DARPA's Simple Plan to Track Targets Everywhere

[CuttingEdge100]

DARPA's Simple Plan to Track Targets Everywhere
URL: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/darpas-simple-plan-to-track-targets-everywhere/

Darpa’s 2009 strategic plan offers a fascinating overview of the different approaches the agency is taking to better track and identify these elusive targets. Some of these, like the Forester foliage- penetrating radar, tackle a specific problem: detecting enemy troops moving under the cover of dense jungle canopy. But another program, called NetTrack, would provide more persistent reconnaissance by linking together and comparing information from different sensors to track a target, even if it moves behind a solid obstruction.

The NetTrack overview on the Darpa website gives few details, but the strategic plan gives a better idea of how it might work. Using software tools, the system could stitch together information from a variety of sensors (synthetic aperture radar, optical, video, acoustic sensors, moving target indicators), and hand off to the right platform when appropriate. For instance, if a Predator lost a video feed on a vehicle that entered a forest, the networked system would cue a laser radar sensor to search for the target. Fusing or comparing sensor information can also help map out better routes for surveillance aircraft to ensure full-time coverage.

Airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance is a big focus of current operations; the Air Force, for instance, is speeding the deployment of the MC-12W aircraft — a converted Beechcraft King Air twin turboprop that captures full-motion video and signals intelligence. But finding ways to combine sensor information in more sophisticated ways would be the next step toward getting the hooks in a target — and not letting go.

Big Brother here we come... I find it incredibly hard to believe that this device will only be used on bad guys and won't be turned on innocent citizens.


CuttingEdge100
BTW: I found two particular replies on the bottom of the page particularly astute, one of which I found kind of humorous...

WayPastHadEnough (The part I quoted I found quite astute)

No where to run, nowhere to hide. How can anyone be stupid enough to think this is ‘cool’ and to pretend it could never be used against them.

StrangeLovian (This is the one I found funny)

Cool! Now add autonomous decision-making capabilities to this system and tie it in with offensive drones and land robots, and you’ve got Skynet 1.0. Humans are simply too slow to be part of the decision cycles of systems like these; our days of being in control are clearly numbered. Robot power!

 

[Lindley]

Target tracking is actually a very interesting problem in computer science. It's surprisingly hard.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

WayPastHadEnough (The part I quoted I found quite astute)

No where to run, nowhere to hide. How can anyone be stupid enough to think this is ‘cool’ and to pretend it could never be used against them.

The various states the world have long had all sorts of power "to use against us" if there were motivation. People who assume that we've always been on the right side of some tipping point and are always just about to go over are naive in the extreme.

This is no big deal.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Lately it seems our government has been cynically using the War of Terror to develop increasingly more advanced, more intrusive, means of mass-surveillance. Not just this, our government has demonstrated itself more willing to use mass-surveillance on it's own people. For a couple of years, our government had engaged in massive warrantless wiretapping. And because Bush is out of office, everyone thinks it's okay, but Obama defends the policy to this day.

I am getting really sick and tired of seemingly every single technological advancement developed lately by our government being for the purposes of mass surveillance.

Has anyone here seen the movie "Enemy of the State"?


CuttingEdge100

 

[Meredith]

Lately it seems our government has been cynically using the War of Terror to develop increasingly more advanced, more intrusive, means of mass-surveillance. Not just this, our government has demonstrated itself more willing to use mass-surveillance on it's own people. For a couple of years, our government had engaged in massive warrantless wiretapping. And because Bush is out of office, everyone thinks it's okay, but Obama defends the policy to this day.

I am getting really sick and tired of seemingly every single technological advancement developed lately by our government being for the purposes of mass surveillance.

Has anyone here seen the movie "Enemy of the State"?


CuttingEdge100

Yes, and you are now on "The List"

Enjoy having your life monitored!

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Meredith,

Well it goes without saying that talking about something like this would put you on the list