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Warm and Fuzzy - DARPA Website - Peter Lemkin - 30-05-2009

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the central research and development office for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). DARPA’s mission is to maintain the technological superiority of the U.S. military and prevent technological surprise from harming our national security. We also create technological surprise for our adversaries.

2007 DARPA URBAN CHALLENGE [nice photo of DARPA-sponsored marathon]

Research is focused in a number of scientific disciplines including biology, medicine, computer science, chemistry, physics, engineering, mathematics, materials sciences, social sciences, and neuroscience. Our contracted researchers build information systems, aircraft, robots, spacecraft, microcircuits, lasers, sensors, rifles, advanced networks, medical devices, and much, much more.

DARPA research runs the gamut from conducting basic, fundamental scientific investigations in a laboratory setting to building full-scale prototypes of military systems. When a DARPA research program is completed, the technology is available to the military services and defense contractors for use in military systems.
DARPA Turns 50: A History of Innovation and Results

DARPA was established as a DoD agency in 1958 as America’s response to the Soviet Union’s launching of Sputnik. In the years since, DARPA’s freedom to act quickly and decisively with high quality people has paid handsome dividends for DoD in terms of revolutionary military capabilities.

Today, America faces completely different threats and adversaries than it did when DARPA was established in 1958, and the Agency continually evolves to reflect this changing national security landscape. DARPA’s proud history of achievement and its culture of excellence are testimony to the vital role the Agency has played in the nation’s security and technological superiority.

Find out more about DARPA's History of Innovation.

...the not so 'warm' side of DARPA:
DARPA Contract Description Hints at Advanced Video Spying
Submitted by MacRonin on October 20, 2008 - 10:35pm. Academia Companies DoD - Department of Defense Government Hardware Hmmm Privacy Remember Surveillance Technology


DARPA Contract Description Hints at Advanced Video Spying - Via washingtonpost.com :

Real-time streaming video of Iraqi and Afghan battle areas taken from thousands of feet in the air can follow actions of people on the ground as they dig, shake hands, exchange objects and kiss each other goodbye.

The video is sent from unmanned and manned aircraft to intelligence analysts at ground stations in the United States and abroad. They watch video in real time of people getting in and out of cars, loading trunks, dropping things or picking them up. They can even see vehicles accelerate, slow down, move together or make U-turns.

"The dynamics of an urban insurgency have resulted in a rapid increase in the number of activities visible in the video field of view," according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Although the exploits of the Predator, the Global Hawk and other airborne collectors of information have been widely publicized, there are few authoritative descriptions of what they can see on the ground.

But some insights into the capabilities of the Predator and other aircraft can be drawn from a DARPA paper that describes the tasks of a contractor that will develop a method of indexing and rapidly finding video from archived aerial surveillance tapes collected over past years.

"The U.S. military and intelligence communities have an ever increasing need to monitor live video feeds and search large volumes of archived video data for activities of interest due to the rapid growth in development and fielding of motion video systems," according to the DARPA paper, which was written in March but released last month.

Last month, Kitware, a small software company with offices in New York and North Carolina, teamed up with 19 other companies and universities and won the $6.7 million first phase of the DARPA contract, which is not expected to be completed before 2011.

During the Cold War, satellites and aircraft took still pictures that intelligence analysts reviewed one frame at a time to identify the locations of missile silos, airplane hangars, submarine pens and factories, said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, an expert in space and intelligence matters.

"Now with new full-motion video intelligence techniques, we are looking at people and their behavior in public," he said.

The resolution capability of the video systems ranges from four inches to a foot, depending on the collector and environmental conditions at the time, according to the DARPA paper. The video itself is also shaped by the angle to the ground from which it is shot, although there are 3-D capabilities that allow viewers on the ground to manipulate videos of objects so they can see them from different vantage points.

Systems also exist that allow tracking, moving-target detection of objects under forest or other cover and determination of exact geographic location. Development is underway of systems that allow recognition of faces and gait -- in other words, human identification.

Currently, because there are so many activities or objects to be watched for hints of suspicious behavior, "more analysts . . . watch the same, real-time video stream simultaneously," according to DARPA. "If any of the given activities or objects are spotted, the analyst issues an alert to the proper authorities."

Future collection systems are expected to provide even more imagery, cover areas greater than 16 square miles and make it more difficult "for a limited number of analysts to effectively monitor and scrutinize all potential activities within the streaming field of view," DARPA wrote.

(Original Article - Via washingtonpost.com)

A Spy Machine of DARPA's Dreams
Noah Shachtman 05.20.03

It's a memory aid! A robotic assistant! An epidemic detector! An all-seeing, ultra-intrusive spying program!

The Pentagon is about to embark on a stunningly ambitious research project designed to gather every conceivable bit of information about a person's life, index all the information and make it searchable.

What national security experts and civil libertarians want to know is, why would the Defense Department want to do such a thing?

The embryonic LifeLog program would dump everything an individual does into a giant database: every e-mail sent or received, every picture taken, every Web page surfed, every phone call made, every TV show watched, every magazine read.

All of this -- and more -- would combine with information gleaned from a variety of sources: a GPS transmitter to keep tabs on where that person went, audio-visual sensors to capture what he or she sees or says, and biomedical monitors to keep track of the individual's health.

This gigantic amalgamation of personal information could then be used to "trace the 'threads' of an individual's life," to see exactly how a relationship or events developed, according to a briefing from the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency, LifeLog's sponsor.

Someone with access to the database could "retrieve a specific thread of past transactions, or recall an experience from a few seconds ago or from many years earlier ... by using a search-engine interface."

On the surface, the project seems like the latest in a long line of DARPA's "blue sky" research efforts, most of which never make it out of the lab. But DARPA is currently asking businesses and universities for research proposals to begin moving LifeLog forward. And some people, such as Steven Aftergood, a defense analyst with the Federation of American Scientists, are worried.

With its controversial Total Information Awareness database project, DARPA already is planning to track all of an individual's "transactional data" -- like what we buy and who gets our e-mail.

While the parameters of the project have not yet been determined, Aftergood said he believes LifeLog could go far beyond TIA's scope, adding physical information (like how we feel) and media data (like what we read) to this transactional data.

"LifeLog has the potential to become something like 'TIA cubed,'" he said.

In the private sector, a number of LifeLog-like efforts already are underway to digitally archive one's life -- to create a "surrogate memory," as minicomputer pioneer Gordon Bell calls it.

Bell, now with Microsoft, scans all his letters and memos, records his conversations, saves all the Web pages he's visited and e-mails he's received and puts them into an electronic storehouse dubbed MyLifeBits.

DARPA's LifeLog would take this concept several steps further by tracking where people go and what they see.

That makes the project similar to the work of University of Toronto professor Steve Mann. Since his teen years in the 1970s, Mann, a self-styled "cyborg," has worn a camera and an array of sensors to record his existence. He claims he's convinced 20 to 30 of his current and former students to do the same. It's all part of an experiment into "existential technology" and "the metaphysics of free will."
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2003/05/58909
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Is FACEBOOK run by D.A.R.P.A’s Information Awareness Office?


By: D. H. Williams @ 10:15 PM - EST


Is FACEBOOK a Department of Defense data mining scheme run by the CIA and D.A.R.P.A.? Should you be trusting all your personal data to FACEBOOK’s management?

FACEBOOK was initially conceived by Mark Zuckerberg but the venture was first funded with $500,000.00 in capital from PayPal founder Peter Thiel. With millions more to come from sources with close ties to D.A.R.P.A, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense.

The CIA connection:

Another $12.7 million came from James Breyer he is closely associated with a venture capital company called InQtel established by the CIA in 1999 and he served on the board of BBN. InQtel deals in information technology and intelligence most notably “nurturing data mining technologies”.

The D.A.R.P.A. connection:



Dr. Anita Jones former Director of Defense Research and Engineering for the U.S. Department of Defense. While with D.A.R.P.A. her responsibilities included serving as an adviser to the Secretary of Defense. Dr. Jones was also served on the board of directors for InQtel and is now employed by BBN.

D.A.R.P.A. runs the Information Awareness Office whose task it is to collect data on as many people as possible. Their website is full of references to the war on terror, terrorism and terrorist. The IAO claims its programs are for identifying and responding to threats of terrorism.

D.A.R.P.A. program Human ID at a Distance (HumanID)

I.A.O.’s Mission Statement:

Information Awareness Office is to gather as much information as possible about everyone in a centralized location for easy perusal by the United States government.

Including but not limited to: internet activity, credit card purchase history, airline ticket purchases, car rentals, medical records, educational transcripts, drivers license, utility bills, tax returns and any other available data.

Video: FACEBOOK is a massive intel operation
http://waronyou.com/topics/is-facebook-run-by-darpa’s-information-awareness-office/

Have a nice day:afraid:


Warm and Fuzzy - DARPA Website - Dawn Meredith - 30-05-2009

So they use us, but can't we use them as well? But to do so a lot more people must become politically aware so it's not just preaching to the choir. I can't tell as yet if FB is actually politicalizing and casuing more awareness, but I know that is many people's intent.


Warm and Fuzzy - DARPA Website - Peter Lemkin - 30-05-2009

Interesting point - turning their own Frankenstein against them......maybe, but would take a whole lot more conciousness and action than now apparent....but let us hope...while there still is hope to hope. The hour is, IMO, quite late. Until such time as we turn it 'all around', it is they amassing information on us to use, as they please against us. Time to use what we know of them, against them Beast,and for us...before it is too late. [There does come a time....and unless the Martian Posse is gonna come save us....we have only ourselves....:alberteinstein:
:burnout::burnout:


Warm and Fuzzy - DARPA Website - Ed Jewett - 31-05-2009

#1)

Darpa's Simple Plan to Track Targets Everywhere By Nathan Hodge http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/darpas-simple-plan-to-track-targets-everywhere/ 21 May 2009 Most confusing briefing ever? Not just. It’s also a sketch of Pentagon far-out research arm Darpa’s plan to track down and tag "elusive targets" --adversaries who can move, hide and blend in with cluttered environments. And that means more than just next-generation sensors that can penetrate foliage or peer inside "urban canyons." It means stitching together information collected by different sensors to track a moving object. 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. Via Citizens for Legitimate Government, http://www.legitgov.org/ .


#2) Recommended:


Welcome to the Machine

Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control

by Derrick Jensen, George Draffan


You could call them the Monkeywrench Gang of the nanotech age. Derrick Jensen and George Draffan are taking down the data mining industry, one converted mind at a time. In the face of RFID chips, consumer tracking strategies, and illegal government wiretapping, Jensen and Draffan are determined to show consumers how to fight back against government and industry to regain their rights, their privacy, and their humanity. In their new book, Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control, Jensen and Draffan take a hart-hitting look at the way technology is used as a machine, to control us and our environment. Their results are startling.

If the prospect of perpetual surveillance and psychological warfare alarms you, you are not alone. Most people would be disturbed if you told them that everything from their store purchases to their public transit rides are recorded and filed for government or corporate access. But more often than not, the smooth, silent cleanliness of its operation allows the Machine of Western Civilization to go unnoticed. In Welcome to the Machine, Jensen and Draffan draw our attention back to its eerie, persistent white noise and take a cold, hard, human look at the cultural conditions that have led us to all but surrender to its hum.

Jensen and Draffan, who teamed up in 2003 to expose industrial corruption and destruction in Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests, are back to reveal both the terrifying extent of surveillance today and our chilling complacency at the loss of everything from consumer privacy to civil liberties. In this timely and important new collaboration, Jensen and Draffan take on all aspects of Control Culture: everything from the government's policy of total information awareness to a disturbing new technology where soldiers can be given medication to prevent them from feeling fear. They write about pharmaceutical packaging that reports consumer information, which is then used to send targeted drug advertisements directly to your TV.

http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/welcome_to_the_machine/