
Drone ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Now Has A Name: ARGUS - jamesbritt
http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-free-speech-national-security/drone-nightmare-scenario-now-has-physical
======
cromwellian
I'm afraid the genie is out of the bottle. ARGUS uses mobile phone sensors.
Cameras are becoming almost "too cheap to meter", and too small to notice.
Billions of people now walk around with mobile phone cameras, so chances are
you're going to be recorded by someone in public, especially as cameras
continue to evolve.

It may be some small consolation that consumer cameras are ground level, and
decentralized, where as ARGUS is centralized and easier to regulate, but the
way people are sharing more and more of their life stream, it's probably going
to be possible for organizations that watch social networks to track people's
movements.

I wonder if in some ways, this is a return to a kind of prehistoric small
tribal life of everyone knowing where everyone is and what they are doing, and
if anonymity and privacy of movement that we cherish is somewhat of a later
invention at agriculture, and that modern technology is just increasing the
size of our tribe.

~~~
tekromancr
What if we went the completely opposite way? Forgo ALL privacy? Everyone has
access to everyone else's data and metrics. If the genie is all ready out of
the bottle, this might be the best outcome.

~~~
smackay
For the simple reason that not everyone you deal with is altruistic and has
your best interests at heart. "anything [said] can and will be used against
[the defendant] in the court of public opinion".

Release of all information, without the required changes in human behaviour
can only lead to self-censorship on a grand scale as people try and cover all
the flaws an blemishes that might result in them not getting promoted (because
the other candidates go to the gym more often and lead healthier lives) or
getting that mortgage because you like to drink wine a little more than the
average person and so your long term health might be put at risk.

The list of possible problems is endless.

~~~
maxerickson
You are committing something like the "perfect candidate fallacy".

For a bank, making your future more predictable would likely just result in a
different rate on the loan (either higher or lower, but they are interested in
writing any loan that they think they can price sufficiently well).

For the job, the candidates with better measurements would likely get promoted
faster, but over time, the companies with more meaningful measurements would
(should?) be more profitable, and there would probably still be interesting
work for people with lesser "stats". If a measurement is leading to higher
profitability, there is at least one argument that it is fair.

Even for something like healthcare it shouldn't be that scary, if we (as a
society) don't want predicted costs to factor into the availability of health
care, then we shouldn't pretend to operate under an insurance scheme.

None of that is to say I have any desire to live in a transparent society.

~~~
smackay
I was not thinking of perfect candidates but rather having a lot of
information that was previously inaccessible to those without means and money
offers considerable scope for mischief. Even the most innocuous of habits can
be used by those with a grudge or who you are in some way competing with to
sow seeds of doubt and cause peers or superiors to question your motives,
veracity or trustworthiness.

~~~
maxerickson
I think I get what you are saying, I guess I find such petty tyranny
intolerable today, so more of it isn't very scary.

(I do realize that it is often a complicated thing to deal with)

------
yk
A 1.8 Gpixel sensor has at 24 frames/s and 24 bit/pixel a data rate of nearly
a TBit/s. So I would actually like to see, how they are handling such a data
rate (inside of the drone). And how they actually get the data out of the
drone.

And to look a bit more into this numbers ( and using the numbers from
Backblaze [1]) it seems that the uncompressed video of a single drone over a
year would cost $1.5e9, of course divided by the compression ratio. However
for 14 days of video the storage cost would be in the ballpark of $60M per
drone, that sounds actually quite possible ( especially given an additional
factor of ~20 lower costs due to compression and a similar factor of ~20 for
five years of HD development).

So this seems actually be technology which could on a timescale of five years
be available at costs comparable to two or three police cars (plus the costs
of the drone, which should be in a similar range). And I for one find this
quite creepy.

[1]roughly $50/TB [http://blog.backblaze.com/2013/02/20/180tb-of-good-
vibration...](http://blog.backblaze.com/2013/02/20/180tb-of-good-vibrations-
storage-pod-3-0/)

~~~
brigade
1.8 Gpixel sensors don't exist, due to physics. It's combining 368 sensors.

No one stores or transmits uncompressed video outside of RAM. 15Mbps is decent
for 1080p24, so 1.8 Gpixel 24fps would be decent at 15Gbps. Assuming say 14
hours of daylight (drones can't stay up indefinitely and night vision has
different requirements), that's no more than ~100 TB per mission or day. As
for getting the data out, I'd assume they swap an array of 50 HDs or so.

~~~
0x0
The announcer in the video claims "a million terabytes of video a day" at
2:45. That sounds like science fiction and has to be off by several orders of
magnitude.

~~~
coldtea
Probably speaks about the total uncompressed video.

------
jrogers65
Off-topic:

I love SparrowOS's (dead) comments - they're so off the cuff and random.
Trying to make sense of them is like doing a really hard crossword puzzle. I
have noticed one thing about them, however - when he speaks as himself they
make complete sense. E.g.

> I had a problem with discipline. I worked at Ticketmaster while in college,
> but I know I wouldn't have studied more, just knowing my personal
> psychology.

> If you love programming more than anything, you are probably the kind of
> person who wants to know assembly language. If your full heart is not into
> programming, maybe not.

> I wrote my own compiler. Doesn't use REGs to pass values to functions.

They _only_ become incomprehensible when he is relaying, as he puts it, what
God says. E.g.

> Replacement So This_is_confusing gate attain imprinted educated comforting
> sentences awaiting deepness sufficiently scroll thee vacation discovereth
> knocked narrower I'm_off_today replenish stories 98 etext00 insultingly
> spunky vintage-vacation excellency overcast chastened prayed miss thirtieth
> One possesses preferable conquered affects bestowed restrainest feeling
> field Was surprise_surprise what_a_mess condemned Jove sheep obeying rights
> precede Austria stumble tide contrition turned Cherubim banquetings
> commandeth abhorring freely hinder diving sons' Watch_this -unto narrower
> rested effect loosen ordered kindred opening wail unsound render strongholds
> ebb blood bitterness Files

It seems almost like his thinking is split into two modes - one rational and
the other a stream of consciousness. The first makes sense to the rest of us
since there are commonalities which we can relate to (i.e. logic) but the
second must contain a great deal of personal references which only he can
understand the meaning of. "God's words" are his feelings put into text in a
completely unfiltered way.

~~~
sciurus
There was a discussion with him in this metafilter comment thread which you
may find interesting.

[http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-
Son...](http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-Songs-from-
God)

------
jrochkind1
I expected the 'drone nightmare scenario' would be when they kill us, not just
look at us. You know, like folks in parts of Pakistan are already living.

------
mc32
If this has the ability to track a good fraction of people from home to work
in a given metro area, this could be a boon for optimizing traffic/transit
resources and urban planning in general. If I were a DoT, I'd want this.

W/re privacy. It's only a few years away from private companies having this
tech available. So a bigger concern might be abuse of this information by an
unregulated market.

~~~
notimetorelax
Interesting point, but how does implementing a technology prevents others from
doing the same? I would think if it needs to be regulated then new laws need
to be written.

~~~
mc32
I would compare laws to stifle innovation in this field as effective as laws
attempting to prevent SW copyright violation, or as effective as laws aimed at
proscribing what you may and may not do on the internet.

Aside from regulation, in this case the FAA could regulate this as their
domain, I don't see why others could not. Anyhow, eventually this could
improve such that it could be done from satellites. Since there is less
regulation there (national and international) it could get a bit tricky.

~~~
notimetorelax
> FAA could regulate this as their domain

This is similar to having a law and FAA enforcing it. They don't need to have
the tech to prohibit others from using it. Surveillance satellites is a whole
other can of works IMHO.

------
jmeekr
I'm trying to keep the Orwellian thoughts out of my head, but this skips a few
steps of creepiness for me. Is this even deemed legal/illegal?

~~~
richardjordan
We live in a nation which likes civil rights in the abstract but not in the
implementation. This causes us all to lose.

A plurality exists to clamp down on many freedoms. Use cases to deny first
amendment rights are popularized - heck our biggest media companies built on
the back of the first amendment now wish to see it neutered. Gun rights folks
want the Obama administration to pursue second amendment restrictions, yet
some of those most vocal about protecting such freedoms cheered on the Bush
administration when it wanted to clamp down on speech, or when gay rights
pushes are defeated.

Security. Think of the children. Moral outrage. etc

The rich powerful elites have successfully divided the nation to such a degree
that they can push through any invasive law they like because they can always
bundle together enough of us who hate enough more of us to gain a plurality in
its support. More usually they don't need that even. They have the political
class in pocket and when it comes to election we have no vote outside of the
gerrymandered two sides of the same party system.

Rambling but you get my point.

~~~
jmeekr
I agree and have a hard time convincing friends/family, polarized on either
side, this same point. The agenda of the elites is being advanced by whichever
party will take the lowest bid. And cleverly enough this just keeps us pitted
against each other while allowing for small victories/defeats, depending on
what side your on. I wonder if Roman/British common folk had discussions like
these while they watched helplessly..

~~~
richardjordan
Bread & circuses.

------
richardjordan
I am sure the audience on here is mostly already familiar with the Panopticon,
but it sure feels like our society is becoming it:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon>

------
cromwellian
The JSTARS aircraft which has been around for 20+ years is kind of interesting
as a forerunner. It can track 600 ground targets (vehicles) over 50,000 sq km
using radar. This was 20 years ago, and that is the unclassified portion. We
don't really know how it's improved since then, or how many simultaneous
targets it can actually track in 2012.

During the DC Sniper incident, they were debating posse comitatus and whether
or not to bring one of these craft into action to track cars in the vicinity
of a reported sniper attack.

~~~
gwern
Could JSTARS-like systems be on the RC-7Bs reportedly deployed
([http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1410493/Army-
spy-planes-join-widened-hunt-for-Kalashnikov-sniper.html))?

------
jchavannes
Previous ARGUS discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5129332>

------
dmoo
Maybe it's time to move some where with a lot of fog and rain. You could also
encourage everyone to buy the same umbrella just to make it challenging for
this thing...

------
tragomaskhalos
Presumably named after this fellow:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argus_Panoptes>

------
shoki
Albert-Laszlo Barabasi talked about this sort of fear a few years ago in his
boot Bursts[1]. He figured Google would be the one to do it. Even with
dropouts occurring when someone goes into a bus, people's movements tend to
have low entropy[2]. Since most people's movements follow pretty predictable
routines, over time the system can learn to predict most people's positions
given noisy data.

It might not work well for criminals trying to avoid being seen by arial
cameras during the day, hiding out away from their usual haunts and obscuring
their faces. It will probably be a big win for marketing data analytics firms.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Bursts-Patterns-Everything-mail-
Crusad...](http://www.amazon.com/Bursts-Patterns-Everything-mail-
Crusades/dp/B0064XDKTA)

[2] [http://www.barabasilab.com/pubs/CCNR-
ALB_Publications/201002...](http://www.barabasilab.com/pubs/CCNR-
ALB_Publications/201002-19_Science-Predictability/201002-19_Science-
Predictability.pdf)

------
owksley
This is, alas, the inevitable consequence of the technological progression
that most of us here strive towards on a daily basis.

~~~
hype7
And it's also why we shouldn't just be focused on creating the technology, but
we should be increasingly focused on the system (society) into which it is
being placed.

~~~
vdm
... or art which helps people imagine it.

------
cantbecool
What's the motive behind the U.S. government revealing this to the public? I
can't seem to logically come to any conclusion.

~~~
motters
To prepare people for what's coming in the next 5-10 years. If cities become
panopticons overnight that would induce a greater degree of alarm and popular
resistance to the idea. Introducing things gradually such that people become
habituated is less likely to result in significant pushback.

------
mrdub
If you want to see the kinds of tech research the military has been funding
for the ARGUS platform: <http://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/technology?term=argus>

A few of these include:

Near-realtime Forensic Analysis Capabilities for Moving Target Indicator (MTI)
Data

High Resolution 3D Reconstruction from Wide-Area Video

Wide Area Video Image Storage Techniques

------
uptown
This is the state of consumer-level tech:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PKG8q94D98>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1mDsgJaAwE>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvCqLWq1nr4> (notice the stabilizer)

------
mrleinad
"You're being watched. The government has a secret system. A machine that
spies on you every hour of every day."

~~~
chill1
Are we talking about drones or cell phones?

------
brownbat
Just listened to the last two episodes of This American Life, about a school
in Chicago where there have been 29 kids shot over the last year.[1]

On seeing this, immediately wondered if you could combine drones with gunshot
detection systems.[2]

The drone could hone in on gunshots and follow any vehicle in a drive by in
real time without a dangerous car chase.[3]

By implication, the drone "nightmare" scenario probably kicks in in full when
we all put license plates on roofs.

On the upside, no more drive-bys. We stop raising whole classes of kids with
PTSD.

On the downside, the returns are probably greater for police who use drones to
monitor traffic offenses. So we're probably immediately fined $700 for any
rolling stop. Worse case, drones network with traffic signals to turn lights
red right before we pass through.[4]

I'm conflicted. I know there's a famous quote about people who trade privacy
for security, and how they're all Nazis. But I'm really on board with helping
those kids.

I know that before Miranda and some similar cases, there was an epidemic of
rubber hose interrogations in police station backrooms. I know there's still a
lot of improvement to be made, but some simple changes in the courtroom made
sweeping changes to the ways law enforcement interacted with suspects. Maybe
some legal scholar can come up with a few guidelines that help the police to
use these sorts of technologies to do some good, while still restricting their
ability to abuse them.

1\. [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/487/h...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/487/harper-high-school-part-one)

2\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunfire_locator>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomerang_(countermeasure)>

3\. Chase related crashes from just the last few months:

[http://theadvocate.com/news/police/4714718-123/police-
chase-...](http://theadvocate.com/news/police/4714718-123/police-chase-ends-
with-fatal)

[http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=...](http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=8954550)

[http://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-
news/police-4-cars-...](http://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-
news/police-4-cars-crash-in-police-chase-near-hendricks-county)

[http://www.redeyechicago.com/news/breaking/chi-suspects-
car-...](http://www.redeyechicago.com/news/breaking/chi-suspects-car-crashes-
after-police-chase-2-hurt-20130211,0,1604618.story)

4\.
[http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/red_light_cams_red_light_...](http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/red_light_cams_red_light_cam_0NJ954EGA2bSvVQcalErXJ)

~~~
ahallock
If we want to help those kids, we must address the fundamental reasons those
kids were shot. Drones detecting gun shots is a technological bandaid with the
side effect of empowering the State even more.

People don't want to address the fundamental problems because they're hard and
ugly and uncomfortable. It's much easier to dream about technology solving all
our ills, when a lot of our problems are an effect of immorality.

~~~
gfodor
False dilemma -- we can address the root causes and also add measures to
prevent violence when those causes are not addressed effectively. The OP's
point is sound and if you start the argument against universal surveillance by
claiming it will not reduce crimes such as these you will not be taken
seriously. The question is not if crime will be reduced but at what cost is it
worth it. The cameras are coming and the bottom line is we need to decide who
sits behind them: a select few, or everyone.

------
drucken
Mass surveillance of individuals by governments in many developed countries is
already done via the mobile phone system, and increasingly even by private
companies via smartphones.

That cat has been out of the bag for a _long_ time. Drones are just one more
cog in this respect.

------
greghinch
Eh, the UK has had cameras covering every square inch of their cities for
years, hasn't turned into a dystopian hell scape yet

~~~
veb
That's probably because they can't actually see anything on their cameras or
man them very well.

------
bane
With pervasive cameras everywhere, your only hope is that your signal gets
lost in the noise.

------
namuol
What about night surveillance? I doubt night-vision is possible at that
altitude.

~~~
lutusp
Of course it is. "Nght" (infrared) vision is possible in space, and anywhere
else. Infrared light isn't limited to (or by) the atmosphere. In fact,
infrared satellite images played an important part in the Bin Laden raid.

------
Cieplak
I wonder how long it will take for these to start issuing speeding tickets.

------
ctdonath
4th Amendment anyone?

...anyone?

~~~
logn
It's been steadily eroded after a couple hundred years of court cases. It's
really depressing to see almost all our constitutional rights now gone by this
same process. When the government can explain their right to kill citizens
extra-judicially in 16 pages, something's gone wrong.

I think we need a second bill of rights which re-establishes our rights in
detail (and updates them for the digital age) and explicitly voids all
contradicting precedence. That should last us another 200 years.

Specifically to your point, from what I know, surveillance is ok in public
places. These drones clearly violate that since they could be watching your
backyard BBQ. Worse, they could peer through skylights, into courtyards,
through your sunroof, etc. But I'm sure the wise judges will find another
reason based on precedent that this is ok.

------
daniel-cussen
Enhance...enhance...

