The Shape of Things
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The Shape of Things Money is starting to flow in response to an increased perception of vulnerability in the nation’s mass transit system. The additional resources will create an intelligent network that will permit unprecedented monitoring of activity in the New York subway system. There are already 5,700 cameras in place, but they are old and not properly placed to monitor strategic chokepoints in the system. We should all feel a little safer today, and a little less free. Big Brother is moving in, with all the best intentions in the world. The British have pioneered surveillance of public places, and the camera system in place is credited with helping to quickly unravel the subway bombing mystery. The New York Transit Authority has awarded Lockheed Martin’s Transportation and Security Group a three-year $212 million contact to leap-frog the state of the art for public monitoring. The contract will install a camera system and network architecture to support 1,000 additional video cameras and 3,000 motion sensors in the city’s subway system and over half the underground stations- nearly three hundred in all. The system will feature sophisticated phase-change software that will permit automatic identification of packages left unattended. That will not help authorities identify what is in the packages. That is coming next. A second contract of the same magnitude is being prepared now, to be issued late this year or early in 2006. It will request a network of sensors capable of detecting biological and chemical agents. In some ways, life is going to get a little better. Cell-phone service has been restored on the subway. Transit officials feared phones would be used as detonators for bombs. British officials have recently concluded that the July 7 bombs were manually detonated. Service will not be permitted on moving trains. Losers in the competition included employee-owned SAIC and German communications giant Seimens Corporation. As part of the two hundred million deal, LockMart gets a 10-year exclusive license for the system. It will be responsible for installing the wireless network and would be required to disable all calls at the Transit Authority’s request. There are optional extensions for maintenance work that could extend the contract through September 2013. The Lockheed team includes six other companies with expertise in computer software, transportation engineering and construction. The system will monitor the Authority’s two commuter railroads, nine bridges and tunnels as well as Grand Central Terminal, Pennsylvania Station and Times Square . It is the first proposal to converge several advanced security technologies into one new capability that will identify threat signatures and permit decisive action. At the center of the effort will be a dense network of cameras that can pan, zoom and tilt. Each camera will cost about $1,200 and have an effective range of 300 feet. But it is the network that will actually carry the load of identifying danger. The software will process the images according to pre-determined assumptions of peaceful behavior. Anything out of the ordinary will prompt operators to take action or summon security. The cameras will be installed shortly, though the backbone network is still being developed. The software is the key, after all, and the hard part. The invention that is going to fundamentally change the world is already with us. The personal computer was around for a decade before anyone realized how significant it was going to be. Same thing with the cell phone, which is now literally part of our clothing. I have a feeling I know what the next big thing is. It is a little remote, and so we don’t thing about it. It is the network that is growing underneath everything we touch or operate. It is growing in thousands of miles of fiber-optic cable and high-speed optical switches. It is going into the subway today, and it is attached to red-light cameras and sensors in the public square. It is going to be installed on the border, to stop the illegals, and our cell-phones and PDAs will cheerfully report our whereabouts. All these disparate networks are going to converge. It is inevitable. Maybe not this decade. Maybe it will be after the next horror occurs, and the finger-pointing is done. But we are going to be safe. The Network is going to ensure it. Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra www.vicsocotra.com |
