Saturday, July 30, 2011

[djwyupgz] Using surveillance cameras for terrorism

One of the challenges for a terrorist, e.g., a suicide bomber, is to not catch the attention of behavioral analysis security by acting abnormally.  But what is "normal" behavior?  It is not exactly obvious, because in a higher security area where a terrorist might want to target, even normal people don't behave like they normally do elsewhere.  You need to act "normally nervous", not "abnormally nervous", and not "abnormally not nervous".

One could discover what is considered normal behavior by scouting the target area beforehand, watching carefully how other normal people behave.  However, hanging around a spot watching people, or repeatedly visiting a spot itself might be detected as abnormal behavior.

But thanks to our surveillance state, there is another way, more surreptitious, to discover normal behavior: all those security cameras, especially around high security areas.  Obtain the footage by hacking.  It sure beats trying to observe directly.

And so we could have security cameras aiding the very crime they were nominally put in place to prevent.

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