RE: Proceedings from the Nanotechnology and Security Workshop - RECOMMENDED IN PART

Mark Morrison, Proceedings from the Nanotechnology and Security Workshop, http://www.nanoforum.org/nf06~modul~showmore~folder~99999~scid~452~.html?action=longview_publication&, February 23, 2007.

There is so little on this subject this report rose to the top. It deals with a workshop in Roma involving a unit of DG Research and APRE (Agenzia per la Promozione della Ricera Europea).

It focuses on sensor technologies calling for "better access to existing materials and improved networking and integration of expertise and knowledge amongst EU organization" and the involvement of "social scientists in the design of new project to assure that potential ethics issues are taken into consideration from the outset" (p. 4).

Two sessions occurred and were reported.

The first was on technology. Arvind from Edinburgh discussed speckling computing or smart dust. Chaniotakis from Crete discussed biosensors. Cowburn from Imperial College discussing laser surface authentication which could potentially give each material a signature, or fingerprint, that is stored in a database" (p. 8) to track goods.

The second section addressed societal implications. Altmann from Dortmund warned US military funding is "4 to 10 times the rest of the world" and was "one quarter to one third of the annual USNNI budget" (p. 9). He presumably covered much of the same material that is in his book from small sensors to new biochemical weapons. Morrison incorrectly identifies Altmann as the only person with a book in the field. I offer Daniel Ratner and Mark Ratner as another Nanotechnology and Homeland Security New Weapons for New Wars (Prentice Hall 2003). Next Bruce from the Church of Scotland argues technology shapes society. Again I direct the reader to Neil Postman's Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (Vintage, 1993). The last presentation was van den Hoven from Delft who discussed RFID tagging. "RFID tags are now being implanted in people and could be used to monitor individuals' movements and transmit personal data" (p. 10). Issues range from ubiquity to issues of proportionality and public perceptions of risk and carries the warning "that the applications of technologies for a specific purpose could have entirely different outcomes" (p. 13).

This a recommendation associated with "the need to discriminate between measured security and perceived security" (p. 13) which probably deserved more ink.

The material from Cowburn and van den Hoven are worth a read and they are very brief.