Tag Archives: terrorism

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Hair you go: tracking by hair

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hair_with_pensResearchers at the LGC Chemical Metrology Laboratory and the University of Oviedo in Spain have developed a technique to track a person’s movements between different countries using a sample of their hair:

The two most abundant sulphur isotopes in hair keratin are sulphur-32 (32S), which accounts for about 95 per cent, and sulfur-34 (34S), which makes up around 4 per cent. These proportions, however, vary according to people’s diets, and, unless they take their food with them, will therefore change when people travel.

Although this is described in terms of counter-terrorism, there is no reason why it couldn’t be used for anyone and everyone.

Police organizations, including the Metropolitan Police in London, have already shown interest in the technology.

So here is yet another way by which we can be tracked and our movements monitored.

[from Wired UK][image from Evil Erin on flickr]

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In the year 2025… will US military dominance survive?

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The US National Intelligence Council has published their quadrennial Global Trends Review, from The Guardian:

While emerging economies like China, India and Brazil are likely to grow in influence at America’s expense, the same cannot be said of the European Union. The NIC appears relatively certain the EU will be “losing clout” by 2025. Internal bickering and a “democracy gap” separating Brussels from European voters will leave the EU “a hobbled giant”, unable to translate its economic clout into global influence.

There’s some other interesting stuff in there. The Guardian points out that the tone is different from the last time the NIC report was published in 2004:

It was called Mapping the Global Future, and looked forward as far as 2020 when it projected “continued US dominance, positing that most major powers have forsaken the idea of balancing the US”.

That confidence is entirely lacking from this far more sober assessment. Also gone is the belief that oil and gas supplies “in the ground” were “sufficient to meet global demand”.

It’s interesting how quickly perspectives can change – and reaffirms how difficult it is to create near future science fiction.

[from The Guardian][image from Army.mil on flickr]

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Twitter – the newest addition to the terrorism toolbox?

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Yes, folks, you read that correctly – Twitter is becoming the latest channel for the multipronged assault on Freedom as promulgated by nebulously defined ideologues everywhere! At least that’s what the US Army intelligence types reckon, ranking Twitter and other microblogging services alongside GPS maps and voice modulation software as the latest potential tools of terror.

I think the person who submitted the story to SlashDot summed it up best: “Just wait until the Army finds out about chat rooms and email!“

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Interesting juxtaposition of EMP technologies

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It seems that various organisations are preparing for the war of the future with the news that the US military is working on an EMP bomb and a means of shielding electrical power grids from EMP bombs is under development, from The Register:

The electromagnetic pulse (EMP, aka High Power Microwave or HPM) weapon has long been theorised upon, ever since it was found that a nuclear explosion would produce such effects at the tail end of World War II.

People have speculated ever since that one might use EMP strikes – produced either by high-airbursting nukes, or perhaps by conventional explosives-pumped systems of some kind – for offensive purposes.

…

the US general in charge of the Air Armament Center has suggested that an HPM weapon “packaged in inventory munitions mold line” – ie, it is a bomb – is already at the stage of “industry technology assessment” and a technology demonstrator could be built next year.

And:

“A rogue state or terrorist organization could easily acquire nuclear material for a smaller weapon for $20m,” says Charles Manto, president of Instant Access Networks corp.

“That weapon could be fitted onto a Scud missile for as little as $100,000, fired and detonated 80 miles into the air and affect the entire US east coast,” he adds.

Manto has just scored some state funding to prep the Maryland power grid for the inevitable terrorist Scud nuke pulse strike. He reckons to do this using “patent-pending shielding technology that encloses a room or similar structure and protects it from EMP events

Very sensible, I suppose: if you’re going to make a weapon then at least prepare yourself to be attacked by it.

If you should seek war, prepare for war.

[image from ladybugbkt on flickr]

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An epidemic of fear – or, why terrorism and witchcraft are surprisingly similar

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panic buttonLiving in a constant state of fear is not good for your health on an individual level. But scale up to the level of entire towns, states or countries, and the problem can be exacerbated by the psychology of mob behaviour. [image by krystenn]

According to documents from the Department of Homeland Security, not only is it possible for fear of terrorism to create a contagious psychosomatic epidemic, but it’s also already happened a couple of times – in the US and elsewhere.

Now, that may not be surprising in and of itself. But take a look at some of the comment reactions on this BoingBoing post about a riot in the Congo that was triggered by accusations of witchcraft; quite a few people find it ridiculous that anyone could be scared of witchcraft at all, let alone riot because of it.

And in our world, that’s probably true… but what we fear is a function of the culture we live in. The people of the Congo can blame their witchdoctors and priests for their irrational fears; I suspect our Western paranoia comes from an entirely different sort of story-teller.