Street View on Steroids

Hello Skunk Works, let's dig out the tin foil fedoras and get down to some theorizing.

We all know about the Google Street View vans, that drive around taking images for the Google Earth software:

maps.google.com...

And most will know about the scandal where some Wi-FI data was collected:

www.pcworld.com...

So, we know that a large company can cover the major cities, big towns, and some rural areas of many developed nations, taking lots of photo data, and sucking up Wi-Fi data.

Now, what could "The Company" or other three letter agencies, with even vaster budgets and superior technology do?

Here are some ideas, of what I would try and cram into my super secret spy vans.

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TEMPEST

TEMPEST is a codename referring to investigations and studies of compromising emission[1] (CE). Compromising emanations are defined as unintentional intelligence-bearing signals which, if intercepted and analyzed, may disclose the information transmitted, received, handled, or otherwise processed by any information-processing equipment.

en.wikipedia.org...

One potential usage I've heard about with TEMPEST is eavesdropping on CRT monitors, like many computers use.

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NONLINEAR JUNCTION DETECTOR

Since the basis of almost all semiconductor electronics is the p-n junction, an NLJD is correspondingly capable of detecting almost any un-shielded electronics, whether the electronics are on or off.

en.wikipedia.org...

This has the potential to be able to tell the snoops what kind of electronics equipment you have in your home, with the right processing.

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LOCAL OSCILLATOR DETECTION

In espionage, oscillator radiation gives a means to detect a covert receiver and its operating frequency.

en.wikipedia.org...

This was often touted as the way that TV licensing agencies detected unlicensed equipment, and also a way in wartime to locate soldiers by the radios they are recieving on. It can be another way to detect certain electronic equipment.

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ARTIFICIAL NOSE

Machine olfaction is the automated simulation of the sense of smell. This technology is still in the early stages of development, but it promises many applications, such as:
...snip... detection of drugs, explosives and dangerous or illegal substances

These are used at places like ports, and could tell the snoops if you have any drugs, or fertilzer, or other interesting items.

en.wikipedia.org...

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FLIR

Forward looking infrared (FLIR) is an imaging technology that senses infrared radiation.

en.wikipedia.org...

These have been used to detect Marijuana grows, by the heat given off and leaked. Anything else that's giving off a lot of heat could be detected.

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ANPR

Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR; see also other names below) is a mass surveillance method that uses optical character recognition on images to read the license plates on vehicles.

en.wikipedia.org...

These are used on major routes in order to track the populace movements in some countries. The van could detect cars that are parked off the road, and where they are, along with any vehicles in the area at the time they drive through.

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OTHERS

Along with these technologies, we can include some others like;

The general optical photography like Google Street View

Audio capture, with speech to text automatically, useful for people walking down the street as the van passes them.

General RF (Radio frequency) sweeps to look for interesting devices, like CB Radios, HAM Radios, etc

Wi-Fi snooping like the Google vans

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With all these in place, and assuming the agencies have the best versions of these technolgies, better than the public knows, I think the agencies could build up quite a good picture, by automatic, computer processed means, of the population. They could then send human agents in to take a closer look at anything interesting that pops up, or send the vans back for a longer look rather than just a drive by.

So, do you think these kind of vans are in use already? And do you have some other ideas for things that could be built into them?


[edit on 21/7/2010 by harpsounds]

Are you aware that it is possible to build up a 3 dimensional almost real time image simply from the excess 'static' in the digital signals from mobile phones?

They can do it in the lab at least, the idea is basically microwave imaging they can detect anything moving right down to taking your heart beat - and with some very powerful computers and hideously complex algorithm's they can image the inside of any room in the world as long as there are a number of known mobile phones in there (the more the better because you have more data points - you could almost say it's the same as bats using sonar, but it's mobile phones and microwaves) - and you need access to all the data in the signal, and not the digital data part, I mean all the background static that the network would normally discard.

Now it is conceivable that you can image any room anywhere in the world from just about anywhere else (with the super computer you would need) - of course we already know they could tap into the mic's on the phones, the GPS data, even the camera - the ultimate spy kit and we all carry them with us all day!

reply to post by Now_Then


Thanks for replying, no I did not know that. It sounds very interesting, I don't suppose you have any links for more information?

reply to post by harpsounds


Hmmm not right now, and it's getting a little late for some heavy searching.

But I defiantly read this quite some time ago, it was a lab based proof of concept that evolved from a real world application of the basic theory. That was that they could search for survivors or earth quakes etc if they knew the mobile number of a trapped victim. They could then also get some basic life signs such as pulse rate and breathing rate - in fact any movement that was greater than the shortest wavelength of the microwave freq... And that was from a single mobile phone connection.

The idea is simple, add more phones and you get more raw data - all you need is a computer to make sense of that raw data and you can start triangulating the positions of these movements, tracking them -- like I said like a bat would with sonar, but you can gather all the data from all the bats and you build up a very detailed picture of the inside of the cave.

a la The Dark knight?

second line.

The idea Now_Then is talking about seems a bit different to the Dark Knight one. I came across that while searching for more on this.

sfblunders.wordpress.com...

On that blog they are just talking about sending ultrasonic beeps by the speaker, and picking it up on the microphone, but they say that because the speakers are pretty bad, and only do up to 10khz very well, it probably won't work.