What happens when criminals who work with and for the government can eavesdrop on any conversation?
[From article]
The defeat of the U.S.A. Freedom Act means that the National Security Agency can continue to collect meta-data on cell phone users, which can be used to pinpoint location. Depending on where you talking to your device, whether in public or in private, a judge may rule you don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy. But if you’re worried about your device becoming a listening ear for the government, so, too, could the very air around you.
[. . .]
Scientists have actually created a microphone that is just one molecule of dibenzoterrylene (which changes color depending on pitch.) Devices that pickup noise or vibrations can be as small as a grain of rice.
Continued advancement in the field of device miniaturization could one day allow for the dispersal of extremely small but capable listening machines, one of the uses a future technology sometimes called “Smart Dust.”
[. . .]
The nascent opportunity to turn the physical world into a landscape for surveillance is a theme that’s showing up with growing frequency in scholarly defense literature, such as this September 2014 paper out of National Defense University’s Center for Technology and National Security Policy, which heralds the future opportunities that the Internet of Things provides for the “monitoring of individuals and populations using sensors.”
[. . .]
Today, companies and law enforcement agencies routinely collect so-called voiceprints on customers and suspects. In 2012, the FBI announced a technology called VoiceGrid to store voice data. Today, the Federal Police in Mexico have a database of more than a million voice records taken during criminal proceedings and arrests. But the number of voice prints potentially available to law enforcement or the intelligence community surpasses 65 million by some recent estimates.
http://www.defenseone.com/
What Happens When Spies Can Eavesdrop on Any Conversation?
Patrick Tucker
December 1, 2014
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