Crazy Military Tracking Tech, From Super Scents to Quantum Dots
You can run, but you'll learn it's hard to hide from a new range of military tech.
The Defense Department calls it “tagging, tracking and locating,” or TTL, this business of finding and following high-value targets on the battlefield. Ever since SEAL Team 6 took out Osama bin Laden, we’ve learned a lot about the technology used by special operators to find and reach their targets, from stealth helicopters to biometric identification devices. TTL gear, though, ranks among the spookiest Special Operations’ extremely spooky arsenal.
The military has spent a hefty chunk of change on TTL tech: $450 million has gone to a single company, Blackbird Technologies of Herndon, Virginia, which has emerged as the leader in this covert field. Millions more have gone to the development of bleeding-edge tracking methods, encompassing everything from human-thermal-fingerprint detection and miniature crop-dusting drones to radar-responsive tags.
Al-Qaida says it found spies using infrared beacons to call in drone strikes in Pakistan. A Pakistani Taliban commander claims the United States puts tracking “chips” in cellphones, in order to train Hellfire missiles on militants. But these aren’t the only technologies that can to secretly track people.
With one technology, trackers might not even need to see you to get a fix on your location. Like bloodhounds on the hunt, they can smell their way to you. Tracer Detection Technology Corp. marks targets with a paraffin wax crayon, filled with a perfluorocarbon, a thermally-stable compound used in everything from refrigerators to cosmetics. The perfluorocarbon’s vapor can then be tracked with sensors, such as a gas chro
Bioreactive-Tagged Arm
A 2007 U.S. Special Operations Command briefing on "Continuous Clandestine Tagging, Tracking, and Locating" technology lists a number of tracking capabilities. This "bioreactive taggant" is identified as a "current capability."Image: Special Operations Command
Quantum-Dot Tagging
This picture from a Sandia National Labs report shows quantum dots — crystals that change their optical properties, depending on their size. These dots are made of cadmium selenide, illuminated on a paper towel. Oregon-based Voxtel makes nanocrystal quantum dots that can be hidden in clear liquids and seen through night-vision goggles.Image: Sandia National Laboratories
Infrared-Flash Tagging
In June 2009, al-Qaida released an electronic book, The Ruling Concerning Muslim Spies, which claimed to publish photos of some of the devices Pakistani "spies" used to guide American drone strikes. The pictures appear to show infrared beacons, powered by a 9-volt battery.Image courtesy Nine Eleven Finding Answers Foundation
Radar-Responsive Tag
Sandia National Laboratories has carried out development on these radar-responsive tags, which are like a long-range version of the ubiquitous stick-on RFID tags used to mark items in shops. The radar-responsive tag stays asleep until it is awakened by a radar pulse. The tags in Walmart have a range of a couple of meters, Sandia’s tags can light up and locate themselves from 12 miles away.Image: Sandia National Laboratories
SpotterRF Tag
The M600 made by SpotterRF is a compact radar system useful for tracking humans and vehicles on small firebases or in perimeter security. The five-pound system can detect humans walkers out to 1,000 meters [0.62 miles] and vehicles up to 1,500 meters, and plot their positions on Google Earth.Image: SpotterRF
Human Thermal Fingerprint
In its 2007 briefing, U.S. Special Operations Command also describes its goal of identifying targets by their body heat or "human thermal fingerprint" from a long distance away.Image: Special Operations Command
Chemical Light-Stick Tag
Another photo from al-Qaida's The Ruling Concerning Muslim Spies: It appears to be chemical light sticks — again, used to signal to the drones where to strike.Image courtesy Nine Eleven Finding Answers Foundation
0 comments