Comment Echelon@Home (Score 1) 119
Hard to tell from the brief precis in Wired, but it looks like Dragon Systems has come out with speech-grepping software on the open market (demoed at Comdex).
Of course, hooking your laptop up to a radio scanner modified to get the wireless-phone channels and using this software to look for keywords related to, say, Congressional graft, as you stroll through downtown Washington at lunchtime, would be totally illegal. I certainly don't advocate any such thing; it would be wrong.
Might goose the folks putting barriers in the path of widespread crypto adoption, though. And maybe cast the Justice Department's calls for expanded wiretapping powers-- "because technology is eroding away our ability to lawfully intercept communications" -- in a slightly more skeptical light.
