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Fighting For Privacy With Art and Words
HomeSkillet writes contributes this link to an interesting NYT feature on the recent works of privacy activist, wearables pioneer and artist Steve Mann. Mann has been mentioned here a few times before, but in light of current moves to scan, monitor and track your every move by subtle and unsubtle means, it's never been more relevant. Can anyone suggest a non-registration source for this story?
I work in the Computer Vision and Robotics Research lab at UCSD. We have done research in many of the areas mentioned in the article, and are beginning some wearable computing starting with a PC-104 & i-glasses setup that another Grad student is working on. Wearables are cool stuff, we're already seeing phones, pagers, pdas, and watches unified.. next is more interfaces to the REAL world like he sums his article with.
/.'ers do already. But rather than blatantly rejecting any form of surveillance as I typically see on here and other forums, maybe appropriate questions should be asked about why/how/who has access to the data being taken. These are the issues at the heart of the problem.
But on to my main point. We've been operating for some time towards a concept we call Ubiquitous Vision, which means that basically we will eventually be able to look at any space (indoors/out), from any perspective and resolution using a distributed network of a variety of types of visual sensors, including mobile ones. The decreasing size and cost of these sensors makes this approach possible, and also is interesting from a user's perspective because of the freedom to choose the view of the scene.
We do get quite a few comments related to the potential impacts of such kinds of surveillance to people's everyday lives. Like he mentions in the article, as long as this kind of surveillance is possible for everyone - not just a select few (corporations, government, etc..) then there exists some kind of natural balancing mechanism. What's scary would be if only some specific organizations had access to the information and everyone else was prohibited from using it or doing their own surveillance.
However it seems essential to mention a point made before by people more intelligent than myself. It isn't the technology that is at fault for comprimising your privacy. It is the people who use it that need to be responsible, and the people who feel it is being used irresponsibly that should speak up, as many of you
I personally think soon we will begin to see high-profile social organizations responsible for regulating the use of surveillance and making policy to protect us. EFF comes to mind. With the increased media attention now, I think we are on a collision course with this issue on a national/global scale. More to come, and it's going to be a very interesting and complex debate.
Just my $.02
Brett
__ No registration required to read this message. They did it in the Matrix.
Does this kind of technology scare anyone else?
Having glasses that let others see through his eyes and can modify what he sees to provide information or block nuisances seems nice enough at first glance. I can imagine alot of neat uses for this tech and can even imagine it becoming somewhat common, if made portable and high quality enough. But what about ways this might be exploited in the future?
Once it's common, what's to stop a hacker or the government from breaking in to look through my eyes. Now, that's a scary thought. How about a worse one? Programmers and their backers designing these things to filter out aspects of the world because they are politically unpopular or show competitor's products? Or how about inserting ads into other parts of life? I wouldn't want to look at walls in my own house and be shown advertisements.
So long as the user is truly in control I suppose it's okay, but who knows what a greedy corporation might try to do with his tech.
This isn't some grand conspiracy (if it were, it would be easy to do something about it). But look at it from the point of view of the people who get to make the rules. If they forbid picture taking, little happens. If they allow it, they are in trouble if something bad happens, or at least they risk exposing their organization to embarrassment if the pictures are used for something negative.
I think it's important to document our life in pictures for many reasons, and that's why it's important to keep cameras acceptable whereever we go. What can you do about it? Carry a camera, the unobtrusive snapshooting kind, and snap away. Don't dress up like an alien or be in-your-face or antagonistic--that only upsets people and raises valid concerns. But do use your camera: take pictures of your girlfriend picking out a new dress, pictures of your family waving good-bye at the airport, pictures of having lunch at the mall, pictures of furniture that you may want to buy (to show your family), etc.
No, coz there isn't any. Privacy is not anonymity.
And if it's anonymity you want, get off the Internet. Hide in a crowd, instead. You won't have any privacy tho'.
Surely anyone who cares about there privicy would tell a cold-caller to piss off! Hardley suprising the results were dubious!
Not only that but questions were asked about terrorist attacks before questions about ID cards were asked! Talk about loaded questions.
Hardly suprising when you find the survey was sponsored by Rupert Murdochs News Of The Screws!
For more info read the Regester articlel
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/21849.htm
It links to the Mori site.
Please tell everyone about how dogey this poll was. We cannot have people beliving this crap
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
I'm shocked that the deaths of so many innocent people mean so little to you fucking nerds.
Priorities?
We are not to be defeated. A proper amount of mourning has been observed. It has been fair and respectful and now proper respect is being paid to the living, to recovery and most importantly to damage control to prevent the situation from becoming worse. Within hours of the 9-11 events, politicians were proposing new law to restrict our freedoms. To turn a blind eye to those who would too far change our way of life for a reason of additional mourning would be an expression of misplaced priorities.
I do not speak for everyone though I invite the support of those who agree with me. The price of a few lives unwillingly taken does not outweigh the way of life earned by so many who fought and died willingly for the freedoms and the way of life we have taken for granted today. Yet somehow, people feel an acceptable exchange for the lives of the unwillingly taken would be equal to restriction upon our very lives and our very way of life. But I am unaffected directly by the tragedy of 9-11 so I would pose the question directly to any of the families or friends of those who died on that day.
It makes me wonder if we no longer value the lives already given in the name of the lifestyle we have been living until recently. So I think it's important to maintain a clear perspective on the events going on in all arenas and not allow yourself to wear the blinders of mourning for too long. The time for mourning is done. The alternative to this is to remain cowed under the fear of attack not only from foreign enemies but from those [lazy asses] who would legislate our freedoms away so that it would make their jobs more 'convenient' to execute; those who would sooner 'control' the world using a television remote control rather than actually WORK for a living and represent the interests of the people as their position was intended. I am all for protecting and securing the safety of all people everywhere. But I am not for doing so by way of restricting our rights and freedoms. I am for doing so by way of increased vigilance and a more agressive stance against those who would attack our freedoms and way of life. (The government should get off it's lazy asses and work on ways to secure our freedoms while at the same time securing our lives and our safety.)
Priorities indeed. If you don't think your rights and freedoms are worth protecting, then I invite you to voluntarily enslave yourself to me now. I could use a little help cleaning up around here anyway.
I'm shocked that the deaths of so many innocent people mean so little to you fucking nerds.
Priorities?
We are not to be defeated. A proper amount of mourning has been observed. It has been fair and respectful and now proper respect is being paid to the living, to recovery and most importantly to damage control to prevent the situation from becoming worse. Within hours of the 9-11 events, politicians were proposing new law to restrict our freedoms. To turn a blind eye to those who would too far change our way of life for a reason of additional mourning would be an expression of misplaced priorities.
I do not speak for everyone though I invite the support of those who agree with me. The price of a few lives unwillingly taken does not outweigh the way of life earned by so many who fought and died willingly for the freedoms and the way of life we have taken for granted today. Yet somehow, people feel an acceptable exchange for the lives of the unwillingly taken would be equal to restriction upon our very lives and our very way of life. But I am unaffected directly by the tragedy of 9-11 so I would pose the question directly to any of the families or friends of those who died on that day.
It makes me wonder if we no longer value the lives already given in the name of the lifestyle we have been living until recently. So I think it's important to maintain a clear perspective on the events going on in all arenas and no allow yourself to wear the blinders of mourning for too long. The time for mourning is done. The alternative to this is to remain cowed under the fear of attack not only from foreign enemies but from those [lazy asses] who would legislate our freedoms away so that it would make their jobs more 'convenient' to execute; those who would sooner 'control' the world using a television remote control rather than actually WORK for a living. I am all for protecting and securing the safety of all people everywhere. But I am not for doing so by way of restricting our rights and freedoms. I am for doing so by way of increased vigilance and a more agressive stance against those who would attack our freedoms and way of life. (The government should get off it's lazy asses and work on ways to secure our freedoms while at the same time securing our lives and our safety.)
Priorities indeed. If you don't think your rights and freedoms are worth protecting, then I invite you to voluntarily enslave yourself to me now. I could use a little help cleaning up around here anyway.
"The advent of the Orwellian era is near"
If you mean we only passed it about 15 years ago then you are right on. For those who are unawre Eric Blair (a.k.a. George Orwell) chose the date 1984 because it reverses the 48 in 1948
I'll just scratch the surface with a single example. Sadman Insane (sadhamm Huseinn for the phonetically challenged) was a friend of the US Government who wasn't such a bad guy, until the day when he was suddenly always a murderous dictator who must be stopped. Of course, even though it was well within our power to oust him, we never did. Instead the US government explained to us 'proles' that they couldn't quite get to him. Of course the reality was that we were afraid that, if we killed him, *ANOTHER* Sadman Insane would take his place and we would have to check his ego as well. I assure you I could go on ad-infinitum with myriad diferring examples, but I won't. At this point, you either get it, or you never will.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I figure that this will work like most other technology these days.
The camera-glasses and associated computer equipment will be expensive. Companies will offset these expenses just like in the early days of the internet...with ads. Don't expect to see that pretty waterfall while you're in the john, what you'll be seeing is an animated ad for condoms, maybe with sound..arranged by the company that got you the glasses for cheap!
And once the companies decide that ads are being ignored, they'll go to a pay-per-view model. Just make sure your subscription doesn't run out while you're driving.
And come to think of it, what a great platform for subliminal advertising! You can insist to no visual ads, but paragraph 85(s) of the licensing agreement will subject you to ads beamed directly to your brain!