Well, that was fast

As I predicted in my earlier post (although it might have already been true at the time of my post), the private sector already has an ALPR app available for Android and iPhone

Get ready to be stalked.

More on ALPR

Two stories that came out in the last week which provide additional information as to how ALPR is currently used.  This should be seen as the starting point for this technology.  Naturally the data collection points and data history will only grow over time:

• GPS data is captured along with the license plate information and stored for long periods of time.  At least several months.  This story shows that government officials are able to enter a license plate and find out where that plate has been over a long stretch of time.  No warrant is needed as the information is publicly available (with the exception of the DMV information that is linked to the plate).
• This article shows that outstanding warrant information of the vehicle's owner is also tagged to licensee plates.  This allows police to get alerted with a plate, owned by someone with an outstanding warrant, is nearby.  Does this provide probable cause for a traffic stop?  Hard to say.  In the article, police are able to see the driver and confirm that they are not the person wanted for a warrant (normally this would be difficult while following a vehicle).  But interestingly, they stop the vehicle anyway for a traffic violation.

Most people don't have a problem with criminals being caught by this technology.  But mark my words, this technology is in the public domain and private companies will take advantage of this at some point.  If a police officer doesn't need a warrant to collect this public information, what's to stop Google/Microsoft/political parties?  And while these public organizations don't have access to DMV records (at least, not easily), they do have access to property records.  What's to stop them from driving through residential neighborhoods to collect plate information along with home address information?  With a database of address/property owners, they would be able to make an educated guess as to who 60% of the plates belong to.  They'll also be able to map out who knows who.

Just like Facebook, except you won't have the option not to join.

ALPR - The all seeing eye of Big Brother

On November 8th, the US Supreme Court is set to hear a case which will determine whether or not police need a warrant to install a GPS tracking device on a vehicle.  The case will certainly be getting a lot more attention in the next few months due to its ability to change how the government views the 4th amendment.

But behind the scenes, technology is making GPS tracking of vehicles obsolete.  Automated License Plate Recognition (or ALPR or ANPR - Automated Number Plate Recognition).  It is sweeping the law enforcement world by storm.   In the United States, many police departments have outfitted patrol cars with ALPR systems, mostly funded by anti-terrorism grants.  So what does it do?  Well as the name implies, it automatically captures, records and checks license plates against a database and it can do so in huge numbers and with no intervention by police.  When the ALPR system finds a plate that is associated with a stolen vehicle or an outstanding warrant, the system alerts the officer and provides information on the vehicle and warrant.

On the surface, this seems like a great technology.  Police cars can rove the streets/parking lots and with little effort uncover any criminals who were stupid enough to drive around.  But like most technology, it will have unintended consequences.  The biggest one is that as ALPR becomes more popular, it will become easier and easier to track any particular individual's movement.   As the plate information is publicly visible on public streets, it's virtually immune from any 4th amendment challenge.  More cities are also installing ALPR systems at intersections in addition to patrol cars.  So the net effect will be that police will have the ability to determine not only where you and your car are at any given time, it will also (through the use of historical databases) allow them to see what any particular person's driving patterns are.    Effectively, this will make GPS tracking of vehicles unnecessary, at least in medium to large cities.

And as all of the technology that makes ALPR work is already in the public domain, it won't be long before the private sector makes use of it as well.  It's not hard to imagine that personal ALPR systems might be available in the future, allowing users to monitor patters of drivers though group-sourced traffic applications like Waze.

Imagine if a private company were able to capture license plate information along with travel patterns (where you live, work, drive). As of now, the government controls DMV information and most states make it very hard to get.  These private companies could offer this to you as well and as it's publicly visible information, it would be difficult to stop.  It would be a stalker's dream.

OK, I'll say it: Fukushima is much, much worse than Three Mile Island

Seems the governments of the world and the media are terrified of admitting that the Fukushima reactor meltdown is on par with Chernobyl. 

I'm here to tell you that not only is Fukushima worse than Three Mile Island, it has the very real potential to be worse than Chernobyl.  Fukushima is still an active disaster two weeks (at this point) after the initial failure.

This is so far beyond Three Mile Island, I can't believe people are still trying to compare the two.  We now have citizens leaving Japan who have seriously high radiation contamination.  That never happened in TMI.

In terms of a human disaster, Fukushima can very quickly become worse than Chernobyl.  By comparison, Chernobyl was out in the middle of nowhere.  Tokyo is only 150 miles from Fukushima.  What happens when a city of 13 million has to be evacuated...permanently?    Where do they move?  Where are they housed?  How are they fed?

New York Times Steps Closer To The Abyss

The NY Times announced they will be charging heavy users to view their web content.  Apparently once someone clicks on their 21st article, they will be presented with (3) pay-for-content digital packages.  How the Times will know when someone clicks on their 21st article is unclear.

Unless they will require all users to log in, it seems like a weak attempt to enforce their pay wall.    I can only hope I'm wrong and the Times will opt for hard-core enforcement and drive themselves into irrelevancy.

Here's a stat I'll revisit later:

The Times claims to have  "210,000 digital subscribers, and 400,000 copies circulate in print "


Here's what the Times has in store:

"...the pay wall's effect on the reach of the Murdoch papers has been direct and dire. Until the pay wall's creation last summer, the two Times papers (Times of London & Sunday Times) drew 20 million distinct online readers a month. Now, about 105,000 people visit their sites or digital products monthly, meaning the papers lost about 95 percent of their online audience . Only some 50,000 people actually have paid monthly digital subscriptions."

And for a world where digital papers are the (only) newspaper, that's a bad thing if you desire the power to sway public opinion.

And that's what the NY Times will have to chose between:  Being a powerful political agenda setter, or making money selling newspapers.  Ultimately, the real money is in swaying the public policy.  That's something the NY Times can't see because they've grown too comfortable with their unchallenged monopoly on that power.

Update on the "Paywall"

I've had a couple of posts about online news sites trying to charge for their content. From The New York Times (who still haven't done it, probably because they're trying hard not to lose their last 10 readers), to Newsday, to Newscorp's several attempts at paid content.

Well Newscorp is doubling down their bet into paid content with the release of The Daily for the iPad. While the iPad is, in my opinion, a stupid product from Apple, Newscorp and everyone else in the free world is certain it's the next iPod/iPhone, and are out buying them to ensure they will be.

Regardless, The Daily is paid content, costing $1.00 a week or $40 a year. Will it succeed? Probably not. The Wall Street Journal remains the anomaly in the paid content world, in that they are allegedly making money. If Newscorp's experience with The Times of London's 'paywall' is any indication, The Daily will be a miserable failure. The Times has seen it's web traffic drop somewhere between 60 - 90 % since erecting their paywall. Ouch. Making people not want to look at your newspaper is a good way to go out of (the news) business.

But this one might be different, if Murdock can convince all those affluent Apple fans that The Daily is the next 'must have' app. I'm guessing, even that is hopeless.

An Idiot Abroad: Perhaps this can wash that Gold Rush disaster from my memory

I just watched the first episode of an Idiot Abroad on the Science Channel. This show is basically a travel documentary of Karl Pilkington's adventures around the globe. It's very enjoyable, although the title is somewhat misleading as Karl , the supposed 'idiot' of the program, is actually just like you and me, dealing with serious culture clash in the 3rd world.

Ricky Gervais says this of the show:

This is a (more real) documentary than most others you'll ever see on television. We don't plan it, he doesn't know what's going to happen.

This is produced by (and stars)Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. If the first episode is any indication, it is worthy of your time.

Discovery Channel Disaster: Gold Rush Alaska

I just watched a couple of episodes of Discovery Channel's Gold Rush Alaska, and I can only assume the whole show is a hoax. The reasons why this show sucks are long (for one, it appears to be completely scripted and the cast doesn't seem to be actually looking for gold ) but a check of the Discovery Channel's forum shows that the consensus is that this show seriously sucks and is not the quality you would expect from TDC. In short, it's embarrassing.

Discovery is touting this as the highest rated TV show on Friday night. If that's true, I think it's because the audience is enjoying the view of The Discovery Channel going down in flames.

Peon Puplit's Favorite Websites of 2010

Sites that Firefox says I visited a lot during 2010 (in no particular order):

• TitanTV
• Instawatcher
• LiveLeak
• Drudge Report
• HandyManHowTo
• Google Realtime
• Google News
  

Government Now Says Fluoride 'Maybe Not So Good For You'

It's only a start, but the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is now saying that the current minimum recommended fluoride levels for drinking water should now be the maximum allowed. Wow. That's quite a turn around.

HHS say it's due to the increase in fluorosis, but the Peon Pulpit suspects it's because it's always been a carcinogen and the people who've been feeding it to you for years are trying to quietly back away from it ("...nothing to see here people, nothing to see").

Those anti-fluoride nuts are looking less crazy aren't they?