> It doesn't matter what you wear. Even if everybody would be wearing a
> flowing robe and a face mask (fat chance; right now donning this would
> invite for some deep anal probing),

Not over some critical mass. Also could pit the media against the police,
if the rate of such incidents against non-Arabs (or anyone who isn't a
member of at-that-time-oppressed minority) would grow high enough quickly
enough (the rate of increasing the incident rate is important - see water
and frog).

> you would still have parts of your body exposed, THz waves could probe
> beneath clothing unless it's metallized,

...a good fashion wave emphasizing metallic look could help, if the look
would be achieved by actually conductive fibers; also, a good
publicly-believable "disinformation" about government using THz waves to
secretly manipulate or read peoples' minds (and then reinforcing this
belief by pointing to the eventual police crackdowns on people wearing
such shielding outfits) could be interesting.

> you would still emit volatile MHC fragments,

Speculating: could be relieved by a "fragrance" containing the molecular
structures the sensors are sensitive to, thus effectively blinding it,
making it smell very many people at once (principially similar to
portscanning with decoys), lowering the identification value of the
sensors to close to zero.

>From what I know about MHC, they are not causing the smells themselves, as
their molecules are WAY too big to be volatile enough, but influence their
creation indirectly. There is only certain variety possible for volatile
molecules of sane size, so the smells are most likely caused by
combination of concentrations of a relatively few kinds of volatile
molecules. By adding some such chemicals into ie. a fragrance or a
cologne, you could confuse the sensors enough to be unable to recognize
you. The chemicals don't have necessarily to possess human-detectable
smells - they have to be the ones the sensors are sensitive to, which can
be a whole group of chemicals. This technology is BY FAR not bulletproof,
I suppose the solution will appear at most within half-year after the
technology gets commercialized and leaves labs and special-purpose
security applications.

We can suppose the top-level sensors will be integrated gas-chromatography
devices (the common ones will be arrays of specific sensors where the same
countermeasures apply and where we have chance to use more kinds of
molecules as I don't suppose all sensors will be specific to only one).
If we can alter the concentration of the molecules they are sensitive to
around us, then we'll effectively change our "smell identity".

I could bet if the smell sensors will get to common use, sensor-fooling
toolkits will appear on the black market.

> drop pieces of cells with your DNA in it,

Which have to be found before put into the sensor, which keeps this
problem in the crime-scene investigations (at least I hope so).

> have a specific gait,

I don't know the weaknesses of gait-observing systems, so I can't suggest
anything.

> etc.
>
> Multisource integrative telebiometrics takes giant pain to fake.

True. But the giantness of the pain depends on the actual implementation.
As I know the sloppy practices in electronics industry and settling of
pseudo-standards with GREATLY INADEQUATE reliability (RJ-45 connectors
standardized for copper-based Ethernet networks are my current pet peeve),
I am quite sure the commercial-grade technology will be so ridden with
holes that a sieve will be a panzer plate in comparison.

> No one is going to go through it, so your attempts to fake it would
> raise red alarm all over the place.

Again, depends on the actual implementation. Could be quite difficult, but
not necessarily impossible.

> Just outlaw this crap already. Once it's on every street corner it will be
> too late.

Would be nice.

Won't happen: the politicians want to look like they are doing something
to "protect" us, and the industry wants to make money on the technology.
The only way would be to get the people to understand how the technologies
work, so they would know that they're unusable against real threats, but
try to explain this to the Homer Simpsons and Al Bundas that seem to be
the majority of the population nearly everywhere - and then your efforts
will be ruined by one overhyped news story featuring a small-scale crook
caught because of the Brave New Surveillance Tech.


Reply via email to