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Ubiquitous Surveillance
lightray writes: "The New York Times is running an article titled A Cautionary Tale for a New Age of Surveillance which gives an alarming view of America's possible future -- and Britain's present." Excellent article, just excellent. (The author has also written a good book on privacy recently.) "And rather than thwarting serious crime, the cameras are being used to enforce social conformity in ways that Americans may prefer to avoid."
I stay indoors in a dark room while coding so often that the cameras will never find me! What is this outside world you speak of, I know nothing beyond cubeland and break-room.
I am !amused.
Looks like a little while before we have a camera in every household. That will be doubleplusungood. We are still at war with Oceana, right? We've always been at war with them. Unless the Spies of Goldberg have been acting on us again.
JoeLinux
I was watching TV and they were talking about these cameras in Briton and this guy decided he was going to have some fun, so he dressed up as this huge insect-alien and walked around the downtown area of his medium sized town.
:)
And what did the Bobbys do? They asked him for his id
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
well I live in the UK, and when my girlfriend was hit by a car those cameras came in very useful. They are only in PUBLIC places (and only high streets for that matter). If you want to do private stuff, do it in a private place, it's that simple. The paranoia against cameras seems unjustified to me but hey I live with them and have not been arrested or stopped yet :P
Of course, protecting airports is only one aspect of homeland security: a terrorist could be lurking on any corner in America. In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Howard Safir, the former New York police commissioner, recommended the installation of 100 biometric surveillance cameras in Times Square to scan the faces of pedestrians and compare them with a database of suspected terrorists. Atick told me that since the attacks he has been approached by local and federal authorities from across the country about the possibility of installing biometric surveillance cameras in stadiums and subway systems and near national monuments. ''The Office of Homeland Security might be the overall umbrella that will coordinate with local police forces'' to install cameras linked to a biometric network throughout American cities, Atick told me. ''How can we be alerted when someone is entering the subway? How can we be sure when someone is entering Madison Square Garden? How can we protect monuments? We need to create an invisible fence, an invisible shield.''
Most of the criminals are mostly low tech.
Even the terrorists were pretty low tech, with their box cutters and library Internet use.
If we want high tech criminals we should do something like this.
Then we will have an onslaught of mask wearing in public streets, and disguises will become common.
It will also become common not to trust your fellow man. The "lawful" person has many reasons to wish to hide from the eye of public surveillance.
We may not catch many terrorists, but we will catch petty criminals and philanderers (in some countries) using this technology.
It will "blow-back" us to Kingdom Come. Do we really want to walk around distrusting our fellow citizens, every second of the day?
Oh, wait.. we already do.
Goat sex free since 2001
hey they can stick cameras in public places as far as I am concerned because well if you do something in a public place then you are doing it to the public and can be recorded by the man walking the dog as well as the police
I have no problems with them taping me walking home but if they want to see inside my house or tape what I say to friends then that's a different matter
regards
john jones
.. I was not used to the CCTV cameras and found them quite disturbing.
For about the first 5 months living here, I thought that they might give me some sense of security. They did, until my Brother was beat up in the street.. the cameras didn't help him, and he spent 1 night in the hospital.
2 months later, a work mate was robbed , while he was in his house. Cameras didn't help him.
2 1/2 months after that another work mate was robbed. Cameras didn't help (out of his house).
(I am not making this up).. about 2 weeks after the last robbing, my friend was drug out of his car (about 1 block from the office I work) and had the shit kicked out of him for not yielding to another driver. The damn cameras (which where on that street) didn't pick up anything useful that the police could use to find the person that did it. (on that note, I waited with my friend for over 1 hour for the police to even arive to the scene).
Thus far I am the only person in our very small company that hasn't been either asulted or burgled, and Reading England (Uk) has cameras everywhere. Though, about 9 months ago, a CORPSE was found across the street in the garden from my house in near a building of flats. THERE WAS A CAMERA 150 FEET FROM WHERE THEY FOUND THE CORPSE, no-body was ever cought. (Though, they feel that the person was killed and dumped off, he had been out of prison for only 6 days).
My guess is that anyone that would be watching the cameras are too busy trying to look down someones shirt or sleeping on the job.
What I feel we need here in our town is not more cameras, they haven't done a bloody damn thing. More cops on the street would help, and make the ones that are out there a bit happier about their jobs. Criminals here seem to operate without any regard for getting cought. Maybe if the police had guns and the society here wasn't centric to drinking oneself sick before 11:00pm (when the pubs close) things wouldn't be so bad..
Living here though makes me think twice about gun-laws, never had ANYTHING like this happen to me living in the western united states, but maybe I was in a closet..
*sigh*
"If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear."
Just because you've got something to hide, it doesn't mean it's illegal. What if someone used these cameras in a public area to, say, watch for two men/women kissing or something, then send someone over to harrass them. There are better examples but that is the only one off the top of my head. Didn't we used to have some rights that protected us from this sort of thing? What if a camera just happened to be pointed towards somebodys window... Could be just some guy, or maybe someone they suspect of something but can't get a warrant to watch... You know this is going to be massively abused. They said wire taps wouldn't be abused either...
... is why this is such a big issue. I would prefer wanted criminals be caught through a technique like this. They're dangerous to our society and dont belong on the streets.
I know a lot of people are worried that a system like this can be abused by authorities to track people. I have two uncles that are former police officers (one now is in the Secret Service, other died). Let me explain the point of view of the current SS agent:
There is so much work that a police dept in a major city like NY or Tampa that has to be done that there is no room to abuse a system like an automated facial recognizer. If someone were to abuse it, his/her overall job performance would go down because they would be tracking innocent people instead of catching wanted suspects.
I also have an example of a situation where this would work. I live in Philadelphia. About 2 years there was a serial murderer and rapist in Center City, and got dubbed the name Center City Rapist. A picture of the guy was found and wanted signs appeared all over town, on lampposts, park benches, etc. Also on those signs were how he attacks and how he targets single women who live alone. But the guy got away.
Last month his DNA was found on a rape & murder victim in Denver, Colorado.
If FaceIt were running on Denver and have the Center City Rapist's photo in the db, that guy would have been caught because of his high profile from Philly and perhaps one young woman would still be alive today because of FaceIt.
The murderer and rapist is still on the run.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
The cammeras in the UK have always seemed suspect. Not because they are there but because of what they're not doing. Here are 2 true stories:
Friend is hit by a car in an area with literally tens of cameras. What happened? Nothing. Nothing was caught on camera.
Friend gets the shit kicked out of him by bouncers in a night club. He was in front of a camera as it happened. What happened? Nothing. Tape 'dissapeared'.
WTF type of crime are these cameras supposed to catch? Assault and "Hit and run" type crimes do not benefit. A terrorist incident isn't likely to happen in half the places they seem to be used.
My greatest worry about new 'Net laws' is that in a society dominated by legal precedant, the line between virtual and reality is all to penetrable.
To give an example of this thin line:
hacker ((cracker) but I'll use hacker here) = terrorist
The fact is the actions of a hacker translated into the real world could be pretty serious. But they are'nt IRL. I was glad to see that hacker != terrorist.
And, contrary to what the report says, MANY terrorists have been caught using CCTV: most recently, the loony rascist who planted a nailbomb in my local market street was caught using CCTV images. PLenty of IRA bombers have been caught in similar ways.
This is not to say that the potential for abuse isn't there, or that there won't be some test cases before things are bedded down; and it behoves us to be *cough* vigilant about abuses of the system.
But really, Americans should worry more about your right to avoid having to mop your children's brains off the floor because they had a bad attack of the teenage blues and decided to end it all. What's more, even in this hotbed of class A drug dealing, there are still less than 400 murders in the entire COUNTRY per YEAR. (Population 65 million.) Personally, I'm just happy that I can walk around Brixton at 3am without worrying that I'm going to be shot.
I live inthe UK, so it was interesting to read the article about "big brother" and CCTV in the UK.
;-) into the front of a shop.
The subject is not really as controversial here as it might seem. I know that my local town council (Wokingham) has been pressing to get funding to install CCTV in the twon centre for some time. The argument for CCTV is made every time there is a ram-raiding incident, or some other such crime where someone drives a 4x4 (SUV to Americans
I personally think that the sheer amount of data collected from CCTV cameras is so great that any general surveillance and control of the population at large would be very difficult. I would assume that most CCTV cameras do not have a pair of human eye-balls watching them. It's only really worth digging through mountains of material when a serious crime has been committed, ususally murder (which is pretty uncommon in this country).
Personally I feel more reassured than threatened by CCTV, I'm do nothing that I want to hide (but then I'm not an anti-globalisation eco-nutter!), but there is a reasonable chance that CCTV might catch anyone committing a crime against me - which works for me!
"Face recognition useless for crowd surveillance"
"Face-scan outfit rushes to exploit WTC atrocity"
troodon.net
In 1994, a 2-year-old boy named Jamie Bulger was kidnapped and murdered by two 10-year-old schoolboys, and surveillance cameras captured a grainy shot of the killers leading their victim out of a shopping center. Bulger's assailants couldn't, in fact, be identified on camera -- they were caught because they talked to their friends -- but the video footage, replayed over and over again on television, shook the country to its core.
In most cases, this is what would happen! The captured images would mostly serve the media.
At any point, it is the human element that is the weakest. No amount of technology can replace that part, whichever way you look at it. Networking people takes on a whole new perspecive here =)
Sorry, but whoever wrote that greatly underestimates how desperately America strives for social conformity.
You don't get kids kicked out of school for wearing Pepsi T-Shirts during a Coca-Cola employment drive day, if you don't love conformity.
You don't get Jerry Falwell if you don't love conformity. My god, if there's a man and his masses who would love everyone to conform, it's that gang of hoodlums.
You don't get Sikhs going turbanless this month in a country that doesn't threaten their lives for not conforming.
And you certainly don't get Brittany Spears and the other kiddy bands if conformity isn't desired.
Cameras to enforce conformity? Hell, yes! It's the American Way!
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I find the idea of being constantly watched rather creepy, though I guess the article claims that the camera monitors focus on good-looking girls so maybe it's not an issue.
Anyway, I have less of a reaction to cameras in general, and wonder what people would think of this: The cameras exist, but there are no humans scanning, they simply go into a N-day archive that may only be viewed with a warrant, i.e., when police know something illegal happened in the vicinity of the camera.
I personally would have less of a problem with that kind of surveillance.
Unfortunately the most viable one goes right in the opposite direction of the one that public safety and survaillence advocates want.
It is the solution hinted at by the brave actions of the Passengers of Flight 93, who figured out what was happening, and fought back.
It is what is called in the US code of Laws as the un-organized malitia and consists of every adult in the US. It consists of every adult getting trained on self defense, on how to use a weapon, how to apply first aid, how to take care of oneself. It consisists of every adult being able to be responsible for them selves, and the people around them.
This is just the exact opposite direction from the direction some folks want to go.
It is the direct of all citizens taking responsibility for the government and the society, not the government taking reponsibility for the citizens.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The important part: Brin wanted ANYONE to be able to tap into the cameras, ANY TIME. He also wanted cameras watching the watchers: we should be able to turn into our local police station, and make sure they're doing their job properly. This is the part that's missing from current proposals in the US and current practice in the UK, yet it would clearly be beneficial:
In a world where surveillance seems impossible to avoid, I can only wish that Brin's vision had a better chance of becoming reality.
Smile
Sinister.
On further consideration, a south London hospital (where i am now) can get pretty hairy on a saturday night. In a way, I am glad the camera's are there. I was chatting to one of the night security about it while having a cig break. Apparantly, they spotted somebody who had collapsed in a remote corner of the hospital on CCTV, and got there much faster as a result.However, a Hospital is a pretty special situation, and I dont think we can draw many conclusions from their utility here....
I'm all for camras in public places.
The problem as I see it is the camras are cheap worthless POS units.
In the United States we have this whole issue reguarding camras at stop lights to catch traffic violations.
They don't work.. Reports of the camras going off when the light is green or yellow. Or when nobody is in the intersection.
The issues are simple.. Poor technology and poor impliementation of technology.
Stop light camras shouldn't even be used to ticket but just to find the best places to put police officers. Ticketting really works best so I'm told when an officer pulls a person over just after the violation...
In the UK just put in better camras. See where it's NOT working and fix it. Attend to abuses.
Change policys. Change technologys.
It could do a lot of good and it could do a lot of evil. It's just a matter of making it work.
As to the teen suiside comment made elsewhere.
A bathtub of water, sleeping pills, drug overdose, "huffing", knifes... Outside of gangs kids don't have a whole lot of access to guns to start with... suisidal teens pritty much have to make due with what they have... and thats more likely to be a bathtub full of water than a gun.
In the end the best solution to general crime is to arm the population.
Terrorism is a diffrent issue I'm affrade... Terrorists plan ahead... if being shot and killed is a posability the terrorist just plans for it and dose his deal anyway.
I don't actually exist.
The installation of a network of CCTV cams bothers me; sure, as I am sure it does you. But I am of the opinion to most of us these cameras will seldom ever factor in to our day to day.
What disturbs me is not the cameras of Briton, it is the way Briton embraced them. The argument that we Americans are bred different does not hold with me. America has shown you and I annoying knee-jerk and herd mentalities before.
What scares me is the wave of laws that will follow, the laws that decide exactly how we will define "public safety" against "privacy".
The ability to make your home transparent using 3rd and 4th generation thermal imaging is already in the possession of your local Feds, some of our larger police department's intelligence units have them as well.
The resolution on these devices is frightening. If people knew just how scary it is to watch a person as he/she wanders through what he/she thinks is their personal life behind closed doors... well we could say that Americans would find it unacceptable. But after 9/11 and with a PR campaign. Well who knows?
Technology will always continue to peal away the walls that separate your life from mine. Privacy then becomes more of an ethereal definition. We as Americans will have to decide how we want that defined. Lets hope we don't let fear mongering, terrorists, and dubious PR types do it for us.
It seems to me the question should be asked:
Will this actually solve the problem?
Basically, it costs a terrorist a few dollars in Theatrical Makeup to thwart your multi-million dollar security. Doesn't sound like a very good idea if they are doing it for the reasons that they say
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
What he's saying, ass, is that there CAN NOT be enough cameras to do any good! There will always be a hiding spot for foul deeds.
Bullshit. In this case, there were enough cameras to do the job. The problem wasn't coverage, the problem was a bad camera. And whether they have 100% coverage or not is totally irrelevent. The question is whether you can give enough coverage for people to have zones of safety. Just because you don't have every back alley covered doesn't mean you can't keep the streets safe.
Oh wait, it's Reality Master 101, I've been trolled.
Ah yes, the oh-so-intelligent debate tactic of the Slashdotter. When in doubt, accuse the poster of trolling.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
And you thought ubiqitous survelliance powers of security forces was an infringement of your civil liberties.
In fact, I have uncovered the truth, and it is far, far, more horrid...
The network of monitoring systems across the UK were actually secretly sponsered by the secrative NewWorldDocumentary film co. They have drawn up plans to turn the entire UK into one huge reality TV program "Bigger Brother". It will run for 200,000,000 weeks, and each week, you - the American audience - will vote one UK citizen to be deported immidiatly to Australia (current favourite to win - Tony Blair).
For the next 350,000 years, all you will be able to watch on TV is english people scratching their arses, eating deep fried cod & chips, smoking woodbine, discussing shelly's hairdo in eastenders and talking rubbish after 7 pints of stella.
Enjoy
Heh _ I can't wait until th efirst Senator or Congressman/woman is caught with someone not their spousal unit. Heck, you could even program the machine to recognize both - wanna bet the Enquirer would buy them.
Technology - it's all in how you use it.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The really scary thing about the September attacks is that there is basically NOTHING YOU CAN DO about someone who is absolutely determined, has a clean record, and is prepared to lose his* life. Sure, you can make it harder to hijack planes; but if they make it into the cockpit and disable the flight crew it's game over. Even if they get shot down, it's still a 'victory' for the terrorists, because of the few hundred innocent victims on the plane. This is somewhat analogous to the terrible lesson learned by the US in Vietnam, and by the UK in India, Palestine, Ireland, Malaysia, Kenya and indeed many other bits of the world that used to be coloured red: you cannot win a military victory against a determined guerilla army which has mass support from the population.
[* You'd never catch a woman stupid enough to fall for fairy stories about paradise... ] I reckon this partly explains why it's taking such a long time for bombs to start hitting Afghanistan: there seems to be a strong body of opinion in the FBI that there are other unknown sleeper agents already in the US, just waiting for the first attack to retaliate, either on US soil, US interests overseas, or the loyal friends of the USA here in the UK. I'm really glad I don't work right next to the NatWest Tower in the city any more...
Amazing, isn't it, that instead, we get surveillance of people who are not even suspected of a crime.
Seastead this.
From the article:
There is a very serious problem: People in power want to use technology, but they don't understand it. Lack of understanding doesn't stop them! They just charge ahead with laws like the DMCA and other craziness.
There is considerable use of the feelings surrounding the September 11 terrorism to get support for goals that they wanted to accomplish anyway, but that would not be supported before.
ABC News article: "Abu Sayyaf
Bush's education improvements were
Hell, with the ability to replace one image with another in a frame, and the power the politicos have, all senators and congresscritters will have the system preset to replace any image of a person who is not their spouse with an image of their spouse.
This will occur ahead of the image arriving at the watchers, or, in Dave Brin's society, the public.
Cynical, a'int I? Or is it just the pragmatism of inevitability.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
"No, it ISN'T."
Isn't what you mean to say. "It keeps terrorists off of planes AND keeps punks out of shopping malls." It sounds like you are arguing it doesn't do anything...
"So they And, contrary to what the report says, MANY terrorists have been caught using CCTV: most recently, the loony rascist who planted a nailbomb in my local market street was caught using CCTV images. PLenty of IRA bombers have been caught in similar ways."
OK good. So where are the punks supposed to shop?
"This is not to say that the potential for abuse isn't there, or that there won't be some test cases before things are bedded down; and it behoves us to be *cough* vigilant about abuses of the system."
Very vigilant. How about specific legal protections, like being able to log into a web site and perform meta surveillance. If the security team looks up a skirt and you are watching their peticular cammera, you look up a skirt!!! Bet they won't do it again after the first time they caught.
"But really, Americans should worry more about your right to avoid having to mop your children's brains off the floor because they had a bad attack of the teenage blues and decided to end it all."
Having guns here is about keeping the govenment (local or federal) in check. Kids can kill themselves with a car and a closed garage too. Cars can be far more dangerous than hand guns. What if the Columbine kids ran over kids at 3:30 with their parents SUV. Would we ban SUVs??????
"What's more, even in this hotbed of class A drug dealing, there are still less than 400 murders in the entire COUNTRY per YEAR. (Population 65 million.) Personally, I'm just happy that I can walk around Brixton at 3am without worrying that I'm going to be shot."
Me too, I just hope the police don't start exercising undue force, for your sake. They keep swat equiptment, including machine guns, at every station right?
Bin Ladden attacked the USA and NY specifically for our freedoms and tollerance. Let me spell this out for anyone who dosn't get it. Female Afganistani imagrants can walk around UNVAILED here. That makes Bin Laden and the Taliban look REALLY BAD when word gets back to the homeland. Our freedom threatens their Draconian grip on their people so they tried to destroy a symbol of our successful marketplace made possible by our broad FREEDOMS.
If cameras make those women feel as if they must wear a mask for fear that somone will find SOMTHING that they are doing wrong then BIN LADEN HAS WON! Even if it is from his grave. The attacks were a SUCCESS if the blanket of uniform bland gray ash that covered Greenwich Village remains there!!!!! After all, where are the punks supposed to shop?
Sincerly
A pissed off NYer
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
The article talks about "the fledgling science of biometrics, a method of identifying people by scanning and quantifying their unique physical characteristics."
That's not all biometrics is. "Biometrics" generally just means "biological measurement," and is a wide-ranging field of study covering biostatistics, various types of bioengineering (e.g. the development of various medical monitoring devices), clinical data analysis, etc. Its use in this context is just another example, IMO, of PHB's adopting buzzwords they barely understand. (Cf. "six sigma" -- how many biztypes can tell what a sigma is, or why six of them is important?) I think it's very unfortunate that biometrics scientists, most of whom are decent people working on research that will serve only to help people, will find themselves lumped in with assholes who want to make a quick buck (or quid) helping their governments take away the rights of their fellow citizens.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
On other words, what you're saying is that if it had been a GOOD camera, they would have caught the criminals.
I don't think he gave us enough information to make any conclusion about why the camera didn't pick up anything worthwhile. Was it just a bad camera? Was it not pointed in the right direction? Was it broken? Was it some other reason entirely? Need more info.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Of course, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Isn't that right?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The right to complete anonymity is going to be a thing of the past, in my opinion, and that may be for the best. Your "permanent record" will be attached to your identity, and your identity will be bound to your natural credentials such as facial characteristics, retinal scans, and genetic fingerprints. Strangely, this could make the world a freer place and a place more tolerant of non-conformity.
Real world security is no different from network security really. You try to protect vulnerable systems from unauthorized access and damage. To accomplish that, you use identity-establishing mechanisms, authentication procedures, and security policies (or laws). These things have been around forever, but technology is making them a whole heck of a lot more efficient -- and we probably need it.
Picture a world in which everyone is genetically fingerprinted and face printed. Seems scary, of course, but picture it. There would be cameras everywhere tracking your whereabouts by signalling your location to a giant database. If an authorized agent of the government wanted to know where you've been, who you were with, and who they were with, etc., it would be a simple query.
Just about any crime that involves even so much as a lost hair or a few skin cells would be immediately, conclusively solved. Would-be hijackers would lose their right to fly the minute they had lunch with bin Laden's stepsister's cousin. O.J. would not be golfing.
People would commit fewer crimes and would shun those who do. In short, it would once again be like living in a small isolated village where everyone knows everyone else.
How do you prevent abuse of the system? First ask yourself if it is easier to control a well-defined system or a pell mell system like we currently have. If the system were well defined, you would have the right, as in credit reporting, to dispute your record and to know what it is.
You wouldn't have government officials asserting that someone was "linked" to something by who knows what vague circumstance. The database would be authoritative and objective. If you were caught on camera on more than one occasion with someone, that's a link. If that someone later proves to be Timothy McVeigh, yes, you have some explaining to do.
A (legislatively and technologically) well-defined automated system of identification, authentication, authorization, and tracking might better protect freedoms than the current hodgepodge of manual and automated systems. The current system of law enforcement is way, way too subject to abuse by its all-too-human participants. Keeping someone off of a flight because they look "Arabic" is discrimination. Keeping someone off of the same flight because they had lunch with bin Laden's stepsister's cousin is reasonable.
Would security automation make it difficult to speed, throw your cigarette butts out of your car window, smoke marijuana, hire a prostitute, dump your car battery in the river, etc.? Yes. But if you don't like the laws, change the laws or the penalties for breaking them. There would still be a democracy to enact the laws and a system of human courts to exercise discretion.
The freedoms of nonconformists and minorities would probably be better protected under a better automated security system than under the current semi-automated system. There would be less of a tendency to "profile" people if we knew their real identities, their track record, and whether they were dangerous to us as individuals. It is anonymity that forces us to generalize about others in my opinion.
It's an interesting peice, however it seems the opinionated view of the author has introduced a number of misleading themes and factual inaccuracies into the article. This guy has an ax to grind?
"There were cameras on the backs of buses to record people who crossed into the wrong traffic lane."
Erm... no, he probably confused the British meaning 'on the backs of buses' to mean physically located on the back of the bus on the outside, then extrapolated his view on from there. Some double-decker buses do have cameras on them *inside* the bus so they can indenty vandales post event. They don't put cameras on outside of buses.
"We had a match! But no, it was a false alarm. The license plate that set off the system was 8620bmc, but the stolen car recorded in the database was 8670amc"
That is clearly made up... no British numberplate is that format, even private ones. Until last month they were like so : Y123 ABC with the Y denoting the year of registration (Feb 01), they used to be ABC 123Y until the late 70's (reversed). The new ones introduced last month are as the following : BY51 ABC, the BY denotes the registration area (Birmingham in this case) 51 means the car was registered in the second half of 2001, and the ABC is random (exluding rude words). Even going back pre-war they used to be like the following "POP 303".
8670amc or 8620bmc is simply not possible, you never find the letter '8' on any British numberplate because and the format is all wrong.
ANPR (numberplate recognition) was implemented in The City to make companies feel more comfortable after the Docklands bombing.
Facial recognition (the Mandrake system) is only currently used in Newham and is not commonly found anywhere in the country, so some of the exgurations in the article are a little unfounded, however his concerns are quite just. The Mandrake system is utterly fallable though, up until a point that it's laughalbe, there's been quite a few programmes (e.g. Mark Thomas Product) that have clearly ripped the system apart. And since the premise of CCTV lies soley upon perception, Mandrake isn't taken seriously. So I'm not really very concerned at this at all at the moment, the problems they face implementing a reliable system areinsurmountable, give it 20 years then I may take these concerns seriously.
Society itself is still very anonymous if you hang round City's that have cameras then it's pretty easy to see that the cameras have a very limited field of view, if I wanted to get away from them it would be extremely easy. I believe when criminals finally realise how fallible the cameras are they will take no notice of them and since CCTV is purely about perception and nothing else, they will become useless. You are starting to see some very overt criminals that do the crime right in front of the camera without a care, they know very well the vast majority of cameras are not actively monitored, and if they are, the operator has at least two-dozen cameras to monitor. When they show the footage of these criminals the quality is that poor it's impossible to even see who the person is, let alone whether they're male or female.
I'd be more worried about my personal private and data being looked into, ironicly, the data protection laws in the US are very weak, YOUR details can be owned by a company and therefore be sold to the highest bidder and used in various ways. In Europe, data about the person is the property of that person, you simply 'licence' a company to use it when you give up personal details, which can be revoked at any time.
The UK has intensive surveillance in the City's but very strong data protection laws, the US has the opposite, which means if the US does get cameras it could be a lot more nasty than the UK. I'm amazed how the US seems to value its privacy but does not enshrine laws that reflect those sentiments, corporate interests I guess.
Its well known that a minority of people commit the majority of crimes. The people that burgled one house dont stop, they burgle every other poor soul too.
Do you really think that the police dont know who they are? That people commit hundreds of burglaries a year but still cannot be identified?
Imagine if the cops do catch them, crime drops dramatically, and a year down the line some suit in an office wonders why there are so many policemen when crime is so low and cuts their workforce. Potentially policemen dont want to catch the criminals because they are taking themselves out of a job, just as many corporate departments force themselves to spend their yearly budget - they know if they dont it will be cut.
no sig.
I submitted this info as a story submission yesterday, but it was turned down by the Slashdot editors. However it does relate to the discussion of this story so I will slip it in here:
Trickster Coyote writes: Canada's Privacy Commissioner has ruled that constant videotaping from police surveillance cameras violates the Privacy Act and that even just monitoring the cameras without taping violates the spirit of the law if not the letter. Says the commish: "...monitoring and recording the activities of vast numbers of law-abiding citizens as they go about their day-to-day lives" is not a legitimate part of police activities. Read the official report or news articles from canada.com or The Globe and Mail.
Trickster Coyote
"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination." -- John Lennon
Ideology is for ideots.
''We have created a biometric network platform that turns every camera into a Web browser submitting images to a database in Washington, querying for matches,''
I hope they didn't mean that literally. I'd hate to think what would happen if the camera saw a pop-under ad for the X10 spycam.
The shareholder is always right.
2) "biometric surveillance is being used to keep punks out of shopping malls". Has anyone seen a punk in the UK since the 80s? Didn't think so.
3) "And rather than thwarting serious crime, the cameras are being used to enforce social conformity in ways that Americans may prefer to avoid." - if it's not illegal, someone watching the camera output may see the "lack of conformity", but no-one will act - how can they? And others see these people when they're in the camera areas anyway, so what's the difference?
4) "The license plate that set off the system was 8620bmc, but the stolen car recorded in the database was 8670amc" - these aren't even in a valid UK license plate format! Good accuracy!
5) "database that would include not only terrorists but also all British citizens whose faces were registered with the national driver's license bureau" - unlike in the USA (oh my how much privacy there is there), most drivers licenses in the UK don't even have photos on them! They're not used for identity. We don't have to show ID to have a casual drink at a bar or buy cigs. Talk about lack of privacy...
6) "Ditton notes that the cameras can sometimes be useful in investigating terrorist attacks -- like the Brixton nail-bomber case in 1999 -- but there is no evidence that they prevent terrorism or other serious crime. " - so if they don't *prevent* it, they're worthless? If you catch the people that did it, you prevent them at least from doing it again and can bring them to "justice". This is what happened in the Brixton nail-bombing.
What makes you so in love with the cameras to prompt this flurry of flimsy criticisms?
7) "They are ways of putting people in their place, of deciding who gets in and who stays out, of limiting people's movement and restricting their opportunities." - so you ban vandals and troublemakers from harassing people in malls. And this is bad, how?
8) "But Britain's experience in the fight against terrorism suggests that people may give up liberties without experiencing a corresponding increase in security." - thieves and muggers are being caught by this system (and others). That certainly increases my security.
9) "transparent society -- one where neighbors can peer into each other's windows using the joysticks on their laptops. " - is ANYONE talking about this? Didn't think so! This guy needs to read his own article.
I'll grant, you do seem to love them cameras! Flimsy criticisms, though.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
In a recent documentary about CCTV, Monty Python's John Cleese foiled a Visionics face-recognition system that had been set up in the London borough of Newham by wearing earrings and a beard.
I think they're actually talking about Cleese's four-episode series about faces, which did not concentrate on CCTV. There was a short segment in which Cleese tried to fool a surveillance camera by cross-dressing and then by covering most of his face with a tilted hat and large sunglasses. The camera recognized him the first time but not the second.
The shareholder is always right.
Even on the level of security, I don't side with the cameras. Real security depends on choke points because that allows one to be effective at leveraging effort.
For example, most buildings in America which use CCTV effectively use it to secure entrences, exits, and a few other critical locations. If you put cameras everywhere, you lose the ability to see something amiss as it is happening because of information overload.
OTOH, this is kind of interesting because it means that the cameras are only useful after the fact-- i.e. to analyze the scene of a crime after it has been committed.
So much for CCTV (which, IMO, has its uses). What about biometrics? The face recognition aspects of biometrics are really poor right now, and I have my doubts as to the ability of engineers to perfect it anytime soon. So it too will fail to deliver on its promise in the short to mid term.
But what if it does become perfected? How will it affect our Freedom of Assembly (here in the US)? If something similar to the UAAC us founded again, as it was in McCarthy's day, what then?
I guess the question is: how much do we really tust our gov't. My answer is: not much.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
It's called shooting back. :-)
Steve Mann, the father and inventor of the wearable computer has covered this extensively, at wearcam.org there are several papers and perspectives on this. We are under camer all the time. In the UK the police have just added their group of cameras, In the USA there is the same amount of watching being done. Many times you will see traffic monitoring cameras pointing into neighborhoods instead on the highway, in a department store you are visible on at a minimum of 3 cameras at all time. Any US resident that thinks that they are not on camera is nuts. My house has 5 cameras covering the back yar, front yard, driveway, and front and back doors. If you watch the cameras you can also watch my neighors. (Sorry, I'm not gonna have my webserver demolished by slashdot
Steve Mann has every year, the day before Christmas an event called shooting-back day. Very few people have the balls to participate, I did once. You go to stores in a pair, one person videotapes the other person who starts taking photos of the store's and or mall's security cameras. why? to document the person taking photos of cameras being accousted by the store security/management/etc.. They get scared when you watch them watching you.
Only someone with some serious guts and isn't a whiney baby will participate... and it is a helluva rush!
Watch the watchers!
http://wearcam.org/mcluhan-keynote.htm
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Surveillance causes an increase in crime
It causes an increase in known incidents of crime. I.E. more crimes are found out this way. It doesn't necessarily increase the actual crime rate.
I suppose honest people dont mind their affairs being spied on
I consider myself to be an honest person, and I'll be damned if I'm going to give up my privacy. My privacy is very important to me...do not take it away. And no, I am not a criminal. I just value certain principles, one of them being privacy. Yes, I would mind being spied on.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
It's been a while since I read the book, so I don't know whether you or the AC are right, but one thing struck me about the article's comparision with 1984 and Big Brother.
They were hailed as the people's technology, a friendly eye in the sky, not Big Brother at all but a kindly and watchful uncle or aunt.
The part I don't get is "not Big Brother at all". To the proles of 1984, Big Brother was not the menancing symbol of omnipresent totalitarianism it is to us. Big Brother was the helpful and benevolent figure protecting us all from the evils of thoughtcrime. Replace "thoughtcrime" with "terrorism", and I don't see a single difference between Big Brother and the British system.
"Big Brother is watching you" is scary to us only in light of 1984.
Consider "Big Brother" without its 1984 connotation. It's a fairly comforting term that conveys the image of a loving older sibling who knows what's good for you and is strong enough to protect you. Ever heard of "Big Brothers, Big Sisters"? It's a mentoring program for at-risk youths that pairs them with a "Big Brother" who's there not to spy on them, but to provide guidance and support. Orwell purposely and knowingly took this meaning and twisted it into something perverse, the way politians have always done--all the bills that are superficially designed to "protect the children" while imposing on civil liberties, for example.
"CCTV: Watching for you" should be no less frightening to us than Big Brother's comforting reminder.
I agree with Brad Templeton's email essay on why this type of surveillance is dangerous:
"...Mr. Barrett is not alone in wondering why some people are so concerned about their privacy. While many are aware of the tremendous prices that some have paid in oppressive (and even non-oppresive) states due to lack of privacy and surveilance, most people pragmatically feel that these oppressive regimes are either in the past, or not an issue for those in the free world, not when compared to safety from crime.
"There is a great hidden cost to surveilance, however, and it is a cost paid by everyone. When we feel we are being watched we, feel less free. We censor ourselves, and refrain from otherwise perfectly legal activities, when we feel that our activities might be being watched, or worse, recorded either for the government or for the general public, or worst of all, our mothers.
"I include our mothers because I expect all of us understand the freedom one feels away from even our own families. Not that we're doing anything wrong. Just that when we're watched we want to meet other's expectations.
"In other words, we're all a bit shy.
"Cameras everywhere make us feel our public lives are being documented. We've never minded the random strangers who might see us on the urban street. We do mind the idea that goverments and companies and others might be making systematic recordings. When we are watched we are not free to be ourselves.
"That doesn't shut down what everybody approves of, but it does chill the counterculture, and those ready to explore. These explorers are vital to a healthy society.
"Oddly, this happens even if the cameras aren't on, or if what they see is only available to "trusted" officials.
I live near a big city with a "gay quarter". Basically, there's a small part of the city where a lot of gay men and lesbians have been moving to, and where when you walk down the street or to the area's public aquare you're more likely to see gay people holding hands and kissing than you are to see straight people doing so.
This is fine with everyone except the ultra-right Xtian moralizers who want to decide morality for everyone else, because it is a small area, and because everyone knows about it. It also happens to be a very, very nice part of town, with great restaurants and shops, but I digress...
The point is, being gay is not something everyone can be open and honest about in this and most other countries. Gays deserve to be able to express themselves by holding hands or kissing in public just as heterosexuals do, and in this certain part of the city they can do so without offending anyone else, without worrying who may find out, etc. But with CCTV on every corner, their ability to have this part of town where they are in fact the majority and the "normal" ones goes away. With a camera on every street, they'd have to worry about who may be watching, who might see their license plate, who might see them holding hands and turn them in to a boss, their family, etc.
This is just one example of losing important freedoms to this. What's more vital than the right to free association? The right to express oneself, and in an appropriate area full of like-minded people no less? A few cameras would cause a very tangible chilling effect on the ability of these people to have their little slice of town where they're all normal and accepted and don't need to fear being outed or blackmailed for expressing themselves in ways no different from the ones we heterosexuals enjoy.
And what of that, too? Would everyone be so content to enjoy a nice kiss on a street or in a park or town square, if there were cameras around manned by leering strangers who amuse themselves by watching? Britons may not be so big on public displays of affection--though in the linked article there were a few teenagers making out and prostitutes getting rogered on windowsills--and some more conservative Americans aren't either, but a vast majority of us find nothing wrong with a bit of kissing and affection in certain public areas. But we don't want and don't deserve a leering audience of voyeurs recording it if we give our dates a kiss and whatnot. Cameras like that may impose a certain un-American stodginess and reversion further into Puritan sexual mores.
In fact, some of my fondest memories from high school involve "making out" with my gorgeous 16 year old girlfriend just about everywhere we went, and it never hurt anyone--in fact, once, we were kissing a bit fervently while waiting for the L, and a big Texan standing near us turned to his girl and said, "Honey, I think they've got the right idea," and that couple started kissing a bit, and before the train came every couple in the place seemed to be kissing and holding one another. It sounds corny, but such a nice feeling of love and affection pervaded the place as you've never experienced before.
Romantic moments like that are actively discouraged when you know there are cameras everywhere and leering pervs behind them. And Americans like romantic moments like that.
Even more importantly, there's a broader ramification. Americans have a specific constitutional right to assemble to petition the government for redress of grievances--i.e., we have a right to protest. A camera on every corner would discourage many from exercising this Constitutional right--the FBI has been known to abuse its powers and put people on "lists" for peacefully protesting, or doing anything contrary to the current establishment. Giving them face recognition technology with which to match peaceful protesters who are merely exercising their fundamental rights with databases--there's talk of just using all drivers license databases--is a gross violation. We have explicit Constitutional rights in this country which we'd be discouraged from exercising based on likely abuses of this system--the FBI has been known to abuse every power they have, from surveilling unlawfully against political dissidents like Martin Luther King, to shooting innocent women and children at Ruby Ridge. So, we certainly can't trust them with this.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
Is it so easy to dismiss a love of freedom?
Maybe those of us who oppose cameras have read a little of human history and recognize how terrifyingly easily this system could become a prop of repression -- either official or social. I think I will simply quote Judge Brandeis, speaking presciently:
There are lines we should not cross. There are freedoms we must not sacrfice. And there are roads we dare not tread.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Swat team size on average: I believe around 10-15 people? Put that up against a mob of 5-10 thousand armed civilians and there won't even be a fire fight. Our governments don't have nearly enough military power to fight against the gun owners in this country if they get pissed.
As for the argument that tanks, jets, etc could massacre those rising up against the state: all such things require fuel and bases of operation. If 50,000 civilians in a mob (not inconceivable in a state even as small as mine, Virginia) rush onto a military base each armed with a few hundred rounds of ammo and pistols, shotguns and rifles then those things would be worthless. What good is a tank that gets a few dozen sticks of dynamite thrown underneath it? What good is a jet that has had its pilot shot by a civilian sniper as he takes off (and a lot of long-time hunters could do that)?
And of course you aren't even taking into consideration the distinct possibility of a military uprising as well if the civilian population started one. At that point it wouldn't be swat vs civilians, it would be swat vs navy seals/army rangers.
cameras, The INSURANCE companies insist. They are next to useless in catching anyone, no one robs a bank without a mask or a disguise, but we get a 15% discount for having cameras 7/24.
It is the exact same thing with the $6 security guards. They are not supposed to actually DO anything, they are forbidden from touching a customer or worker in a bank unless they are certified first aid. It is all to save a buck on insurance.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
"...In 1993 and 1994, two terrorist bombs planted by the I.R.A. exploded in London's financial district, a historic and densely packed square mile known as the City of London. In response to widespread public anxiety about terrorism, the government decided to install a ''ring of steel'' -- a network of closed-circuit television cameras mounted on the eight official entry gates that control access to the City."
I find this supremely ironic, given Kurt Vonnegut's previous use of the term "ring of steel" in Cat's Cradle.
If you don't understand, by all means, go read it.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
This is all OLD NEWS. This wired magazine article covered this, and then some, over 5 years ago!
Not only can this happen, it WILL, everywhere. The only real question is: "Who watches the cameraman?".
-Ben
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
No, it's not a correct format. Number plates in UK are one of:
So the cited plate of 8670amc couldn't be correct. Perhaps it was "B 670 AMC" for example.
p.s. I haven't been in UK for about 5 years. I assume they are about to run out of year letters again. What format comes next I wonder...
After the attacks, Bush said, "Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward and freedom will be defended."
The irony is that the terrorists did attack our freedoms, though not in any way Bush may have meant. They attacked our freedom, and the freedom of nearly everyone around the world, by giving a large amount of power to people like Bush. After the attacks in September, few people (and certainly no politician) would dare question that Americans must sacrifice civil liberties for the promise of "security".
And around the world, governments declared they were in solidarity with the U.S. government - China vowed to step up their efforts against "terrorists, extremists, and separatists" (separatists, as in Tibetans...), the Israeli government killed some more Palestinians, Russia vowed to step up their efforts to crush opposition in Chechnya, etc.
If Bin Laden wanted to decrease the power of George Bush, he made a serious miscalculation -- Americans are uniting behind Bush's efforts to take away our civil liberties, and around the world, everyone seems happy to allow Bush to bomb the hell out of anyone he wants.
Unfortunately, if "freedom will be defended," it won't be by the likes of Bush -- that will be up to us.
How do you prevent abuse of the system? First ask yourself if it is easier to control a well-defined system or a pell mell system like we currently have. If the system were well defined, you would have the right, as in credit reporting, to dispute your record and to know what it is.
Have you ever actually tried to get an incorrect item removed from your credit report? I've been going back and forth with Equifax for nearly a year. I send them a registered letter, they do nothing. I send another, they do nothing. Then the next time I apply for credit I find out that yet again, I'm being asked to explain this same entry that should have been removed back in January 2001.
By law they're supposed to investigate and if they cannot verify within 30 days that the entry is accurate (meaning they discover it's incorrect or just can't make a positive determination that it's correct), they're required to remove it. Have they done so? Of course not.
Oh well, election year is coming up, might as well give my favorite elected official's office of constituent services something productive to do.
-- Old Man Kensey
Yeah, that came out sounding a little silly, didn't it? What I meant was, that in light of 9/11, the little games we sometimes play to avoid logging in to the NYT site just didn't seem appropriate, since it's basically a small way of saying "fuck you". So I stopped. And then Slashdot goes ahead and starts publishing the no-login links. Ironic.
Edith Keeler Must Die
A) read what you quoted again. Most people don't want to go to jail. In the heat of the moment, or when putting your own convinience before public saftey, there are things you might do if you could get away with it that the very fact of a watcher will prevent. Stop light cameras don't stop people from running red lights because they think a cop wil zip out of nowhere and block the intersection, they stop them the same way a cop on the corner would - they know they'll get in trouble.
/. egotistical paranoia jumped on it. (oh, I'm so amazingly unique and special, and I think this is looking for anything outside a norm (cause I didn't read the damn article) so it will pick me out as special and arrest me. Its trying to induce conformity!)
B) In terms of terrorism (which I believe the poster you were addressing was not talking about), the situation is different. If its a suicide bombing, going to jail is no big deal. But there are plenty of ways that cameras can still help. Quite a while ago we discussed a technology right here that tracked people as unique dots and found reliable patterns for such things as shoplifting, robbing a car in a garage, OR leaving a bomb someplace. At the time, typical
In fact, it was a fairly logical theory that had nothing to do with conformity, AND has the advantage over human observers of judging people by their actual actions instead of focusing on ethnicity or dress.
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Hmm, maybe you could paint a bardcode of a daily digital signature on your face...
people forget it's still democracy.
Actually, if you are speaking of the U.S. - it isn't a democracy. It's a republic. There are important differences.
-jerdenn
Eight cameras installed, six inside the school. Get you and 5 of your buddies, and then go stand in front of each of these cameras during your lunch break. And stare. Don't move, don't leave, don't talk. Just stare. Let the traffic in the hallway flow around you.
By the second week of this, we found ourselves in the principal's office, facing an irate school staff, claiming we were 'terrorizing' the secretaries and staff (the monitors were visible in the main offic), and demanding we stop it immediately. We told our principal flat out: We feel like you're always watching us for no good reason, we fail to see why you should be spared that.
In the end, the cameras didn't leave, but we felt we had done our part. From what I've heard, the game has caught on with the students, with at least one person a day manning a camera, staring right back.
"To pass through the jungle; silence, courtesy, ferocity, as the occasion demands." -- Kamau, "Proper Passage"
Okay, I'm not the best citizen.
- I drive faster then is legal sometimes.
- I sometimes cross streets against the light
- I violate copyrights on occasion.
and the killer
- I enjoy a certain tolerated by not legal plant.
That's the complete list of things I have to hide from 'the man'. If the man wants to put everyone on camera 24/7 outside their homes, that's cool with me. It might stop me jay walking and it would definitly reduce my chance of getting mugged or having my car broken into almost to zero.
The problem (as I see it) isn't the cameras. A camera just makes you take responsiblity for the things you do. It's the possibility of uneven access to the footage that could make for big brother. If the man has camera and I don't, there is the possibility that the man will be jay walking and I won't; and that I would have a problem with.
The future is going to be full of video cameras, get used to it. The only way to prevent that is with an even worse police state to stop me from sticking pinhead sized bugs on all my friends.
Personally, I look forward to it. No fear from violence, no more secrets, no lies, all people gotta take credit for the shit they do. Sweet.
I have a friend who went t o Britain for an exchange. During his last month there, he was assaulted on the street and beaten within an inch of his life. He couldn't even eat solid foods for weeks in the hospital. The cameras in the intersection where he was beaten helped to catch the criminals who did this - otherwise, there may have been no way to find them.
While I agree that we have to proceed cautiously, remember that public is public, and if you do something there, you have no expectation of privacy.
Last post!
Those radio-based X10 cameras are an example, as are $29 internet-cams, 802.11 wireless, and cheap bandwidth - if it weren't for anti-server policies on most cable modem companies, there'd be relatively common "Neighborhood Watch" cameras run by lots of random people. Cu-SeeMe quality fits in modem bandwidths - even 802.11 can handle dozens of broadcasts. The only place we can't easily watch is police offices.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Then I pity your dog and nearby children.
Pervert!
At least gay men can tell the diffence between beastiality and pedophilia. Consentual sex is between two adults who agree on the action.
Control your own mind and stop letting the American Taliban from filling it with shit.
"Face it, a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.
Uhh, his point was that the streets were not safe. Murders, beatings and all happened anyway.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.