I’m sure glad the Australian Federal Police have their priorities straight:
Technology such as cloned part-robot humans used by organised crime gangs pose the greatest future challenge to police, along with online scamming, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Mick Keelty says.
Leadhyena • July 11, 2007 2:44 PM
Well Bruce, it is not meant to be taken literally; it could refer to any variety of human/robot hybrid miscreant.
Jason B. • July 11, 2007 2:46 PM
This instantly made me remember one of my favorite SNL commercials of all time. Old Glory Robot insurance.
Petréa Mitchell • July 11, 2007 2:51 PM
Seeing as people with modern prosthetics pretty much are part-robot humans, this threat is closer than you think. (See, for instance, http://www.ottobockus.com/products/lower_limb_prosthetics/c-legproduct.asp )
OTOH, the clones’ fingerprints will still be different from their originals, so not quite so much to worry about on that front.
monopole • July 11, 2007 2:52 PM
Hope they have an order in for some Patlabors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patlabor#Storyline
The neat part is that the guy who designed the fictional patlabors is designing real robots in Japan now:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/future_imperfect.html
monopole • July 11, 2007 3:04 PM
Petréa Mitchell:
And when that time comes we know that Kevin Warwick will be behind it:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/20/warwick_dalek/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/06/new_who_villain/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/12/captain_cyborg_conference/
comic_lover • July 11, 2007 3:09 PM
Commissioner Keelty then went on, “What we really need to fight this new threat is a man with the proportionate strength, speed, and agility of a spider. Or perhaps a rich inventor with a suit made of metal or iron or something.”
Snark • July 11, 2007 3:15 PM
Methinks the problem here is with the reporting.
Why in the world would the newspaper take such inane comments at face value?
Didn’t anyone ask the Aussie police where they got the idea that robot crime was the next trend?
stacy • July 11, 2007 3:36 PM
“Didn’t anyone ask the Aussie police where they got the idea that robot crime was the next trend?”
From the DHS, and the science fiction writers they have working for them 🙂
Stephen Smoogen • July 11, 2007 3:53 PM
I am wondering if Bruce is having fun with us… next we will be getting an article from the Onion on the new secret encryption method called the Schneier method(TM and patent pending). It uses an 8×8 matrix of characters based off of ASCII. The high bits are filled with extra vowels and common letters to fool NSA probes. By placing a long word at the beginning of this matrix, you have a virtually unbeatable cipher! Except against half robot/humans who must be eliminated as a threat.
🙂
“”And I think a lot of those skills don’t exist in policing today,” Mr Keelty told a parliamentary inquiry into the future impact of organised crime in Canberra.”
Skills such as spotting obvious FUD
Fred P • July 11, 2007 3:57 PM
The picture for the article is worth more than the article itself 😉
Ron Southworth • July 11, 2007 3:57 PM
The news article is actually an announcement of the need and intention to seek industry participation and experience to aid and combat the newer types of crime that are part of everyday life.
The reporter has used a graphic that does not even relate to what the press release would have actually said and was really all about!
The Federal Government here has announced and allocated a fairly substantial budget towards this endeavour, something positive and forward thinking.
Laugh at the Editor and Reporter for trying to sex up and sell a news item and this poor attempt to belittle a servant of the community trying to announce that they have been and are going to make a real difference to maintaining our way of life we all take for granted.
Just ask Mark Farbro, Bruce about being misquoted.
Hey I am certain you have been misquoted before.
It was the Melbourne Age after all!
Lizard • July 11, 2007 4:01 PM
“Or perhaps a rich inventor with a suit made of metal or iron or something”
I didn’t know that there were “something” suits being made. Better stop the something-suit-wearing mobs from boarding airliners, never what kind of insanity they will foster.
Just remember kids, when they outlaw “something”, then only the outlaws will have “something”.
Adam • July 11, 2007 4:05 PM
Bruce I absolutely disagree.
We are very close to publicly available remote controlled robots that can open doors, carry weapons, fly a plane(if the robot isn’t a flying device itself), etc.
Youtube has a video of a remote gyrocopter fitted with an automatic shotgun.
The only saving grace of all the crazy people out there is that they mostly eliminate themselves when they finally fly off the handle.
Remote controlled robots armed with guns, bombs, etc will allow these nuts to attack from a distance.
Would it not be prudent with this in mind to jam remote control radio frequencies at large events?
tcliu • July 11, 2007 4:21 PM
Friends don’t let friends play “Syndicate” too much.
Brian • July 11, 2007 4:59 PM
Persons denying the existence of robots may in fact be robots themselves.
george • July 11, 2007 5:00 PM
I love the Onion! It’s America’s Finest News Source.
What a minute, this is a “real” report?
Ed209 • July 11, 2007 5:20 PM
@Bruce
I bet you’ll be singin’ a different tune when you’re lookin’ down the barrels o’ one o’ THESE!!! :
Thomas • July 11, 2007 5:32 PM
@Adam
“””Would it not be prudent with this in mind to jam remote control radio frequencies at large events?”””
Maybe GWB will let us keep the black helicopter that will be used to jam mobile phones during APEC….
Organised crime, paedophiles and … mutant robot army???
Isn’t the third horseman of the internet apocalypse supposed to be terrorism?
Sci-Fi Fan • July 11, 2007 5:36 PM
The Australian Federal Police have nothing to worry. Robots will be just as useful for the police as criminals.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2004/171204useofasio.htm
In a technology arms race, it’s often the government who have the best toys.
http://www.medfordpolice.com/officer_joe.JPG
LOL
Tsemaj • July 11, 2007 6:41 PM
Fantastic! So the organised crime turf wars of the future will involve drive-by EMPs.
Actually, it seems that some of our politicians are being exposed as weed smokers:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22048087-2,00.html
and
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/of-course-i-inhaled-says-finance-minister/2007/07/12/1183833608886.html
So maybe Kealty was toking too. Did he say anything about these robots being sent back from the future?
Ed209 • July 11, 2007 7:08 PM
Yes, yes! Here it is! What do you say NOW, Bruce Schneier?! :
David • July 11, 2007 9:54 PM
Everyone had a good laugh at that. Security Theater is all the rage in Australia: The Prime Minister loves get photographed with soldiers, puffs up his chest and says “National Security” and “Who do you trust?” He even sent a silly fridge magnet to every household warning for ‘signs of a terrorist attack’ and have billboards and TV ads declaring ‘Be alert but not alarmed!’ There’s a national hotline where you can call and report ‘anything suspicious’. To my knowledge, they’ve never got a single lead off it.
Yet these guys missed the Bali Bombings in which Australians died, not once, but twice. You would think after the first time they would have paid some more attention. No one got fired for that either. Business as usual
The Aussie Government refuses to accept there is a link between Australia joining the coalition of the willing, and terrorists suddenly paying us lots of attention. Even right after the bombing, the Foreign Minister declared the terrorists “weren’t targeting Australians”. (Bali is a well known hang out for Aussies.)
I’ve no idea where Kelty got the roboclones fantasy from, but to his credit Kelty did say the thought there was an Iraq-Terrorism link, but he was ridiculed by the Prime and Foreign Minister and had to retract his statement.
Something they are good at: When someone did a site making fun of the Prime Minister, either the Prime Minister or the AFP (we never found out which) got the satirists ISP to shut down the web site.
Useless, but the average Aussie doesn’t care. One said to me “I don’t care how many wars they get involved in so long as the economy is good and I have plenty of work”.
NotAllHomers • July 11, 2007 11:09 PM
Obviously you dont know how successful the phone number has been. Do you expect them to publish statistics or something.
The Bali Bombings are not a good arguement
John Davies • July 12, 2007 2:54 AM
The last sentence caught my eye:
“Criminals could use technology to commit crime but also to improve their ability to communicate secretly, he said.”
See, I knew that Schneier chap was up to no good.
( Key escrow anyone? )
Anonymous • July 12, 2007 5:05 AM
Remote controlled robots armed with guns, bombs,
etc will allow these nuts to attack from a distance.
The nutjobs are already doing that. These nutjobs can be found in US government agencies and armed forces, and I totally agree that they need to be killed off. Every single one! NOW!!!1!!eleven!
Rob Mayfield • July 12, 2007 6:42 AM
Just when we thought all the fruitcakes were in the US working for the TSA, our own boy seems to have been dipping into the evidence locker (drug section) and forgetting he has a media interview.
One thing he says is indeed true, most police are utterly clueless in the face of technology.
Seriously though, I did think for a moment someone had hijacked The Age website and redirected it to The Onion …
Joel Odom • July 12, 2007 6:44 AM
Hilarious! This is the funniest thing that I’ve seen in a long time.
Eam • July 12, 2007 8:06 AM
@Adam: It seems Bruce’s only point was that robots will not “pose the greatest future challenge to police.”
Do you honestly disagree with that?
“Technology such as cloned part-robot humans used by organised crime gangs pose the greatest future challenge to police, along with online scamming…”
This sure gives a whole new meaning to the term “bot-net army”, eh?
~EdT.
Prohias • July 12, 2007 11:40 AM
Off topic a bit.
I was just reading a news article on CNN of a diverted American Airlines flight from LA to London, that landed in NY.
The top Google ad on the page, sums up the situation perfectly:
“Stop Panic Attacks. End. Anxiety, fears and phobias. 3 Minute Panic Buster System”.
Even automated keyword-match software gets it.
derf • July 12, 2007 12:01 PM
I think that as a society, we will face a much larger moral dilemma with cyborg technology first.
For instance, if someone with robotic arms can do a job better and faster, will robotic arms become a requirement for that position? If you want the job will you have to sacrifice your arms?
Can our stooges in washington deal with the intellectual aspects of these questions when they can’t even keep their freezers clean of bribes or their pants on for more than 5 minutes?
Mike Hoye • July 12, 2007 4:17 PM
Clearly, we need a Cyborg Cop.
David • July 12, 2007 6:54 PM
@NotAllHomers writes “Obviously you dont know how successful the phone number has been. Do you expect them to publish statistics or something.”
Knowing this Government, if they caught someone shoplifting on the hotline they’d trumpet it from every roof top.
@NotAllHomers writes “The Bali Bombings are not a good arguement”
That’s not even a sentence. Justify what you are saying. They missed not one, but two bombings and this doesn’t bother you? Don’t you think the first might have tipped them off to look out for a second? That’s ok with you?
Sci-Fi Fan • July 12, 2007 8:36 PM
Hmm… Maybe we shouldn’t laugh too much at robots yet.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/07/13/scirobot213.xml
When the robot knows how to forcibly handcuff me, then I will be worried 🙂
NotAllHomers • July 13, 2007 5:05 AM
You presented a very simplistic view to a very complex and difficult problem. The two situations that happened not on native soil but on a distant shore where large sections of the community openly support and protect the “radically motivated” and the ideology behind those bombings. Your comments deserved much less than a short sentence and what I have posted now will probably be lost on you as well!
What have you done to try and solve the social and economic problems that are the root cause to the friction between these extreme points of view? I suspect nothing but criticise and moan.
Hey you may not agree with what a political party or what every “democratic” government is doing on every issue in the free world but don’t bag people because you have an un-realistic narrow-minded padded armchair view of the world.
The amount of resources required to process and validate every threat that exists in the globe strains the purse of even the mighty USA.
You expect Australia to have a bigger Intelligence budget than the USA, JUST so some ungrateful Aussies can go and let off steam, exploit some people, purchase some cheap slave labour made goods, have a few good times, drink some cheep booze, do some drugs perhaps, and maybe do a bit of surfing?
Travel in that part of the world for those that are well travelled has for quite some time been seen as a high risk activity place to visit than say to travelling to other parts of the world.
You roll the dice and take your chances when you go to that part of the world just by eating and drinking in the place. Come up with an informed argument and you will receive more than what you conceive to be a malformed sentence!
Adam • July 13, 2007 1:41 PM
“@Adam: It seems Bruce’s only point was that robots will not “pose the greatest future challenge to police.”
Do you honestly disagree with that?”
Yes, I do honestly disagree…
The training, equipment, and planning to be ready to deal with robot assisted crime will be extremely difficult for City or State police to deal with.
I think federal level police forces will be the only ones ready to confront the financial and technical burdens needed to combat crimes using robots as tools.
Examples;
1. Drug smuggler could use a remote controled speed boat to move drugs
2. Terrorist could strafe a sporting event with a miniture helicopter fitted with a weapon
The yearly contest in the AZ desert with the vechs that drive 150 miles off-road without any human control would allow endless scenarios for smugglers and terrorist.
erGuiri • July 14, 2007 3:13 PM
Great. Hopefully Australia will have the world’s first “Ghost in the Shell” ‘Section 9’
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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
Prohias • July 11, 2007 2:14 PM
Did you spot that blue dude in the center? Spine chilling stuff.