Comments on: Riding the subway in DC, rolling the dice in Vegas, touring NYC? TrapWire is watching you

By: Jovan Vujnovic

Jovan Vujnovic — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 19:48:20 +0000

Reading the stuff like this, sometimes I am glad I’m not living in USA, My country is too poor and too obsesed with stealing from the people, to use software like this,

By: Jeremy Johnson

Jeremy Johnson — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 22:28:21 +0000

Fair enough. Something still seems off about all of this (not your article), though

By: Francis Bea

Francis Bea — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:45:23 +0000

At the moment, from what the evidence suggests from the emails, you could say that I'm momentarily content with the technology since it has thwarted potential attacks. Also to address your point about the secrecy of the system's existence, it hasn't been a secret (which I maybe should have mentioned in the article). Much of its recent popularity has been due to the Wikileaks emails, which has suddenly shot it to the forefront of the public's attention. To offer an example of this point, TrapWire has been discussed in public settings before (even back in 2005): http://www.nvtc.org/tec/RichardHelms.php

By: Francis Bea

Francis Bea — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:39:15 +0000

I wrote this with the understanding that readers would be argue otherwise. The article was written with the intent to note that at the moment, what has been argued by the media is quite speculative and thus far from personally pouring through the emails myself, there has been no evidence "so far" to suggest that the technology has been used for non-intended purposes outside of criminal/terrorist activities. In fact according to the hacked emails the technology has aided in detecting and deterring potential terrorist activities. Of course there's the possibility that it could be used for nefarious activities in the future, but while this technology exists, it alone isn't what I'd be most worried about, especially in its early iteration. The technology is too expensive to be installed just about anywhere, which was the reason a Vegas casino had ended up not integrating TrapWire. I would currently be more concerned with the National Defense Authorization Act, which grants the military the power to detain any United States citizen without a warrant or trial, which is in fact what would give United States citizens the power to "round up" citizens. The technology alone could not do what you've mentioned above. It's a monitoring algorithm that detects patterns in existing CCTVs. Note that you yourself can even access live CCTV streams through a simple Google Search.

By: Jeremy Johnson

Jeremy Johnson — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:22:00 +0000

This article, seems to be a little too trusting, especially considering they kept this whole system a secret…

By: TaylorM

TaylorM — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 23:06:25 +0000

“Most people shouldn’t have much to worry about, unless you engage in criminal activities.” Has this ever been true in the history of mankind? Do you seriously mean to say that governments always do the right thing? Tell the victims of the Nazis, the communists, or other governments that turned tyrannical that they had nothing to worry about because they weren’t doing anything wrong. Even in America we’ve seen glimpses of tyranny, such as the way Japanese citizens were rounded up during WWII and put into concentration camps. So don’t think for a second that “it can’t happen here.” Use your brain and learn from history, for God’s sake!