Blind Man's Bluff

The interesting topic of espionage, counter-espionage, and surveillance is covered pretty well by "Little Brother". An Orwellian supposition on our near future is the mainstay of this story, in which the populace is being monitored closely following terrorist attacks.

I found that while the scenario is a bit exaggerated, the technology and protocols are all entirely modern. The author makes an attempt at capturing today's technological subculture, and for the most part has been successful.

Small cameras, tracking software, histogram detection methods, wifi-detectors are all things we've encountered before (even if we don't know it). Their widespread use for the purposes of surveillance of an entire populace, and overt surveillance at that, simply has not been done in the United States as of yet; but the technology is there.

Okay, so we know the cameras are available, that's a no brainer, but what about gait tracking software? This rather interesting concept is something I'm not sure exists yet, but the premises are available. Use a camera to identify shapes, watch the change in these shapes and make a supposition on the nature of these changes.

This type of software does exist. Volvo, for instance, is using a derivative of this to help cars identify incoming obstacles, and automatically apply the brakes. The camera identifies a shape, identifies that it has gotten larger, or has quickly appeared close to the camera, and determines it is an obstacle. This is an improvement over current, radar/infrasound based technologies for reasons that are beyond the scope of this writing.

The technology I am most familiar with in the story, however, would be the cryptological methods described. Public/Private key, web-of-trust, middle-man attacks, are all things I've studied for a good while when concerned with web development. Use in the situations described is entirely plausible, and recommended!

Security is a continually evolving field, with many angles that need to be covered. It's interesting to see how the mathematical cryptography could be worked around with even more math using the histogram methods; Bayesier math. The simplistic elegance really contrasts with the complexity of higher math, an item touched upon in the story as well.