I was inspired to write this article , which explained how, by focusing on facial recognition systems, we miss the whole idea of mass data collection: you can identify a person using absolutely any data. Even people themselves use different methods to do this: for example, the brain of a nearsighted person relies on gait to identify people over long distances, rather than trying to recognize a face.
The idea here is that society is unconsciously rejecting new technologies rather than trying to understand the real reason.
But I would like to add that there are technologies that can be used to take surveillance to a fundamentally new level, significantly approaching Orwellian reality. And these technologies are much closer to mass successful implementation, as it seems to us
And these are technologies that allow us to receive information that ordinary people are not used to receiving in a digital form. And this is information about smells. But in the real world, smell carries a huge amount of information from which people can get additional information about you personally. For example, even from a couple of minutes by the fire, your clothes will smell of its smoke, which will remain in it for a period of time that can be distinguished by the naked nose from a week. There are entire perfume industries working on the synthesis of scents.
Did you know that there is no “old man smell”? In fact, its tissues and body composition are still almost odorless. His skin simply absorbed particles of substances from the air from all the places where he had been in life.
“Digitization” of odors has long been considered a difficult task, which in fact has been reduced to chromatography. That is, methods of analyzing the chemical composition of a substance, directly analyzing what molecules it consists of.
For another twenty years, chromatographs were laboratory cabinets where minutes or tens of minutes of work were required to analyze a substance.
But today the task of determining the molecular composition of a gas and comparing it with the “fingerprints” of known substances can be solved in the format of a portable device. And many of you have seen him on the subway for a long time: this . In no more than five seconds, this “vacuum cleaner” can determine whether you have had contact with explosives, drugs, dangerous poisons or toxic substances.
The thing is that the smell has unique features:
- it easily penetrates most materials, including body tissue
- There are a huge number of different scent essences...
- ... which can be combined in different ways
- ...also has an "analogue" nature, where the intensity is regulated by the amount
- ... but, like all human senses, it has a logarithmic dependence of intensity on the “perceived” level
But in the real world, intensity is the amount of matter. Physically, the total number of molecules. And, like all things from the analogue world, we are digitizing them more and more easily and accurately. Very soon we will be able to make the simplest devices that determine whether you were at the fire yesterday. And tomorrow is already a week in the past. And the day after tomorrow - for a whole year, and it will be possible to understand the type of tree that burned. This entire pattern of smells could soon be digitized and turned into a fingerprint that uniquely identifies you, which can be read from a distance. And with all the available history at the reading point.
It is very difficult for us to imagine how deep the world of smells is, but for centuries we have used the superior sense of smell of dogs to find well-hidden dangerous things. For example, a dog working at customs will be able to distinguish the smell of TNT packed in several vacuum bags and a suitcase sprinkled with perfume.
At a distance of several meters.
Dog.
It’s just that its ADC has a wider dynamic range and bit depth. But the environment is the same. And that means it’s a matter of technology.
Perhaps we should start thinking about how we might be threatened by the ability to universally identify people by smell.
Please refrain from using the “I have nothing to hide” argument in the discussion. This does not bring her any additional constructiveness. This issue has been discussed extensively previously and society has already reached a consensus. Use search, there is power in it"
Source: habr.com