Mark of the Beast
FBI Launches $1Billion Nationwide Face Recognition Project
Sep 9th
The Next Generation Identification programme will include a nationwide database of criminal faces and other biometrics
RELATED STORY: The Mark of the Beast
“FACE recognition is ‘now’,” declared Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in a testimony before the US Senate in July. It certainly seems that way. As part of an update to the national fingerprint database, the FBI has begun rolling out facial recognition to identify criminals.
It will form part of the bureau’s long-awaited, $1 billion Next Generation Identification (NGI) programme, which will also add biometrics such as iris scans, DNA analysis and voice identification to the toolkit. A handful of states began uploading their photos as part of a pilot programme this February and it is expected to be rolled out nationwide by 2014. In addition to scanning mugshots for a match, FBI officials have indicated that they are keen to track a suspect by picking out their face in a crowd.
Another application would be the reverse: images of a person of interest from security cameras or public photos uploaded onto the internet could be compared against a national repository of images held by the FBI. An algorithm would perform an automatic search and return a list of potential hits for an officer to sort through and use as possible leads for an investigation.
Ideally, such technological advancements will allow law enforcement to identify criminals more accurately and lead to quicker arrests. But privacy advocates are worried by the broad scope of the FBI’s plans. They are concerned that people with no criminal record who are caught on camera alongside a person of interest could end up in a federal database, or be subject to unwarranted surveillance.
The FBI’s Jerome Pender told the Senate in July that the searchable photo database used in the pilot studies only includes mugshots of known criminals. But it’s unclear from the NGI’s privacy statement whether that will remain the case once the entire system is up and running or if civilian photos might be added, says attorney Jennifer Lynch of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The FBI was unable to answer New Scientist‘s questions before the magazine went to press.
Current RISC responses include the Red/Yellow/Green flag, the category of hit, the FBI number, the master name and the response caveats. The RISC Rapid Search supports multi-tiered enrollment and dissemination policies and maintains unique identities for the individuals enrolled in the repository. (See diagram above.)
The FBI hasn’t shared details of the algorithms it is using, but its technology could be very accurate if applied to photographs taken in controlled situations such as passport photos or police shots.
Tests in 2010 showed that the best algorithms can pick someone out in a pool of 1.6 million mugshots 92 per cent of the time. It’s possible to match a mugshot to a photo of a person who isn’t looking at the camera too. Algorithms such as one developed by Marios Savvides’s lab at Carnegie Mellon can analyse features of a front and side view set of mugshots, create a 3D model of the face, rotate it as much as 70 degrees to match the angle of the face in the photo, and then match the new 2D image with a fairly high degree of accuracy. The most difficult faces to match are those in low light. Merging photos from visible and infrared spectra can sharpen these images, but infrared cameras are still very expensive.
Of course, it is easier to match up posed images and the FBI has already partnered with issuers of state drivers’ licences for photo comparison. Jay Stanley of the American Civil Liberties Union urges caution: “Once you start plugging this into the FBI database, it becomes tantamount to a national photographic database.” source – New Scientist
Entire City And All Residents Of New York Under Permanent 24/7 Surveillance
Aug 10th
NYPD unveils new $40 million super computer system that uses data from network of cameras, license plate readers and crime reports
RELATED STORY: The Mark of the Beast
Domain Awareness System is a joint venture between city and Microsoft. Commissioner Ray Kelly says system is able to access information through live video feeds and allow cops to get reading on radioactive substances
NYPD’s new super computer system is a joint venture between the city and Microsoft. The system uses data from a network of cameras and allows cops to access information from living video feeds.
The NYPD is starting to look like a flashy, forensic crime TV show thanks to a new super computer system unveiled Wednesday near Wall St.
The Domain Awareness System designed by the NYPD and Microsoft Corp. uses data from a network of cameras, radiation detectors, license plate readers and crime reports, officials said.
“We’re not your mom and pop police department anymore,” Mayor Bloomberg crowed. “We are in the next century. We are leading the pack.”
The system, which cost somewhere between $30 and $40 million to develop, could also help pay for itself with the city expecting to earn 30% of the profits on Microsoft sales to other city’s and countries, Bloomberg said.
The joint venture began when the NYPD approached Microsoft about the effort, officials said. Cops were involved with the programmers throughout the process, earning the city its cut of the proceeds.
READ MORE: The 666 Surveillance System
Officials declined to predict how much the city’s share of the system could be worth.
“For years, we’ve been stovepiped as far as databases are concerned,” NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. “Now, everything that we have about an incident, an event, an individual comes together on that workbench, so it’s one-stop shopping for investigators.”
As we predicted, it is no longer just the terrorists that are being watched closely…it’s everyone.
Using the new system, investigators will be able to access information through live video feeds and could potentially see who left a suspicious package behind just moments later, Kelly said.
The system will also allow cops to get a reading on radioactive substances, and determine if it is naturally occurring, some kind of weapon or a harmless isotope used in medical treatments.
“We can track where a car associated with a murder suspect is currently located and where it’s been over the past several days, weeks or months,” Kelly said. “This is a system developed by police officers for police officers.”
The system will also check license plate numbers to a watch list and alert investigators if a match is detected and quickly pull up crime reports, arrests and warrants on a suspect.
The system has some civil liberties advocates warning of Big Brother type surveillance.
“We fully support the police using technology to combat crime and terrorism, but law-abiding New Yorkers should not end up in a police database every time they walk their dog, go to the doctor, or drive around Manhattan,” said New York Civil Liberties Union Associate Legal Director Chris Dunn. source – NY Daily News
New York City To Launch ‘All-Seeing’ Human Tracking Surveillance System
Jul 30th
RELATED STORY: The Mark of the Beast
The NYPD says it will launch an all-seeing “Domain Awareness System” that combines several streams of information to track both criminals and potential terrorists. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says the city developed the software with Microsoft.
New York City launches the ‘all-seeing’ human surveillance system to monitor everyone, not just the terrorists.
The program combines city-wide video surveillance with law enforcement databases, according to Kelly.
The Domain Awareness System will include technology deployed in public spaces as part of the counterterrorism program of the NYPD counterterrorism bureau, including: NYPD-owned closed circuit television cameras, license plate readers, and other undisclosed domain awareness devices.
Kelly said the system will be officially unveiled by Mayor Michael Bloomberg sometime this week. Commissioner Kelly announced the program before an audience at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colo. over the weekend.
The NYPD has been heavily criticized for using surveillance in Muslim communities and partnering with the Central Intelligence Agency to track potential terror suspects.
Muslim groups have protested and sued to stop the NYPD programs.
Kelly says the policies were essential to halting 14 terrorism plots against the city since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
According to previous information released about the software system:
The Domain Awareness System is a counter-terrorism tool designed to:
• Facilitate the observation of pre-operational activity by terrorist organizations or their agents
• Aid in the detection of preparations to conduct terrorist attacks
• Deter terrorist attacks
• Provide a degree of common domain awareness for all Stakeholders
• Reduce incident response times
• Create a common technological infrastructure to support the integration of new security technology
Maple Seed Drones From Lockheed Martin Will Swarm The Future
Jul 5th
Related Social: The 666 Surveillance System
Imagine a cheap, tiny, hovering aerial drone capable of being launched with the flick of a person’s wrist and able to provide manipulable 360-degree surveillance views.
The new drone which looks like very similar to a maple seed, with a small pod-like body attached a single whirring blade, is called the Samarai.
It’s real, it’s inspired by maple seeds, and the company behind it, Lockheed Martin, envisions a future in which swarms of the new drones can be deployed at a fraction of the cost and with greater capabilities than drones being used today by the military and other agencies.
“Think about dropping a thousand of these out of an aircraft,” said Bill Borgia, head of Lockheed Martin’s Intelligent Robotics Lab, in a phone interview with TPM, “Think about the wide area over which one collect imagery. Instead of sending one or two expensive, highly valuable aircraft like we do today, you could send thousands of these inexpensive aircraft, and they are almost expendable.”
The new drone which looks like very similar to a maple seed, with a small pod-like body attached a single whirring blade, is called the Samarai. The name is derived from the Latin word“samara,” which means a winged seed, just like the one that inspired its physical design, flight pattern and construction.
In June, Lockheed Martin released a video demo of the drone’s capabilities, and it is clearly impressive, launched by hand and piloted using a tablet computer, which also displays the drone’s live surveillance feed.
“You can literally pull this out of your pocket, throw it into the air, and it can start flying,” Borgia told TPM. “It can take off and land vertically indoors.”
Borgia said that the drone, or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), was designed to be deployed in confined settings, such as urban environments or even inside buildings, where it could be piloted into different rooms and hover outside of windows, collecting surveillance footage with ease.
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The technology behind the drone is even more sophisticated than it looks. There are only two moving mechanical parts in the entire tiny 30-cm aircraft: The piece that makes the propeller rotate and a flap on the large wing that comprises most of the drone’s form.
Then there’s the Samarai’s realtime video feed, which an operator can pan and tilt in a full 360 degrees, a capability not found on any other drone of its class, this despite the fact that the drone only contains one camera which is constantly being whipped around by the rotating motion of the aircraft itself.
In order to obtain a steady video feed with the ability to virtually pan and tilt, Lockheed relies on a series of image processing algorithms, Borgia told TPM.
“The algorithms sort of de-rotate the video and turn it back into a frame-by-frame view, similar to what you would see on any basic TV,” Borgia said. “All of the image processing is done onboard.”
That means that even if disconnected from the cloud or a control server, the Samarai would still be able to provide its operators with constant surveillance capabilities.
Borgia declined to specify the drone’s range or endurance, that is, the time it’s able to stay aloft in the air.
However, he did note that the Lockheed researchers behind Samarai had experimented with battery-powered and carbon-based fuel versions (the battery powered version is the one demonstrated in the video). Borgia further said that the researchers had “developed simulation tools that allow us to scale the vehicle to meet specific applications,” asked for by customers.
Lockheed Martin has not revealed any of its customers or potential partners on the Samarai yet, but Borgia said the company would make announcements “when the customers were ready.”
Besides the 30-cm version shown in the June demo video, Lockheed also has field-tested a 17-cm version and is working now to scale down the Samarai even further, to the size of an actual maple seed.
Asked about any potential privacy concerns presented by the Samarai, especially in light of the recent release of a voluntary industry “code of conduct” from drone manufacturers, Borgia said that “customers will have to work through the hurdles.” Lockheed Martin began work on the Samarai in 2007 under a Defense Department program called “nano air,” designed to produce “an extremely small, ultra lightweight air vehicle system.” source – TPM
Pentagon Creating Legions Of Insect Spy Drones
Jun 17th
In addition to needing people to watch countless hours of videos of targeted individuals’ private lives taken by spy drones, the Pentagon is conducting a recruitment campaign for 1400 more people to operate its growing fleet of flying surveillance robots, a violation of Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“Recent sightings have raised question over whether the government has secret miniature spy drones” – Veritas Photo credit: Veritas/Facebook
After Air Force leaders’ complaining for months that their “number one manning problem … is manning our unmanned platforms,” the Pentagon is now hiring new outside instructors and initiating two new educational programs to satisfy its thirst to spy on peoples’ private lives, according to Wired Magazine Thursday, of particular concern to Targeted Individuals.
This surveillance, a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12, applies overseas and in the United States where 30,000 drones have been authorizedfor use by 2020.
Article 12 of the Declaration of Human Rights to which the United States is a signatory states: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”
To meet its demand of 1400 more people to the spy program, the U.S. Navy’s new education program will “first create a new military undergraduate courses, which will complement existing training programs for pilots and sensor operators. The second is to increase the capacity of its training crews,”Wired Magazine reports.
“The Pentagon now has about 7,000 aerial drones in its inventory, compared with fewer than 50 a decade ago,” New York Times reported a year ago.
“The numbers are overwhelming: Since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the hours the Air Force devotes to flying missions for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance have gone up 3,100 percent, most of that from increased operations of drones. Every day, the Air Force must process almost 1,500 hours of full-motion video and another 1,500 still images, much of it from Predators and Reapers on around-the-clock combat air patrols.
Spy robobug biomedical research and development: the new informant
Micro-air vehicles pose further abuse of Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They also make it trickier to spot informants among crowds of protesters.
(Watch embedded YouTube video on this page, “Robot birds set to fly.”)
The New York Times reported that Greg Parker, an aerospace engineer, admitted a year ago, “We’re looking at how you hide in plain sight,” holding a prototype of a mechanical hawk aimed for espionage or killing people.
A Wright-Patterson base indoor “microaviary” flight lab is researching and developing tiny drones that replicate moths, hawks and other inhabitants of the natural world, theTimes reported, stating in its article title that the new technology is “Poised to Alter War.”
A flurry of recent comments Friday under what could be a photo-shopped image of a bug spy on Facebook posted by Wake Up World via Veritas, similar to photographs that the New York Times posted in its slideshow of new drones, might indicate public outrage over the privacy violation that the Pentagon’s new technology is fostering. Within less than 24 hours, 638 people have commented on the spy bug image and surveillance drones.
Veritas reports that recent sightings in New York and Washington DC have “raised question over whether the government has secret miniature spy drones.
“New York college students attending an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month were convinced they saw small flying machines that were ‘definitely not insects’ hovering above.
Only five years ago, Cornell University research had shownthat insect flight was is “theoretically impossible.” While the FBI then officially denied having robobugs, DARPA had declared that they were working hard to implant moth pupae with computer chips to make “cyborg moths” when the pupae emerge from their protective casing, according to Daily Tech.
“The Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems hopes to allow researchers to grow insect nerves into silicon computer chip connections to allow the insects to be remote controlled like RC airplanes. DARPA researchers also are raising cyborg beetles.”
Protesters in Washington and New York claimed five years ago that there were robobugs hovering around them. At that time, entomologists interviewed believed that the entities were black dragonflies.
“The dragonfly population of Washington ‘can knock your socks off,’ according to one entomologist,” reported the Daily Tech.
“Unfortunately, the entomologists could not explain the bulb shape attachments to their tails that many reported seeing; nor could they explain their organized flight which was widely reported by observers. Dragonflies do not fly in packs, according to entomologists.”
Washington lawyer Bernard Crane who saw the robobugs said he’d never seen anything like them in his life, accordingto the Washington Post in 2007: ”They were large for dragonflies. I thought, ‘Is that mechanical, or is that alive?’ ”
The Washington Post article had then stated, “Some federally funded teams are even growing live insects with computer chips in them, with the goal of mounting spyware on their bodies and controlling their flight muscles remotely.
“The robobugs could follow suspects, guide missiles to targets or navigate the crannies of collapsed buildings to find survivors.”
As robobug research and development continues, the military’s at least 64 different bases to house its drone fleet is not enough airspace. According to an April 2012 report, “airspace required already exceeds what’s available and the problem will only get worse as more bases are built around the country,” Wired Magazine states.
“In fact, many of the new bases won’t have access to the airspace necessary, both civilian and military, unless the Federal Aviation Administration changes its rules about flying drones domestically.”
All weapons of war must first be tested on humans. Retired Air Force colonel Tom Ehrhard, who specializes in unmanned aerial vehicles, “admitted that the U.S. government can be pretty sneaky.”
The CIA, according to The Washington Post, developed an “insectothopter,” a simple dragonfly snooper in the 1970s. At the time, agency spokesman George Little had said that he could not talk about what the CIA may have done since then.
“The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service also declined to discuss the topic.”
“More C.I.A. drone attacks have been conducted under President Barack Obama than under President George W. Bush,” reported the New York Times in October.
Adding to outrage about America’s drones, earlier this week, a drone made by Northrup Grumman, mistaken for a UFO, fell from the sky and landed on a Maryland highway.
“Last year, residents of Cowley County, Kansas mistook a similar flying machine,” reported Fox News.
In November, an innocent Targeted Individual gave his account to the Examiner of seeing a drone in New York, and having what was described as high-tech “less-than-lethal” directed energy weaponry applied to him. source – Examiner
‘Pre Crime’ Electronic Surveillance From ‘Minority Report’ Movie Now A Reality In US
Jun 7th
A brave scary new world
RELATED STORY: The Mark of the Beast
A new generation of computerized ’Big Brother’ cameras are able to spot if you are a terrorist or a criminal – before you even commit a crime. The devices are installed in places like train stations or public buildings where they scan passers by to see if they are acting suspiciously.
Tom Cruise in Minority Report, which also dealt with 'pre crimes': Manufacturers BRS Labs said it has installed the cameras at tourist attractions, government buildings and military bases in the U.S.
Using a range of in-built parameters of what is ‘normal’ the cameras then send a text message to a human guard to issue an alert – or call them. Manufacturers BRS Labs said it has installed the cameras at tourist attractions, government buildings and military bases in the U.S.
But the Texas-based company has offices in London, Sao Paulo, and Barcelona – meaning they could be in dozens of places around the world.
In its latest project BRS Labs is to install its devices on the transport system in San Francisco, which includes buses, trams and subways.
Surveillance: The new BRS Labs AISight software is used with devices are installed in places like train stations or public buildings where they scan passers by to see if they are acting suspiciously
The company says will put them in 12 stations with up to 22 cameras in each, bringing the total number to 288. The cameras will be able to track up to 150 people at a time in real time and will gradually build up a ‘memory’ of suspicious behaviour to work out what is suspicious.
BRS Labs said the cameras effective have ‘the capability to learn from what they observe’. Its advanced features also mean it can compensate for poor light or a shaky image, further reducing the need for human supervision.
Each camera has a series of virtual ‘trip wires’ and if any activated then an alert is sent out to a human supervisor.
The relevant clip of footage is then sent over the Internet to human employees, along with a text message informing them of more details.
Speaking to Fast Company, BRS Labs President John Frazzini said its technology involves 11 patents which deal with helping the machines to learn. He added that in the case of the San Francisco cameras, the footage will actually be turned into code before being analysed.
In the post 9/11 world, Western countries have increasingly looked to behaviour monitoring to stop themselves becoming the victims of a terrorist attack.
In the UK staff at airports have been trained in ‘behavioural detection’ to spot somebody acting suspiciously. It has since been discussed at the UN-backed International Civil Aviation Organisation in Switzerland and could be rolled out across Europe.
U.S. airports such as Boston’s Logan airport also have similar measures in place in addition to the usual metal detectors and pat-downs.
This summer the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Department will release harmless bacteria into its subway system to test biological weapons detectors. source – Daily Mail UK
RFID Chip Implants For Human Use Being Developed And Debated Right Now
Jun 2nd
The U.S. continues to flirt with the idea of a ‘human barcode,’ an electronic ID chip assigned to every person at birth.
15 years ago, when I told people that the day would come in our lifetime that human beings would receive implantable tracking chips as the scripture foresaw, I was mocked and laughed at by family and friends alike. But today, it is on the fast-track to becoming a reality. No longer a question of ‘if’, but only of ‘when’. Read what the scripture of truth has to say about implanting human beings:
“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Revelation 13
Everything that the bible says would happen, will happen. And we are living in the time of the end, where fulfillment of bible prophecy is happening at an astonishing rate of speed. For more information on the MARK OF THE BEAST, click here to educate yourself. It just may save your eternal soul…
From NY Daily News: Microchip implants have become standard practice for our pets, but have been a tougher sell when it comes to the idea of putting them in people.
The U.S. continues to flirt with the idea of a ‘human barcode,’ an electronic ID chip assigned to every person at birth.
Science fiction author Elizabeth Moon last week rekindled the debate on whether it’s a good idea to “barcode” infants at birth in an interview on a BBC radio program.
“I would insist on every individual having a unique ID permanently attached — a barcode if you will — an implanted chip to provide an easy, fast inexpensive way to identify individuals,” she said on The Forum, a weekly show that features “a global thinking” discussing a “radical, inspiring or controversial idea” for 60 seconds .
Moon believes the tools most commonly used for surveillance and identification — like video cameras and DNA testing — are slow, costly and often ineffective. In her opinion, human barcoding would save a lot of time and money.
The proposal isn’t too far-fetched – it is already technically possible to “barcode” a human – but does it violate our rights to privacy?
Opponents argue that giving up anonymity would cultivate an “Orwellian” society where all citizens can be tracked.
“To have a record of everywhere you go and everything you do would be a frightening thing,” Stanley, senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Daily News.
He warned of a “check-point society” where everyone carries an internal passport and has to show their papers at every turn, he said.
“Once we let the government and businesses go down the road of nosing around in our lives…we’re going to quickly lose all our privacy,” said Stanley.
There are already, and increasingly, ways to electronically track people. Since 2006, new U.S. passports include radio frequency identification tags (RFID) that store all the information in the passport, plus a digital picture of the owner.
In 2002, an implantable ID chip called VeriChip was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The chip could be implanted in a person’s arm, and when scanned, could pull up a 16 digit ID number containing information about the user.
It was discontinued in 2010 amid concerns about privacy and safety.
Still scientists and engineers have not given up on the idea.
A handful of enterprising companies have stepped into the void left by VeriChip, and are developing ways to integrate technology and man.
Biotech company MicroCHIPS has developed an implantable chip to deliver medicine to people on schedule and without injection. And technology company BIOPTid has patented a noninvasive method of identification called the “human barcode.”
Advocates say electronic verification could help parents or caregivers keep track of children and the elderly. Chips could be used to easily access medical information, and would make going through security points more convenient, reports say.
But there are also concerns about security breaches by hackers. If computers and social networks are already vulnerable to hacking and identify theft, imagine if someone could get access to your personal ID chip?
Stanley cautioned against throwing the baby out with the bathwater each time someone invents a new gadget. “We can have security, we can have convenience, and we can have privacy,” he said. “We can have our cake and eat it too.” source – NY Daily News
