The Taliban Now Controls a U.S.-Made Super-Surveillance System

[Carlitos Brigante]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-taliban-now-controls-a-us-made-super-surveillance-system?source=articles&via=rss


n Kabul, checkpoints are now manned by Taliban fighters using biometric scanners paid for by the American people to hunt down civilians who worked and fought alongside us, in what should be a reckoning for everyone who sold biometric surveillance as a tool for good.

Over the last 20 years, Afghanistan became a technological training ground. It was the place America experimented with new weapons of war, like the Predator drone, often with horrific results. It’s also where we experimented with new forms of surveillance, both militarized and humanitarian. By going community to community, scanning Afghans’ biometric data indiscriminately, the U.S. hoped to create new counter-insurgency tools.

Approximately 80 percent of the country, roughly 25 million people, were targeted for inclusion in the U.S. military’s biometric database. Now, the Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment can scan Afghans’ fingerprints, faces, and irises to reveal biographical information. The Microsoft-powered device can also tap into a much larger national database of information on millions of Afghans collected by the United States over two decades of war.

[kysrsoze]

1. We should have destroyed that on the way out - perhaps we can still fry it via network

[Firestorm49]

8. I would think that Microsoft could disable them.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

2. No worries. The first time it breaks, they're shit out of luck.

I can just see the Taliban calling Microsoft's help line for assistance. Biometric scanners require high-tech maintenance too, especially in dusty environments.

I strongly suspect our military intelligence has already hacked it into oblivion anyway since it's almost certainly internet based.

KY

[Dave says]

7. Mean time between failure (MTF) can be years

We really should destroy our equipment before leaving a country where we lost a war.

[Thrill]

3. You know as soon as they get everyone out

They’re going to send drones in there to blow all that shit up

[Backseat Driver]

4. Time for a mandatory remote "system update"?

What? no backdoor for the app program nor encryption on "hits" from the DB that gave everyone higher cheekbones, a manly cleft in their chin, or a Miss America smile?

[Greybnk48]

5. I saw videos of the major command centers weeks ago

and all of the computers were ripped out, the power was off, and the source of power was gone. WE TOOK IT. They took video of the inside and showed that the center was left essentially useless.

What about that? Did anyone else see that on MSNBC? We (democrats) were being ripped a new one for not leaving behind a usable command center for the "Afghani army."

[underpants]

6. Great.

[Midnight Writer]

9. These systems should be designed with a fail-safe that disables them if they are not "updated".

I would be surprised if the designers did not think of this.