Slashdot Mirror

Sounds like chunks of themes ripped from the Fourth Realm series by John Twelve Hawks. Being off the grid is one thing, but also randomizing your choices helps another. Working with maps of CCTV to find alternative routes, and providing the double work of having 'usable' profiles to hide behind.

http://www.mediaeater.com/came...
http://www.fastcoexist.com/168...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The fact that this hadn't been thrown out immediately bewilders me. Personally, I'd like to see this pass, and abused to the fullest extent. It's becoming increasingly apparent that the government is capable of doing whatever it pleases, while the people simply sit back. I mean, first off, the only permissible protest from the people is through a written letter with a deadline. This is something that will directly affect the public, not law officials. And by the way, this is a city that has over 2400 video surveillance cameras, all accessible under "certain" circumstances by those law officials. Seriously, why has it become okay for the government to record/access any type of information, but it's becoming absurd to believe the people have even a fraction of that right without their approval?

I'm sorry, but I'm really getting fed up with the amount of people that almost act as though our rights are not really rights, but instead wonderful (but not necessary) gifts from those in power. I would much rather see the government continue to recklessly widen the gap between themselves and the public until the inevitable day that they've gone too far, and people are willing to give up their comfortable lifestyles to fight for the ideas that founded this country.

To those that believe this is a good thing/okay thing/you don't really care, please, get your head out of the sand. There is entirely too much room for abuse. There is a similar law regarding camera usage in the NY/NJ PATH train stations. I can tell you firsthand that I've been harrassed more than once for simply having a camera in my possession, when the rules pertain only to the act of taking pictures.

http://www.mediaeater.com/cameras/locations.html is a good start. There are many other credible proofs out there that I don't have handy at the present time.

There is a nice map (pdf though) with quite a few of the cameras
here.

I seem to remember a project to find the path through the city with the least cameras... Wasn't that NYC? I'm pretty sure it was at slashdot, but I can't find it.

This is not new. In Melbourne, Australia, a system operating on similar principles for a few years - http://www.perceptics.com/files/LPR.pdf.

Speed cameras here also operate in the same way, and have done so for years. No human will even see your traffic fine after it leaves the police van. The images get transferred back to the central computer, which then scan & enhance it, print the infringement notice and stuff it into a envelope. I assume a human carries it down to the post office. But it can't be to far off before the dammed things are delivered by email.

Scott McNeally's off the cuff comment Privacy is dead, deal with it! is spot on. Slashdotters may have as much trouble accepting that as the RIAA has accepting the way technology has gutted copyright, but the genie is out of the bottle. You can't put it back. No one is going to tear down the cameras that take 300 pictures of your average Londoner a day. No one is going to stop the hire car companies tracking you via satellite. Nobody is going to stop the police tracking your movements by asking Blockbuster when and where you last hired out movies.

David Brin was right. Trying to stop the collection is a lost cause. Instead fight to make your right to know who is collecting such information, what they have collected, and most importantly who has accessed it. If we can't keep their fingers out of our packets, at least we can keep the bastards honest!

http://www.mediaeater.com/cameras/ NYC Surveillance Camera Project

Information is just one aspect of privacy. Here are the locations of some 2,397 PUBLIC surveylance cameras throughout the streets of Manhatten. I imagine other large cities are not far behind.