Author: cyberpunk2020

You are being watched

The closed circuit camera in the top right corner is part of an online demostration against german laws which focus on digitally spying on its citizens – i.e. forcing the providers to hoard data like where your mobile phone logged in, what sites you surfed to, when you phoned, who you phoned, how long you phoned. It adresses my fellow Germans to protest against this spying.

NYPD: Spycopter

The New York Police Department (NYPD) got a new spying toy. A helicopter stuffed full of surveilance electronics with amazing (and frightening) capabilities:

  • looks like a civilian helicopter made by “Bell”
  • an arsenal of sophisticated surveillance and tracking equipment powerful enough to read license plates — or scan pedestrians’ faces — from high above New York
  • see-but-avoid-being-seen advantage
  • worth $10 million
  • high-powered robotic camera mounted on a turret projecting from its nose like a periscope
  • camera has infrared night-vision capabilities
  • a satellite navigation system allows police to automatically zoom in on a location by typing in the address on a computer keyboard
  • can beam live footage to police command centers or even to wireless hand-held devices

The NYPD got the expected reactions:

“From a privacy perspective, there’s always a concern that ‘New York’s Finest’ are spending millions of dollars to engage in peeping tom activities,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

And answered them the usual way:

Police insist that law-abiding New Yorkers have nothing to fear.

Yeah, right. Nothing to fear? If I want to be spied upon, I would move to North Corea. Yahoo tells us, that the NYPD plans to spend tens of millions of dollars strengthening security in the lower Manhattan business district with a network of closed-circuit television cameras and license-plate readers posted at bridges, tunnels and other entry points. We are sure they are only taping the “non-law-abiding New Yorkers”. That’s pretty much the usual stuff. The UK (who somehow misunderstood George Orwells 1984 and now seem to take it as an instruction manual) has all this. But now the Yahoo article starts to get surreal:

Police have also deployed hundreds of radiation monitors — some worn on belts like pagers, others mounted on cars and in helicopters — to detect dirty bombs.

And fantastic – did he read the R. Talsorian “Protect and Serve”?

[NYPD Police Commissioner Raymond] Kelly even envisions someday using futuristic “stationary airborne devices” similar to blimps to conduct reconnaissance and guard against chemical, biological and radiological threats.

Thanks to Don’t Tase Me, Bro! for pointing me to the Yahoo News Article. I remember a (bad) science fiction movie featuring a helicopter that could see into rooms with thermographs. Anybody remember the name?

Games-In: Hört ihr mich?

from Karsten at Cyberpunk2020.de
to info@games-in-vlg.de
date Sun, May 11, 2008 at 7:35 PM
subject Cyberpunk Relaunch: PR?

Liebes Games-In Team,

angesichts des baldigen Starts der Neuauflage von Cyberpunk 2020 wollte ich als Webmaster von https://www.cyberpunk2020.de – der wohl größten und aktivsten Cyberpunk 2020 Seite (jedenfalls in Deutschland) – anbieten, den Neustart mit z.B. einem Gewinnspiel oder einer Verlosung zu unterstützen, wenn Sie entsprechende Preise stiften möchten. Infrage kommt auch ein ein Promoabenteuer durch mich etwa auf dem NordCON.

Zudem wollte ich der guten Form halber abklären, ob Sie mit der Verwendung des Logos / der Bezugnahme von Inhalten von Cyberpunk 2020 durch meine Seite einverstanden sind. Ich bin bisher davon ausgegangen, dass meine Seite, die ohne Einnahmen auskommt, Ihre Zustimmung schon wegen der damit verbunden Werbung für das durch Sie vertriebene Produkt hat.

Zudem plane ich die Veröffentlichung eines Artikels in dem neu entstehenden Fanzine “Abenteuer.” Auch hier bitte ich um Zustimmung für die Verwendung des Namen Cyberpunk2020. Bei Abenteuer. wird es sich um ein Printmagazin ohne Gewinnabsicht handeln – aber das Heft wird Geld kosten, um die Druckkosten auffangen zu können.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Ihr Karsten […]

Geschrieben hab ich die Mail am 11.5., eine Antwort gab es bisher nicht. Vielleicht liest ja jemand von Games-In hier mit… falls meine Mail im Spam-Folder gelandet ist.

Freedom is just another word for having nothing left to lose

Funny, for all surveillance, Osama bin Laden is still free — and we’re not. Guess who’s winning the “war on terror?” – Cory Doctorow, bOINGbOING

Today is “Dark Future Day”. Its scaring me. Check the news: As you probably know, everybody within the European Union has every use of a telecomincation device (mobile, computer) safed and made accessible by the government. Not the content of your conversion, but date, time, length, sender, receiver. Also logged: Every station your mobile phone registered with. That’s scary allready, but no longer a news. New is:

Cory is right. Osama bin Laden wins the fight agains Freedom. And we voted those who help him into power. I wonder if he can stop laughing at us?

  

Aerial Intrusion Device

Real Life

The following device is based on Yves “The Fusionman” Rossy’s Jetpack. For copyright reasons, I’m not showing you any photos, but link to them:
On the ground

  • Wings folded, front view
  • Wings unfolded, front view
  • Close-up view of underside with jetmotors and harness, wings unfolded

Flying

  • From above
  • From above
  • Edge-on side view
  • From below
  • Video

There is a video on YouTube, too:
[youtube bEXxkWXncuo]

And Wikipedia has an entry, too.

Game Stats

For a Cyberpunk setting I would leave the requirment to launch the jetpack from an airplane or something similar. The reach should be short, but not as short as the prototype (6.5 minutes at 185 km/h). So lets put it at 220 km/h for 10 min, giving it a reach of 35 km. It has near to none radar signature, but does emit heat, so it might be detectable.

Statistics:

Top Speed 220 km/h Acc/Dec 110/20 km/h
Crew 1 Range 35 km
Pass 0 Cargo none
Maneuver +3 SDP 5
SP 0 Type Jetpack
Mass 20 kg Cost 20,000 EB

Special Equipment:

Nav System, stealth option, parachute

Oldfashioned: Pac Man

If you turned javascript on, which most of you seem to have, you can play pacman with the widget below. If you turned it off, you won’t see a thing.

Instructions: Use the arrow keys to guide Pac-Man. P – Pause/unpause game Q – Quit game M – Mute/unmute sound L – Low quality on/off by Kim Schulz. – Aalborg, Denmark

Admittedly, this has nothing to do with Cyberpunk, you now you know why I don’t have time to write posts.

Free (Post-)Cyberpunk Book online

Cover of Cory Doctorow's Little Brother NovelCory Doctorow has put his new book, “Little Brother” online. He’s so good I had to add him to my list of Cyberpunk writers (see sidebar).

It’s a

young adult novel about hacker kids who use technology to reclaim the Bill of Rights from the DHS after a terrorist attack on San Francisco.

Also to be found on the website:

Cyberpunk Search Engine

You may have noticed that the search option for this site changed. I fist added Lijit-Search, which allows you to search not only my site, but also other sites I added. It was not received well, so I deleted it.

So now I changed to a Google Custom Search, which allows us (i.e., you too) to add more cyberpunk related websites to its database. It’s home page can be found here, with instructions if you want to use it on your website/blog.

Check it out, if you like – searching for “cyberleg” for example, does not feature this blog on the first place, but not at all. Instead you find the official errata on R. Talsorians Site first, then some of Christian Conkle’s stuff. Nothing else, esp. no non-cyberpunk related material. No shadowrun cyberleg here, promise!

I hope you like it.