Dial "N" for Nuke-Detector

Okay, we might need to get some new blood in at the top of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Agency. Its deputy director is suggesting -- seriously -- that we ought to use the network of cell phones as detectors for chemical, nuclear, and biological threats. He couldn't be more wrong.

Homeland Security officials are looking into outfitting cellphones with detectors that would alert emergency responders to radiological isotopes, toxic chemicals and biological agents such as anthrax.

"If it's successful, it'll change the way chemical, biological and radiation detection is done," says Rolf Dietrich, deputy director of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency, which invests in high-tech solutions to secure the nation against terrorist attacks. "It's a really, really neat thing."

Dietrich says it's way too early to know whether the idea would work, and department officials are just beginning talks with phone companies and privacy advocates. If it does work, he says, it could be a "game-changer" in how the nation recognizes and responds to a deadly attack.

How bad is this idea? Let me count the ways. You can't get a miniature detector that is highly sensitive, reliable, and cheap, let alone that can address multiple chemical, biological, and radiological hazards. At best, you get three of four capabilities. I don't see it happening anytime in the future, either. Patients getting radioactive treatments already alarm airport and seaport portal detectors. A heavy dose of perfume, diesel fuel, a smoke-filled room would probably set off the chemical detector. And with natural biological threats such as tularemia and anthrax, let alone other biological organisms, are out there.

The most significant problem would be managing the huge amount of data pouring in from these phones - the majority of which would be false alarms. Who tracks the hundreds of thousands of data coming in from all these phones throughout the year?
It would be a huge effort, even if it were automated - someone would have to screen the data for anomalies. But finally, the decision to invest in giving everyone a portable CBR detector with their cell phones - assuming you could convince the phone companies to do it - has to be the sheer fallacy of thinking that everyone throughout the country needed such a device. Because it's not a question of when, but if we ever see a terrorist CBRN incident in the United States.

Honestly, Rolf - let the cell phones alone. The best use they can be in an emergency is by people dialing
911, not by sending in thousands of false alarms.

-- Jason Sigger, cross-posted at Armchair Generalist