From: Conrad Hughes <chughes@maths.tcd.ie>
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 94 04:55:17 PDT
To: Julietta <albright@chaph.usc.edu>
Subject: Re: Little known facts about the infohigh....
Message-ID: <9404151254.aa10436@salmon.maths.tcd.ie>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Julietta writes:

>I mean- what's to stop the government- or perhaps the big capitalists-
>from utilizing the technologies, such as that suggested by the Neilson
>people, to monitor citizens *not* part of some voluntary rating program. 
>Are you suggesting that since Denning et al aren't "argueing for it"
>that it is inconceivable? Hmm....
It's not inconceivable, but you are suggesting that capitalist
organisations would try this; they want to make a profit, so such
trickery would have to either be ridiculously cheap or include some hidden
financial benefit to offset its costs.  Now an infrared sensor to receive
remote control broadcasts might only cost 10p (about 15 cents I think),
but a camera that small, implemented using CCD and disguised so that a
casual investigation wouldn't turn up anything suspicious, would be a lot
more expensive (portable video cameras are expensive for good reasons).
The additional hardware - compression, encryption and transmission
technology - would add hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars to the
high street value of such a device if you knew what was in it; they'd
have to hide this cost so customers didn't get suspicious.  The device
would be unable to pass TEMPEST (electromagnetic radiation guidelines)
or any related trials.  So the government would have to intervene.
It would also require a transmission licence, again requiring secret
service intervention.  All people involved in the manufacture of the
devices would have to be sworn to secrecy (and since most of therm are
in Singapore this could be difficult) and someone would have to come
up with a good explanation for the sudden violent change in the shape
of video and television technology for maintenance techs.  Speakers can
act as microphones, but not very well - I'm not an electronic engineer,
but I think that modern multi-way speakers are not well suited to such
purposes, but a small omnidirectional microphone could be installed
instead; eventually some technician would spot it.  And why do all
of this?  So you can see who has sex with who?  How big the average
American penis is?  What brands everyone buys?  Methods already exist
to obtain this information by cooperation; certainly corporations would
like to improve their market research techniques, but at what cost?
What would happen if they got found out?  Send everyone who knows off
to a concentration camp in New Jersey (that is where software engineers
have to be legally certified isn't it)?

I've just addressed a very specific set of circumstances - you'd probably
choose to transmit the information down fibreoptic instead of using radio,
but essentially such an idea would involve such a huge conspiracy of
scientists, manufacturers, maintenance engineers and authors (remember
that there's a book out there explaining how just about everything ever
built works) that it would be far far easier for Them to manipulate
public perception into believing that all of this was a Good Thing
and doing it in full view.  All you have to worry about is the average
person's susceptibility to Their Manipu-Rays (tm).  Come to think of it
maybe you're right..

Conrad