BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...

Subject: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 08:32 PM

Yep, jus' when you thought that Big Brother couldn't come up with yet another way to spy on us, the next generation of spies just might be (or perhaps allready are), ahhhhh....

...bugs!!!

That's right, bugs!!!

In this morning's Washington Post there is an article entitled "Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs" by Rick Weiss...

The article talks about a couple of things... The first is implanting a silicon chip in a moth pupa and then when the moth is hatched out it will carry a small camera to take pictures of us...

Sound farfetched??? Well, hold on...

Seems that there is a prototype fake dragon fly (or moth) looking thing that is all mechanical and flies like a bug and looks like a bug but it's really a tine little spy drone??? Of course, no one in governemnt will comment on these things...

What will they think of next??? Boxes of Chereo's that climb down from the cuppord at night, come into our bedrooms and watch us sleep???

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 09:00 PM

Bobert! If you are going to spread rumors like that, please look into the salt shaker and speak clearly at the fly sitting on it!

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 09:19 PM

Gitcherself a really good fly swatter...no, they might be banned. Likewise rolled-up newspapers and swattin' skeeters.

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 09:30 PM

It's gonna be quite a world when the skeeters start swattin' back...

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 09:41 PM

LOL...

Actually, the article mentioned that birds- yes, those nasty feathered things- are a potential problem in that they don't know 'bout mechanical bugs and might try to eat 'um...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 09:47 PM

Ah! Friendly fire, sort of.

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: bobad
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 09:51 PM

Mechanical raptors would take care of that little problem.

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 10:02 PM

Shhhhhhh, bo-bad....

Don't give 'um any new ideas...

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 10:13 PM

Oh, big deal. Been artificial bugs around for years -- just ask any fly fisherfolk.

I can see a big ol' trout swallowin' one of these things. Give a whole new meaning to "looking deep inside." Or a cow eating one by mistake -- "Colonel! The General called and said to tell you that he thought all along this artificial bug thing was bullshit, and TR-327X proves him right!"

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: Bee
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 10:37 PM

I bet they'd be easy to spot. Dragonflies have some pretty identifiable natural behaviours... except...

Last summer I rescued a big Meadowhawk that had landed wings flat on the water and was stuck there. Hauled him out, hid him under a bush so the birds wouldn't get him. Took about two hours for him to dry out enough to fly away. Couple days later, I'm walkin' up the driveway with a too fast for slappin' deerfly tormenting me every step. Suddenly: swoop! this big Meadowhawk takes the fly no more than ten centimetres from my head. Now, that's gratitude.

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: Barry Finn
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 11:22 PM

There are reports of the insects already in use, spying domesticly.
See the Washington Post story.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 01:10 AM

Real Insects [Link to where I copped the full article, not working now but may come back, so I'll leave the link. (MSN on countermeasures against IEDs)]

[quote]

Some promising technologies fizzled. The Defense Department invested more than $2 million in the Stealthy Insect Sensor Project, including extensive research at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the "Manhattan Project-like" effort that Abizaid had called for had realized its goal: a nuclear bomb. Various engineers were pursuing the "scientific molecular sniffer" that Abizaid had also envisioned shortly after taking over at Centcom in 2003, but Los Alamos hoped to exploit the honeybee's keen sense of smell as a means to detect explosives.

Researchers placed each bee in a tiny harness, exposed the insects to various explosive scents for six seconds, and then provided a sugar water reward. This Pavlovian conditioning soon caused a bee to extend its proboscis -- tongue -- in anticipation of sugar whenever it detected a whiff of TNT or C-4 plastic explosive. A small television camera placed in a box where the bees were harnessed would allow a soldier watching a monitor to see whether the "proboscis extension reflex" signaled the presence of explosives. In 2004, bees had stuck out their tongues at 50 pounds of TNT in a simulated IED, according to Robert Wingo, a Los Alamos chemist.

Votel's reaction upon learning of the project was typical: "What?" The practical applications in combat seemed limited. "How do we operationalize this?" he asked. "How does, say, 1st Platoon manage their bees?" Among other problems, harnessed bees tended to be short-lived. After an analysis concluded that the honeybee's "explosive-detection capabilities have significant reliability issues," as a Defense Department official put it earlier this year, the Pentagon withdrew its support.

[end quote]

So drooling bees are no more useful than Pavlov's slobbering dogs?

John

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 01:24 AM

Barry Finn's link provided something of a challenge. Typically, it takes about 4 times as long to preload the "ad links" as to load the article at the Wash Post site, and in this case, just as the article appeared, the link to one of the ads would fail and my browser would delete everything. It only took about 8 (total) refreshes to get the article up to read it...

Ain't commercial pimps wunnerful?

Given that the sightings described were in New York and Washington DC, where none of the native/resident population is likely to have ever seen an actual insect, the most reasonable explanation for the "mysterious objects" seen probably was "bugs." (i.e. mating/courting dragonflies in flight?)

Given the extent of research current in any number of university labs on micro-machinery (and nanotechnology) a fairly bright junior year student from "almost anywhere" quite possibly might have launched a few left-overs from a class project just as a tweak on the spy-culture snoops - who quite obviously were there with their lesser and obsolete spy gimmicks.

John

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 02:06 AM

Interestingly, now on fairly wide sale here in Oz, are FLYING 'dragonflies' - toys about a foot long that are like those little helicopter toys, but actually have beating wings like dragonflies!

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: Charley Noble
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 08:24 AM

"There ain't no flies on our country!"

Cheerily,
George W. Bush

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: Barry Finn
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 11:39 AM

Charlei, that's cause the rent's to high.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 12:47 PM

Why did I read the thread title as "buggered"?

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 01:00 PM

Wouldn't you think that these high tech dragon fly cameras would be used in situations where there might be a threat to peace instead of a benign threat to war such as an anti war rally????

Is the worst threat really a threat to stop a war?

What next? The threat of good health?

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 01:02 PM

W is keeping the intelligence gap firmly closed.

Subject: RE: BS: New Meanin' for the Term 'Bugged'...
From: Peace
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 02:51 PM

The answer to the problem is obvious. The answer.