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05/20/2003 Archived Entry: "LifeLog (And you thought TIA was creepy!)"

THIS IS ONE OF THOSE "I THOUGHT IT WAS A JOKE WHEN I FIRST READ IT" THINGS. It comes to us -- no surprise -- from the Pentagon's DARPA, those wonderful folks who brought you Total Information Awareness.

The embryonic LifeLog program would dump everything an individual does into a giant database: every e-mail sent or received, every picture taken, every Web page surfed, every phone call made, every TV show watched, every magazine read.

All of this -- and more -- would combine with information gleaned from a variety of sources: a GPS transmitter to keep tabs on where that person went, audio-visual sensors to capture what he or she sees or says, and biomedical monitors to keep track of the individual's health.

This gigantic amalgamation of personal information could then be used to "trace the 'threads' of an individual's life," to see exactly how a relationship or events developed, according to a briefing from the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency, LifeLog's sponsor.

True story, sad to say. The only good news is that it won't be ready tomorrow or anything like that. You'll find the rest of this sad tale here, at Wired magazine.

Gee, I wonder if the Washington folks will share all of their e-mails, snapshots, GI tract x-rays, GPS tracks, and porn-site URLs with us. Maybe not, eh?

(Sunni M., you sure do have a way of brightening the day with your cheery little news finds.)

Posted by Claire @ 10:28 PM CST
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