Follow on to the previous post.
Imagine this scenario:
Raw cell phone tower data that records a unique cell phone IMSI for the purpose of anonymizing it and selling it to Google for real time input to Google traffic also identifies the IMSI of cell phones in vehicles exceeding 80 mph for a given period of time or whatever the state would otherwise fine for speeding.
On an exception basis the IMSI is retained and becomes the legal basis for automatic fine when the speed is maintained for a period exceeding a specified amount of time.
Result: Automatic speeding citation! No need for a highway patrol to catch speeders. Saves pubic money!
What if the algorithm detects sudden deceleration of the speeding vehicle as well as another vehicle IMSI at the same geolocation? It would seem that the burden of liability would be on the speeding vehicle? Reasonable? If speeding is generally considered dangerous and correlates with accident rates?
Proof of liability in a court case?
Just how factual is the information?
How accurate is the data?
Reason for retention of exception information (IMSI travelling over 90 MPH) for a given period of time for the purpose of investigating traffic accidents?
Here is another angle on info retention: When any two vehicles being tracked by IMSI for traffic monitoring purposes suddenly decelerate to zero the IMSI tracking history is locked for both vehicles to determine prior geolocation for forensic evidence. Was the prior location a site that served alcohol? This is all done in real time. It only takes recording and retaining IMSI for 24 hours before it is dumped.
Exactly to what extent does Google Traffic monitor all traffic on all roads? That is a big load of data!
While IMSI is associated with mobile cell phones now, it will be increasingly associated with other things on the Internet of Things. A cell phone IMSI is not proof of presence of the person owning the cell phone (unless there is a biometric log in by the user at point of sale or fingerprint password). However, when dongles attached to a vehicle computer such as the Progressive Insurance Dongle transmit vehicle information to a receiver it identifies a specific unique vehicle. The only thing needed to establish who is driving is a biometric key to start and operate the vehicle. Perhaps it could be associated to a smart biometric driver's license?
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Google Traffic and IMSI
On a recent trip to the east cost I did most of the driving and my sister did the navigating. I would ask Siri for directions and she would give them for my sister to follow. My sister has her own iPhone and once in New York I asked her to get directions. She got them from Google but what she told me was a surprise.
She said that we could save x number of minutes by another route due to traffic congestion. How do you know that, I asked. She said the directions told her that and showed the length of the delay. I said that the map directions don't have that ability. She said yes they do and show delay on the map in red. I asked what directions she was using. She said Google.
News to me but when I looked I saw it was true.
Not knowing how it was done I drove on thinking that the only way they could do it was to capture an IMSI and then track it so see how it is moving. Obviously there is a difference between 60 and 70 mph and 10 or 20. Easy for cell phone towers to detect. I have covered geolocation in prior posts but this was new to me.
The trip is over and a mental note was made to check on "how do they do that".
Wikipedia explains it at this link.
Yes, it involves geolocation using cell phone data location data obtained from GPS satellite positioning. That location is transmitted to Google by Google map users. Maybe by other Google positioning apps also? Maybe, maybe not but why not?
The Wikipedia link specifically is about Google Traffic. However it contains a section explaining CrowdSourcing location data to provide traffic flow info using cell phone towers for positioning. Why include a Cell Tower crowd sourcing explanation in the explanation of how Google Maps works when Google gets its positioning from satellite GPS. Some smoke here that indicates the presence of fire!!
From the link:
"Google Traffic works by analyzing the GPS-determined locations transmitted to them by a large number of mobile phone users. By calculating the speed of users along a stretch of road, Google is able to generate a live traffic map.[2] Google processes the incoming raw data about mobile phone device locations"
While Google obtains GPS satellite location information via their cell phone app an alternate method to obtain positioning location and deduced speed is cell towers positioning and wifi positioning. Google does this to provide geolocation services as a Business License to app developers for a price.
It did not take much searching on Google to find the explanation, a technical one, of exactly where "Google Maps API" gets its location data from for various geolocation purposes. Explanation at this link for Google Developers. that buy a license from Google to use it in their apps.
I am not a Google Developer but the tech explanation of means and methods is revealing.
This section of Google Maps API geolocation explains what it is and does. The noun and the verb nature of the API.
The Google Maps Geolocation API returns a location and accuracy radius based on information about cell towers and WiFi nodes that the mobile client can detect. This document describes the protocol used to send this data to the server and to return a response to the client.
Communication is done over HTTPS using POST. Both request and response are formatted as JSON, and the content type of both is
All this geolocation info is passively received by the cell phone from fixed transmitting source(s). Information received is used to record/display location and associated info in real time and over time such as speed and direction calculation. Since the "Google Map" is an on line data base, not resident data stored in the cell phone, location data has to be transmitted to a Google Map somewhere in the cloud to return display information. I conclude that therefore there is a constant realtime communication going on between the cell phone and an external Google mapping object and function.
Ya think?
This is speculation but if logically figures because the capability exists as well as reasons to use it.
Google Maps location operates in the mode of the cell phone being the passive recipient of geograhic information transmitted by a source to it. A cell phone also operates in an active mode transmitting identification information to a cell tower (IMSI) as well as associated meta data information that can be computed from the transmission signal.
There is a matrix point at which the passive information received by the cell phone and transmitted to Google for mapping purposes and actively transmitted information sent to a cell tower by the cell phone can be put together to identify the user association by means of the IMSI to the cell phone and its location. Active rather than passive transmission of information about location is not only to cell towers for the purpose of cell phone communication services. Visual information is being broadcast all the time giving a geolocation based on what is visually seen. All that is necessary is a visual receiver such as the LPR camera at a toll booth or any other point, fixed or mobile.
Essentially, a cell tower and a video camera are simply sensor devices detecting a specific category of wave length transmission. Some say the universe is simply just waves. It is called wave theory.
Some App developer could create an App for sale exclusively to law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement could buy services identifying traffic law breakers as well as identifying public safety problems.
If the State Patrol wanted to pay for it they could buy the info, which is real time, and just wait for a consistent speeder traveling at over a given rate of speed like 90 mph over a long distance and then just wait for them to go by. No need to know the IMSI of the speeder's cell phone. They are coming, just wait. A blatant speeder will violate the speed limit all day long on a long trip. Not for just a few miles.
So what is important about this?
My IMSI is identified cell tower service providers. It tells how fast I am going. Maybe it tells that I am on the turnpike and not moving. My own phone is transmitting geolocation information to Google via Google maps.
Public Safety Accident Identification: An algorithm detects that suddenly several other vehicles are not moving on a freeway or turnpike within seconds. Speed went from 60-70 mph or more in a matter of seconds. Gimme a deduction. Not much brain computing power required. No need to call 911. The cell phone tower service provider notifies the highway patrol.
And if the unique IMSI is of interest to the police? It can be tracked in real time identifying the subject of law enforcement interest with the proper legal probable cause controls having been identified.
Gone are the days where the police have to hid behind bill boards an wait for speeders to go by. Now they can know precisely in advance based on rate of excessive speed travel.
Easy to figure out.
What intrigues me is all the other information that can be generated by IMSI cell tower recording and anonymizing the results ( or not) then data mining them.
Who is doing that now and for what purpose?
To whom exactly are the cell phone service providers selling this information and what are the recipients doing with it?
Tolls booths are an east coast thing. Not much in the west where I live. Each toll booth had a camera aimed at the car. Obviously LPR. How easy is it to match an IMSI to a license plate. I would think that it would only require correlation between two toll booths. They seem to be every several miles around Chicago. Hardly get up to speed before the next one. We finally got an EZpass. That probably made it even easier to correlate an IMSI with an owner as well as the IMSI of each phone in the car.
The IMSI is now the identifier of the cell phone probably in the possession of the owner (or not).
This is the Information Age. Most people know that. What few people know is that it is the Knowledge Age. That is what information data becomes.
Just driving down the highway I am creating information being recorded by sensors. That information becomes knowledge of value to someone that will pay for it or legally demand it. What do they do with that? Tell me quicker ways to get to my destination.
What else?
Knowledge about me that I have no information or knowledge about.
She said that we could save x number of minutes by another route due to traffic congestion. How do you know that, I asked. She said the directions told her that and showed the length of the delay. I said that the map directions don't have that ability. She said yes they do and show delay on the map in red. I asked what directions she was using. She said Google.
News to me but when I looked I saw it was true.
Not knowing how it was done I drove on thinking that the only way they could do it was to capture an IMSI and then track it so see how it is moving. Obviously there is a difference between 60 and 70 mph and 10 or 20. Easy for cell phone towers to detect. I have covered geolocation in prior posts but this was new to me.
The trip is over and a mental note was made to check on "how do they do that".
Wikipedia explains it at this link.
Yes, it involves geolocation using cell phone data location data obtained from GPS satellite positioning. That location is transmitted to Google by Google map users. Maybe by other Google positioning apps also? Maybe, maybe not but why not?
The Wikipedia link specifically is about Google Traffic. However it contains a section explaining CrowdSourcing location data to provide traffic flow info using cell phone towers for positioning. Why include a Cell Tower crowd sourcing explanation in the explanation of how Google Maps works when Google gets its positioning from satellite GPS. Some smoke here that indicates the presence of fire!!
From the link:
"Google Traffic works by analyzing the GPS-determined locations transmitted to them by a large number of mobile phone users. By calculating the speed of users along a stretch of road, Google is able to generate a live traffic map.[2] Google processes the incoming raw data about mobile phone device locations"
While Google obtains GPS satellite location information via their cell phone app an alternate method to obtain positioning location and deduced speed is cell towers positioning and wifi positioning. Google does this to provide geolocation services as a Business License to app developers for a price.
It did not take much searching on Google to find the explanation, a technical one, of exactly where "Google Maps API" gets its location data from for various geolocation purposes. Explanation at this link for Google Developers. that buy a license from Google to use it in their apps.
I am not a Google Developer but the tech explanation of means and methods is revealing.
This section of Google Maps API geolocation explains what it is and does. The noun and the verb nature of the API.
The Google Maps Geolocation API returns a location and accuracy radius based on information about cell towers and WiFi nodes that the mobile client can detect. This document describes the protocol used to send this data to the server and to return a response to the client.
Communication is done over HTTPS using POST. Both request and response are formatted as JSON, and the content type of both is
application/json.All this geolocation info is passively received by the cell phone from fixed transmitting source(s). Information received is used to record/display location and associated info in real time and over time such as speed and direction calculation. Since the "Google Map" is an on line data base, not resident data stored in the cell phone, location data has to be transmitted to a Google Map somewhere in the cloud to return display information. I conclude that therefore there is a constant realtime communication going on between the cell phone and an external Google mapping object and function.
Ya think?
This is speculation but if logically figures because the capability exists as well as reasons to use it.
Google Maps location operates in the mode of the cell phone being the passive recipient of geograhic information transmitted by a source to it. A cell phone also operates in an active mode transmitting identification information to a cell tower (IMSI) as well as associated meta data information that can be computed from the transmission signal.
There is a matrix point at which the passive information received by the cell phone and transmitted to Google for mapping purposes and actively transmitted information sent to a cell tower by the cell phone can be put together to identify the user association by means of the IMSI to the cell phone and its location. Active rather than passive transmission of information about location is not only to cell towers for the purpose of cell phone communication services. Visual information is being broadcast all the time giving a geolocation based on what is visually seen. All that is necessary is a visual receiver such as the LPR camera at a toll booth or any other point, fixed or mobile.
Essentially, a cell tower and a video camera are simply sensor devices detecting a specific category of wave length transmission. Some say the universe is simply just waves. It is called wave theory.
Some App developer could create an App for sale exclusively to law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement could buy services identifying traffic law breakers as well as identifying public safety problems.
If the State Patrol wanted to pay for it they could buy the info, which is real time, and just wait for a consistent speeder traveling at over a given rate of speed like 90 mph over a long distance and then just wait for them to go by. No need to know the IMSI of the speeder's cell phone. They are coming, just wait. A blatant speeder will violate the speed limit all day long on a long trip. Not for just a few miles.
So what is important about this?
My IMSI is identified cell tower service providers. It tells how fast I am going. Maybe it tells that I am on the turnpike and not moving. My own phone is transmitting geolocation information to Google via Google maps.
Public Safety Accident Identification: An algorithm detects that suddenly several other vehicles are not moving on a freeway or turnpike within seconds. Speed went from 60-70 mph or more in a matter of seconds. Gimme a deduction. Not much brain computing power required. No need to call 911. The cell phone tower service provider notifies the highway patrol.
And if the unique IMSI is of interest to the police? It can be tracked in real time identifying the subject of law enforcement interest with the proper legal probable cause controls having been identified.
Gone are the days where the police have to hid behind bill boards an wait for speeders to go by. Now they can know precisely in advance based on rate of excessive speed travel.
Easy to figure out.
What intrigues me is all the other information that can be generated by IMSI cell tower recording and anonymizing the results ( or not) then data mining them.
Who is doing that now and for what purpose?
To whom exactly are the cell phone service providers selling this information and what are the recipients doing with it?
Tolls booths are an east coast thing. Not much in the west where I live. Each toll booth had a camera aimed at the car. Obviously LPR. How easy is it to match an IMSI to a license plate. I would think that it would only require correlation between two toll booths. They seem to be every several miles around Chicago. Hardly get up to speed before the next one. We finally got an EZpass. That probably made it even easier to correlate an IMSI with an owner as well as the IMSI of each phone in the car.
The IMSI is now the identifier of the cell phone probably in the possession of the owner (or not).
This is the Information Age. Most people know that. What few people know is that it is the Knowledge Age. That is what information data becomes.
Just driving down the highway I am creating information being recorded by sensors. That information becomes knowledge of value to someone that will pay for it or legally demand it. What do they do with that? Tell me quicker ways to get to my destination.
What else?
Knowledge about me that I have no information or knowledge about.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
GeoMatrix Geolocation System
Sunday morning and I decided to catch up on the latest in surveillance. I haven't looked at it in a couple weeks. It moves fast.
Simple start: Google search on "IMSI Geolocation". Didn't even use quotes.
First hit: GeoMatrix - GeoLocation System
This is a simple statement from the site of what they do:
GeoMatrix is an advanced geolocation intelligence system, which provides real time location of any GSM / UMTS / 3G / 4G (LTE) subscriber worldwide.
That is awesome! Scary too if they can do it.
All that is necessary is providing an IMSI cell phone identifier. Geomatrix does not do that. It is the "Google" of IMSI surveillance providing real time location of any input IMSI.
Absolutely amazing!
GeoMatix does this as described at their website:
GeoMatrix is a unique SS7 protocol based solution that enables intelligence and law enforcement agencies the ability to locate, track, and manipulate GSM / UMTS / 3G / 4G (LTE) subscribers covertly virtually anywhere in the world, all in real-time using a very friendly GUI and graphical supported maps.
Undetectable by the target and the mobile operators, the solution stealthily ascertains status, location and movement of targets of interest, from anywhere in a city and/or area to the entire country and beyond borders, pinpointing them with high accuracy in real-time.
GeoMatrix allows manual or automatic queries in real-time via criteria pre-defined by the user (Triggers) which enables automatic long-term tracking of a selected subscriber's status and location.
Download the pdf brocure at the site for more amazing information! Did someone fail to assign it a Top Secret, Eyes Only classification?
GeoMatrix is a Rayzone Group Ltd. product. Rayzone offers its products and abilities worldwide.
Toyota House, Tel Aviv, Israel 6744316.
Tel: +972-73-2802266
Fax: +972-73-2802260
info@rayzoneg.com
Exactly what Rayzone offers and does is exactly described at its website:
Piranha is an IMSI catcher device described here at this link.
I am astounded at the precise description of capabilities and description on a website that is publicly viewable on the internet. It looks like something that should be secret, at least protected by a registered user log in! That however is called marketing.
Rayzone sells internationally but I am sure that clients are vetted by Israeli Intelligence. Perhaps Rayzone product and services have components and abilities that customers are not aware of. Who might be listening to the listeners? Watching the watchers?
Rayzone TA-9 is a separate website.
There is a Rayzone International USA company doing business in Dallas Texas but no direct link to the Rayzone subject of this blog entry....yet.
Everybody is building IMSI catchers! This site mentions Rayzone.
https://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-boxes-that-can-steal-your-social-media-and-dropbox-passwords-for-the-cops
http://www.rayzoneg.com/en.interapp.html
Wintego, an Israeli company offers the same capability: http://www.wintego.com/#!intelligence/cye7
https://www.adaptivemobile.com/blog/can-they-hear-you-now-hacking-team-ss7
Simple start: Google search on "IMSI Geolocation". Didn't even use quotes.
First hit: GeoMatrix - GeoLocation System
This is a simple statement from the site of what they do:
GeoMatrix is an advanced geolocation intelligence system, which provides real time location of any GSM / UMTS / 3G / 4G (LTE) subscriber worldwide.
That is awesome! Scary too if they can do it.
All that is necessary is providing an IMSI cell phone identifier. Geomatrix does not do that. It is the "Google" of IMSI surveillance providing real time location of any input IMSI.
Absolutely amazing!
GeoMatix does this as described at their website:
GeoMatrix is a unique SS7 protocol based solution that enables intelligence and law enforcement agencies the ability to locate, track, and manipulate GSM / UMTS / 3G / 4G (LTE) subscribers covertly virtually anywhere in the world, all in real-time using a very friendly GUI and graphical supported maps.
Undetectable by the target and the mobile operators, the solution stealthily ascertains status, location and movement of targets of interest, from anywhere in a city and/or area to the entire country and beyond borders, pinpointing them with high accuracy in real-time.
GeoMatrix allows manual or automatic queries in real-time via criteria pre-defined by the user (Triggers) which enables automatic long-term tracking of a selected subscriber's status and location.
Download the pdf brocure at the site for more amazing information! Did someone fail to assign it a Top Secret, Eyes Only classification?
GeoMatrix is a Rayzone Group Ltd. product. Rayzone offers its products and abilities worldwide.
Rayzone Group Ltd.
65 Yigal Alon st.Toyota House, Tel Aviv, Israel 6744316.
Tel: +972-73-2802266
Fax: +972-73-2802260
info@rayzoneg.com
Exactly what Rayzone offers and does is exactly described at its website:
Piranha is an IMSI catcher device described here at this link.
I am astounded at the precise description of capabilities and description on a website that is publicly viewable on the internet. It looks like something that should be secret, at least protected by a registered user log in! That however is called marketing.
Rayzone sells internationally but I am sure that clients are vetted by Israeli Intelligence. Perhaps Rayzone product and services have components and abilities that customers are not aware of. Who might be listening to the listeners? Watching the watchers?
Rayzone TA-9 is a separate website.
There is a Rayzone International USA company doing business in Dallas Texas but no direct link to the Rayzone subject of this blog entry....yet.
Everybody is building IMSI catchers! This site mentions Rayzone.
https://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-boxes-that-can-steal-your-social-media-and-dropbox-passwords-for-the-cops
http://www.rayzoneg.com/en.interapp.html
Wintego, an Israeli company offers the same capability: http://www.wintego.com/#!intelligence/cye7
https://www.adaptivemobile.com/blog/can-they-hear-you-now-hacking-team-ss7
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Waste, Fraud and Abuse in the Military Accounting System
Preface: Much of what I write about in this blog is money. What it is. Strict definition of money as a monetary system digital object with unique identity and unit value at the granular level of one dollar each. Money defined as such an object exists on a static cloud record and does not move. What changes in this monetary system is the ownership account related to each and every unit dollar as money is used to do what money does payment for goods and services.
The domain of what money is or should be in the case of my proposal is a relatively highly structured problem entailing a great degree of accuracy and accountability.
What money buys invests goods and services with a financial value based on its purchase price plus or minus changes in value from that purchase price for various reasons over time. That is more in the realm of inventory or resource asset accounting. That problem domain, as compared to the the problem domain of money itself is a more nebulous problem entailing a much greater accountability problem.
Inventory management was the problem domain of my navy career. Starting with offloading cargo ships in Vietnam and ending in Washington D.C. with accounting for the existence and application of vasts amounts of material in inventory and on records accounting for (or failing to account for the physical inventory on hand and its application reasons for being there.
This blog entry is a diversion from monetary system design and operation into the management of inventory system design and operation. Both are Object Oriented Children of the same parent: Accounting Control. They both share similar attributes. They have additional attributes that make them children inheriting the attributes of their Accounting Domain Parent. A principal attribute being that at the granular level each discrete unit of money or inventory object has a unique identity.
Consequently, there is much carryover from my physical inventory accounting and management thinking to money as an inventory of objects in an Accounting Control problem domain.
This is a revisit to the things that I worked with in Inventory Accounting Control. Going back to that problem domain I hope will give me some thinking about something I know as a framework for application to monetary system design.
Waste, Fraud and Abuse in the Military Accounting System.
End of preface. The following addresses the title of this blog entry:
Just plain old dumbness on a big scale should be added to the subject line. I speak from experience.
This link at Crooks and Liars (Posted with permission from Alternative-News.tk reports: Report Reveals $8.5 Trillion Missing From Pentagon Budget.
Shocking, absolutely shocking! A report that is likely to be considered true by most people simply on belief of military incompetence before the report is even read! Dog bites man is not news but this must have been a slow news day for the Crooks and Liars repost made by Crooks and Liars that was made in Nov. 2013 by the Daily Ticker:
$8.5 Trillion Missing From Pentagon Budget. Wow! Big bucks!
Missing from the "Budget"? The Budget is money. That money is spent for stuff. There may be some actual money unaccounted for in the money ledgers where there is no substantiation as to whom money in the budget was payed to. That is more in the realm of bank accounting for money it holds. More like our own balancing of the personal checkbook. Accounting purely for money is rather tightly contolled. The stuff it buys and reconciliation to the money spent for it and its actual existence and relationship is not well controlled. That is where the problem is, the follow on problem is that little or nothing is done over time to solve this accountability problem.
I would like to address the last point. Little is done because "We are too busy fighting alligators to drain the swamp". In wartime under war conditions vast amounts of material are expended. Vast amounts of material are thrown at the problem. Much never hits its target. It simply stays in inventory based on the cost of not having it available if needed. For lack a nail to shoe the horse the battle was lost. Better to have too much than too little. In war there is no time to spend on accounting for stuff, who gets it or how it is used. A justification as well as an excuse.
The current environment is war all the time. The old wartime approach to material is still applied. To that extent we always fight the last war again. On payday in Vietnam I had additional duties as a paymaster. I took custody of hundreds of thousands of dollars in MPC. Counted every dollar when I got it. Counted every dollar in exchange for a pay slip checked by the DK. At the end of the day I had to have a total of remaining dollars plus the total of pay chits equal to the total dollars I was given. If not I was accountable for the difference.
The next day I went back to my regular job of offloading cargo ships in the harbor. Each item handled had a Cargo Delivery Receipt. I guess they were reconciled to delivery somewhere back at the White Elephant. For a long time prior to that we just put stuff in landing craft and on barges for delivery ashore with no documentation. The object was to empty the ship. There were many ships waiting to be emptied. We were short of sailors to do the work. 12 on, 12 off. Both day and night shifts. One month days. One month nights. Relieve on station 7 days a week.
Accounting was not a major priority. Moving cargo to support the war was. Accounting became a priority when I could not account for a couple pallets of medical supplies to were to go to an NGO doctor working in the mountains somewhere and one of my men wrote the last document CDR to be associated with it. It was a PR problem. Sometimes accounting does matter. Otherwise....on with the war.
Both links conflate accounting for money with accounting for the financial value of things that money is spent on, often held in inventory or on some record of material accountability with associated money value.
Crooks and Liars title says: $8.5 Trillion Missing From Pentagon Budget.
Daily Ticker title says: $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can’t Account For
The first implies real money missing (unaccounted for in terms of balancing a budget amount to the expenditure of dollars from that budget to pay for goods and services) from a money account budget.
The second reports on the the balancing of mainly inventory financial value with the actual presence and legitimate expenditure of stuff, not money, from inventory. It goes on to report that even stuff held in inventory and accounted for is a waste because it is in excess to needs (or otherwise not needed at all because it has no known application).
Really two distinct but inter-related things one is money accounting the other is accounting for material accounting for what money buys. Inter-related but also independent stand alone problems.
A subset of accounting for material is this: Once the amount of material in inventory on a line item basis and its extended value matches what the inventory record states to be on hand then the basic question is: Is the item needed? What is its purpose or application? Is there too much on hand? should more be ordered and why? That is an inventory management problem. It is a big time serious problem if material that the record says is on hand cannot be found in inventory or the flip of that being material found to be on hand in inventory but not on inventory records. In this case the records do not match. Red Flag!
If the material on hand matches the inventory record but the record does not match a justification for the material to be on hand, such as a specific application to something or substantiated future need for things defined as "needed" based on past demand then that is a horse of a different problem.
The Reuters report contains this about material on hand excess to need:
The domain of what money is or should be in the case of my proposal is a relatively highly structured problem entailing a great degree of accuracy and accountability.
What money buys invests goods and services with a financial value based on its purchase price plus or minus changes in value from that purchase price for various reasons over time. That is more in the realm of inventory or resource asset accounting. That problem domain, as compared to the the problem domain of money itself is a more nebulous problem entailing a much greater accountability problem.
Inventory management was the problem domain of my navy career. Starting with offloading cargo ships in Vietnam and ending in Washington D.C. with accounting for the existence and application of vasts amounts of material in inventory and on records accounting for (or failing to account for the physical inventory on hand and its application reasons for being there.
This blog entry is a diversion from monetary system design and operation into the management of inventory system design and operation. Both are Object Oriented Children of the same parent: Accounting Control. They both share similar attributes. They have additional attributes that make them children inheriting the attributes of their Accounting Domain Parent. A principal attribute being that at the granular level each discrete unit of money or inventory object has a unique identity.
Consequently, there is much carryover from my physical inventory accounting and management thinking to money as an inventory of objects in an Accounting Control problem domain.
This is a revisit to the things that I worked with in Inventory Accounting Control. Going back to that problem domain I hope will give me some thinking about something I know as a framework for application to monetary system design.
Waste, Fraud and Abuse in the Military Accounting System.
End of preface. The following addresses the title of this blog entry:
Just plain old dumbness on a big scale should be added to the subject line. I speak from experience.
This link at Crooks and Liars (Posted with permission from Alternative-News.tk reports: Report Reveals $8.5 Trillion Missing From Pentagon Budget.
Shocking, absolutely shocking! A report that is likely to be considered true by most people simply on belief of military incompetence before the report is even read! Dog bites man is not news but this must have been a slow news day for the Crooks and Liars repost made by Crooks and Liars that was made in Nov. 2013 by the Daily Ticker:
Want to Cut Government Waste? Find the $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can’t Account For
The genesis of both reports is this Reuters investigative report link from Nov. 2014: Behind the Pentagon’s doctored ledgers, a running tally of epic waste.
It is the second in a series of three reports that are all under the title of: Unaccountable; The High Cost of the Pentagon's Bad Bookeeping.
The first in the series is:
How the Pentagon’s payroll quagmire traps America’s soldiers
The second is the one I am focusing on in this link.
The third in the series is:
Why the Pentagon’s many campaigns to clean up its accounts are failing
I wanted to write something about it then, maybe I did.
There are broad and often complex financial accountability problems in military accounting systems. The report at the link states a problem but then presents an ambiguous analysis that contributes little to its understanding. Fundamentally it conflates the accounting for money which the accounting for the financial value of material. The conflation starts with the title that gets attention:$8.5 Trillion Missing From Pentagon Budget. Wow! Big bucks!
Missing from the "Budget"? The Budget is money. That money is spent for stuff. There may be some actual money unaccounted for in the money ledgers where there is no substantiation as to whom money in the budget was payed to. That is more in the realm of bank accounting for money it holds. More like our own balancing of the personal checkbook. Accounting purely for money is rather tightly contolled. The stuff it buys and reconciliation to the money spent for it and its actual existence and relationship is not well controlled. That is where the problem is, the follow on problem is that little or nothing is done over time to solve this accountability problem.
I would like to address the last point. Little is done because "We are too busy fighting alligators to drain the swamp". In wartime under war conditions vast amounts of material are expended. Vast amounts of material are thrown at the problem. Much never hits its target. It simply stays in inventory based on the cost of not having it available if needed. For lack a nail to shoe the horse the battle was lost. Better to have too much than too little. In war there is no time to spend on accounting for stuff, who gets it or how it is used. A justification as well as an excuse.
The current environment is war all the time. The old wartime approach to material is still applied. To that extent we always fight the last war again. On payday in Vietnam I had additional duties as a paymaster. I took custody of hundreds of thousands of dollars in MPC. Counted every dollar when I got it. Counted every dollar in exchange for a pay slip checked by the DK. At the end of the day I had to have a total of remaining dollars plus the total of pay chits equal to the total dollars I was given. If not I was accountable for the difference.
The next day I went back to my regular job of offloading cargo ships in the harbor. Each item handled had a Cargo Delivery Receipt. I guess they were reconciled to delivery somewhere back at the White Elephant. For a long time prior to that we just put stuff in landing craft and on barges for delivery ashore with no documentation. The object was to empty the ship. There were many ships waiting to be emptied. We were short of sailors to do the work. 12 on, 12 off. Both day and night shifts. One month days. One month nights. Relieve on station 7 days a week.
Accounting was not a major priority. Moving cargo to support the war was. Accounting became a priority when I could not account for a couple pallets of medical supplies to were to go to an NGO doctor working in the mountains somewhere and one of my men wrote the last document CDR to be associated with it. It was a PR problem. Sometimes accounting does matter. Otherwise....on with the war.
Both links conflate accounting for money with accounting for the financial value of things that money is spent on, often held in inventory or on some record of material accountability with associated money value.
Crooks and Liars title says: $8.5 Trillion Missing From Pentagon Budget.
Daily Ticker title says: $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can’t Account For
The first implies real money missing (unaccounted for in terms of balancing a budget amount to the expenditure of dollars from that budget to pay for goods and services) from a money account budget.
The second reports on the the balancing of mainly inventory financial value with the actual presence and legitimate expenditure of stuff, not money, from inventory. It goes on to report that even stuff held in inventory and accounted for is a waste because it is in excess to needs (or otherwise not needed at all because it has no known application).
Really two distinct but inter-related things one is money accounting the other is accounting for material accounting for what money buys. Inter-related but also independent stand alone problems.
A subset of accounting for material is this: Once the amount of material in inventory on a line item basis and its extended value matches what the inventory record states to be on hand then the basic question is: Is the item needed? What is its purpose or application? Is there too much on hand? should more be ordered and why? That is an inventory management problem. It is a big time serious problem if material that the record says is on hand cannot be found in inventory or the flip of that being material found to be on hand in inventory but not on inventory records. In this case the records do not match. Red Flag!
If the material on hand matches the inventory record but the record does not match a justification for the material to be on hand, such as a specific application to something or substantiated future need for things defined as "needed" based on past demand then that is a horse of a different problem.
The Reuters report contains this about material on hand excess to need:
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
$100,000 Reward for Secret TPP Document
Subject line of this blog entry is at this link.
I like it! I don't do social media "liking" but this one I give a big thumbs up to!
I would rather see an individual motivated by the best interest of what is right and wrong about a matter come forward to do with personal courage what they are morally convinced is the "right thing". Judgment of what is a morally right thing to do in any situation is a tricky thing to. What is the domain frame of reference that proscribes the "right thing".
An excellent question!
There are domains of reference competing in decision making within higher order domains of reference. Maybe all the competing domains can be viewed as interacting on a level playing field. That field is difficult to define but whatever it may be is something to be defined and agreed upon by the competing actor entities. Entities that are people, in the singular and in the plural collective, that act individually or collectively through the personal or collective nature of beliefs. Beliefs that may be highly defined and established in formal rules and regulations, procedures and protocols or as ambiguous as anyone or collection of people all agreeing on the same commonly held standard without that standard being highly defined.
I suggest that even in domains dominated by rigid rules and regs there exist individual and collective entities within that domain, regardless of its size that have, individually (or in a closely held small group) shared standards alternative and competing with the standards of the parent domain.
Turds in punch bowls? Maybe. But by what standard is a turd or a punch bowl a punch bowl?
Elusive isn't it? As elusive as the framework right or wrong in any given domain. Domains of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A collection of individual rights at the foundation of our social fabric. A collection of rights now applicable to collective entities beyond individuals when those entities are defined as corporate. Extend out that "corporate interest" right and non-profits also have them, extend that our and entities other than collections of humans also have the rights. A collective like Mother Earth nature. The natural world collective and all of its children. A view that does not put human beings as the center of all the natural world. One contrary to the biblical view that the earth was given to us to use solely for our own dominating interests.
This is a classical tough situation to grasp and make appropriate decisions.
This particular situation of TPP involves secrecy.
So much in the world today is increasingly related to secrecy. I think it is a product of the information age. The nature of secrets was once a matter of unwritten shared agreement, maybe backed by blood or something like that, among a small group. A group small enough that the shared secret be interpersonal and sanctions for violation personally applied. In the information age all that secret stuff has to be formalized in documentation.
That is what the $100,000 reward is for. That is what Edward Snowden revealed. All that secret documentation.
Cost vs Benefit is a neutral standard related to a level playing field. A standard so neutral that it can be applied to opposed entities such as doing things judged as good or doing things judged bad.
Secrets may be either good or bad. Hard to tell since they are secrets. It is good to keep them when the outcome of revelation would be bad, by some standard. Also good to keep them when the good outcome would be thwarted by their revelation before implementation of whatever is being held secret.
What is best for the common good?
The secret of the atom bomb and the implementation of its secret purpose is something to ponder.
In the world of secrets the defense of the secret is often: "We are doing it to protect you". Maybe: "You can't handle the truth". Or: "Don't ask how the sausage is made". Or: "Let history be the judge".
Perhaps one what to approach the matter is that nothing be secret? Is that possible? One of the best kept secrets was D-Day. What if it was not secret. It would defeat the purpose. There would be a severe downside risk. On D-Day, plus one, there was no longer a secret.
TPP is secret. Secret with sanctions and appropriate safeguards to keep it secret. It will have its D-Day, someday. on D-Day, plus one, it will be totally revealed. Why publicly expose the plan before then? Why, because D-Day will make it fait-accomlished? Without possibility of reversal?
The TPP once revealed will have public review before being passed by law in congress. Prior to then it is a multi party negotiating document. A multi party negotiating document before it becomes a two party negotiating document at the individual national level. Will each of the participating national entities in secret negotiations have to take it to its related national political level for public review and decision making? At the secret level it appears to be a matter of "all in" to reach final agreement. What is the risk that the representatives of national entities that agree in secret on it will have that agreement denied by national public review?
There is much at stake with TPP, much at risk if what is being invested in secret review is not endorsed by public review.
It is a risk/reward situation. TPP has to do with trade but the bulk of it is not about traditional trade by corporate interests in whatever corporations are interested in beyond pure trade matters. What might that be? Power to control. Not to compete but to dominate.
Not for corporations to compete with what entity?
Answer: Government on a global as well as national level. Corporate competition with government at our own US level is an open warfare struggle. At the global level where corporations operate there is no single competing governmental entity. None that has a legislative, executive and judicial system as entities agent of its governmental structure. The global "governing" entity has a monetary based system of governance with monetary Legislative, Executive and Judicial systems.
One of the prime features of TPP is that a global judicial system would dominate national legislative and executive as well as judicial system. In the US they operate in a check and balance system, generally. Judiciary rule is a way to subvert the system. What is the better corporate game plan for national domination? Capture all three branches but ultimately which one rules on the law of the land? In a chess game capturing the key figure ends the game. That much I think I know about chess.
TPP is secret because if it was not then recognition by the public that it was not in our best national interest in the USA or any other participating nation would nip it in the bud.
In conclusion: It is good that the secret be penetrated and made public before it is presented to our governmental representatives that are in the pocket of financial corporate interests.
Yes, I would donate to the reward. Like the cop that recently fired one of the hundreds of bullets into a fleeing automobile and killing the occupants: Could I be held responsible for aiding and abetting a technically illegal act if I donated a dollar? Perhaps my donation should be protected as a secret like the donation to a PAC? I doubt if I could get that legal standing. While I may have a dollar, I do not have that many dollars to buy my protection from the rule of law or by the rule of law.
Edward Snowden is a hero because the reward for his justified action was not monetary. Who got the reward money for Bin Laden, if anybody did. If a reward was given there was no public recognition because the recipient was no hero. Some claim that someone in the raid has bragging rights but recently the entire raid that killed him has a new look.
TPP is a Global vs National power play. Just exactly who is the Global entity playing here? The USA government owned by corporate/financial interest wearing its global mantel or Corporate Global Governance that will strengthen its hold on the US government by weakening its representation of the the common good but strengthening and using its allied military power as an enforcement agency?
It is an intricate web of power and influence domain in which to make a decision.
The standard of judgment however is as clear as ever: What is best for the common good? The world is not so complicated that we can't see what that is no matter how the media agents of national and corporate interest want to distort it to protect the secret that we the people no longer own our country.
Corporate interests own us as a resource. That is the secret they are good at keeping.
Is there a secret way for me to donate?
No, of course not. Secrets are for thee, not for me.
Example of judicial rule captured by corporate interest:
"Handing banks a victory, the Supreme Court ruled that financially struggling homeowners who file for bankruptcy may not expect to have their second mortgage loans canceled, even if they owe more on their homes than the properties are worth."
Those same financial/corporate interests were, of course, not even brought into court for impartial justice much less subject to a Supreme Court decision.
This link also.
This today..good job Wikileaks!
Wikileaks Drops Another Damning Trove Of Secret Trade Deal Documents
So, what is the scam. TPP made public with 60 days for review. Then vote but TPA says Congress can make no amendments? Send to the President to sign. Which he will. Then everything depends on him being swayed by public opinion to approve or disapprove?
Do I get that right???????????????????????
I like it! I don't do social media "liking" but this one I give a big thumbs up to!
I would rather see an individual motivated by the best interest of what is right and wrong about a matter come forward to do with personal courage what they are morally convinced is the "right thing". Judgment of what is a morally right thing to do in any situation is a tricky thing to. What is the domain frame of reference that proscribes the "right thing".
An excellent question!
There are domains of reference competing in decision making within higher order domains of reference. Maybe all the competing domains can be viewed as interacting on a level playing field. That field is difficult to define but whatever it may be is something to be defined and agreed upon by the competing actor entities. Entities that are people, in the singular and in the plural collective, that act individually or collectively through the personal or collective nature of beliefs. Beliefs that may be highly defined and established in formal rules and regulations, procedures and protocols or as ambiguous as anyone or collection of people all agreeing on the same commonly held standard without that standard being highly defined.
I suggest that even in domains dominated by rigid rules and regs there exist individual and collective entities within that domain, regardless of its size that have, individually (or in a closely held small group) shared standards alternative and competing with the standards of the parent domain.
Turds in punch bowls? Maybe. But by what standard is a turd or a punch bowl a punch bowl?
Elusive isn't it? As elusive as the framework right or wrong in any given domain. Domains of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A collection of individual rights at the foundation of our social fabric. A collection of rights now applicable to collective entities beyond individuals when those entities are defined as corporate. Extend out that "corporate interest" right and non-profits also have them, extend that our and entities other than collections of humans also have the rights. A collective like Mother Earth nature. The natural world collective and all of its children. A view that does not put human beings as the center of all the natural world. One contrary to the biblical view that the earth was given to us to use solely for our own dominating interests.
This is a classical tough situation to grasp and make appropriate decisions.
This particular situation of TPP involves secrecy.
So much in the world today is increasingly related to secrecy. I think it is a product of the information age. The nature of secrets was once a matter of unwritten shared agreement, maybe backed by blood or something like that, among a small group. A group small enough that the shared secret be interpersonal and sanctions for violation personally applied. In the information age all that secret stuff has to be formalized in documentation.
That is what the $100,000 reward is for. That is what Edward Snowden revealed. All that secret documentation.
Cost vs Benefit is a neutral standard related to a level playing field. A standard so neutral that it can be applied to opposed entities such as doing things judged as good or doing things judged bad.
Secrets may be either good or bad. Hard to tell since they are secrets. It is good to keep them when the outcome of revelation would be bad, by some standard. Also good to keep them when the good outcome would be thwarted by their revelation before implementation of whatever is being held secret.
What is best for the common good?
The secret of the atom bomb and the implementation of its secret purpose is something to ponder.
In the world of secrets the defense of the secret is often: "We are doing it to protect you". Maybe: "You can't handle the truth". Or: "Don't ask how the sausage is made". Or: "Let history be the judge".
Perhaps one what to approach the matter is that nothing be secret? Is that possible? One of the best kept secrets was D-Day. What if it was not secret. It would defeat the purpose. There would be a severe downside risk. On D-Day, plus one, there was no longer a secret.
TPP is secret. Secret with sanctions and appropriate safeguards to keep it secret. It will have its D-Day, someday. on D-Day, plus one, it will be totally revealed. Why publicly expose the plan before then? Why, because D-Day will make it fait-accomlished? Without possibility of reversal?
The TPP once revealed will have public review before being passed by law in congress. Prior to then it is a multi party negotiating document. A multi party negotiating document before it becomes a two party negotiating document at the individual national level. Will each of the participating national entities in secret negotiations have to take it to its related national political level for public review and decision making? At the secret level it appears to be a matter of "all in" to reach final agreement. What is the risk that the representatives of national entities that agree in secret on it will have that agreement denied by national public review?
There is much at stake with TPP, much at risk if what is being invested in secret review is not endorsed by public review.
It is a risk/reward situation. TPP has to do with trade but the bulk of it is not about traditional trade by corporate interests in whatever corporations are interested in beyond pure trade matters. What might that be? Power to control. Not to compete but to dominate.
Not for corporations to compete with what entity?
Answer: Government on a global as well as national level. Corporate competition with government at our own US level is an open warfare struggle. At the global level where corporations operate there is no single competing governmental entity. None that has a legislative, executive and judicial system as entities agent of its governmental structure. The global "governing" entity has a monetary based system of governance with monetary Legislative, Executive and Judicial systems.
One of the prime features of TPP is that a global judicial system would dominate national legislative and executive as well as judicial system. In the US they operate in a check and balance system, generally. Judiciary rule is a way to subvert the system. What is the better corporate game plan for national domination? Capture all three branches but ultimately which one rules on the law of the land? In a chess game capturing the key figure ends the game. That much I think I know about chess.
TPP is secret because if it was not then recognition by the public that it was not in our best national interest in the USA or any other participating nation would nip it in the bud.
In conclusion: It is good that the secret be penetrated and made public before it is presented to our governmental representatives that are in the pocket of financial corporate interests.
Yes, I would donate to the reward. Like the cop that recently fired one of the hundreds of bullets into a fleeing automobile and killing the occupants: Could I be held responsible for aiding and abetting a technically illegal act if I donated a dollar? Perhaps my donation should be protected as a secret like the donation to a PAC? I doubt if I could get that legal standing. While I may have a dollar, I do not have that many dollars to buy my protection from the rule of law or by the rule of law.
Edward Snowden is a hero because the reward for his justified action was not monetary. Who got the reward money for Bin Laden, if anybody did. If a reward was given there was no public recognition because the recipient was no hero. Some claim that someone in the raid has bragging rights but recently the entire raid that killed him has a new look.
TPP is a Global vs National power play. Just exactly who is the Global entity playing here? The USA government owned by corporate/financial interest wearing its global mantel or Corporate Global Governance that will strengthen its hold on the US government by weakening its representation of the the common good but strengthening and using its allied military power as an enforcement agency?
It is an intricate web of power and influence domain in which to make a decision.
The standard of judgment however is as clear as ever: What is best for the common good? The world is not so complicated that we can't see what that is no matter how the media agents of national and corporate interest want to distort it to protect the secret that we the people no longer own our country.
Corporate interests own us as a resource. That is the secret they are good at keeping.
Is there a secret way for me to donate?
No, of course not. Secrets are for thee, not for me.
Example of judicial rule captured by corporate interest:
"Handing banks a victory, the Supreme Court ruled that financially struggling homeowners who file for bankruptcy may not expect to have their second mortgage loans canceled, even if they owe more on their homes than the properties are worth."
Those same financial/corporate interests were, of course, not even brought into court for impartial justice much less subject to a Supreme Court decision.
This link also.
This today..good job Wikileaks!
Wikileaks Drops Another Damning Trove Of Secret Trade Deal Documents
So, what is the scam. TPP made public with 60 days for review. Then vote but TPA says Congress can make no amendments? Send to the President to sign. Which he will. Then everything depends on him being swayed by public opinion to approve or disapprove?
Do I get that right???????????????????????
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
FBI Behind Mysterious Surveillance Aircraft Over US Cities
The subject line report of this blog entry is at this ABC News link.
Old news really. Maybe it was a slow news day. Maybe it is related to the recent vote on the Patriot Act to get eyeballs as a function of connection to a recent major issue.
It is secret stuff so there is no telling what is really being done with what equipment and for what purpose. Therefore, speculation can run wild. Speculation, however, supported by the capabilities of current technology. Speculation supported by the tech specs of specific equipment available from various companies that can do visual and cell phone surveillance.
Cheap to fly light aircraft gathering all this surveillance data is probably the best cost to benefit thing a spy agency can do to collect massive information on citizens. Big cities are the low hanging fruit.
"Aircraft surveillance has become an indispensable intelligence collection and investigative technique which serves as a force multiplier to the ground teams," the FBI said in 2009 when it asked Congress for $5.1 million for the program.
Duh! That is where the people are! 30 Major cities in the USA can be a large part of the population! The scope of the program might be limited by funds but it is so cheap to fly these aircraft it is probably limited by the objective to keep it all under the public awareness radar.
There must be something that makes small aircraft collection of data better than cell phone dumps obtained from companies with cell phone towers. Photo surveillance however has no general alternative except google maps.
The whole thing is ripe for blue sky speculation.
I wrote a blog entry about what might be behind massive amounts of stolen cell US phones finding their way to south of the border through Florida. It had names of business and locations and associated people in Florida connected to this that may have been government agents and agencies that "doctored" these phones prior to sending them south via criminal channels. Once there they could be monitored for various purposes. I never published the blog entry. It may have been more accurate than I thought and therefore thought twice.
If that program existed and worked south of the border then why not in the USA?
Who knows?
There is some kind of "secret sauce" benefit to the government running this city overflight surveillance program that produces info not otherwise easily or legally obtainable? If its genesis was south of the border, how many of the same type of aircraft are used by the DEA there? Do they, did they fly circles around major cities there?
Interesting comments at this link about the FBI Cessna 182RG.
Theories and speculation about all this are only limited by the clear blue sky and visibility is unlimited under those conditions!
From the link:
"Most flight patterns occurred in counter-clockwise orbits up to several miles wide and roughly one mile above the ground at slow speeds. A 2003 newsletter from the company FLIR Systems Inc., which makes camera technology such as seen on the planes, described flying slowly in left-handed patterns. "
Recently I looked at FLIR in connection to road traffic surveillance cameras. A world wide company, it has a location in Portland. They are perhaps the major supplier of this type of camera that is perhaps the camera installed at traffic intersections in my city for "traffic control" purposes that are supposedly "less costly" alternatives to the circular vehicle detectors installed at intersections.
Hmmm, really? Less costly is claimed in the official explanation of the use of these "traffic control" cameras that supposedly regulate the traffic lights depending on what they observe. However, if the lights are actually on constant timing regardless of traffic flow then they are not doing that are they?
Hmmm.....what are they doing? They are not there to record traffic violations. That requires a physically different camera.
If FLIR Inc. is making the cameras installed on these aircraft the cameras with this ability do not appear as a product for sale at the FLIR site. The best resolution of cameras at the site is 1080 x 1920. I will have to research that.
FLIR Camera offerings are not impressive regarding high definition. The most exciting thing offered is laser targeting. FLIR is also the generic term for Forward Looking Infared Radar so it may not be a FLIR Inc. camera.
Old news really. Maybe it was a slow news day. Maybe it is related to the recent vote on the Patriot Act to get eyeballs as a function of connection to a recent major issue.
It is secret stuff so there is no telling what is really being done with what equipment and for what purpose. Therefore, speculation can run wild. Speculation, however, supported by the capabilities of current technology. Speculation supported by the tech specs of specific equipment available from various companies that can do visual and cell phone surveillance.
Cheap to fly light aircraft gathering all this surveillance data is probably the best cost to benefit thing a spy agency can do to collect massive information on citizens. Big cities are the low hanging fruit.
"Aircraft surveillance has become an indispensable intelligence collection and investigative technique which serves as a force multiplier to the ground teams," the FBI said in 2009 when it asked Congress for $5.1 million for the program.
Duh! That is where the people are! 30 Major cities in the USA can be a large part of the population! The scope of the program might be limited by funds but it is so cheap to fly these aircraft it is probably limited by the objective to keep it all under the public awareness radar.
There must be something that makes small aircraft collection of data better than cell phone dumps obtained from companies with cell phone towers. Photo surveillance however has no general alternative except google maps.
The whole thing is ripe for blue sky speculation.
I wrote a blog entry about what might be behind massive amounts of stolen cell US phones finding their way to south of the border through Florida. It had names of business and locations and associated people in Florida connected to this that may have been government agents and agencies that "doctored" these phones prior to sending them south via criminal channels. Once there they could be monitored for various purposes. I never published the blog entry. It may have been more accurate than I thought and therefore thought twice.
If that program existed and worked south of the border then why not in the USA?
Who knows?
There is some kind of "secret sauce" benefit to the government running this city overflight surveillance program that produces info not otherwise easily or legally obtainable? If its genesis was south of the border, how many of the same type of aircraft are used by the DEA there? Do they, did they fly circles around major cities there?
Interesting comments at this link about the FBI Cessna 182RG.
Theories and speculation about all this are only limited by the clear blue sky and visibility is unlimited under those conditions!
From the link:
"Most flight patterns occurred in counter-clockwise orbits up to several miles wide and roughly one mile above the ground at slow speeds. A 2003 newsletter from the company FLIR Systems Inc., which makes camera technology such as seen on the planes, described flying slowly in left-handed patterns. "
Recently I looked at FLIR in connection to road traffic surveillance cameras. A world wide company, it has a location in Portland. They are perhaps the major supplier of this type of camera that is perhaps the camera installed at traffic intersections in my city for "traffic control" purposes that are supposedly "less costly" alternatives to the circular vehicle detectors installed at intersections.
Hmmm, really? Less costly is claimed in the official explanation of the use of these "traffic control" cameras that supposedly regulate the traffic lights depending on what they observe. However, if the lights are actually on constant timing regardless of traffic flow then they are not doing that are they?
Hmmm.....what are they doing? They are not there to record traffic violations. That requires a physically different camera.
If FLIR Inc. is making the cameras installed on these aircraft the cameras with this ability do not appear as a product for sale at the FLIR site. The best resolution of cameras at the site is 1080 x 1920. I will have to research that.
FLIR Camera offerings are not impressive regarding high definition. The most exciting thing offered is laser targeting. FLIR is also the generic term for Forward Looking Infared Radar so it may not be a FLIR Inc. camera.
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