front-line issue should'nt really be a problem, and rather than use crypto (which is a bit cumbersome if you're using a strong cypher) why not just obfuscate the network in some other manner, maybe simply splitting the transmission over two channel (or ten wtf ever) and then run a program at the com base to reconstruct the signal?
      • Jebus, gang, it's not the first time the US has used air-dropped sensor nets in combat.

        Check this [att.net].

        I guess the novelty is "self-organization" of the data flow over the network itself, but that just feels like buzzword-compliance and military contractor snake-oil to me. And I'm in the military, and recognize snake oil at 30 paces.

        But yes, the network traffic will have strong mil-grade encryption, and also have tamper-prevention doohickeys which will destroy all the sensitive and expensive bits if Joe Badguy tries to pull an "all your keys are belong to us".

    • I'm always pondering how to defeat electronic systems such as these proposed devices.

      Seems reasonable that one could create a drone plane to search for the signal of these devices (it wouldn't even have to decode it, just home in on it) and then drop anti-sensor devices in the relative area. These anti-sensors could generate short bursts of false data (unlikely to work, if the designers of the sensors do it right, a good design would require some sort of authentication), or could create false magnetic "images" using electromagnetics.

      You could drop a load of anti-sensors that generated a magnetic field that looks like a group of foot soldiers and a tank or two. A recon drone would be sent in to check it out, most likely, but given enough deployments, I'm sure it would confuse or overwhelm whomever was deploying the sensors.
    • ...scatter them over a battlefield so they can collect info...

      ... and spam them back to the stoneage with targeted advertising! =)

  • by march ( 215947 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:25PM (#4634591) Homepage
    Clearly, what is needed is some squid on a GSXR-1100 to zip by at some insane speed (which those bikes are quite capable of doing in 1st gear!) and generate enough voltage to blow the sensor out of the ground.

    Throw in a few rare-earth magnets in his pocket and send the whole system into a tizzy.

    Oh, what fun we could have....

    :-)
    • I volunteer! :-)

      Now to get my Gixxer...
  • by czarneki ( 622927 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:26PM (#4634598)
    The implications of this are so huge that we need to get sociologists and legal people thinking about this early," says Roger T. Howe, the director of the Sensor & Actuator Center at the University of California at Berkeley.

    Yes, people are always calling for laws and regulation before the technology has worked itself out. But tt shouldn't work that way. The technology needs to get its fingers everywhere and become popular before we can think about legal and social issues sensibly. Otherwise we are just speculating wildly and choking off the possibility of genuine innovation. (witness the unfortunate too-early regulation of digital music).

    I, for one, am at the same time terrified and excited by the idea of sensors everywhere, communicating wirelessly and powering themselves from ambient heat. I have no idea what kind of applications will come of it, but I don't want any regulation until it's "too late."

    • by NoData ( 9132 ) <_NoData_@nOspAM.yahoo.com> on Saturday November 09, 2002 @08:43PM (#4634883)
      Technology moves at a pace that is far, far faster than social change. If we wait until a technology is adopted to consider its social and political ramifications, the damage will be long done--and, in fact, the next phase of that technology will already be well into development.

      I sympathize with your concerns that pre-emptive regulation strangles innovation. However, I think the problem lies with the entire approach our society has in dealing with technology. Our society is issue-driven, and deals with issues rather than values. "What is our digital music policy? What is our wire tapping policy? What is our copy protection policy?"...etc.

      Instead, we need to formulate a majority expression of our core values regarding matters that have become salient in light of modern technology. Really, I think these boil down to two major domains: Privacy and intellectual property*.

      What makes our Constitution so flexibile and adaptive is that it broadly sets out a scaffolding of societal values (at least the Bill of Rights does). But, besides some tangential language in the 4th, there's nothing explicit on privacy. And certainly, IP could never have been anticipated.

      I think our societal norms on what constitutes privacy and IP are right now in a state of extreme flux. Once these crystalize, I think much of the debate concerning the legitimacy of many technologies will become moot. For better or worse.

      *(OK, there's a 3rd domain: Biological engineering...but this one invokes religion, and so is at a whole other level of complexity. Way, way off from being settled).
    • I, for one, am at the same time terrified and excited by the idea of sensors everywhere, communicating wirelessly and powering themselves from ambient heat. I have no idea what kind of applications will come of it, but I don't want any regulation until it's "too late."

      I'm just curious. Do you drive your car with your eyes closed so you can be both terrified and excited about the outcome?
    • I have no idea what kind of applications will come of it...
      I can think of quite a few aplications of sensors everywhere. Did you see Minority Report? Advertising, advertising, advertising.
  • two quick thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JimBobJoe ( 2758 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:28PM (#4634612)
    First, I've always wondered if cars did indeed emit some type of unique magnetic signature. Because if they did, I would make a sensor to detect the precise signature emitted by the Ford Crown Victoria with the police package, which is drived by the vast majority of police departments in North America (well at least in my state. Add two or three more cars and you got 90% of the police car types.)

    Then I would sell em as police detectors. :-)

    Second thought, I'm particularly in love with this

    "Omron is about to market a system that lets your car recognize you using your fingerprint."

    Since we know that fingerprint devices are not that hard to fool...all ya have to do is dust the car you wanna steal for fingerprints (assuming that the owner of the car has indeed touched their car barehanded at some point in time) and do the elmer's glue thing. I'm excited.

  • by coryboehne ( 244614 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:28PM (#4634614)
    Ok, from the article:

    The net is relegated to a small screen and a keyboard. This will detect who you are and where you are.

    Is this a Good Thing? I know that it could be used for some very good things, such as instant identity verification, missing & lost persons (the list goes on... I'll spare you) But it seems really, really, really, Big Brotherish, and I'm not so prone to like that very much....

    Some new sensors are getting so small--some are invisible to the naked eye--that they will be able to run on 100 microwatts.

    Great! So not only can we be watched incessantly, we won't even be able to know IF we're being watched...

    At the 100-microwatt level they could gather energy from ambient heat and photovoltaic cells, says Stephen Senturia, a specialist in microsystems at MIT. His colleagues are working on making chips so small that they can power themselves, like watches that need only the kinetic energy generated by movements of the wearer's wrist.

    ok, most thought provoking idea in this comment coming right up...

    At what point is something sentient and self supporting enough to be considered life? I know that this is relying on a backbone of support, but really, this single feature is actually very interesting if you really think about it. It is capable of sensing it's environment, it's self supporting... has a definate life span... hmmm.. this is really somewhat one the edge of being electronic and creeping towards being alive...

    Just my crazy thoughts, but I think this is something we all need to watch carefully, both for the positive aspects of it, and also to be sure (as sure as we can be anyhow) that this is not being used as just another minon of Big Brother... Of course a small amount of Big Brotherism is really quite acceptable, and if used properly this technology could really be a sign of great things to come... I just hope it is used in a way that we would all approve of...
    • add some "reproductive" devices here and there which are somehow able to scavenge items from the environment and build/repair all other nodes... with the odd "mistake" here and there....
  • basically hook up two wireless network cameras that would point to the street outside my house.

    They would run motion detection software that would basically write to a database when it detected movement. By measuring the time between the two motion captures and knowing the difference in length between the cameras, I could calculate how fast people drive by my house.

    By going to my homepage, you would see something like:
    Last car went by at: 07:05:30 am
    It was going 38.9mph. 3.9 over the speed limit!

    Anyways, until the price of wireless network cams [wsj.com] come down, I guess it's just a thought.
  • MICA sensor motes (Score:5, Informative)

    by Malkthulhu ( 36705 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:30PM (#4634624) Homepage

    These tests were down with MICA sensor motes [xbow.com] which can be purchased from Crossbow Technology [xbow.com].

    These motes run TinyOS [berkeley.edu], which was developed at UC Berkeley [berkeley.edu].

    More information about TinyOS:

    Yes, my job does involve programming for these motes. I have four of them on my desk acting as an ad-hoc wireless sensor network now.

  • by nounderscores ( 246517 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:34PM (#4634637)
    When Sensors Attack!

    Be amazed by real live footage of sensors watching other sensors!

    Be captivated by the secret sensor mating ritual!
    (mount, fsck, unmount!)

    Laugh at sensors hopping [darpa.mil] around the battle field like little [independentproject.com] metal [independentproject.com] frogs [independentproject.com].

    Be horrified by real live footage of sensors mauling some guy who sprayed himself with sensor musk!

    • by jelson ( 144412 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @08:18PM (#4634808) Homepage
      Laugh at sensors hopping...

      It's very funny that you link to the DARPA SHM program. The Forbes "Sensors Gone Wild" article that Slashdot linked to today is talking about work done at the Center for Embedded Network Sensing [ucla.edu] at UCLA (and the closely associated UCLA LECS lab [ucla.edu], also run by Deborah Estrin). Now, a few of us lowly graduate students [ucla.edu] working at the UCLA lab/center also work for Sensoria Corp [sensoria.com], which was one of the main contractors for the SHM project. A lot of the research was very complementary. I'll plug my own research here -- the fine grained network time synchronization [ucla.edu] that we developed at UCLA/LECS is public domain and also made its way into the SHM project. There's other crossover as well (e.g. some of the acoustic ranging work); check out Sensoria's publications page [sensoria.com].

      I was at the SHM demo on an army base this past March and again this past August, and let me tell you, seeing those things actually hop is quite exciting. Especially when you're the one with your finger on the "ARM ALL" button :-).

  • by nuckin futs ( 574289 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:34PM (#4634640)
    so when will I see it on FOX or on Video? :p
    Is it part of the When Animals Go Wild and Girls Gone Wild Series?
    • I was wondering if I was the only pervert having visions of drunk sensors converging on new orleans every february and exposing their "naughty bits" for cheap plastic beads after reading that headline.. Ah, Sensors Gone Wild Volume 9: Infrared Exposed.. Can't wait.

      Shayne

  • "...passing vehicles could be identified by their magnetic signatures."

    How long before Glock starts making cars?
  • by jtjm ( 119743 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:39PM (#4634665) Homepage
    The world's navies have been identifying ships using magnetic signatures for decades; sophisticated mines exist which can not only distinguish friendly ships from those of the enemy from their magnetic signature, but use a combination of of the acoustic and magnetic signatures of a vessel to identify a particular ship (e.g. to distinguish one Ticonderoga class ship from another). This enables the laying of a minefield that will ignore the signatures of low value units such as minesweepers, frigates and destroyers, and only explode when a particular enemy carrier passes overhead.

    One imagines that an intelligence agency wishing to assassinate a foreign president/dictator could achieve similar success using the sensors described in the Forbe's article - they need merely tune the sensors to the signature of the target's limo, and lay them on a public road on the way to his residence.
  • Hahaha! I am a ghost in their system with my virtually invisible Plastic Pontiac...
  • Tin Foil (Score:4, Funny)

    by CatWrangler ( 622292 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:51PM (#4634708) Journal
    It blocks these sensors. But the Forbes people didn't want to let that out. Tin foil and duct tape are our last best hopes.
    • You will be identifided by the crinkle you make as you walk. That and the airplanes you blind out of the sky.

      The future is looking worse all the time. Someone will come up with realistic jamming I hope. Van De Graph generators for zapping them? EMPs to fry their little recievers? Firecrackers? Any good ideas? If they become pervasive, you won't know which ones are listening to your conversation from the ones that are reporting from your power meter. Will your new digital TV have feed back, ala 1984.

      I thought it was bad at my last job when I found out that my new computer's internal microphone was on and imposible to disable, creepy. Ha Ha [min.net] is not so funny when you start to consider all the closed source computers you have in your house that want to talk to the network.

  • This is a stretch (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Raiford ( 599622 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @07:52PM (#4634711) Journal
    Not much information in the article to conclude any kind of real concern. Use of the term magnetic signature conjures up the idea that every vehicle will have a unique signature that can be identified down to the make, model and last oil change. I don't think so. It is hard enough to extract detailed signature information from radar returns detailed enough to determine distinct vehicle classes (requires fancy imaging and such). I find it hard to believe that the perturbation in some magnetic flux density would reveal a high information content.

    • Re:This is a stretch (Score:3, Interesting)

      by BeBoxer ( 14448 )
      That's what I was thinking too. I'm guessing by "identify" they mean something more like counting jeeps vs. trucks vs. tanks. Which is quite useful information in a military application of course, but a far cry from being able to id specific vehicles. Is there any reason to belive that any physical aspect if a single model of car varies enough to be measurable as any sort if identifier?
      • I'm guessing by "identify" they mean something more like counting jeeps vs. trucks vs. tanks.

        I think you are correct. The ability to distinguish gross classes of vehicles is much easier than trying to distinguish between models or manufacturers.

        Is there any reason to belive that any physical aspect if a single model of car varies enough to be measurable as any sort if identifier?

        This research is in a very early stage so this is probably one of the questions they are trying to answer. However, if their system is accurate enough to pick up minute differences in vehicle types like this, it renders them susceptable to mistakes due to slight modifications of the vehicle. A sensor net that is super accurate is likely to not ID a Honda Accord with a big dent in the side as an Accord. And good luck trying to deal with one that has a mountain bike attached to the the roof!

        Bottom line is that Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) and Unattended Ground Sensors (UGS) are two technologies which are very much in their early stages. Don't get super worried about the Feds fusing the data from sensors sprinkled all over your hometown to construct a detailed map of your driving habits.

        GMD

        • A sensor net that is super accurate is likely to not ID a Honda Accord with a big dent in the side as an Accord. And good luck trying to deal with one that has a mountain bike attached to the the roof!

          Hah! My rear wing not only makes my Accord faster, [riceboypage.com] it makes it stealthier! Ear your heart out, 007!

  • by deft ( 253558 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @08:02PM (#4634762) Homepage
    lets not confuse "sensors gone wild" with "girls gone wild", where ya have a bunch of girls running around topless.

    nor should we confuse this with "censors gone wild", where you have a bunch of girls running around with black blocks and blurs over there chests.
  • Spoofing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Vess V. ( 310830 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @08:30PM (#4634843) Homepage
    Seems like you can aler your car's magnetic signature by putting a couple of slabs of sheet metal in the trunk. (Or for that matter... a couple of giant industrial magnets.)

    Am I wrong?
  • Great! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mysticalfruit ( 533341 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @08:58PM (#4634935) Homepage Journal
    Here I've been collecting all those rare earth magnets out of harddrives for years while my friends and family laughed at me... HAHAHA, see now, who was the fool!!!! Every day I'll go out side, roll some dice and hide a couple of them in different spots, that should shank their bell graphs!
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 09, 2002 @09:22PM (#4635019)
    I talked extensively with a fellow who was maintaining a red light camera. He was very open, and largely responsible for implementing red light cameras in British Columbia.

    There are two sensors about four meters apart, one just before and one just after the stop line. These sensors can identify speed and "weight" (magnetic mass) of the vehicle. The magnetic signature is unique to each vehicle model.

    In BC, the sensors activate the camera only when the car actually enters the intersection on a red. If you've entered on a yellow, no camera.

    Because of the speed-measuring capability, some Vancouver-district municipalities have also really put the screws to the boy-racer fuckups who are street-racing -- speeds like 140kmh through a red light. Ticket for running the red, ticket for reckless driving, ticket for speeding, etc.

    Ticket revenue goes directly back to the red light camera operations. The municipalities and government see no money from this system, thereby eliminating any incentive to generate additional revenue by diddling the yellow-light timing and or going all heavy on the marginal cases. The camera supplier doesn't get money, either (and, thus, were of absolutely no use whatsoever when it came time to provide technical support.)

    Camera-monitored red lights in BC are showing significant reductions in accidents. Indeed, the savings generated by not paying out claims is proving to be a remarkable value, and insurance companies across North America are starting to realize that spending money on accident reduction will increase their bottom-line profits.

    All in all, it's a hella fine system. Our government-tamed insurance monopoly provides us with basic insurance and uninsured driver insurance, plus is mandated to work with municipalities and the RCMP to increase road safety and decrease accident rates. Our public insurer operates in a not-profitable manner: they're not expected to (and are, in fact, expected to not) produce profits.

    All our other insurance (liability, collision, whatever else you dream of having) is provided by third-party insurers, so we really get the best of both worlds: a public insurer who's looking out for our basic needs and safety; and private insurers who compete to provide all else.

    Sorry this turned into a bit of an insurance/insurer rant, but the public insurer aspect is crucial to the success of our red light camera system, because it eliminates the urge to use the cameras as a profit center instead of a safety tool.
  • Incredible (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bob Vila's Hammer ( 614758 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @09:40PM (#4635062) Homepage Journal
    The one thing that keeps popping into my head is how this system can be characterized in its usefullness. Its like a sense for a simple organism.

    The implications that are present here produce visions of gathering nodes of information and data not just in the random and simplistic fashions of the internet's present structure, but in the processing fundamental functions of seperate personalities and intelligently focused mini-brains automatically approaching a consciousness as they communicate.

    I think the statement made in the article about this "tech being better than the internet" could be accurate, but only when you think on how this could be connected to the internet in some useful way. Where, if the internet is a simple organism, this would be one of its senses - one using the other.
  • quotage (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zogger ( 617870 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @10:24PM (#4635191) Homepage Journal
    "I like to be conservative about things, but in a way [sensor networks] could be bigger than the internet. The net is relegated to a small screen and a keyboard. This will detect who you are and where you are. The whole analog world will interface with the net," says Clark Nguyen, a professor of electrical engineering on leave from the University of Michigan to develop sensors for the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

    --umm, just maybe this isn't such a hot idea. Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD do something. The idea of government having tiny little sensors to track you all over is just...wrong. just....wrong. This is a "get it" or you "don't get it" deal methinks.
  • Magnetic Signatures (Score:3, Informative)

    by cosyne ( 324176 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @10:30PM (#4635212) Homepage
    So maybe this isn't common knowledge, but the inductive loop detectors that they put at intersections and freeways have the ability to differentitate between vehicles based on magnetic signature. Quick google search turns up this [renoae.com], which is a bit boring but they mention the signatures in there. I'm sure you can find better references if you're interested. My understanding, however, is that the signal of say a ford explorer looks the same at any speed, just stretched or squished. So, granted, a distributed sensor network can bring this identification capability to new places away from street lights and freeway on-ramp meters, but it's not earthshatteringly new.
  • You Are All Barmy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Peahippo ( 539266 ) <peahippo@ma i l . c om> on Saturday November 09, 2002 @10:38PM (#4635257) Homepage
    I read a few of the postings here on this topic and can clearly see that you react like a raving bunch of paranoid, Conspiracy-theory lunatics. So there are a few innovative sensors being used on roads. Big effin' deal. It doesn't automatically follow that your cars will be profiled, sampled in real time, stored in a database and compiled into a daily spreadsheet given in report form to a city's traffic official. Why, the next things your unrealistically fearful minds will imagine are computers in your car keeping track of braking action during a crash, and rental-car companies keeping track of your speed during trips.

    ... oh, waitaminute. [smacks forehead]
  • Remote Sensor System (Score:4, Informative)

    by RobM9999 ( 191476 ) on Saturday November 09, 2002 @10:42PM (#4635268)
    FYI - Deployable remote sensor systems are not a new concept. The U.S. Army has been using them since about Viet Nam in one form or another. I had the pleasure of visiting Iraq in order to deploy sensors during Desert Storm. The systems in current use can be seen here. [fas.org]
    The system in this article appears to potentially be the next generation of this sensor system.
    (Any current or former GSR feel free to drop me a line)

  • by ghastard ( 460282 ) <ryan03 aNOt visi dSPAMot com> on Sunday November 10, 2002 @01:03AM (#4635736)
    While we were learning about induction, my high school physics teacher talked about a friend he had who worked for a large company who worked on the technology behind the unique magnetic signature detection. It worked very well, and was tested somewhere (I think it was Germany), with very good accuracy. A vehicle could be identified moving throughout the city.

    The major drawback to this was that the technology relied on specific patterns formed by the car running over coils under the street (creating inductance). This worked very well if the car's physical makeup didn't change at all, but if someone were to put some scrap iron in the trunk, the unique signature would be changed.

    This was actually done quite some time ago, I think in the 1980s. It's pretty cool technology, because the underlying concept is so simple, but it isn't practical in the real world.
  • Has anyone thought about just taking a few old speaker magnets (or the nice ceramic magnets from hard drives) and epoxying them to the frame of the vehicle at various points? Or perhaps in a line running width-wise on the vehicle?

    I think it would be safe assumption that this would cause horrible problems for these sensors...
  • Amazing progress (Score:4, Informative)

    by SiliconEntity ( 448450 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @02:04AM (#4635880)
    Here is a good, detailed report on the sensor network experiment [berkeley.edu]. It concludes with this amazing quote:

    There is nothing in the current motes that can not be miniaturized. In three years this demo will be done with a 6" aircraft, and millimeter-scale sensor nodes.

    This is all leading to "Smart Dust" [slashdot.org].

  • You could also probably identify the vehicle by the characteristic radio frequencies given off by the electronics. If not the style, at least the manufacturer and model year.

    Then calculate and display its location on the heads-up display on your windshield. But someday vehicles will all be RF tagged anyway... "CowboyNeal's Pinto at 5 o'clock and closing fast."

Algebraic symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about. -- Philippe Schnoebelen

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