Google Helps To Use Big Data For Global Surveillance -- And That's Good
from the fishy-business dept
Techdirt writes plenty about the dangers of surveillance, and how big data is not the solution to everything, despite what PR companies would have us believe. Putting the two together is usually a recipe for very bad things, but not always. Global Fishing Watch, a new project involving Google, the environmental mapping group SkyTruth, and the conservation organization Oceana, shows how they can be used responsibly to tackle serious global problems that were hitherto intractable:
Global Fishing Watch is the product of a technology partnership between SkyTruth, Oceana, and Google that is designed to show all of the trackable fishing activity in the ocean. This interactive web tool -- currently in prototype stage -- is being built to enable anyone to visualize the global fishing fleet in space and time. Global Fishing Watch will reveal the intensity of fishing effort around the world, one of the stressors contributing to the precipitous decline of our fisheries.
The system works by analyzing data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) network, which broadcasts a ship's location. Although AIS was primarily designed as a safety mechanism to avoid collisions at sea, information about the vessel's behavior can be derived by analyzing AIS data for the identity, speed and direction of broadcasting vessels. Global Fishing Watch uses that analysis to remove all the cargo ships and other non-fishing vessel activity. A lot of data is involved:
Global Fishing Watch started with 3.7 billion data points, more than a terabyte of data from two years of satellite collection, covering the movements of 111,374 vessels during 2012 and 2013. We ran a behavioral classification model that we developed across this data set to identify when and where fishing behavior occurred. The prototype visualization contains 300 million AIS data points covering over 25,000 unique vessels. For the initial fishing activity map, the data is limited to 35 million detections from 3,125 vessels that we were able to independently verify were fishing vessels. Global Fishing Watch then displays fishing effort in terms of the number of hours each vessel spent engaged in fishing behavior, and puts it all on a map that anyone with a web browser will be able to explore.
That openness is a crucial aspect of the project:
Global Fishing Watch will be available to the public, enabling anyone with an internet connection to monitor when and where commercial fishing is happening around the globe. Citizens can use the tool to see for themselves whether their fisheries are being effectively managed. Seafood suppliers can keep tabs on the boats they buy fish from. Media and the public can act as watchdogs to improve the sustainable management of global fisheries. Fisherman can show that they are obeying the law and doing their part. Researchers will have access to a multi-year record of all trackable fishing activity.
That's pretty much a win for everyone. Nations gain better control over their territorial waters and the resources they contain. It will be easier for food suppliers, journalists and the public to track which ships are fishing legally and sustainably. That will make it easier to identify and penalize those that aren't -- and reward those that do. Better control of illegal fishing should mean that quotas are adhered to, allowing fishing to stocks to recover. Detailed record-keeping will improve the science behind those quotas, making them more realistic and thus sustainable in the long term. In other words, Global Fishing Watch is an example of surveillance and big data analysis that even fish can love.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: big data, data, fish, global fishing watch, surveillance
Companies: google, skytruth
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Fish Pirates
That would make the whole thing futile,
Just as effective as the whaling ban.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Streisand Effect
Amateur photographers Ken and Gabrielle Adelman use their own helicopter and flew up and down the California coastline taking high-resolution pictures to document coastline "erosion" and derosion (that's when celebrities buy beachfront property and add sand and rock to extend their beaches).
Barbra sued them (and other parties) in what became a famous meme, but the original lawsuit was about the pictures of her house from a program that californiacoastline.org documents well.
The use of satellite and other imagery to document our ecosystem and its evolution (whether man-made, caused, assisted, or independent) is a very good thing.
E
P.S. If you don't care about anything I wrote about the Earth and the California Coastline and just want to refresh yourself on the lawsuit, all the docs (and a picture of the check!) are here: http://www.californiacoastline.org/streisand/lawsuit.html
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Let's get this out of the way
Mikey, you are clearly a paid Google shill.
And really? Using Glyn's good name to hide your own Google fanboy-isms?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Global Fishing Watch started with 3.7 billion data points, more than a terabyte of data from two years of satellite collection, covering the movements of 111,374 vessels during 2012 and 2013. We ran a behavioral classification model that we developed across this data set to identify when and where fishing behavior occurred. The prototype visualization contains 300 million AIS data points covering over 25,000 unique vessels. For the initial fishing activity map, the data is limited to 35 million detections from 3,125 vessels that we were able to independently verify were fishing vessels. Global Fishing Watch then displays fishing effort in terms of the number of hours each vessel spent engaged in fishing behavior, and puts it all on a map that anyone with a web browser will be able to explore.
They took a set of behaviors known to be used by fishing vessels and developed a model to detect them. THAT is why we don't want the government collecting all of our phone call meta-data, license plate locations, and online activity: they could use it to develop a model to identify political dissidents.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Fish Pirates
I would think by now they would be programmed to avoid "The Net".
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Metadata is now good?
And we could put a transponder on every boat to see which boats did bad things, but that doesn't mean we should.
How long before we see a similar effort using the OnStar or cell-phone position-tracking tools to visualize traffic patterns for cars and trucks on the highway system, or in the business district.
After all, this would be a win win win for everybody:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Oh what a slippery slope we live on
You are exactly right. Today, everyone is guilty until proven innocent. The logic used by this author is the same logic that can be used to monitor anyone for anything. This blog talks up privacy and innocent until proven guilty and the fallacy of "if you have nothing to hide" and then we get this article? Doesn't seem to jive.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
True, but
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: True, but
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Metadata is now good?
Unless you opt-out, Google already does this with Android devices. You get the benefit of that information when you use the Google Maps feature that tells you how congested the various roads are. I don't think they have a gods-eye-view thing like for the fishing fleets, though.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
"Chief among them are flaws in the AIS protocol which was developed in a “hardware epoch” and lacks even basic security features such as authentication and message integrity checks."
...
"In their work, Balduzzi and Wilhoit – working with an independent security researcher – were able to use software-defined radio based attacks to trigger a range of phony messages, from false SOS and “man in the water” distress beacons to fake CPA (or Closest Point of Approach) alert and collision warnings on an AIS system set up in a lab environment."
"Separate tests also revealed that malicious AIS messages could be used to knock out VTS (Vessel Tracking System) servers by exploiting common software vulnerabilities like buffer overflows and SQL injection, the researchers wrote."
https://securityledger.com/2014/12/research-finds-cyber-physical-attacks-against-vessel-track ing-system/
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]