Superhuman Senses

Testing Our Defenses?

False alarms sometimes lull people into a false sense of security. When it comes to defending our nation against bioterrorism, they heighten my sense of concern.

Last night about 200 people were evacuated from the Russell Senate Office Building after a sensor in the attic indicated a nerve agent was present. About a dozen senators were part of this group.

After the group was quarantined for three hours, at least two tests proved negative. Officials classified the event as a false alarm, and the group was allowed to go.

Last September, sensors detected the presence of tularemia while about a hundred thousand people were on the Mall for anti war protests.

After five days, that alert was also labelled a false alarm. In that case, the alarm was kept quiet for many days; no one at the protests knew they were in potential danger, partially because the BioWatch sensors require 36 hours to produce readings.

In the weeks following 9/11, seven letters containing highly refined anthrax were mailed to media outlets and two senators. The attacks clearly were no designed to maximize damage, but more likely to call attention to the presence of anthrax. After months of news coverage, the incidents have faded into the background. But the person or people who did this are still at large, and we know they have anthrax.

One obvious possibility is that our defenses and reactions are being tested. What happens when our sensors detect a biohazard? How does Homeland Security react? Someone could be methodically testing our defenses in advance of true attacks.

Then again, these could be false alarms.

It seems to me, though, that we need more sensors, and a better process for validating results faster. In the Washington Mall incident, Homeland Security officials took three days to notify the Center for Disease Control of their sensor readings. That's not good enough.

Our culture is quite impatient. We have short attention spans. But the people who wish to do us harm have proven they can be extremely patient. "False" alarms deserve vigilance.

No Escape from Helicopter Swarms

Shots ring out, and seconds later two gun-wielding men crash through the doors of a convenience store in downtown Los Angeles. A police helicopter is in the area, but what are the odds it can be alerted and arrive in time to track the fleeing criminals?

Fortunately, smart cameras with gunshot detection systems populate this high-risk neighborhood. Two cameras recognize the gunshot and instantly swivel to follow the fugitives. They simultaneously trigger an alert, which tells the helicopter precisely where the suspects are and in what direction they are heading.

Here is where the scene takes a fork in the road you have seldom seen, even in a Hollywood movie.

The helicopter, all eleven inches of it, alerts all the other helicopters in the area. There are about 200. True to their name, they swarm towards the fugitives.

From the ground, it looks like a swarm of bees is descending from the heavens above to sting the evil pair. But the copters do not attack, they merely pursue, hovering ten to 100 feet above their targets and following their every movement.

Panicked, the men fire wildly at the swarm. They hit one copter, destroying it, but that does not impact the swarm. If one copter goes down, the others adjust. The swarm is still a functioning network.

The men duck into an abandoned warehouse, and the swarm splits. Some follow into the building, others surround it from all sides and above. All the while, they communicate with each other. Unless they have 200 bullets, perfect aim, and all the time in the world, they have no hope of escaping.

The copters serve as a homing beacon, and armed police soon surround the building. The men surrender quickly, spooked by their inhuman pursuers.

The copter swarm I describe is based on work being done at the University of Essex in England, where researchers have a concept known as Ultraswarms. They have constructed miniature helicopters, designed to fly indoors, that communicate with each other via Bluetooth and use Linux to perform parallel processing operations. This scenario is some ways off, but it is beginning to appear plausible.

The picture here shows their early prototype helicopter. The file shown on the screen is being sent to the screen from the helicopter via a Bluetooth link. The researchers say this helicopter is the smallest flying web server in the world.

Five Days Ago You Were in Real Danger

On September 24, 2005 six biodefense sensors - part of the nation's BioWatch system - detected the presence of tularemia while about a hundred thousand peoplewere on the Mall for anti war protests.

Tularemia causes flu-like symptoms and can be treated by antibiotics, but it can be fatal if left untreated. It is one of the major biohazards the Department of Homeland Security watches for, along with plague, anthrax and smallpox.

Since this detection, however, there have been no public reports of illness, and some question as to the validity of these readings.

The BioWatch system is deployed in dozens of cities nationwide, with many details remaining classified. A previous alert in Hoston in 2003 turned out to be a false alarm caused by naturally occuring bacteria.

The system is not designed to sound an immediate alarm, since analysis of sensor readings takes 36 hours. So the system is mostly useful for alerting officials to be on the watch for reports of illness. In other words, you could be exposed to a deadly substance and not told for two, three or more days.

In the recent Washington incident, the Department for Homeland Security took three days to inform the Center for Disease Control about the sensor readings. Local officials were not informed for five days, supposedly because subsequent tests called into doubt the original readings. But still, you can see that the tendency is on the side of not alerting the public.