Moore’s Law, Cheap Electronics and Homeland Security Money Combine to Create Big Brother

1984 Is Here

We extensively documented last week that Americans are the most spied upon people in world history.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal gave a glimpse of a small part of the pervasive spying:

Top U.S. intelligence officials gathered in the White House Situation Room in March to debate a controversial proposal. Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime.

Why is this happening?

Technology … and money.

Specifically, Moore’s law says that computing power doubles every two years. Computer processing and storage are advancing so quickly that massive quantities of visual and auditory data can be gathered, analyzed and stored.

Moreover, high-quality videocams and microphones keep getting cheaper and cheaper. Today, most people shoot video with their smartphone, and alot of people have webcams on the computers.

At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security is giving huge amounts of cash to local governments to obtain military hardware and software.

These 3 trends – increased computing power, cheaper videocams and microphones, and government funding for “homeland security” purposes – has led to a 1984 style surveillance society.

More here, with links:

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/...g-brother.html

1984 Is Here

We extensively documented last week that Americans are the most spied upon people in world history.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal gave a glimpse of a small part of the pervasive spying:

Top U.S. intelligence officials gathered in the White House Situation Room in March to debate a controversial proposal. Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime.

Why is this happening?

Technology … and money.

Specifically, Moore’s law says that computing power doubles every two years. Computer processing and storage are advancing so quickly that massive quantities of visual and auditory data can be gathered, analyzed and stored.

Moreover, high-quality videocams and microphones keep getting cheaper and cheaper. Today, most people shoot video with their smartphone, and alot of people have webcams on the computers.

At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security is giving huge amounts of cash to local governments to obtain military hardware and software.

These 3 trends – increased computing power, cheaper videocams and microphones, and government funding for “homeland security” purposes – has led to a 1984 style surveillance society.

More here, with links:

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/...g-brother.html Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

You cut and paste things without confirming them.
Moore’s Law time frame is actually 18 months. And anyone who knows anything about geometrical progression, knows it is unsustainable. Moore’s Law was valid 30 years ago and is mostly anecdotal now.
The majority of the storage advances are for system use or fast retrieval for processing. Which has nothing to do with the story at hand. Long term bulk storage has been around for some time. And as much as you bitch about the government spending you should realize money is not a constraint on data collection.

The bottom line is who will look at millions of hours of footage from millions of cameras? The answer?

No one.

Surveillance footage doesn’t prevent crime. It solves it.
Your story author doesn’t have a clue or the inclination to add he has no idea who uses what footage for what. If his story surprises you, his lack of useful information will go over your head.

There is no way to screen and utilize this info in real time.

And if you understand the phrase, “Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?", you will understand why this story is bullshit.

“Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes" Hmmm . . . That's exactly what I'm trying to do. If you're ok with the government watching everything we do, fine. I'm not. They don't have to watch or listen to every moment, they can do keyword and other types of searches. The technology available to the average user is about 10 years behind the government.

You would have loved the old Soviet Union, too, Münchausenman.

How many times has StupidOldFart's sky fallen this month. Is it a new record?

May have something to do with the Mayan Apocolypse

How many times has StupidOldFart's sky fallen this month. Is it a new record? Originally Posted by bigtex

Not once, BigTurd. It's only in your delusions.

“Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes" Hmmm . . . That's exactly what I'm trying to do. If you're ok with the government watching everything we do, fine. I'm not. They don't have to watch or listen to every moment, they can do keyword and other types of searches. The technology available to the average user is about 10 years behind the government.

You would have loved the old Soviet Union, too, Münchausenman. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

So if you don't know what you're talking about, we would like the Soviet Union?
Once again, you don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

What branch of this do nothing and incompetent government develops these miracles? You remember, you've said it many, many times.

The government doesn't build anything.

What company has hardware 10 years ahead of what is available and turns down profit beyond measure from patents and copy writes associated with it?

No point in writing it all out. You don't know anything about what the constraints or choke points in the hardware are, how the software works, or anything pertinent to this subject. If you could grasp the sheer numbers of how much data you are talking about, you would understand that I asked who will watch the watchers rhetorically and why there is no answer needed.

There is not enough time to index and collate voice calls let alone video without sound.

And yes, your comment about the government being ten years ahead in one of the most complex areas of human endeavor will pop up again. And again. And again. And again.......

Not once, BigTurd. It's only in your delusions. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Which do you prefer to go by, StupidOldFart, Chicken Little or Henny Penny?

COG has been watching "Person of Interest"

You cut and paste things without confirming them.

Moore’s Law time frame is actually 18 months. And anyone who knows anything about geometrical progression, knows it is unsustainable. Moore’s Law was valid 30 years ago and is mostly anecdotal now.

The majority of the storage advances are for system use or fast retrieval for processing. Which has nothing to do with the story at hand. Long term bulk storage has been around for some time. And as much as you bitch about the government spending you should realize money is not a constraint on data collection.

The bottom line is who will look at millions of hours of footage from millions of cameras? The answer?

No one.

Surveillance footage doesn’t prevent crime. It solves it.
Your story author doesn’t have a clue or the inclination to add he has no idea who uses what footage for what. If his story surprises you, his lack of useful information will go over your head.

There is no way to screen and utilize this info in real time.

And if you understand the phrase, “Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?", you will understand why this story is bullshit. Originally Posted by Munchmasterman

Actually, Moore's law was 2 years when he first said it. Later he revised it to about 18 months because technology companies started innovating and investing even more - due at leastin part to Moore's own prediction of 2 years. So they ended up beating the marker he put down.

And Moore's Law still holds. They haven't hit the physical limits of silicon-based transistors yet. Although they are close.

And you don't have to have people watch video or look at pictures. Facial recognition software is getting better and better.

And we also have advanced voice analysis software that can monitor phone calls and pick out key words, like "bomb" and "infidel"

I am not paranoid about the technology that is in the hands of government. But neither am I sanguine about its uses and its potential for abuse.

Actually, Moore's law was 2 years when he first said it. Later he revised it to about 18 months because technology companies started innovating and investing even more - due at leastin part to Moore's own prediction of 2 years. So they ended up beating the marker he put down.

And Moore's Law still holds. They haven't hit the physical limits of silicon-based transistors yet. Although they are close.
And you don't have to have people watch video or look at pictures. Facial recognition software is getting better and better.

And we also have advanced voice analysis software that can monitor phone calls and pick out key words, like "bomb" and "infidel"

I am not paranoid about the technology that is in the hands of government. But neither am I sanguine about its uses and its potential for abuse.

[/SIZE] Originally Posted by ExNYer

Moore's law pretty much ended when dual and quad cores showed up. They were the last aces in the deck. There will always be progress but not like there was at the beginning.
What physical limits are you referring to? Geometries can't get any smaller while maintaining yield. Any scale reduction left is for trying to make an extra @ 5% profit.
There are refinements in processing equipment but no doubling type leaps. It takes many, many types of equipment to manufacture semiconductors. They don't all proceed at the same pace. Some parts of the process are slow and complex to do. The OEMs won't make equipment no one can afford.
We are up against the speed of light (speed of electricity). It takes a certain amount of time for any signal to go from point "A" to point "B". That amount of time adds up fast. The more transistors, the longer the trip. Transistors already number in the billions on a processor chip. You can only make them so big.
Silicon can only dissipate so much heat and heat is what usually destroys chips first. Gallium Arsenide and artificial diamond substrates can handle the heat but they are not cost effective.
Two "methods" of speeding up processing are 64 bit systems and parallel processing (dual, quad cores). Nothing to do with Moore's law.

The government's wafer fabs have special equipment?

Sorry bud. I was working at National Semiconductor's fab at Ft. Meade (the NSA) when Obama took office.
We were decommissioning it.

This is one of those subjects that won't fit in a tweet.

Search the internet. The methods for beating face recognition are increasing in number and effectiveness.

The problem with most keywords is that regular folks use them and terrorists don't much any more.

So, Münchausenman, you're ok with the government collecting all the information they can about us, even though they can't use it?

Which begs the question, if they can't use the information, why are they collecting it? Maybe because they CAN use it, or will be able to use it in the near future. And you're ok with that. Fine.