I'm only interested in the technical aspect of synthetic telepathy. I'll leave the conspiracy theories to those who base their beliefs on fluff, rather than fact. i.e. smart dust. . .
Anjin Hawke
* * *
The following article is an entry that appeared on
Wikipedia.
Within the last 24 hours a major "edit war" broke out and it
appeared, at least to me, that the information was being suppressed. The
article goes into depth about a field of espionage that employs a
technology known as "silent sound" or "Synthetic telepathy". If you're
interested in high tech espionage this makes for a very good read.
Synthetic telepathy, also known as
techlepathy or psychotronics, is a term used to describe the process in
brain-computer interfaces by which human thought (as electromagnetic
radiation) is intercepted, processed by computer and a return signal
generated that is perceptible by the human brain. (ref 1,2,3,4)
History
In
1967, Edmond M. Dewan published a paper in Nature demonstrating the
control of Alpha waves, turning them on and off, to produce Morse code.
(ref 5) Using an EEG machine, Dewan and his fellow researchers were able
to send words and phrases by thought alone.
In 1976, Robert G.
Malech was awarded United States Patent 3951134 for remotely monitoring
and altering brainwaves using radio.(ref 6) This patent makes reference
to demodulating the waveform, displaying it to an operator for viewing
and passing this to a computer for further analysis.
In 1988,
Farwell, L.A. & Donchin, D. produced a paper describing a method of
transmitting linguistic information using the P300 response system. (ref
7) This system combined matching observed information to what the
subject was thinking of. In this case, being able to select a letter
from the alphabet that the subject was thinking of. In theory, any input
could be used and a lexicon constructed.
United States Patent
6,011,991, granted January 4, 2000, describes a method of monitoring an
individual's brain waves remotely, for the purposes of communication.
Filed December 7, 1998, the patent outlines a system that monitors an
individual's brainwaves via a sensor, then transmits this, specifically
by satellite, to a computer for analysis. This analysis would determine
if the individual was attempting to communicate a "word, phrase, or
thought corresponding to the matched stored normalized signal".(ref 8)
Theory
Approaches
to synthetic telepathy can be categorized into two major groups,
passive and active. Like sonar, the receiver can take part or passively
listen.
Passive reception is the ability to "read" a signal
without first broadcasting a signal. This can be roughly equated to
tuning into a radio station, the brain generates electromagnetic
radiation which can be received at a distance. That distanced is
determined by the sensitivity of the receiver, the filters used and the
bandwidth required. Most universities would have limited budgets and
receivers such as EEG (and similar devices) would be used. A related
military technology is the surveillance system TEMPEST, the effective
range of which is classified. (ref 9) Given that US Congress attempted
to enact a bill in Oct 2001 banning these type of devices as "space
weapons", (ref 10) may indicate that fluctuations in the human magnetic
field can be intercepted by satellite.
Robert G. Malech's
approach requires a modulated signal to be broadcast at the target. The
method uses an active signal which is interfered with by the brain's
modulation. Thus, the return signal can be used to infer the original
brainwave. This approach does expose the transmitter, but is ultimately
required for generating return signals that can be processed by the
brain.
The research of Farwell, L.A. & Donchin, D, is the
first public revelation that could lead to a generic lexicon being
developed, however, this is implied in the work of Robert G. Malech in
1976.
Current research, as of 2010,
is being driven by military for "covert speech", however, given that
much of this is unclassified, it would suggest that the bulk of the
research was performed much earlier and dedicated to the field of
intelligence gathering during the cold war. Additional reports suggest
that a version is deployed in combat zones to demoralize enemy troops
and a smaller number of reports indicate a potential use to undermine
governments and cause public unrest. (ref 11, 12)
Today, the
driving force appears to be silent communication with battlefield
troops. A mere $4 million was provided to DARPA for the fiscal year
2009/2010 to develop such a system called "Silent Talk". (ref 13) Much
of the research is being conducted at The Cognitive NeuroSystems Lab at
UC Irvine. (ref 14)
A further $4 million was allocated by the
Army to the University of California to investigate computer-mediated
"synthetic telepathy".(ref 15) The research aims to detect and analyze
the word-specific neural signals, using EEG, which occur before speech
is vocalized, and to see if the patterns are generalizable. (ref 16) The
research is part of a wider $70 million project that began in 2000
which aims to develop hardware capable of adapting to the behavior of
its user.(ref 17)
Quite apart from linguistic information,
images have been extracted from the brain. Researchers at Japan's ATR
Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have been able to reconstruct
images that a subject can currently see. The ultimate goal of the
unclassified project is to view both retinal and imagined images in
real-time, including dreams. (ref 18)
Computer Mediation
Computer mediation falls into two basic categories, interpretative and interactive.
Interpretative
mediation is the passive analysis of signals coming from the human
brain. A computer "reads" the signal then compares that signal against a
database of signals and their meanings. Using statistical analysis and
repetition, false-positives are reduced over time.
Interactive
mediation can be in a passive-active mode, or active-active mode. In
this case, passive and active denote the method of reading and writing
to the brain and whether or not they make use of a broadcast signal.
Interactive mediation can also be performed manually or via artificial
intelligence.
Manual interactive mediation involves a human
operator producing return signals such as speech or images. A.I.
mediation leverages the cognitive system of the subject to identify
images, pre-speech, objects, sounds and other artifacts, rather than
developing A.I. routines to perform such activities. A.I. based systems
may incorporate natural language processing interfaces that produce
sensations, mental impressions, humor and conversation to provide a
mental picture of a computerized personality. Not only can this A.I hold
a conversation via the internal monologue but it may also perform
routing of information to and from specific groups or individuals. This
provides a broad range of potential applications from acting as a
communications system to conducting interrogations.
This latter
form is currently being researched at UC Irvine for an unclassified US
military project. (ref 19) Given the high value to espionage and
counter-terrorism, it is likely that such a system is already deployed
in a classified manner.
Military Uses
In a military
context, the first obvious uses is to both read and write information to
the internal monologue. This provides two major areas of interest, the
first being two-way communication for field agents and the second is the
intelligence gathering and interrogation. A fundamental problem arises
when using the system for communication purposes, in that, it is
impossible to authenticate the source of the transmission. Synthetic
telepathy has limited uses as a communication system unless
direct-contact headset systems are used and supported by encrypted
channels. As such, standard radios are more effective in combat
situations. Synthetic telepathy also requires the thought stream to be
processed which results in a minor lapse of attention, rather like a
daydream, that could have deadly consequences on the battlefield.
With
respect to intelligence gathering and interrogations, synthetic
telepathy has a wide range of drawbacks and limitations. Contrary to
popular belief, synthetic telepathy does not provide the ability to read
a person's mind or memories. What it does provide is the ability to
read the internal monologue (or anything that causes electrical
change/radiation) and the trick is to get the subject to "voice" their
memories and cross-reference that with their emotional state. In other
words, basic psychological manipulation is a key factor and makes the
technology not much more reliable than a standard lie-detector test. In
practice, passive monitoring of the internal monologue over a long time
period (months-years) is probably the most effective method of
intelligence gathering.
The capability to put a person into a
state of hypnosis is often touted by conspiracy theorists. In actual
fact, the suggestive capabilities of synthetic telepathy use a different
mechanism, basic impulses and sensations. This is merely a different
form of writing to the brain. To formulate thought, the brain has a
pipeline through which information is processed. (ref 20) At its most
basic, impulses guide human behavior and manipulation of these impulses
provides a strategic advantage in both combat and political situations.
By altering the motivational factors of a target subject or group, it
makes it easier to guide their higher level decision making processes.
Crowd
or riot control can be achieved by generating impulses that are
essentially common to all humans, resulting in the dispersion of crowds
or a willingness to co-operate with authorities. This type of synthetic
telepathy is arguably a political tool as it suppresses dissent. (ref
21)
Amnesia (retrograde and anterograde) can be induced as any
active signal is essentially interferring with normal operations of the
brain. Thus, transfer from shortterm to longterm memory can be
inhibited. (ref 22) Vision and auditory systems could also be
compromised, as with any neural processing system, corruption of the
inputs would result in halucinations, much like the effects of LSD. With
a proper interface to such regions, events such as "alien abductions"
or "seeing God" could be faked quite readily and "mental illness" used
as a cover for the extraction of information. (ref 23, 24, 25)
Silent Sound Spread Spectrum (SSSS/S-Quad)
ITV
News Service, in March 1991, produced a report of ultrasound
piggybacked on a commercial radio broadcast (100Mhz) aimed at entraining
the brains of Iraqi troops and creating feelings of despair. (ref 26)
This has been related to United States Patent 5,159,703 awarded to
Oliver M. Lowery which refers to a "silent communications system in
which nonaural carriers, in the very low or very high audio frequency
range or in the adjacent ultrasonic frequency spectrum, are amplitude or
frequency modulated with the desired intelligence and propagated
acoustically or vibrationally, for inducement into the brain, typically
through the use of loudspeakers, earphones or piezoelectric
transducers."(ref 27)
Human hearing is roughly in the range of
20Hz-20,000Hz (20 kHz), although a human adult will lose the ability to
hear the higher ranges as they grow older. In addition, most cheap
radios have a limited frequency response range (ref 28) that will be
unable to reproduce silent sound as encoded originally making it
ineffective.
As such, an alternative explanation for the effectiveness of S-Quad is provided in human biology:
1. Cells amplifying radio signals at certain frequencies.
2. Cells can demodulate voice on a basic carrier wave.
This
is not as strange as it seems, it has been noted for a long time that
fillings, or dental braces, can result in radio stations being heard in
the mouth of an individual. (ref 29)
Mind Control
Conspiracy
theory and popular science fiction would have the world believe that
the human mind can be remotely controlled. That individuals can be
turned into mindless automatons and directly controlled by computers to
produce sleepers or assassins. (ref 30) The reality is much less clear.
Interfacing
remotely to write to the brain is performed using electrical
interference rather like crosstalk (electronics). (ref 31) Much like a
drill next to a television, the interference pattern is processed by the
brain as information, a variant which induces sensations and feelings
is known as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. (ref 32) As such, an
externally generated monologue will be weaker than the internal
monologue of the target subject due to a lesser signal strength. An
over-powering signal would interrupt a wide range of neural functions
that could impact critical autonomic systems resulting in death.
Two
possible methods exist that could result in an individual killing
another through the use of synthetic telepathy. The first is to leverage
the natural behavior of the target subject, that is, use an individual
who would kill another. The second is to induce psychotic symptoms and
diminish their mental control (ref 33, 34) In both cases, the underlying
mechanics are the same, to provide impulses and sensations that urge
the individual to commit murder. This is not hypnosis, but merely
physiological manipulation without the knowledge of the target.
Another
area of interest and arguably more feasible, is the manipulation of
political figures. (ref 35)Thoughts, sensations and impulses can be
combined to influence political and personal decision making processes. A
similar process can be used to effect the population at large to drive
agendas or to maintain power for certain groups, undermining free will
and self-expression. (ref 36) As the technology matures and expands to
regimes throughout the globe, this will be a major source of concern for
governments world-wide.
Finally, we come to the area of
interrogations which can be conducted remotely whilst an individual or
groups is conducting their normal daily business. The internet is
saturated with such reports (ref 37) and as a possible side-effect is
psychosis, it is quite likely that at least some of them are accurate.
In Law
The
term "psychotronic", short for psycho-electronic ( ref 38) was used in
the proposed Bill H.R. 2977 Space Preservation Act of 2001, which listed
"psychotronic" as a list of possible space-borne weapons which would be
banned by the Act (ref 39)
In 2001, President Vladimir V. Putin
signed into law a bill making it illegal to employ "electromagnetic,
infrasound ... radiators" and other weapons of "psychotronic influence"
with intent to cause harm.
As a completely unnatural event, it
is arguable that this type of technology when employed in interrogations
would be classified as "cruel or unusual". Further to this, A.I.
mediated events such as mock executions or death threats would also
violate the Geneva convention, International law and laws of most
nations in the developed world. Counter-claims focusing on National
Security would be invalid as criminal activity is, in itself, a gross
violation of National Security
The European Parliament adopted a
resolution on January 28, 1999[38], 28.1.99 Environment, security and
foreign affairs A4-0005/99:
23. Calls on the European Union to seek to have the new 'non-lethal' weapons technology and the development of new arms strategies also covered and regulated by international conventions ...
27. Calls for an international convention introducing a global ban on all developments and deployments of weapons which might enable any form of manipulation of human beings
In The Media
60
Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl interviewed Tom Mitchell of Carnegie
Mellon University on his work in "Thought Identification" using fMRI.
(ref 40) The segment, published Jan. 4, 2009 and available on the CBS
website, shows associate producer Meghan Frank having his thoughts
identified by computer. (ref 41) The segment shows that a generalizable
pattern exists in the human brain that can be used to identify thoughts
without training a computer for each individual with 100% accuracy.
Further Reading
Dr Nick Begich - Controlling the Human Mind, Earth Pulse Press Anchorage - isbn=1-890693-54-5}}
Walter Bowart -
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24531011/Operation-Mind-Control
John Marks - In Search of the Manchurian Candidate, publisher WW Norton & Co, 1979, isbn=0-393-30794-8
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2.
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3.
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http://cnslab.ss.uci.edu/muri/research.html#Dewan - MURI: Synthetic Telepathy
6.
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