Cell Phone Radiation Detectors Proposed to Protect Against Nukes 238
crosshatch brings us news out of Purdue University, where researchers are developing a radiation detection system that would rely on sensors within cell phones to locate and track potentially hazardous material. From the Purdue news service:
"Such a system could blanket the nation with millions of cell phones equipped with radiation sensors able to detect even light residues of radioactive material. Because cell phones already contain global positioning locators, the network of phones would serve as a tracking system, said physics professor Ephraim Fischbach. 'The sensors don't really perform the detection task individually,' Fischbach said. 'The collective action of the sensors, combined with the software analysis, detects the source. Say a car is transporting radioactive material for a bomb, and that car is driving down Meridian Street in Indianapolis or Fifth Avenue in New York. As the car passes people, their cell phones individually would send signals to a command center, allowing authorities to track the source.'"
Who's going to pay? (Score:2, Insightful)
Great (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad Idea (Score:4, Insightful)
And these things *always* protect civil liberties (Score:5, Insightful)
Riiiiiiight - So how long until we hear about a wave of people erroneously "rendered" for "interrogation" in a "friendly", human-rights-respecting country like Jordan, because their own cell phones turned them in following medical tests involving the use of radioisotopes?
Hey congress, grow a pair. We the People do not want this bullshit. Bush won't sign a budget that includes criteria for troop withdrawal - Fine, cut off funding for the war. Bush won't sign a FISA extension that doesn't include immunity for the telecomms - Fine, don't extend the damned thing! Stop with the security theater, please - The actors suck and the popcorn went stale four years ago.
Wikinuke? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the detectors are that cheap and small that they can squeeze them into cellphones, just stick them into street lights and then (assuming the terrorists dont have access to cranes and ladders) you have a bit more trust in your data.
Sensor networks are a great idea for some things, but maybe not this one...
what could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
yes, you see this will happen ONLY if the radiation detector fires up an event, NEVER EVER before... the government agency in charge will make sure of that...
what a jolly happy world we are living in, turn every single one of us into a government agent (stooge). Later on the grid will be expanded to keep track of criminals that might be passing us by (for example child molesters in case your morality standards haven't crumbled to the floor yet and are still putting up a fight, you surely wouldn't like little children getting hurt because of some ACLU ridiculous claims on privacy, would you?)... carry on citizens, carry on, nothing to see here...the future is going to be bright and spectacular...
Re:And these things *always* protect civil liberti (Score:3, Insightful)
Won't work (Score:3, Insightful)
Obvious excuse (Score:3, Insightful)
And who will pay for this equipment in the phone? Will the government subsidize the phones? Where will the sensors fit in ever-smaller cellphones?
Re:Wikinuke? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bad Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
ok, heres my two cents (Score:1, Insightful)
As someone has pointed out, the cellphones idea can be abused.
But, I think that if this idea is improved upon, it could go somewhere.
Even if we don't get chernobyl phones, somthing useful may come out of this.
Although I am sick of this "In the post 9/11 world" attitude to everything that every single person on this earth must spend every single second of their lives worrying about being blown up.
for god sake, ok 9/11 was terrible, it had unimaginable human cost, but if that had happened in algeria, who anyone care? short answer, no.
the only reason it rules our lives now, and is the one size fits all excuse for everything is because it happened in america, the untouchable super-nation.
Re:Who's going to pay? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Easy to Knock A Good Thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Society is always under attack, both from within and from without. The first thing you have to decide before doing something to protect 'society', is establish whether the method will in itself change (therefore 'attack') the very society you are trying to protect. Constantly adding a means to 'look over your shoulder' will change a society from a free and relaxed society to a paranoid and controlled society.
"Just because the bastards haven't been able to mount a serious threat within the US borders since 9/11 doesn't mean they wouldn't like to"
Gifted with our imagination, we can come up with an infinite amount of ways we can be harmed, but simply saying it is possible is not justification for any level of measure against it. Careful consideration has to be given to the risk of the threat against the negative aspects of the protective measures.
"Its probably just a matter of time until these yahoos do get their hands on a nuke. This would be just the thing to stop them in their tracks."
Speculation. And if this system was put into place, would it be fool proof. If a group was organised enough to get a nuke, manage to smuggle it to the country of destination, I would suspect they would be organised enough to come up with a way to hide it (lead casing perhaps?)
"Try imagining the alternative, such as maybe your own neighbourhood looking like the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki all the way out to the horizon. If not your own neighbourhood, how about your friend's neighbourhood, or your relatives neighbourhood? Is that OK? I say it is not."
Again, just because you imagine an awful thing, does not justify any level of preventive measures. I can imagine a mass alien invasion, but I don't think that warrants issuing all citizens with rocket launchers. I do not have enough information to properly evaluate the cost/risks for either of these events, and I see no evidence that you do either.
"I'm sitting in Kuwait on the way out of Iraq after working a science and tech advisor job to the US military in counter-IED work. Take my word, the enemy is smart, capable, and desireous of wiping us off the face of the earth if they can. They take the most innocuous materials and figure out ways to kill you with it. If they get their hands on a nuke, and we don't have proper countermeasures, a whale of a lot of Americans will die, and if not you, at least several people you know and some you care about."
We cannot verify your position, so better to stick to the facts. SO far, the evidence has been that the 'enemy' is generally badly organised and stupid, and most of the 'smart' attack vectors have been thought up by western security 'experts' and generally are argued to be implausible (liquid bombs on planes for example).
By the way - I am neither for or against this idea (it 'feels' wrong to me, but like I say, I don't have enough info to make a sound judgement), but I am against the whole 'this is good because terrorism is bad' line of argument. Yes, it can be argued the other side 'this is bad because freedom is good' is just as bad, but would you rather your default position was one of paranoia or one of freedom?
Re:And for those with Prostrate/thyroid cancer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Having it determine what isotope it's looking at would drastically reduce the number of false hits you might get. It probably WOULDN'T alarm on that truck of bananas ... or that medical patient you're standing next to who's lit up like a light bulb full of iodine. CZT has a pretty poor collection efficiency -- it's very small and it certainly doesn't stop every piece of radiation you throw at it -- but it looks like they're trying sheer numbers (millions of cell phones) to overcome that.
My question is, what does this do to battery life? It takes energy to power up the CZT crystal, and all the necessary electronics (multichannel analyzer, preamplifier, HV supply, etc.). That's a cost most consumers aren't willing to put up with.
Re:And for those with Prostrate/thyroid cancer? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, if anyone tries to make a 'dirty bomb' they'll probably use common medical or industrial isotopes. And a dirty bomb attack is much more likely than a terrorist nuclear weapon.
False Positives (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a radioactive world out there, and that is the only thing such a system would tell us.
We'd also learn the usual responses of the security forces when they get something wrong is brutality, coverup and smearing.
The answer to finding hypothetical terrorist nukes is proper human intelligence on the ground, not mass surveillance where false positives outnumber the real thing by orders of magnitude. That's just hiding the needle you're looking for in a much much bigger needle stack.
False Positive vs Expensive Detectors (Score:3, Insightful)
However, more logically... the more specific to given isotopes you make the sensors, the more expensive they will become. And if the terrorist group knows that our defense network allows isotope x but not y, don't you think they might work with y - even if it isn't as potent or immediately possible?
Think about this. Radioactivity exists around all of us. Tritum in watches, MRI machines (and for that matter healthcare in general), industrial sites, etc etc etc. Placarded vehicles that might be legally transporting something. You're going to tell me that there will be an effective system set up to take in the millions of false hits, screen them for the ones that might really be something, and then plot that against the map - nationwide in real time?
Not every threat is nuclear, also. I'm personally more frightened of simple biological weapons - not the fancy "weaponized anthrax", but good ol smallpox and the easier ones to work with. Even a good outbreak of flu can kill thousands without trying very hard and swamp medical systems / healthcare resources, which will in turn kill more. Nuclear just creates a good snapshot for the media.
Effective Deterrent (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry to engage in US bashing (as little offence as possible intended) but it seems that the plan is to impress the terrorists with all your amazing technology, so that they just give up.
Effective combat against terrorism requires two things: (a) working to eliminate the root cause and (b) in the mean time having as much intelligence as possible to stop yourself getting blown up.
You don't see the Israeli's advertising their latest and greatest.
Re:And for those with Prostrate/thyroid cancer? (Score:4, Insightful)
Makes me wonder how much it would cost to not have the world hate us. Stop funding Israel (whether you're for or against it, how many lives should we lose supporting a religious war?), remove our bases from sensitive areas, and stop parking our aircraft carriers off the coasts of hostile countries. Maybe we could spend some of that money fixing our health care problems, preventing car crashes, researching alternative energy, or *gasp* paying down our debt.
Re:And for those with Prostrate/thyroid cancer? (Score:1, Insightful)
And if the bad guys did have a real bomb, they could use the system to misdirect and confuse the response first.
Re:whatcouldpossiblygowrong tag (Score:3, Insightful)
No wonder you think that the tag is overused. In this scenario, you completely underestimate the effects of law enforcement with an itchy trigger finger. It took much less than a false nuke alarm to get innocent people shot to death this way.
Why stop at just radiation? (Score:2, Insightful)
It may sound crazy, but the cops would LOVE to have this type of technology available to them. And it will only take a couple more terrorist attacks before we give it to them.