POLICE STATE: Spy cameras could soon know what we're thinking and feeling simply by scanning our BODIES - and there may be no way to opt-out
The data we share with companies online
has become a hot-button issue, but new technologies could soon be
scanning us as we go about our day.
That's
the claim made by a neuroscientist, who believes that devices in the
real world will start gathering unprecedented levels of information
about us.
Our bodies give off various
signals that can be scanned and analysed by advanced computer systems,
revealing everything from our current mood to our overall health.
In
a similar way to wearable gadgets already available, future devices
could be set up throughout public spaces to harvest this valuable
bio-data.
Because they are part of our
surrounding environment there will be no way for us to opt out or ditch
the technology and new regulations will be needed, she warns.
The claims were made during a presentation
given by Dolby Labs' chief scientist Poppy Crum, who has spent the past
few years studying people's reactions as they watch films, at the Ted
2018 conference in Vancouver.
Using thermal
imaging cameras, 'mind-reading' electroencephalogram (EEG) caps, heart
rate monitors and skin response sensors, she can watch how volunteer's
bodies and minds respond to what they watch on screen.
And its a small step to imagine these techniques making the move to the real world in the near future.
Speaking at the Ted conference, the BBC
reports she said: 'We like to believe we have cognitive control over
what someone else knows, sees, understands about our own internal states
- our emotions, insecurities, bluffs or trials and tribulations.
'But technologies can already distinguish a real smile from a fake one.
'The
dynamics of our thermal signature give away changes in how hard our
brains are working, how engaged or excited we might be in the
conversation we are having, and even whether we're reacting to an image
of fire as if it were real.
'We can actually see people giving off heat on their cheeks just looking at a picture of flame.'
Professor Crum, who is also a researcher
at Stanford University, demonstrated to the audience how some of these
techniques can already be taken out of the lab.
Using carbon dioxide monitors, she displayed fear levels among conference attendees using a data visualisation.
Explaining the experiment, she added: 'There are tubes in the theatre - lower to the ground since CO2 is heavier than air.
'They're
connected to a machine that lets us measure with high precision the
continuous differential concentration of carbon dioxide.
'It takes about 20 to 30 seconds for the CO2 from your reactions to reach the machine.
The NSA Wants a Skeleton Key to Everyone’s Encrypted Data
Like it or not, you are your data. In this day and age, your receipts, social media activity, public records, GPS data, and Internet search history are the proof of who you are. And while you may have thought you had secrets, the Federal Government would like the rest of them.
The seemingly innocuous pieces of information we trade away every day create a detailed mosaic of our lives used to target advertising and create personality profiles that are exploited by the FBI, political operatives like Cambridge Analytica, and Russian propagandists.
And those are just the legal shenanigans! Instances of malicious hacking that jeopardize social security numbers and other important data are on the rise as well.
But all hope is not lost! There is but one meaningful defense against such intrusions, one used by whistleblowers, banks, the government (often poorly), and college students: encryption.
Encryption Is Powerful, so Naturally the Government Wants to Control It
Encryption, to oversimplify, is the process of putting your data in a combination locked safe, and it’s becoming more popular. Like all passcodes, these combinations are best stored non-electronically.Automatically encrypted search engines and Internet services simplify the process for users. They protect individuals’ data from hacking, theft, and even the government, but they also retain a repository for all the combinations they use to lock data up.
But that may soon change.
If the executive agencies have their way, the NSA will have a record of every lock combination in use by every company—a skeleton key, if you will, to gain access to your digital home, papers, effects, and aspects of your person without warrant or probable cause—effectively mandating that companies hand over skeleton keys to the locks that they provide to their users, at any time: what they call “exceptional access.”
This is this Trojan horse that the NSA means to use to gain access to your private data even when it is encrypted.
Inherently, these central repositories for lock combinations are far more susceptible to brute force hacking than a distributed system wherein every individual secures their own lock combinations. Skeleton keys can be handy or, if they fall into the wrong hands, devastating.
This is this Trojan horse that the NSA means to use to gain access to your private data even when it is encrypted.
The NAS Proposal
In February, the prestigious National Academy of the Sciences (NAS) prepared “A Framework for Decision Makers” addressing encryption. Their solution? You guessed it: exceptional access. Even though their report has slipped under the radar, NAS reports often carry a lot of weight in Congress and within executive agencies, and it seems this one has.But, importantly, a key source for the NAS report has cried foul.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (or EFF) is the foremost mainstream defender of the First Amendment online. They are concerned that they were dismissed by the NAS proposal, calling it, “At best, unhelpful.”
The NAS proposal practically accepts that the federal government should have “backdoor” access, in some way, to all encrypted information. They suggest that the proliferation of strong encryption technology at the individual level would only help the bad guys. Exceptional access, however, would entrust the world’s most often hacked government entity with the guardianship of the entire nation’s data, and put companies like Facebook in charge of keeping it otherwise secure.
Even if you do undertake the process of encrypting your own data, something the CIA would consider in and of itself a “red flag,” any executive agency with exceptional access could demand a copy of your combination up-front.
A Government Skeleton Key Won’t Make Us Safer
Personal, strong encryption isn’t only the tool of criminals, spies, and whistleblowers. It is the surest defense against all forms of data theft, be it by state or non-state actors. If we forfeit this freedom in the name of security, we will surely lose the power of both.It is vital to our individual and national security that our people, not just our service providers, have the robust means to protect their data and themselves without the risk that the supposed guardians of security ultimately turn out to be the very source of our insecurity, either by malice or malpractice. That is the purpose of the Fourth Amendment, after all.
Under the combination of The Patriot Act and FISA (“Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act”), any unusual metadata is grounds for full collection. Strange travel patterns, irregular spending, even sketchy Google searches, if they create “reasonable suspicion” of anything the secret FISA court deems worthy of further collection, more will be obtained.
Which leaves us with these crucial questions: are we really in as much danger as we believed we were immediately following the attacks of September 11th, 2001? Is the security we are actually gaining through the Patriot Act and the attack on private encryption worth the cost of freedom lost? Moreover, is centralized security really the only way to achieve security? As more of our lives are lived in the form of electronic data, that is a debate worth having.
Gavin Hanson studies communications and history at the University of Iowa. He is a Media Ambassador for Young Americans for Liberty.
