Daniel+Perrine_Portfolio+draft+2

__**The Impact of The Issue**__

While the IT developement is still being tested and improved, the intended intentions of this IT developement are to aid people including but not limiting to firefighters, who suffered 103 deaths in 2008 ([]), police, who have lost 107 so far in 2009 ([]), SWAT, and FBI in their jobs. All four of these groups of people have jobs that require them to enter dangerous situations, a lot of the time being inside buildings. For example, SWAT teams before raiding a building can use this technology to look inside the house from the saftey of outside and see where people are in the house. This will enable them to position themselves and prepare themselves better in the hopes of being safer. More tests are being run on this IT developement and since it has not yet been released for sale, there is no solid inofrmation on how it has/will affect the public. However, we can assume that if and when it is released publically, the number of deaths of police, firemen, and others that risk their lives for us, will drop drastically. What we can do though is name the possible issues that could arise from the use of this technology.

This technology operates by using "variance-based radio tomographic imaging" (__Technology Review__: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24193/?a=f), which in more simple terms, are radio transmitters that send and recieve signals to eachother. The radio transmitters are apparently inexpensive and run off of a network similar to the ones used by various factory/home automations. When tested, the image thatshowed up on the computer was a "blob" of a person from a bird's eye perspective. The test was run with 28 nodes in a square 14 feet by 2 feet.
 * __The IT Background of The Issue__**

As before, anyone who is affected by the technology are the stakeholders. This includes people using and operated by the technology, and people being "saved" by the technology. The purpose of this technology is in fact to impact the stakeholders. It is designed to help their stakeholders perform their duties safer, quicker, and more efficiently, and in some instances, to help the stakeholder be rescued faster if the situation calss for it. The major impacts this technology would have is basically to make the jobs of, say, firemen and police, safer, and let them "get in and get out" in a more timely manner. This technology doesn't have to be used soley for law enforcment and emergency units. This technology is also said to be useful to the elderly. With this IT developement the elderly would be able to stay in their homes while the nodes are set up around thier house which would be able to let people monitor the elderly incase they fall down, don't get up on time, and other possible dangers elderly people face. (Security Products).

The most commonly reffered to example is that of a hostage situation inside a building. The police and possibly SWAT, if the situation calls for it, have to go into the building right? Well, to make thier entry a little safer, they could set up these cameras around the building of entry and see from the saftey of outside where people are positioned inside (__Security Products:__ []). This means the police and SWAT would know where they are going, where people are in the building, and that their objectives could be performed safer and in less time. If a an officer has to take time to find the room with people in it, he/she is taking extra, and somewhat unnecessary time to find the people. This technology would mean they wouldn't have to take that time because they'd know exactly where they needed to go.

In the image on the left, you can see that the cameras are mounted on stands and set around the desired perimeter. The image to the right is what the people using the technology see. The dot with all the colors is the human. This photo shows one possible configuration of the 34-node set-up of the cameras.

The intentions of this IT developement are primarily for good. However, there will always be that someone who will try to misuse the product. The main issue is privacy. Is this technology going to be an invasion of people's privacy? How easy will it be for any random person to buy this equipment and use it inappropriately? According to __Technology Reiview-produced by MIT__ ([]), the equipment is fairly inexpensive. So what's to stop house robbers, sexual predators, peeping toms, etc. from purchasing this equipment and using it to do evil? Another thing to consider is that people are always trying to advance current technology. For example, with I-Pods, the Apple company is always trying to make the I-Pods more portable, hold more informtion such as apps, and basically trying to make the technology as advanced as possible. Wouldn't people want to do the same with this technology? Currently, the image people see of a human by using this equipment is only a colored blob. However, since technology is always trying to be updated, eventually this equipment may possibly be able to show live, clear images. Especially since there are no plans yet that have been heard of to make this equipment unavalaible to the public.
 * __The Impact of The Issue__**

Aside from the big issue of privacy, other minor yet potentially negative issues that arise are those concerning, health, the environment, and the economy. Concerning health, just how good are these radio waves for our bodies? Although the radio waves transmitted by this technology is about 500 times smaller than those of a typical cell phone (__Security Products:__ []) would damage be caused over time? Environmentally, how will the radio waves effect the environment? Will having Radio Wave Transmitters set up on poles on the ground be good for the environment? What effects will take place? When it comes to the economy, how much money is needed to finance this technology? Even if they are inexpensive, if every police presinct, SWAT team, FBI Agencies, etc want them, how much money will this cost? These are possible issues that could arise that need to be addressed before they are actually put out to be avaliable to the public. When it comes to the elderly being able to stay in thier own homes, yes they'd be able to be in the comfort of their own home, but it also means that they'd either have to have a caretaker live with them, or recognize the fact that it will take longer for aid to come if they choose to remain in thier home.

Even with the list of possible negative impacts this technology could have, there are a lot more positive imapcts this technology posesses. This technology alone will make the jobs/lives of people a lot safer, and somewhat easier. For firefighters, law enforcement, and military, this IT development would make their jobs considerably safer. As mentioned before, law enforcment would be able to see where people are in buildings and be able to know where they're going. This means they would be able know how to set up defenses, how to enter the building, how many men they might need, what tools they could possibly need, etc. This would also serve some of the same benefits for the military also. For firefighters, they could find instantly where people are in the building. If the people in the burning building are injured, they'd be ab;e to get aid faster due to the fact that the firefighters, since they know exactly where people are, could get in, find the person, and rescue them. The extra time that would originally be taken to find where the people are can now be used to take more saftery precautions, and a smaller possibility that people will get injured further or even die. Every second counts in these circumstances and the more time people have to save the people or take them to the hospital, their chances of survival are vastly larger. For the elderly, they can live within the saftey, comfort, and peace of their own homes without having to constantly have multiple care tkaers in their face. People authorized to use the cameras would be able to see whether the senior got up on time, has been in the same spot for too long a time, etc. They would then be able to go to their aid if something bad happens.

To address the issue of privacy, one way to solve this is to have a strict line of requirements and procedures along with having only authorized personel to operate and use this technology. The rules/regulations/procedures would be a list of rules that the authorized personel would need to adhere to in order to do this job. If they fail to follow these rules, they will be most likely fired but depending on the severity of their actions, there could be only sever repercutions that only their employers will know and would issue if they feel the employee's actions are not serious enough for them to be fired. The authorized personel prior to having this job, will obviously need training on how to use this technology, but will also need to sign numerous documents, and take oaths that they will use this technology strictly for work and nothing else. Another way to ensure this is to have the equipment be labeled or chipped and be monitore. Their emplyers will be able to monitor where, and when the technology is being used. The technology could also be programmed to work for only a certain number of hours and then turn off/on automatically. There could also be a big central computer that can pull up images of images being shown on the smaller computers. A more broad solution would be to only allow the technology to be bought buy special groups of people such as firefighter presincts, law enforcement presincts, military, sneior homes, care centers; basically places that have a need for the technology. This would at least take away the group of regular citizens who would use this technology inappropriately. This also means there would be a smaller group of people to "worry" about. For the other minor issues, the technology just needs to be further tested.
 * __A Solution To The Problem Arising From The Issue__**

1. Easybib.com. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. []. 2. Google.com. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. []. 3. Google.com. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. []. 4. Hollenhorst, John. "Utah inventors 'see' through walls with radio waves." Ksl.com. 4 Oct. 2009. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. []. 5. Quick, Darren. "Using radio waves to ‘see’ through walls." Gizmag.com. 12 Oct. 2009. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. []. 6. "Radio waves see through walls | R&D Mag." Rdmag.com. 11 Oct. 2009. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. []. 7. "Radio Waves 'See' Through Walls." Sciencedaily.com. 12 Oct. 2009. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. []. 8. "Radio Waves 'See' through Walls." Unews.utah.edu. 12 Oct. 2009. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. []. 9. Siegel, Lee. "Radio waves 'see' through walls." Eurekalert.org. 11 Oct. 2009. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. [].
 * __Selection And Uses of Sources__**

__**Expression of Ideas Relevant To The Social Issue**__ Optional