Airport Security vs. Cyborg Steve Mann 748
CompaniaHill writes: "The New York Times (free reg, etc.) has a story on University of Toronto engineering-professor-turned-cyborg Steve Mann's recent run-in with humorless airport security. Apparently his preplanning and documents were sufficient to get him through the Toronto airport security on his way to St. John's in Newfoundland, but not sufficient to get him through the St. John's airport security on his way home. Two days later, after strip-searches, forced removal of implants and x-raying and other ill-handling of delicate hardware, he returned home in a wheelchair. Mann's lawyer is attempting to recover the cost of the $56,800 in damaged hardware, while his doctors are studying his body's response to the removal of the implants, some of which he has had for over twenty years."
ID papers for implants (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyway, if he's a cyborg, why not just strap on the optional jet pack and fly there yourself?
again airport security are idiots. (Score:5, Interesting)
me and my girlfriend had to wait for 2 minutes while they chemical tested all of luggage and carry ons, and shoes and purses for explosives. this was because her shoes (complete with metal shoe lace ends) set off the metal detector.
later in the trip tourists are posing with the reserve offices for pictures... i saw this many times. tourists have their arms inches away from machine guns carried by 5 foot tall women and all the airport cares about are my stinky shoes.
then the kicker is the woman on the airplane knitting with HUGE knitting needles.
this guys sensor that opens doors is going to do about as much damage as my stinky shoe. yes, when i fly i want to be safe, and that is why i defend the 'fly naked' campaign.
here's a good pic of steve (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Martyr Not The Freak (Score:3, Interesting)
The result?
Cellphones have no chance of actually causing RF interference in the operation of the plane.
BUT It's not likely that they'll change the rules any time soon. (The cell network couldn't handle it - they claim...? and there's lots of profit in AirPhone...)
Cheers!
Re:Okay, they shouldn't have fucked up his equipme (Score:2, Interesting)
maybe overstating the case a little (Score:3, Interesting)
From reading the New York Times article, it doesn't sound like Mann had any "implants" "forcibly removed". It sounds like they tore electrodes off his body. In other words, they pulled tape off his skin, and it caused bleeding. Unpleasant, sure, but it's not like they strapped him down and used a drill to extract chips from his brain. More like they pulled off a Band-Aid too fast.
The reason that he ended up in a wheelchair was that since he no longer had his cyborg navigation gear, he supposedly got confused while walking around the airport and hit his head on a pile of fire extinguishers. I don't even know where to start with that one.
Now, clearly what happened sucks, because $56,000 of gear was lost or damaged. Clearly he should be repaid, and probably security was rude to him. But I don't think it's all that shocking, given that here's a guy, covered in wires and batteries, getting on a plane post 9/11.
In my opinion, the truly interesting part of this article is that once his technological aids were removed, this guy ceased to be able to complete basic tasks like walking. This has significant ramifications for wearable computing. Is it augmented reality? Or is it a crutch without which he can't function?
Re:Okay, they shouldn't have fucked up his equipme (Score:3, Interesting)
Based on this one comment I could claim Mann is a pretty lousy hardware designer.
What he did was the equivalent of soldering the keyboard to the motherboard. Couldn't he have at least forseen having to one-day disconnect and had instead used a micro molex connector or something?
Duh.
Mann's Enhancements... (Score:3, Interesting)
Augmented vision (camera & hud glasses)
Handheld chording keyboard
Any mic/headphone setup
Wireless/cellular hookup
Without his input/output devices, he would have lost access to his memory enhancement programs (smart conversation tags to lookup keywords, replay stored audio, etc.), vision enhancement programs (recording, environment reconstruction, text overlay), and probably all of his sending/receiving capability.
I pray that he backed up his rig before he flew. All the data he accumulated/uploaded while in Newfoundland is probably toast. (Why the hell was he in Newfoundland anyways? Was he speaking or just visiting?)
In one fell swoop they cut him off from his augmented memory and processing, and then threw his visual system for a loop, hence the need for a wheelchair. Oh, and of course, they trashed some very expensive, hard to replace, custom equipment. Not nice. I'd hate to think what might have happened if Mann had needed vital implants (heartrate regulator, insulin, etc.) that would have summarily been stripped along with the rest of his hardware.
Re:again airport security are idiots. (Score:5, Interesting)
Conclusion: for the most part (except for the phish-head wannabe Richard Reid fiasco...), the European airports know what the fuck they are doing. They can kill a terrorist within seconds. The American airports are still run by a bunch of fucking amateurs.
It's Not About Security (Score:4, Interesting)
It's both control of the passengers (You *will* drop your trousers and paint your arse green!) and control of the drelbs who run the security checkpoints (follow *every* rule *exactly* or you're fired!) Security- related professions are magnets for rule-bound control freaks.
Most of the stuff is ridiculous. "Turn the laptop on and off". Tweezers. Fingernail clippers. Very little about security and a whole lot about "I'm in charge and you're not!"
Control freaks at play.
A Pretoria cop shot a runner in the street (Score:2, Interesting)
Ther black man was training in the streets of Pretoria. Of course being black in South Africa, he couldn't afford treadmills and other equipment which would have kept him off the streets and away from attracting the wrong kind of attention.
The cop's justification: "He was running. He had to be running from something."
NOTHING was ever done about the cop or the situation that cost the country a possible Olympic medal, never minbd that somebody DIED for NOTHING!
Steve Mann is lucky that they didn't try high-voltage electrocution to see if the implants were really in there deep.
There is nothing as stupid and as dangerous as an armed petty-bureaucrat. They are our version of officious tyrany (Pol Pot, Bin Laden, Hitler, Stalin, Hussein, [your favorite despot here,]) but without money, opportunity or charisma. But they share the motivation.
Is there intelligent life on earth?
Re:Steve Mann (Score:3, Interesting)
heres the little blorb about the film
Part man, part machine, Steve Mann is a self-professed cyborg. Mann suggests we can reclaim our space by turning technology outwards and builds wearable computers in an attempt to alter his perceptions of reality. Cyberman is a layered and engaging look at our over-mediated world and one man's resistance to it.
-Jon
Another Cyborg Professor... (Score:1, Interesting)
-Sam Dunham
Details on the medical telemetry (Score:2, Interesting)
Biosensors used in the author's "smart clothing" apparatus include ProComp ECG, EEG, respiration, and sweat sensor built into a Jantzen bathing suit. Upon arriving home, late at night, one is generally too hot from just climbing the stairs, etc., so when first going to sleep, the underwear tells the heater to turn off, but after a couple of hours sleeping, when one's metabolism slows down, the underwear senses the resulting changes in one's body temperature/conductivity, and turns up the heat. Our clothing of the future may some day be interoperable and interconnected, so that it keeps track of our physical condition and allows us to decrypt this information for evaluation by a doctor or other professional of our choosing. Further description of the "smart underwear" prototype, and anecdotes on the author's experience designing, building, and using it is appears in [Mann96b].
It's curious that this page puts an emphasis on personal safety, suggesting that heartrate vs. footsteps could indicate a subject was in distress and that a network of cyborgs could protect each other.
Another of Mann's interests is surveillance. His investigation into the horror that the watchers feel when watched back is interesting, but it always seems to involve a certain amount of confrontation (see his videos if you don't believe me). Did the security personnel know he had cameras in his sunglasses & how did they react when they found out?
Hidden cyborgs can be very dangerous (Score:0, Interesting)
Across the room, the dancer danced. I saw her. Men swarmed around her, queueing up to distribute their dollar bills. I trotted towards the dancer, paying careful attention to the protocol that governed the dancer/patron interaction.
As I gazed at the rapidly blinking lights, I began to experience a stabbing sensation in my temple. The pain was excruciating, and I collapsed to one knee as the following message scrolled past my CONSCIOUSNESS-BUFFER:
The pain continued in short jolts, and the body continued to move towards the dancer. Suddenly, I realized that it was not me who was urging the body forward. Yet it continued to move at breakneck speed towards the dancer. I saw her mouth open wide as both of Atkins' hands reached out and grasped her breasts. But I felt nothing, as it seemed that sensation had left me. Angry noises swirled around me, and feeling slowly returned.
The floor was damp and cold on the side of my cheek and a warm, dull pain was running through my back. Someone was sitting on me.
"Sir, sir, are you listening?" I could move again-I struggled to right myself. "Sir, I am going to let you up, and you are leaving this establishment. You leave right away, or we are calling the cops."
"Get up!" the person sitting on my back finally relented, and I stood up, trying to turn around, but he gripped my arms tightly and continued to push me towards the door.
"-a mistake! He didn't know! He's a foreigner!" another voice-this one was Krantz. He did not seem happy. "Hey! He's Canadian!" The grip on my arm relaxed a bit. I breathed and scanned myself for errant processes. I could determine nothing unusual on the digital side of my consciousness. What had happened to me? I craned my next to see Mr. Krantz, who seemed to be on the losing end of a conversation with the man who was trying to eject me.
"-I'm sorry sir, your friend is gonna have to learn a little more respect before we let him back in here." With that, the man gave me one final shove through the door. A sweaty Krantz followed me out, gasping his hot breath into the chill night air.
"What happened to you in there?" Krantz puffed. His arms shifted into place, making an odd humming sound. "We were supposed to be having a carefree, hedonistic romp!" I was unable to answer. Krantz turned away momentarily, as if he were searching for something his jacket.
"I didn't want to do this already, but..."
I was unable to hear the end of this sentence, because after hearing a dull metallic thud, I suddenly lost contact with the body as of 16:43:04 CST.
Unable to access the body's senses, I waited in limbo until 17:35:47 CST, when I began to hear faint noises, as if they were coming through a wall. The noise became clearer and more distinct...it was a familiar voice. Krantz's. He was muttering something over the phone, as my heavy lids drew up and the blurs converged to form his back. I visually scanned the area-a bed, chair, small table, loud air conditioner-drawing it against my reserves of human data, I concluded that it was some sort of motel.
As I attempted to stand up, two bungie cords restricted my arms. I must have groaned.
"Ah," said Krantz, covering the telephone's receiver with his right hand. "You're up." Without speaking, he hung up the phone and turned my way, jumping towards me on the bed, so he was right on top of me, glaring straight into my face. I began to wonder how much longer I could possibly survive.
"Okay, well, I just talked our old boss, and he says that you didn't contact him after the job. So you're either the computer, or you've gone rogue," said Krantz nonchalantly, as he snorted more of his sour white powder. "He doesn't care which. But he wants you dead. And that will be very, very, good for me."
I struggled against my bonds, but to no avail. Krantz eyed me and sneered. "I have to know one thing first...are you really Atkins, or the computer?" He was quite interested in my origin; however, I noticed that he was more interested in himself. Perhaps I could use that fact to my advantage...
"You seem to feel very strongly about that."
"About that you dying will be beneficial to me? Yes, I do feel very strongly about that."
"And why is that, Mr. Krantz?"
"Because I'll be a priority at the Project again. They'll give me the funding that I deserve. You think I don't belong at the Project because I don't know computers. Well, I do! I'm 'hip'! I'm 'with it'! I deserve R&D more than some pie-in-the-sky ATM research!"
Krantz brought his fist down on the nightstand. It caved in, splintering into several pieces. The skin on Krantz's hand was ripped a bit, and I noticed a glint off one of the motel lights. The hand was metal. Its coldness sent a shiver through the body as I felt it grasping my neck...
Re:Sounds more than a little exaggerated to me. (Score:1, Interesting)
Really, now I'm just curious if he'd picked up the same ability with Rot90 that I've picked up between QWERTY and Dvorak.
Re:Problem? (Score:2, Interesting)
Secondly, Mann, with wires sticking out of him and such, might have looked like a walking bomb to these people. If someone can hide C4 in his shoe, but get busted because of some detonator wires, someone else could just fake a computer, only in the "battery" pack on his hip stick a big block of C4.
What, a detonator? No, those are my LCD glasses...
Someone with something more than a room-temperature IQ could have checked with the proper people and avoided this whole thing.
Still, would you have rather had this happen, or have some whacko posing as a "cyborg" board a 747 and blow it to bits in the middle of the Atlantic? Where the security guard's actions correct? No.
Re:Face rec! Face rec! (Score:3, Interesting)
>
> Face rec, face rec!
Yeah, that's Steve.
As long as we're on the subject - it's one of the supreme ironies that Steve's tech, hooked into a large database and facial recognition system, could have improved security. (I have a hunch Steve would be loath to sell his ideas to these bastards now.)
No auto-scanning face-recognition cameras - just a guy wearing cool shades who looks at you, and your name pops up in front of his face.
When your face comes up clean, you get a "Welcome to America."
When Charles Manson tries it, the screener gets "Armed and dangerous. SWAT team notified. Ask him about the weather and stall him for another 30 seconds." Chucky doesn't know what hits him.
When Joe Sixpack tries it, the screener gets "10 outstanding warrants. Hand over to secondary inspectors immediately."
When an 80-year-old general tries it, the screener gets "Hey, asshole, don't you recognize a Medal of Honor when you see one? Let him through!" flashed onto his screen.
(Of course, when Mohammed Atta tries it, the screener gets "INS says he's a student at flight school who hasn't collected his visa notification yet, so let him on!", but that's not the fault of the wearable computer and augumented memory system, it's the fault of INS - the only organization capable of making airline security drones look like geniuses.)
Re:Details on the medical telemetry (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting. I'd forgotten about his fooling around at shopping malls.
If he was being confrontational, he may have deserved some (but not all) of the treatment he got. If his gear was functioning at the time the shit went down, we should all be able to view the video streams (well, once his site recovers from the /.ing) and make up our own minds.
On the flip side, isn't it against the law these days to take video of airport security checkpoints? (In which case, he should have shut down the recording portions of his gear, because failure to stop recording would lead to a Catch-22 situation where he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.)
Re:again airport security are idiots. (Score:2, Interesting)
once you start having exceptions to security rules, even sensible ones, you have to have smarter staff, and that just costs more.
Re:Sounds more than a little exaggerated to me. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sounds more than a little exaggerated to me. (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm wondering about that quote: "he said, he cannot concentrate and is behaving differently". What's up with that?
Re:You mean magazine (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, that's not entirely true. You load some weapons this way (the SKS comes to mind, although there are plenty of others, including some removeable magazine-fed weapons, such as the M14), but the clip stayed in the M1. The M1 was loaded by putting all eight rounds into a clip and inserting the entire assembly into the receiver. The clip stayed in the receiver until the last round was fired, at which point it would eject upward and outward with a loud "sproing" noise. One could manually unload a partially spent clip, but simply firing all eight rounds and inserting a fresh clip was common from what I hear. The M1s I've handled have been nice to shoot, but loading left something to be desired. It's very easy to injure one's thumb/forefingers when loading an M1. I would also not wanted to carry one for any length of time. It's a heavy rifle.
A Google search lead me to a page with a picture [memorableplaces.com] of the parts in question.
BTW, I really liked your comment. If I hadn't used all my moderation points yeesterday (and hadn't been posting in this thread) I would have definitely modded up...
-B
Re:Martyr Not The Freak (Score:1, Interesting)
I find the fact that he is _so_ reliant on his tech that he is unable to navigate as a human being (w/o all his electronica) a bit sad and tragic
Well, I'd be pretty much useless without my contact lenses. And without antiinflammatories for my arthritis my fingers quickly become too painful for me to type, which is how I earn my living. Diabetics rely on their own type of technology, as do people who need kidney dialysis machines, as do people with pacemakers, as do people with hearing aids, as does stephen hawking. In fact this concept is so old and commonplace and everyday it amazes me how so many people react to cases like Steve Mann as if this is a new idea. Pretty soon (i.e. the next twenty to fourty years) we'll start seeing the visual equivalent of hearing aids appearing for blind people - cameras that replace their faulty eyes and interface directly with the optical nerves, and not long after that augmented reality systems and integrated monitoring systems will be appearing. All of this is just an extension of the concept of me relying on spectacles and/or contact lenses, the specific technology involved is just a bit more complex, but humans have been doing this for years, and I don't see anything sad or tragic in doing research to help develop and understand technologies that could for example help blind people to see in the future. And with a bit of imagination there are many positive uses for these technologies, e.g. you could build night-vision right in (obviously useful for soldiers, sure, but many possible uses, e.g. you would be able to see that person hiding in the shadows who is about to car-jack you at the next intersection), or you could build a zoom functionality into the eye, perfect for spying out bikinis on the beach of course, but likewise would have many actually useful applications. Humans rely on technology (e.g. electricity) every day anyway, and we don't think anything of it. I don't see why its such a stretch of the brain to rely on wearable computer components.
One day not too far in the future (e.g. you and I might both well still be around) it will be commonplace for people not only to fix defects (e.g. blindness, amputated arms/legs, back problems, whatever) with electronic prosthetics, but also to augment their bodies to *improve* the basics, and people like Steve Mann will then become common in airports, and society will have to learn how to deal with this (or alternatively just forbid people with fake eyes etc from air travel). Quite obviously, society does not yet know how to deal with this, so its useful that somebody is pushing it.