"the Internet, a development that promises social control"

[pynchonoid]

Thanks to the P-lister who alerted me, offlist, to US
Home Guard, <http://www.ushomeguard.org/>. 


"[...] the Internet, a development that promises
social control those quaint old twentieth-century
tyrants with their goofy mustaches could only dream
about."
--Thomas Pynchon, Foreword to _1984_, p. vxi

<http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/125/business/Eyes_on_the_spies+.shtml>


"[...] We'd need a new security force, numbering in
the thousands, to have any hope of guarding every
vulnerable spot from spies, intruders, or saboteurs. 

Connecticut inventor and entrepreneur Jay Walker says
he can recruit just such a security force over the
Internet. He believes that thousands of Americans
armed with home computers could form the first line of
defense against terrorist attack. ''My guess,'' said
Walker, ''is it's going to be the most powerful
solution yet developed.''

Walker's plan is called US HomeGuard, and it's an idea
that at first hearing might sound impractical, even
bizarre. Its reliance on Internet technology is bound
to be controversial among security experts who fear
the Internet itself is vulnerable to attack, and its
business logistics may prove difficult to implement.
Walker says he developed HomeGuard less as a business
plan than a citizen's contribution to homeland
security, and he may leave the business to others.

[...] Surely there are still a fair number of zeroes
in the Walker bank account. His cozy office here is
crammed with costly memorabilia from the space program
and World War II. There's a genuine German Enigma
machine used by the Nazi military to send coded
messages, and a page from the navigation log of the
Enola Gay, which dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima.

Then there's US HomeGuard, an idea that has already
absorbed $1 million in research and development funds,
money that Walker has no intention of recouping.
Indeed, he wants to sell the concept to the US
government for a dollar. The government would then set
the standards for implementing the plan and issue a
contract with private companies to build it out.
Walker said he might be involved with implementing the
plan, but said that was not a priority for him.

[...] the system would use thousands of digital
cameras placed at sensitive areas. The cameras are
only put in places that are supposed to be unoccupied,
so there's no danger of invading someone's privacy.
They'll be equipped with infrared capability, for use
even at night.

The images from the cameras would be fed to computers
capable of detecting whether anything in the image has
moved. Pictures that show no movement are instantly
discarded. That will leave only a tiny percentage of
questionable images, which must be turned over to
human viewers.

That's where the Internet comes in. Walker Digital had
already been working on a concept called ''digital
piecework'' -- an efficient way for people to do
hourly clerical tasks for pay on their home computers.
US HomeGuard takes advantage of this research. It
would relay suspicious pictures to the home computers
of ordinary people, called spotters, who'd be paid $8
to $10 an hour to review them for evidence of
trespassing.

[...] With about half of American homes logged into
the Internet, millions of people are potential US
HomeGuard employees. They could work part time, at
nights, or on weekends, without leaving their living
rooms. ''It employs people part time, very
productively, who may not be employable in other
ways,'' said Walker. It can even spread the security
workload across multiple US time zones. For instance,
when it's 3 a.m. in New York, it's 9 p.m. in Hawaii --
prime time for webcam-watching. [...] 






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