Smart dust: Tiny sensors that contain a processor and a wireless transmitter in packages as small as 10 cubic millimetres. These could be used to make energy-saving lights that turn themselves off if no one is at home (but on again, if another sensor detects a possible intruder). A key beneficiary in building ubiquitous wireless networks will be software radios... It enables tremendous economies of scale which will make radio links cheap enough to put in pretty much anything.
Specknets: Each speck has a sensor, its own processor and memory capability. This gives the specks a kind of 'computational aura', which can pick up information from the environment. Collaborating with other local specks, the data gathered is acted upon. Depending on the application, the specks can be programmed to read a variety of information. Working together the specks are powerful enough to create new forms of pervasive computing.... Other important issues around speck-based computing are the ethical and social implications of pervasive technology.
Intel's Cambridge laboratory focuses primarily on developing networking, systems and software technologies to enable new types of distributed systems. The research ties into Intel's R&D work into "smart dust" or motes - small bits of silicon built using nanotechnology that act as sensors and can be embedded in furniture and buildings, for example, and networked.
Self-organizing wireless-sensor networks, a realization of the Pentagon's "smart-dust" concept, have reached the prototype stage worldwide. The smart sensors, or Motes, were created by the University of California at Berkeley and Intel, and are being tested out worldwide today.
Sometimes it's depressing being right.
Our world must already be flooded with specknetted smart dust. There is no privacy, certainly not in the audio range, and who knows if these things have other sensor capabilities?
Notes:
Bruce Schneier, the security and encryption guru, author of Applied Cryptography, who runs the Crypto-Gram newsletter, also engages in patent searches in his spare time (another link here), to attempt to uncover some of these areas.
Links from The Guardian, EDN, and Stanford University.
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Article comments
1 - John Doe
There already exists potential countermeasures against spy dust, and in fact, they are quite simple, involving particle destruction.
Granted, not every ambient can be secured. The technology could change too, but not in the near term.
The main problem I see with spy dust is contaminating permanently individuals, if they are made very small. Humans could potentially aspirate the product. You then get a lung irritant. In another scenario, you get a granulomatous reaction (the body isolates the offending particle) and the individual is "tracked" forever, forever porting a sensor, at least as long as the sensor works. However, if the ammount of particles that can be spread is small, maybe these won't be such big problems. However, realistically, with the current technology...if you spread too much, you get two undesirable effects: human and environmental contamination; and too much data.
It really is no substitute for real links to real sources.
Nevertheless, this is not as smart as it seems, since a medical biopsy would identify the contaminated individual. Potentially contaminating whole populations with sensors that remain in the lung would stir an international uproar. The people responsible could face an international oppositioon. It could work in some scenarios, e.g., tracking somebody in Afghanistan. Again, only insofar as the forces have a way to deliver these particles to the target area, and this is not so trivial. The current researched dubbed "meteorological" in what regards theses sensors is really about delivering particles, I would say. The population has to be desorganized to a point that nobody imagines such an attack. Anyhow, medical monitoring would probably reveal something.
However, once you contaminate populations or the environment, you get a lifelong enemies. Because there remains the human health and U.N. Charter implications. Spy dust equals political problems.
If this is the way U.S. plans on conducting spy operations, they better think again. High-tech spying has not yielded much in terms of Al-Qaeda, has it?
2 - Unyuu
let the terrorists BITE THE DUST!
3 - EEE Dude
I actually work in this technology coming up with new ideas for its application. We are looking to find ways to monitor environments more efficiently to reduce power consumption and increase equipment lifespan using embeddded intelligence.
The are obviously ethical issues to be explored with pervasive computing, but as you can probably imagine reducing power consumption can only be a good thing in the times that we live in.
Wouldnt it be great if your house learnt about its thermal characteristics throughout the seasons and could regulate itself to reduce your heating bills? I guess it wouldnt be for you if you thought your house was going to report you for 'thoughtcrimes' to the government, but if saving money and the environment doesnt sound too bad then maybe this isnt such a bad technology afterall?
I cant really comment on the military uses of this technology, although the fact that the military uses cars doesnt make me want to hate all drivers, or the fact that someone got run down by a car doesnt make me think that drivers are crazed idiots that want to knock me down as I walk down the street. I use cars as an analogy here as they have become a pervasive technology like 'Smart Dust' is likely to become.
Smart Dust, SpeckNets, whatever you want to call it are here to stay, and I see great benefits to the technology. The military is only going to do what the politicians allow it to do, so maybe rather criticising the technology we need to criticise the politicians for allowing the technology to be used for these applications while the rest of society suffers as a result.
4 - Dim
You can criticise politicians all you want, but there are other countries on this planet that are not run on democracies. Plus, if this smart dust could be spread on an area, then it can be easily collected by someone and just put in a jar and shipped off to be reversed engineered.
I don't think is a good idea to build something that the maker won't have too much control on where the product is going to end up (gust of wind, stuck on bird, inhaled). It's bad enough that many components of circuits are to say the least not good for your health. Imangine letting off a cloud of this stuff to just float around and get sucked up into your lungs.
Also on a cost point about your house example. Wouldn't it be cheaper to just stick 50 cheap thermal sensors around the house than to go the the lenghts of manufacturing tiny dust sized sensors and a network to make it all work?
5 - Brandon
1) We breathe in millions of particles every day, and our body is made to protect us from such things. If we breathe in dust, and our body rejects it, and these computers are the size of dust, i would venture to say that our bodies would reject them as well.
2) In order to transmit so much information you would transmitters in each of these dust particles. So we have an IC chip that's small, but I would like to know how they would get this "spy info" from a dust particle to (i'm assuming) a sattelite.
6 - Andrew
You should now read "Prey" by Michael Crichton
7 - kabbala
Have you ever heard of Dust sized or "Hair Sized" RFID???? It already exists. The government already implimented it, and uses it widely. AND If your from the states like me they have already put a law on the book called "The Real ID Act". This law states in full term that ALL Citizens of the United States will be required to carry a "National Idenification Card" this card WILL be equipt with a MicoRF and the public WILL be tracked if they present a risk or potential threat to the Government. ITS LAW!!! And they have already started using them. At both borders, Canada, and Mexican, they now issue Real ID's to any non-citizens, and require the person to carry it on there body at all times or risk deportation.
you can read some here
8 - nugget
There is no specification in the Real ID Act that the cards will have an RFID.
9 - Chromatius
Brandon #2 They are locally networked and pervasive, so I'd assume the data just proliferates across the nets in some kind of directed fashion.
10 - Chromatius
#3 "The military is only going to do what the politicians allow it to do, so maybe rather criticising the technology we need to criticise the politicians for allowing the technology to be used for these applications while the rest of society suffers as a result."
Very true. But I was also speculating about how and to what extent it may have already been used, prior to entering the public domain, when clearly this debate couldn't take place...
11 - EEE Dude
#4 - On your first point, I agree. Someone could quite easily reverse engineer the technology, but they can do this with any technology if they can get their hands on it.
The second point; I think there is a misconception that Smart Dust is going to be blanketed across the face of the earth and it is going to invade our bodies and our homes. Industrial deployments of the technology will mostly be used to retrofit existing equipment and environments to provide them with intelligent monitoring systems. Nobody is going to be commercially interested in this technology if its just going to blow away!
Your third point; Yes! 50 cheap specks/motes with thermal sensors which when deployed create a self organising wireless network to monitor your home. You hit the nail right on the head!
#5,#10; typically the range will be between 10cm and up to 300m depending on the particular flavour of the technology. To get data out of the network you need a bigger bridging node that has longer range/higher power capacity.
12 - Eric Olsen
fascinating thoughts C, you rock - thanks!
13 - Chromatius
NP, all compliments gratefully accepted...
14 - Kabbal
Your correct it doesnt require one, but it does require the use of "Anti-Fraud" or other security systems, and that leads to Micro or "Thread RFID" or some other sort of setup. They have also suggested a micro processor of sorts. The point is the technology is already here, and being used widely. The Real ID act is under fire because they are considering using RFID.
As for exposure to these particals, they arn't nanoparticals. That wouldnt benifit anybody. They are more like a thin thread. Small enough to not be found easy, but to big for the human body to absorb. There is TONS of technology the people of this world have no idea about, or dont believe exist. I would be more worried about those before i would be concerned with exposure to dust sized anything. :P