Charlie's Diary

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Tue, 06 Apr 2004 More Tales From The War On Convenience The Madrid train bombs were, it seems, command-detonated using mobile phones. This is a bad thing. It implies that mobile phones are dangerous. Accordingly, the Liberal Democrats' London Mayoral candidate Simon Hughes called for the scrapping of plans to install cellphone base stations on the London Underground. (Background: about half of the Underground's 410 kilometres of track -- it's more than twice as extensive as the Tokyo, New York, or Moscow subways -- runs very deep, so deep that cellphone signals can't penetrate. Transport for London has been talking about installing cellphone base stations in the deep tunnels to make things more convenient for passengers.) Two thoughs occur to me. Firstly: only incoming mobile phone calls are a hazard. Only incoming calls are going to set off command-detonated rucksack bombs. It's considerably harder to design a rucksack bomb with a brain that phones home regularly and asks "should I detonate now?" than it is to wire up a phone's vibrate alarm circuit to a firing cap. So outgoing calls are still relatively safe, and it's a bad idea to block them -- they might be somebody calling for an ambulance or the police (or, trivially, phoning home to say they'll be late). Therefore, rather than simply blocking all calls, it makes sense to allow outgoing calls but divert incoming calls and text messages to voice mail. Secondly: what are the implications for public WiFi hotspots? For bluetooth? For ad hoc mesh networking? For the future of UWB mobile-IP nodes everywhere? For RFID tags? Radio used to be a convenience. Now it's becoming a necessity because the old, inconvenient paper systems it was introduced to supplement are being retired. Stuff doesn't work without it: drivers charge up their car parking credits by cellphone, information kiosks around stations use broadband (and, soon, WiFi) to hook into timetable databases, and so on. Here's a scary thought experiment. Many GPS receivers have serial or USB interfaces that allow them to talk to computers -- some PDAs now appearing on the market have GPS built in, and they're aimed at the in-car navigation market. It should be relatively easy to ride a bus around a capital city and identify the GPS coordinates of, for example, the American embassy or important government offices. Then, with the aid of a PDA, some software, and a digital to analog converter, it is possible to build a GPS-detonated suitcase bomb -- a bomb which will go off when it comes within a pre-set blast radius of the target, rather than at a pre-set time. There's no reason for the terrorist who planted it to hang around in the same country once it's on the bus. Or to actively send it a detonation command. It's entirely passive, highly accurate, cheap to build -- plant a dozen of these on busses and you have all the makings of another Madrid atrocity. Should we therefore block GPS signals in cities? We need a public debate on this, and we need it now, because the future is wireless, and as we're discovering wireless technologies massively lower the barrier to causing havoc. [ Discuss terrorism] posted at: 14:33 | path: /politics | permanent link to this entry

specials: Is SF About to Go Blind? -- Popular Science article by Greg Mone Unwirer -- an experiment in weblog mediated collaborative fiction Inside the MIT Media Lab -- what it's like to spend a a day wandering around the Media Lab "Nothing like this will be built again" -- inside a nuclear reactor complex Quick links: RSS Feed (Moved!) Who am I? Contact me Buy my books: (FAQ) Missile Gap Via Subterranean Press (US HC -- due Jan, 2007) The Jennifer Morgue Via Golden Gryphon (US HC -- due Nov, 2006) Glasshouse Via Amazon.com (US HC -- due June 30, 2006) The Clan Corporate Via Amazon.com (US HC -- out now) Accelerando Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB -- due June 27, 2006) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) Free download The Hidden Family Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) The Family Trade Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Iron Sunrise Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) The Atrocity Archives Via Amazon.com (Trade PB) Via Amazon.co.uk (Trade PB) Via Golden Gryphon (HC) Via Amazon.com (HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (HC) Singularity Sky Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Via Amazon.com (US ebook) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) Toast Via Amazon.com Via Amazon.co.uk Some webby stuff I'm reading: [ Engadget ] [ Gizmodo ] [ The Memory Hole ] [ Boing!Boing! ] [ Futurismic ] [ Walter Jon Williams ] [ Making Light (TNH) ] [ Crooked Timber ] [ Junius (Chris Bertram) ] [ Baghdad Burning (Riverbend) ] [ Bruce Sterling ] [ Ian McDonald ] [ Amygdala (Gary Farber) ] [ Cyborg Democracy ] [ Body and Soul (Jeanne d'Arc)  ] [ Atrios ] [ The Sideshow (Avedon Carol) ] [ This Modern World (Tom Tomorrow) ] [ Jesus's General ] [ Mick Farren ] [ Early days of a Better Nation (Ken MacLeod) ] [ Respectful of Otters (Rivka) ] [ Tangent Online ] [ Grouse Today ] [ Hacktivismo ] [ Terra Nova ] [ Whatever (John Scalzi) ] [ GNXP ] [ Justine Larbalestier ] [ Yankee Fog ] [ The Law west of Ealing Broadway ] [ Cough the Lot ] [ The Yorkshire Ranter ] [ Newshog ] [ Kung Fu Monkey ] [ S1ngularity ] [ Pagan Prattle ] [ Gwyneth Jones ] [ Calpundit ] [ Lenin's Tomb ] [ Progressive Gold ] [ Kathryn Cramer ] [ Halfway down the Danube ] [ Fistful of Euros ] [ Orcinus ] [ Shrillblog ] [ Steve Gilliard ] [ Frankenstein Journal (Chris Lawson) ] [ The Panda's Thumb ] [ Martin Wisse ] [ Kuro5hin ] [ Advogato ] [ Talking Points Memo ] [ The Register ] [ Cryptome ] [ Juan Cole: Informed comment ] [ Global Guerillas (John Robb) ] [ Shadow of the Hegemon (Demosthenes) ] [ Simon Bisson's Journal ] [ Max Sawicky's weblog ] [ Guy Kewney's mobile campaign ] [ Hitherby Dragons ] [ Counterspin Central ] [ MetaFilter ] [ NTKnow ] [ Encyclopaedia Astronautica ] [ Fafblog ] [ BBC News (Scotland) ] [ Pravda ] [ Meerkat open wire service ] [ Warren Ellis ] [ Brad DeLong ] [ Hullabaloo (Digby) ] [ Jeff Vail ] [ The Whiskey Bar (Billmon) ] [ Groupthink Central (Yuval Rubinstein) ] [ Unmedia (Aziz Poonawalla) ] [ Rebecca's Pocket (Rebecca Blood) ] Older stuff: June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 (I screwed the pooch in respect of the blosxom entry datestamps on March 28th, 2002, so everything before then shows up as being from the same time)

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