Slashdot Mirror

http://www.goldengryphon.com/Stross-Concrete.html explains why universal CCTV cameras might not be a good idea. Or, perhaps _is_ a good idea. You be the judge.

You're a bit late to the thought.

Death by cameras connected to the Internet was already thought of in 2004 when The Concrete Jungle was published.

The short story is even available online under a Creative Commons license.

I'll just leave this here: http://www.goldengryphon.com/Stross-Concrete.html

Zombies and P=NP.

::sigh::

http://www.goldengryphon.com/Stross-Concrete.html

Sounds like the US is preparing itself too. Wonder what the equivalent of MAGINOT BLUE STARS is going to be? There must be something eldritch you can do with tens of thousands of TSA staff combined with teraherz scanners... (For obscure references, see http://www.goldengryphon.com/Stross-Concrete.html)

Can anyone give any insight behind how they perform upgrades like this?

FPGAs, of course. It's a test of SCORPION STARE...or maybe the rover ran into something that had to be handled with extreme dispatch. You can read the details here. WARNING: I am not responsible for any consequences that may ensue from your accessing this information without sufficient clearance.

Here's an abstract:

This document describes progress to date in establishing a defensive network capable of repelling wide-scale incursions by reconfiguring the national closed-circuit television surveillance network as a software-controlled look-to-kill multiheaded basilisk. To prevent accidental premature deployment or deliberate exploitation, the SCORPION STARE software is not actually loaded into the camera firmware. Instead, reprogrammable FPGA chips are integrated into all cameras and can be loaded with SCORPION STARE by authorised MAGINOT BLUE STARS users whenever necessary.

Well done sir. The Concrete Jungle by Charles Stross was an entertaining read. Have you read Scratch Monkey yet?

Can anyone give any insight behind how they perform upgrades like this?

FPGAs, of course. It's a test of SCORPION STARE...or maybe the rover ran into something that had to be handled with extreme dispatch. You can read the details here. WARNING: I am not responsible for any consequences that may ensue from your accessing this information without sufficient clearance.

Here's an abstract:

This document describes progress to date in establishing a defensive network capable of repelling wide-scale incursions by reconfiguring the national closed-circuit television surveillance network as a software-controlled look-to-kill multiheaded basilisk. To prevent accidental premature deployment or deliberate exploitation, the SCORPION STARE software is not actually loaded into the camera firmware. Instead, reprogrammable FPGA chips are integrated into all cameras and can be loaded with SCORPION STARE by authorised MAGINOT BLUE STARS users whenever necessary.

http://www.goldengryphon.com/Stross-Concrete.html

Share and enjoy!

Yes. This is very bad. It means the Americans must also be constructing interlinked networks of basilisk guns. http://www.goldengryphon.com/Stross-Concrete.html. They must think that the awakening of the Great Old Ones is near. Maybe it will occur in December of 2012?

If we pursue this plan, by late 2006 any two adjacent public CCTV terminals -- or private camcorders equipped with a digital video link -- will be reprogrammable by any authenticated MAGINOT BLUE STARS superuser to permit the operator to turn them into a SCORPION STARE basilisk weapon. We remain convinced that this is the best defensive posture to adopt in order to minimize casualties when the Great Old Ones return from beyond the stars to eat our brains.

;-)

The cameras aren't for solving crime. They're a line of defense against the Great Old Ones.

One of Stross's Laundry novellas, "The Concrete Jungle," is actually available online:

http://www.goldengryphon.com/Stross-Concrete.html

I believe it lies in between the events of the Atrocity Archives and Jennifer Morgue. Concrete Jungle rather uniquely manages to tie together the UK's surveillance camera grid with Greek mythology, and is a lot of fun to read.

this (in hat form) also works wonders to keep the secret reptilian-government streetlight cameras from reading my thoughts...but don't tell them i said so.

Mind you, I suppose incineration is a lot better than the alternative.

This reminds me of Charles Stross's Lovecraftian/Dilbertian spy thriller Concrete Jungle, which is licensed under a Creative Commons license and can be read as a free download. (Slight spoiler follows) In the novella, part of the plotline involves taking the turn-to-stone ability that medusas have, attributing it to some quantum-mechanical observance trickery, and encoding the relevant neural circuitry into an FPGA chip built into the cameras. The basic idea is that the whole reason the whole reason the UK is constructing their surveillance camera network isn't for the surveillance itself, but to provide an instant-kill defense network against the hordes of some impending Lovecratian horror.

The novella is a little strange, but fun. :)

...before they link this into the MAGINOT BLUE STARS system for look-to-kill capability, eh?

Readers of Slashdot who also enjoy Lovecraftiana should check out Charles Stross who has written a few 'Lovecraft-meets-Dilbert' stories.

The Atrocity Archives comprises The Atrocity Archive & the sequel novella, The Concrete Jungle wherein the protagonist, Bob Howard, provides IT support for a fictional British Intelligence agency charged with stopping the horrors from the next dimension from encroaching into our universe.

The stories are set in a universe where the running of certain esoteric code on your PDA can inadvertently open portals into the dimensions where the horrors wait.

Not only does Bob have to keep Cthulhu etc. from encroaching into our dimension, he also has to justify his expenses to his pointy-haired manageress. The Concrete Jungle recently won a Hugo award for Best Novella.

A previous story that is available online, A Colder War, has a similar setting but is much more grim. Stross regards it as a 'dry run' for The Atrocity Archives.

Readers of Slashdot who also enjoy Lovecraftiana should check out Charles Stross who has written a few 'Lovecraft-meets-Dilbert' stories.

The Atrocity Archives comprises The Atrocity Archive & the sequel novella, The Concrete Jungle wherein the protagonist, Bob Howard, provides IT support for a fictional British Intelligence agency charged with stopping the horrors from the next dimension from encroaching into our universe.

The stories are set in a universe where the running of certain esoteric code on your PDA can inadvertently open portals into the dimensions where the horrors wait.

Not only does Bob have to keep Cthulhu etc. from encroaching into our dimension, he also has to justify his expenses to his pointy-haired manageress. The Concrete Jungle recently won a Hugo award for Best Novella.

A previous story that is available online, A Colder War, has a similar setting but is much more grim. Stross regards it as a 'dry run' for The Atrocity Archives.

Readers of Slashdot who also enjoy Lovecraftiana should check out Charles Stross who has written a few 'Lovecraft-meets-Dilbert' stories.

The Atrocity Archives comprises The Atrocity Archive & the sequel novella, The Concrete Jungle wherein the protagonist, Bob Howard, provides IT support for a fictional British Intelligence agency charged with stopping the horrors from the next dimension from encroaching into our universe.

The stories are set in a universe where the running of certain esoteric code on your PDA can inadvertently open portals into the dimensions where the horrors wait.

Not only does Bob have to keep Cthulhu etc. from encroaching into our dimension, he also has to justify his expenses to his pointy-haired manageress. The Concrete Jungle recently won a Hugo award for Best Novella.

A previous story that is available online, A Colder War, has a similar setting but is much more grim. Stross regards it as a 'dry run' for The Atrocity Archives.