Another One Bites The Smart Dust

Ever heard of smart dust?  Neither have I.  Smart Dust, otherwise known as wireless sensor technology is the practice of placing tiny sensors anywhere and everywhere or into just about anything to stream data about that location or structure.  Smart Dust has been around for a while now and scientists are using it to do everything from monitor students on campus to checking on rice crops in the orient.  Will this radically change the way of our world?

If you’re still having trouble understaind what smart dust is.  Think of it the movie Twister.  Those garbage cans full of lil metal cubes that they were trying so desperately to get sucked into a tornado, those were basically smart dust containers.  Granted, the smart dust in twister looked downright ancient to what todays dust looks like.  It’s like comparing a giant room-sized computer from 1960 to a laptop of today.  The picture above shows how small some of these smart dust ‘particles’ can get. 

Each particle is actually a tiny microprocessor with a sensor and a  radio transceiver.  They can monitor all sorts of conditions like moisture, temperature, light, or stress to name a few.  Hundreds or even thousands of these sensors can be placed in a location to measure the conditions of the space they cover. For example, an airplane could drop smart dust over a war zone to monitor for chemical or biological warfare agents.  Another batch of smart dust could be configured to monitor a farmers crops to make sure they’re getting enough rain.  Yet other sensors could monitor the stress on buildings caused by earthquakes, global temperatures to keep tabs on global warming, or even  traffic on the freeway or in your store.  Imagine inserting tiny weight-sensing nodes all over the floor of your store to monitor the traffic patterns and volume of your costumers.  This could be great for both store owner and customers, but the technology could also be a really downer on society.

In an era where privacy seems to be shrinking at an alarming rate(RFID tags, satellite imagery, security cameras, GPS, etc.) this could be the final brick in the path towards an Orwellian state where there isn’t an ounce of privacy to be had.  Some are concerned about the lack of privacy as every street corner, which is already covered with cameras.  They’ll now be covered with sensors of every other imaginable type.  Imagine the horror a young overweight girl would experience if her school hallway floors were laced with weight sensing nodes and a group of jerkoff boys were able to hack into the schools server to view this information.  Or maybe I just don’t want my boss to know that I took a 23 minute crap while on the clock.  Maybe I don’t want my landlord knowing that I like to keep my apartment at a balmy 85 degrees in the winter because utilities are included in my rent.  Maybe these advanced sensors will produce contradictory information to what we think we know now on various areas of scientific concern(global warming) and cause panic and possible rash action. 

Ok, if I ever use the phrase “rash action” again…

Anyhow, the point is that these sensor networks will provide oodles of data to allow everyone from cops to farmers to do their jobs better and ultimately make the world a better and safer place, and that’s fine.  But making sure this technology isn’t misused or abused is key.  If I had some smart dust I don’t think I’d hessitate to use it to measure how far my farts linger from their point of orgin.  Now THAT would be RASH ACTION!