An article on the community of visual satellite spotters, amateur hobbyists who enjoy the challenge of identifying and tracking government satellites and sharing the information on the internet.
Anyone who follows technology or military affairs has heard the predictions for more than a decade. Cyberwar is coming. Although the long-announced, long-awaited computer-based conflict has yet to occur, the forecast grows more ominous with every telling: an onslaught is brought by a warring nation, backed by its brains and computing resources; banks and other businesses in the enemy states are destroyed; governments grind to a halt; telephones disconnect; the microchip-controlled Tickle Me Elmos will be transformed into unstoppable killing machines.
Researchers are developing life-imitating robots that mimic the movements and structure of real creatures. These biomimetic creations could be used to find land mines, repair machinery in hard-to-reach spots and even diagnose and treat diseases.
Private financing of space exploration and innovation by extremely wealthy investors has drawn away much of the excitement that government-financed human space efforts long enjoyed.
A team of researchers at Johns Hopkins University have cracked the RFID security system behind the new "immobilizer" automobile security system.
An interview with Howard Rheingold on his theory that the convergence of wireless communications technologies and widely distributed networks allow swarming on a scale that has never existed before. He envisions shifts along the lines of those that began to occur when people first settled into villages and formed nation-states. "We are on the verge of a major series of social changes that are closely tied into emerging technologies," he said.
Since Sept. 11, discussion of the disputed technology of face recognition has focused on its potential for identifying criminals and terrorists — and for invading citizens' privacy. But in England, the police are pursuing a different path: they want to use facial recognition software to identify crime victims.
Experts assess strategies for protecting the U.S. against cyber-terrorism. One of the fears is that attacks could be used to complicate matters further after a real-world attack by planting false information on the Web to create a panic or taking down crucial computers in the financial or communications sectors. Proposed strategies include setting up a network for intrusion detection, an idea which was proposed earlier but was tabled because of civil liberties concerns.