ABSTRACT
It often happens that some mathematics is invented long before it gets “applied.” For example, not long after the time of Newton the basic mathematical physics needed to send a rocket to the moon already existed. It was not until much later, of course, that a rocket did, in fact, land on the moon. What was needed (besides rockets!) was fast and vast computational power-provided by electronic computers. If you have ever had an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), basic mathematics (the Radon Transform and Inverse Radon Transform) was employed to create the image from the data collected; and you need a computer to do the calculations necessary to create the image. In both these cases, the basic equations and functions used had been known for a long time. However, solving these equations or evaluating these functions involve computations that cannot practically be done by hand. And so it is in the business of surveillance-and avoiding surveillance, for
example, via sending messages using codes or encryption. The “good news” is that perhaps the mathematics most important for you and me to understand is not “rocket science” and is simpler than that used for an MRI. We will look at these simplest ideas, the first of which you have already seen in the “mathematics of the AIDS test,” cf., Chapter 21. What differentiates modern surveillance from that of old is the use of computers to assemble enormous databases which are used to create mathematical models of nearly everyone. I will need to spend some time documenting a few facts, which are either unknown, or rejected by most folks, in order to show that the material in this chapter implies profound consequences for our safety, for free inquiry, for the form of our government and the structure of our society.
