The Spy in the Coffee Machine

What do you know about the new surveillance state that has been created in the wake of pervasive computing – that is, the increasing use of very small and simple computers in all sorts of host – from your computer to your coat? Well, these little computers can communicate via the web and form powerful networks whose emergent behaviour can be very complex, intelligent, and invasive. The question is: how much of an infringement on privacy are they? Could these intelligent networks be used by governments, criminals or terrorists to undermine privacy or commit crimes? From CCTVs to blogging, from cookies to RFID tags, we are sleepwalking into a new state of global hypersurveillance. And when even cans of Coke are connected to the internet, the risk of someone misusing this information is very high indeed. Kieron O"Hara is Senior Research Fellow in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, UK. Nigel Shadbolt is Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Southampton, UK, and was President of the British Computer Society in 2006-7.