Open Source Sensing:

Can we have both privacy and safety?

Christine PetersonForesight Institutewww.foresight.org

"The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness."

—Niels Bohr

No Secret Software for Public Voting

Data! The E-voting mess —The Open Science

community could have nipped it in the bud.

One molecule

Nanotech can do it now too

the sensors are coming

Nanotech-based sensors

“The detector generates a continuous 'spectrum' of information about any chemical agents in its presence...”

“easily programmable”

Sewer monitoring has begun

“The test doesn’t screen people directly but instead seeks out evidence of illicit drug abuse in drug residues and metabolites excreted in urine and flushed toward municipal sewage treatment plants.”

“We found a drug molecule — Everybody out for a breath check!”

Things worth detecting: weapons of mass destruction

• Explosives, chemicals, nukes — today

• Bioweapons – in early stages — nasty, but delicate and hard to control)

• Nanoweapons — later — like bioweapons, but tougher and more controllable)

Time

GDP per capita goes up

Cost of WMD comes down

$

Technological Advance

Fear + poor WMD data =

Sudan pharmaceutical plant, August 1998

Result: more surveillanceElectronic, video, biological, chemicalBeing integrated into national system

Transparency vs privacy

DC doesn’t notice our debates — they just move forward

Top-down approach to bottom-up problem

• Centralized

• Mandatory

• Monolithic

• Limited in participation

• Secretive

• Leads toward Surveillance State

Open Science-stylephysical security

• Decentralized

• Minimal

• Voluntary/privatized

• Experimental

• Collaborative

• Open

• Transparent

“Track the problem, not the people”

Who can figure out whether & how to collect

public sensing data?• Need a community that understands the

relationships between:

• Security

• Privacy

• Functionality

• Freedom

Graphic: Gina Miller

Open Sensing-based Security: What would it be like?

• Open source style development

• Citizen controlled

• Privacy oriented

• Verifiably limited

• Detects materials of concern

• Does not track individuals or nonweapons (e.g. drugs)

What might we regard as worth detecting?

• Real problems

• Anthrax (NYC, DC, FL 2001)

• Sarin (Tokyo, 1995)

• Ricin (London 2002, Las Vegas 2008)

• Later: syn bio accidents or abuse

Who gets the data?

• Communities negotiate

• Mutual data exchange, e.g. anthrax within 100 km

• Agreements on how to treat the data

• “Communities” size can vary from household to nation, depending on what is detected (e.g., TNT vs nukes)

Do we not have a “freedom to sense”?

Proposed law in New York City that will require people to get a license before they can buy

chemical, biological, or radiological

attack detectors

NO SECRET SOFTWARE FOR PUBLIC SENSING

DATA!

Open Source Sensing

orthe Open Science waythe fed way

Open sensing • OpenSourceSensing.org

• Email me: peterson@foresight.org

No Secret Software for

Public Sensing Data!