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So many people have latched on to that brief soundbite from Assange and used it as a basis for conspiracies yet I have never located any more details from Assange himself on the topic. Sure plenty of other people have written stuff about it or made videos detailing it, but unless it comes from Julian Assange, all of that is just the equivalent of "cyber fear porn fan fiction". I don't think anyone used the term "smart dust" before Assange did so that was not already an established concept until he said it in that interview. Surely if it were such an important topic that Assange felt needed to be mentioned, I would think he would have talked about it more or at least elaborated on it in the interview. Once he said it in the interview, he just kept on going down the road without circling back or anything. It always seemed weird that people ran with it hard when there was nothing really said about it outside of a catchy phrase. What's up with that?

So does anyone have more detail from Assange himself on "smart dust"? I don't want any other source since Assange was the one who kicked it all off and everyone else will simply be spinning yarns from the concept. I want Julian's words and his words only. Got anything else from him?

So many people have latched on to that brief soundbite from Assange and used it as a basis for conspiracies yet I have never located any more details from Assange himself on the topic. Sure plenty of other people have written stuff about it or made videos detailing it, but unless it comes from Julian Assange, all of that is just the equivalent of "cyber fear porn fan fiction". I don't think anyone used the term "smart dust" before Assange did so that was not already an established concept until he said it in that interview. Surely if it were such an important topic that Assange felt needed to be mentioned, I would think he would have talked about it more or at least elaborated on it in the interview. Once he said it in the interview, he just kept on going down the road without circling back or anything. It always seemed weird that people ran with it hard when there was nothing really said about it outside of a catchy phrase. What's up with that? So does anyone have more detail from Assange himself on "smart dust"? I don't want any other source since Assange was the one who kicked it all off and everyone else will simply be spinning yarns from the concept. I want Julian's words and his words only. Got anything else from him?

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[–] • 1 pt

I remember watching a video on the concept a few years ago. It was basically a network of very very small RF powered sensors. They envisioned air dropping them via plane or conventional drone the powering them via an orbting plane. Then they'd relay whatever data back. It was a bunch of different sensors, vibration, temp etc. With millions of them they could paint a pretty good picture of a huge area.

Fuck if I could find that vid again - it was years ago. Like one of those Discovery Channel peices where they talk about shit like that at a high level. Or how they used to anyways.

[–] • 0 pt

I remember watching a video on the concept a few years ago. It was basically a network of very very small RF powered sensors. They envisioned air dropping them via plane or conventional drone the powering them via an orbting plane. Then they'd relay whatever data back. It was a bunch of different sensors, vibration, temp etc. With millions of them they could paint a pretty good picture of a huge area.

I have seen something like that as well, but the technology was far from "nano-scale" and quite rudimentary in terms of data collection. It was definitely based on the RFID concepts of the time and we really haven't improved much in that area since its initial development decades ago. I'm sure someone will disagree with that statement, but it's true because scaling down doesn't always work out well for most electronic technologies. Sensors have limits to their scale and antennae lose efficiency when made very small. It's just physics being physics and humans being frustrated with that.

Anyway, if there were such fantastical nano-scale technology that could be "intelligent dust" worthy, then why would they bother with all the other data gathering technologies such as smart devices and such? Why not just covertly collect the data and keep mum on the idea of smart devices being spy tools? I'm sure I'd get some interesting arguments and counterpoints on that, but I doubt anyone has enough facts to back things up, including myself. Technology keeps improving, but having worked in it my many decades long career(s), I just don't think we're far enough along to have "intelligent dust" to worry about.