Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic X-Ray Vision

I think I've been in the info sec field too long. When I read this article on "x-ray vision", my second thought was how criminals would find them useful to verify that no one is home in a place they are about to rob, or to ascertain whether there are security guards nearby before they break into a business. (My first thought was about the invasion of privacy such a device would permit.)

Admittedly, the penultimate paragraph in the article is written to sound reassuring, but given the lack of specificity, I am not very reassured.

Although I can see beneficial uses for such a device, I am not at all convinced that the positives would outweigh the negatives. Perhaps the years of learning to think like the bad guys and gals has made me a bit too jaded. What do you all think about this device, assuming it goes to market and does all the researchers are claiming?

- Lynn

My first thought was on how the technology could be abused, too.

Thank you, Annie. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who had thoughts along these lines.

- Lynn

A number of years back, Popular Science had an article on radar chips--like are found in a studfinder. (i.e. commercially available and cheap) These chips are capable of being ganged for greater resolution and sensitivity.

With disturbing ease they were able to use them to detect breathing and heartbeats through walls. A reasonable amount of money could get you something that would detect breathing and heartbeats in the next room. I mentioned to several people that they should have called the article "The End of Privacy".

I couldn't find that PopSci article but this 1998 description in Design News here here sounds similar.

Thanks for the article, Shallowford.

In some ways, we surpass even George Orwell's predictions, and not in a good way.

- Lynn

Orwell was prescient (unfortunately). There's a lot of technology that can be used to invade privacy, and it can and does get misused. People fly drones over places they aren't supposed to be (like other people's backyards) and take pictures of people who thought they had a reasonable expectation of privacy. A few months ago, some idiots flew drones out to a wildfire in California and got in the way of the firefighters (which was not a privacy issue, but a safety one).