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GLOBAL NEWS SPY TECHNOLOGIES AND YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD DRONE match identity and track location. Those are already in use all over the world, and more sophisticated forms of video analytics have also started © creep into metropolitan areas. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as one of the more ambitious projects in play. The Mind's Eye project would power cameras with artificial intelligence that lets them decide what to monitor—visual intelligence hat ets them pick out “operationally significant activity and report on that activity so warfighters can focus on important events in a timely manner". 5. Sense-through-the-wall (STTW) technology. For about a decade, various branches of the military have been working to create sensors that can penetrate walls. DARPA's Visibuilding project is working on “new surveillance capabilities to detect personnel within buildings, to determine building layouts, and to locate weapons caches and shielded enclosures within buildings", according to the DARPA site. The US Army's Communications- Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) has also developed technology that can sense behind walls. 6. ARGUS-IS. The military's ARGUS-IS (Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance— Imaging System) endows the A160 Hummingbird, one of the military's newest, fanciest drones, with the power to stake out 36 miles [~58 km] of land from one spot. The sensors can absorb 80 years’ worth of footage in a single day, using 65 video screens capable of tracking different locations, according to Wired. DARPA's site states: "Each video window is electronically steerable independent of the others, and can either provide continuous imagery of a fixed area on the ground or be designated to SPY TECHNOLOGIES AND YOUR the use of surveillance, announced NEIGHBOURHOOD DRONE recently that it was perfecting a olice enthusiasm for military sensor that uses radiation to reveal weaponry (and a drone industry weapons hidden under a person's salivating over a new market) is clothes. Right now, the sensor can driving a rapid spread of domestic "see" metal objects from a few law enforcement drones, which are metres away, and the department is already being used by border trying to expand its reach to 25 agents. AlterNet has assembled an metres, according to NYPD incomplete list of spy technologies spokesman Paul Browne in an and surveillance programs, military interview in the New York Times. and civilian, that can take to the air 3. Biometrics. Advances in facial on drones. Here are eight things recognition, iris scans and other hat potentially could be strapped to identifying biometric markers are he UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] speeding along, with police hat may be flying over your head in departments and federal agencies he next few years. juicing up the biometrics industry by 1. Wi-Fi and phone hacking. offering a welcoming market for its The Wireless Aerial Surveillance wares. This includes the MORIS Platform (WASP) can break into device, spreading through police Wi-Fi networks and hack cellphones, departments all over the country, according to Forbes. Jerry-rigged which lets police capture iris scans rom an old army drone by two and run image algorithms that can ormer military network security recognise a person from the analysts, the spy plane comes witha geometry of his or her face. Linux system and dictionary to help 4. Video analytics. The video generate password-cracking words. analytics industry seeks to develop ts antennas mimic cellphone systems that can analyse and owers, allowing the machine to tap interpret data. So instead of a into cellphone conversations and stream of raw footage, the camera access text messages. itself can perform searches for 2. Sensor that sees through people and objects of interest. One clothes. The New York Police example is readers that can read Department (NYPD), which is not _ licence [registration] plates and run known for its cautious approach to them against a database, helping NYPD to 10 * NEXUS Is this the shape of drones to come? AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2012 www.nexusmagazine.com