A need for a remote sensing device to net criminals?

TECHNOLOGY making of various scientific research tools such as satellites have proved to be sensitive and through their powers people have been able to know exactly what lies within the horizon of what they cannot see. Should these satellites be transformed and made to work like a sensing device to warn people of the impending danger ahead? in this way, surely people in the world would be living in safe and without much troubles than what one would expect. To put the argument forward, there has been occurring extra-ordinary incidences such as theft which by any means have been inevitable to control and sometimes failed to get a solution, for a person who steals is not easily recognized and moreover thieves do not have marks on their bodies as an identification to prove what mischief they might have committed.
But as the world evolves with various technological innovations coming up, time will come when a device would be invented as a remote sensing organ to net thieves who keeps on troubling the innocent people in communities. About three years ago, in the city of Dar es Salaam, an old man Thomas Ogola who had traveled all the way from his home village in up-country region came to the city in order to collect his dues which he had toiled for before his retirement in late 1970s
He is among hundreds of some retirees of the defunct East African Community who were paid their terminal benefits three years ago, though currently Tanzanian government is delaying paying other retirees’ terminal benefits since its collapse over 30 years ago. The exercise took place in the city of Dar es Salaam. Quite a good number of them have not yet been paid, an aspect which has forced some of them to stage a demonstration to pressurize the government into paying them.
A day after Mr. Ogola had received his money, unknown people broke into the room of a house in which he was accommodated by one of his relatives residing in Karakata suburb on the outskirts of the city and successfully made away with the whole sum.As if his life had depended on it, Mr. Ogola lamented bitterly without no any help of recovery. As the pangs of solitude still redoubles up his mind at that time, he couldn’t have any alternative to do nor finding a possible solution to the problem that had befallen him, except he accepted the situation. Actually, this is a terrible blow one cannot forget in his life. There are so many theft incidences of this kind which occurs in people’s selected residential settlements and are very sad to narrate. Police efforts to net the criminals or tracing of their whereabouts always proves futile and sometimes becomes difficult under normal circumstances, an aspect which critically causes a great desperation indeed.
Ogola (now 84 years old) was working under Railways and Harbours Corporation one of the units formed within the jurisdiction of the community whose office headquarter by then was based in Nairobi-Kenya, and he retired in a high ranking position of a senior Station Master. During his tenure in the office, he had been working on a transfer basis rotating in all three countries (Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda) respectively as per the schedules of the office work routine, and this was done periodically for the whole years he had been in service. Just imagine if there could be an ICT component innovated to work as a remote sensing device able to detect where criminals are in a society and in the world at large, or an ICT component able to indicate the impending danger ahead, the successful innovation of such a device could be easier and more helpful to get rid of all mischief including wrong doers in a society. With such a proposed innovative development concepts, related problems such as thefts which are arising in the communities could be prevented and controlled with ease and get better solutions.
By using detectors, peace could be attained in most parts of the world and people would leave in harmony because wrong doers including terrorists would refrain from doing their mischief for fear of their presence to be detected right from the scene of crime.
Mr. George Kandwalo, a city based Information Technology expert, one day contributed in a debate which overlooked the possibility that could be developed by global scientists to innovate a device through their research findings which could detect people’s secret doings. Such type of a device should be innovated in order to define happenings or intentions of the people and remotely controlling the movements of wrong doers. He said in a workshop organized to research internet as an investigative tool which was recently conducted in Dar es Salaam. However, he was on the views of the fact that, since internet has proved to be a powerful research tool that increases the pace of globalization, therefore, with the technological advancements and research findings, remote sensing devices can be possible. Alongside with his assumption, He suggested that with the help of powerful surveillance electronics, professional ICT scientists should design satellites which could enable trace criminals wherever they move after committing a crime somewhere. In this way, he said that such things would help people trace their stolen properties and easily apprehend the suspects and recover their stolen properties on the spot. However, if such devices could be made available in today’s world, people like Ogola and others would not get in troubles and probably would easily manage to recover their stolen properties.Theft has grown at an alarming rate in most big towns and cities in the country, there has been reported regular incidences related with burglaries which goes alongside with indiscriminate killings of innocent people when they refuse to submit whatever they have once attacked by bandits.
Police force seems to have failed to curb with the increasing phenomenon, and even if the police apprehends the suspected culprits and take them to court, in most cases culprits are virtually freed on the grounds of insufficient evidences gathered to prove beyond any reasonable doubt of any involved malpractices.
However, with recent spate of daylight bank robberies that spiraled Dar es Salaam city, Arusha Moshi, in the country, billions of money have been forcibly snatched and disappeared into the hands of few untrustworthy individuals. But the presence of a remote sensing devices could enable to intercept the action and save huge sum of money.
Lack of good governance sometimes contributes to the insecurity of the precious government properties. The concept of efficiency is worthwhile for the early warning remote sensing systems in order to curb with the impending situation.
However, though the world is highly advancing technologically, there is a great change of human development and various ICTs devices such as the mobile phones have been designed to trace people who steal them. This is a unique innovative use of an ICT tool for sensing mechanism. There is a wonderful incident which occurred in August 2006 in Rosario-Argentine in South America whereby three robbers were caught after they had taken pictures of themselves with a mobile phone they had stolen. A mobile phone was programmed in such a manner that when robbers were flashing their images, it automatically posted their own pictures online unknowingly. The mobile was set up to send every pictures taken to the owner’s personal web page. After the pictures were posted, they were analyzed by the police and all three robbers were immediately identified and later on were arrested for interrogation. According to a policeman, “little did they know that all their pictures were being instantly sent to a webpage. They took so many and therefore it was very easy to identify them. This was the easiest arrest ever” police said. The incident is related more or less like a car tracking devices whose working mechanisms have been designed to trace the whereabouts of the stolen cars and gets recovered with ease. Car tracking is easy for everyone with the Global Positioning System (GPS) which consists of a set of 24 operational satellites and land based controlled stations. The system was designed for the US Dept of Defense and has been made available worldwide. A car or vehicle tracking is a security system that allows the police or an operator to track the location of the vehicle by monitoring a signal in the event it is stolen. According to a report compiled by International Telecommunication Union (ITU) entitled “The internet of Things” which was launched in Tunis in 2005, during the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), science fiction is about to become science fact. The report describes if one day a smart ICT device would ever serve as butlers and secretaries on behalf of human beings. The report also puts down an argument of the reality if cars can drive people wherever they want once ordered to do so, asks the lead author of the report Professor Nicholas Negroponte of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.“The days of just being a thing are over” he added, because in future objects will have personalities capable of being internet users and communicators on behalf of human beings. The Internet of Things foresees a technological revolution that depends on dynamic innovation in a number of important areas namely “tagging” using Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to alert parents about their children’s whereabouts. The world is standing on the brink of technological ubiquity as everyday objects become sensitive to people’s needs. Robot science is creating appliances to help the elderly and the disabled. Research is underway to apply Nano-technology in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases including HIV/AIDS. Sensor technologies will warn people of impending natural disasters or detect landmines in conflict zones.