Gadget Warfare, from the Netly News

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

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http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1669,00.html

The Netly News (http://netlynews.com/)
January 6, 1998

Gadget Warfare
by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)

       For a country with no real military rivals, the U.S. still
   manages to find an amazing number of enemies. Terrorists top the list
   of anti-American villains, according to a Pentagon report released
   last month.

        The 100-page document, called "Responses to Transnational
   Threats," describes how the military should respond to the threat of
   saboteurs and bombers aiming for violence, not victory. The solution,
   according to the Pentagon, is to develop a set of gadgets that would
   make even James Bond jealous:

         * STICKY ELECTRONICS Think SpiderMan's spidertracers, only smaller.
   "Sticky electronics" adhere to a suspected terrorist's clothing, hair,
   luggage or vehicle and report his location. These almost microscopic
   gizmos tune in to satellite signals and transmit their exact latitude
   and longitude. "To conserve battery (and mission life) they would
   respond only when" activated by a radio signal, the Pentagon says. And
   if you're the suspicious type, sprinkle some in your spouse's
   underwear.

         * DATA MINING If you worried about the FBI's jones for access to
   your data, wait 'til you find out what the military hopes to do. The
   Pentagon wants authority to sift through private-sector databases in
   hopes of tracking down, say, the World Trade Center bombers before
   they strike. The plan is to incorporate "real-time data on
   international border crossings, real-time cargo manifests, global
   financial transactions and the global network carrying international
   airline ticket manifests." As new private-sector databases are
   developed, "the baseline system would be augmented so that the
   correlation and fusion process becomes more automated." But the
   benefits of invading everyone's privacy are dubious: It's hard to
   imagine the alleged Unabomber, for instance, showing up in computer
   files.

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