hoodlum
MuscleHead
- Jan 3, 2012
- 903
- 172
It is important, I want everyone to watch the first 1:20 of the following scene from the movie Batman: The Dark Knight
http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/DarkKnightMontage.mov/view
Now I am going to talk to you about some spyware that was developed by the US Naval Surface Warfare Center for deployment at their will. I'm sure you watched that clip above and thought it was potentially some pretty cool technology, maybe even that it could be possible one day... the reality is that the Batman surveillance system is actually behind what is being done by our governments. Let me say that again, our governments already have the power to do what is done in that movie with greater accuracy. To absolutely everyone at the same time, not just the criminals. Let that sink in.
Although there is undoubtedly a far more powerful incarnation of the surveillance system the one the public is aware of is called PlaceRaider. PlaceRaider runs as a background service (the user is unaware the program is running) and silently takes photos on the phone at random times at around one photo every 2 seconds. With each photo it records the orientation of the phone, time and location. With lightweight heuristics it automatically filters out unusable results (around 73% of images) such as ones taken inside your pocket and then sends the rest of them to a server which can remodel pictures in to 3D models. It sounds good in theory but many people would doubt if it would actually produce anything usable, well here is an example.
There was a trial where this software was placed on a phone and given to unknowing subjects. It allowed complete remodelling of the users environment and even details of certain sensitive things within eyesight to be captured. To be more specific, the review was conducted by other users either viewing the raw images or the remodelled 3D space. User-extraction of data was higher in the 3D remodelling in both tests, obvious objects and sensitive objects. When users were asked to retrieve sensitive data from the photo's such as "financial documents, barcodes and QR codes, and other private information" they successfully identified 37.1% from the 3D models and 35.3% from the raw images. This means that by carrying your phone around there is a good chance the government with this software deployed could be spying on documents you have laying around just by you walking past them with your phone in your hand.
The paper below is very informative and is fairly easy to read. I suggest anyone with an interest in this to read the original paper.
PlaceRaider: Virtual Theft in Physical Spaces with Smartphones
September 27, 2012
Direct Link: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1209.5982v1.pdf
http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/DarkKnightMontage.mov/view
Now I am going to talk to you about some spyware that was developed by the US Naval Surface Warfare Center for deployment at their will. I'm sure you watched that clip above and thought it was potentially some pretty cool technology, maybe even that it could be possible one day... the reality is that the Batman surveillance system is actually behind what is being done by our governments. Let me say that again, our governments already have the power to do what is done in that movie with greater accuracy. To absolutely everyone at the same time, not just the criminals. Let that sink in.
Although there is undoubtedly a far more powerful incarnation of the surveillance system the one the public is aware of is called PlaceRaider. PlaceRaider runs as a background service (the user is unaware the program is running) and silently takes photos on the phone at random times at around one photo every 2 seconds. With each photo it records the orientation of the phone, time and location. With lightweight heuristics it automatically filters out unusable results (around 73% of images) such as ones taken inside your pocket and then sends the rest of them to a server which can remodel pictures in to 3D models. It sounds good in theory but many people would doubt if it would actually produce anything usable, well here is an example.
There was a trial where this software was placed on a phone and given to unknowing subjects. It allowed complete remodelling of the users environment and even details of certain sensitive things within eyesight to be captured. To be more specific, the review was conducted by other users either viewing the raw images or the remodelled 3D space. User-extraction of data was higher in the 3D remodelling in both tests, obvious objects and sensitive objects. When users were asked to retrieve sensitive data from the photo's such as "financial documents, barcodes and QR codes, and other private information" they successfully identified 37.1% from the 3D models and 35.3% from the raw images. This means that by carrying your phone around there is a good chance the government with this software deployed could be spying on documents you have laying around just by you walking past them with your phone in your hand.
The paper below is very informative and is fairly easy to read. I suggest anyone with an interest in this to read the original paper.
PlaceRaider: Virtual Theft in Physical Spaces with Smartphones
September 27, 2012
Direct Link: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1209.5982v1.pdf