Slashdot Mirror
Turning a Blind Eye to Big Brother
SiliconRedox writes: "An article in the NYTimes (user reg.) details what many of us who have worked with video or electronics have known for quite awhile: Shine a laser beam (or infrared, but the article doesn't get into that) at a video camera, and you can effectively blind certain viewpoints of the camera. The article follows one man trying to cope with the surveillence society by removing his own image from everyday video footage using this technique. The most interesting part? What kind of culpability does the individual or institution have in utilizing this kind of technology?"
We had high school busses with cameras. Well, a lot of us would take ruby lazers and shine it at the camera. For some reason, it could never record right.
Ow! My Vision!
Isn't it just as much your right to be not seen as it is to seen? Wearing black such that people can not see you is just the same as blinding a camera.
Simple. Destruction of government/private property (police surveillance cameras vs. private security cameras). It's a novel way to do it, but that's what it boils down to.
That having been said, the point this guy's trying to make is that we're under way too much surveillance in our society. I like his message, even if I'm not quite ready to face criminal charges to back it up.
I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
so the x10 camera i put up in my bathroom can be twarted by anyone with a laser??? what a jip
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
A big bright spot would stand out a bit, wouldn't you think? And since there aren't that many people who regularly try to blind cameras, this guy may just be making himself stick out like a sore thumb!
I do believe that it is well within someone's right to not have their picture taken if they don't wish it to be. Or at least have a warning on the entrance of an establishment that you are being videotaped. I think the law that says you don't have to inform someone that you're videotaping them, but that you do for audio is bogus. The law needs to be changed, it's an invasion of privacy no matter how you want to look at it, if someone doesn't want to be videotaped, then they shouldn't be videotaped, there is no grey area. You should be informed before proceeding that you are under video survailence.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
BWAH! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Check the link. It's a slashdot-insult site. The moderators have been had ;-)
And lets not forget the liability of shining a laser in someone's eye. Even though he mentions he's using low powered laser pointers, those still have the potential of harming someone. And in our sue happy society, we don't even have to wait until it actually does harm someone. All it will take is a greedy lawyer to start up a class action lawsuit.
I ride the MUNI in San Francisco, which is the public buses, and well, they have about 3-4 cameras on the new buses and perhaps even microphones (i am not sure).
I cant imagine any normal people running around with laser pointers in side the bus, pointing that thing at the cameras. Okay, there are lots of crazy people on the SF Buses, but no one sane would do it. Doenst one have better things to do? Or worse things to worry about?
Heh heh heh. While we might hate slashdot, we love slashdot readers. That's why we actually mirrored the article.
I am not a theif, not do i support theft, piracy, or any of that junk. But i do love these kinds of things. Network security has always been my fathers job, and while he dealt more with the software part, both online and offline security have always facinated me (Ever seen the movie Sneakers? LOVED IT). This provides a potential for misuse though. An effecitve theif could use a laser pointer to destroy the security cameras view in a bank. or use it when getting on a plane carrying a package that he got past security. On the other hand, it also allows you to disable some of the more annoying id methods by disabling the face recognition scanner at the superbowl. all in all, though, it may turn out to be a significat problem in the future.
When life gives you crap, Make Crapade.
Sluggy Freelance.
Good job moderators [/sarcas], but if you really want to get in, just remeber the NYT Random Login Generator. It won't work directly from the website anymore because the Times has blocked all requests from his site, but just download and run it from your machine, click the button, refresh once and you're in. Works like a charm.
I bet he has scopophobia (the fear of being seen) :)
While Mr. Naimark acknowledged that he had some ethical discomfort about his project because his information could be useful to terrorists, he decided to go ahead.
.02
"My interest and motivation is to provide the creative community with some stimulating and provoking stuff," he writes. "These are stimulating and provoking times."
I have ethical problems w/these devices being put into place to watch me. They have absolutely NO place in public areas. I do NOT like the fact that people are there watching what I do.
VMS sites in PA have bothered my for some time. They are going to "only watch traffic patterns". Oh fucking bullshit. They are going to say that until they are in place and in use for an undetermined amount of time. Once the devices are there they are going to use them to track speeders and other lawless individuals.
We do NOT need machines tracking us or doing the job of the police. If the cop isn't paying attention, or isn't there when I blow by their hiding spot in the middle of the road at 105, tough.
There's NO reason to have feelings against radar jamming (the cops cheat to find out how fast you are going, why shouldn't we cheat and not let them know how fast we are going?), blocking out video taping in public places of people, etc.
That's my worthless
My guess? Someone will do this while they rob the 7-11, the technique will become "terrorist" (or whatever) & nobody will care [enough] about the Big Brother potential of the cameras.
To blind a CCD or other imaging device, infrared beams won't cut it. You need high enough energy photons that guarantee virtually every photon entering will produce an electron-hole pair in each type of detector. That means at the very least, inside the visible range. Preferably just beyond into the ultraviolet. If I swamp out the reds, a smart technician could just look at the other colors to determine what's going on.
So, you really want ultraviolet. Just barely into that range will work. That would ensure all the detectors were swamped and thus nothing could be done to get an image out. Now, someone please let me know when ultraviolet lasers and high-powered LEDs are avaiable on the market. Well, maybe I'll let you all know when it's done since that's something I'm doing for my PhD work ;)
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
Hell, just think what damage Saddam could do to orbiting US spy satellites if he had a half-decent laser and some idea of where to aim it.
Hey, maybe in light (pun) of this guy's antics, the RIAA will now lobby congress to outlaw all laser diodes over a certain wattage (in the name of "homeland security" you understand). This would make CD writers illegal. Look Ma, no piracy problems!
Oh, dear, there are too many good ideas in this thread that the fringe-lunatics could grasp onto.
Argh, that text is nearly unreadable (no line spaces and such)... try the Google Partner link to bypass the login.
wow, go back to your damn cave and never come out.
Slash-for-Thought
Point a digital camera at one of those IR cordless headphone transmitters. What do you see? Why, really bright spots where those almost invisible to the human eye LEDs are! And those LEDs are really low power. High power IR LEDs pointed at a camera might not knock it out for good, but it would glare-blind it.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Download it? Are you sure you're not trying to spread a virus to tons of unsuspecting /. users?
"I'd hope that Big Brother wouldnt spy on us outside our legal rights"
The article mentions hidden video cameras in the bathroom [toilet] of hotels. I have actually seen these in UK service-stations (2mm hole in smoke detectors), and everyone who hears about them is disgusted at the concept.
Larger-scale, towns all over the country are rushing to install cameras. Our high-street has a particularly prominent mast being installed, which looks far too spookily like the panopticon in its placement. They don't solve crimes, they don't prevent crimes, they don't make the streets safer.
This has been proven. Video cameras covered the alleged kidnapping of a girl in our town last year, and they were no use whatever with the police investigation. We have video-footage of several thefts, and car-vandalism, again, these have not been used to solve any crimes.
Local councellors are pleading with government for money to install these things without even a clue as to their lack of effectiveness at any sort of real crime.
Italian-job style jammers may be nice playing with these cameras, ultraviolet ones like the US Army is using to permanently blind people would be better, but what can people actually do if the local council (and every other) says you will live in a surveilled society and put up with it?
I don't know about you, but that really hot woman in the background makes me nervous. She wasn't there before. I need to be constantly appraised of her actions, for my own sense of well-being.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
And I suppose he could identify the alleged perpetrator with his good eye?
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
but they try to blind military personnel.
Sorry, but it doesn't work downloaded anymore either. At least it doesn't work off of my server.
Centralization breaks the internet.
While I'm glad someone is out their pushing back at all the video taping aimed at us, I don't see why this is such a huge problem. I agree everyone has a right to privacy. But when you enter a public place, you give up some of your rights of privacy. No one is putting cameras in your house or invading your privacy.
How is it invading anything to watch you where you are already watched anyway (by humans)?
Uninnovate - Only the finest in engineering.
The minute that this becomes "commonplace", surveillence cameras will suddenly come equipped with 633-635 and 650nm filters (then 532nm for green, etc). Sure these are a little expensive, but it's not difficult to do.
Lasers are easy to block this way... by definition they only put out one frequency of light. With a good enough filter you could filter out that wavelength and never really notice the difference to the final image (except for scientific purposes of course).
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
"ultraviolet ones like the US Army is using to permanently blind people "
Care to provide the reference?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
As soon as society starts blanking out cameras', Ways to prevent it would be to just program it so when it gets blanked, big sirens and bright red lights go off, and the sort. Caught on the spot.
Wow! This guy is now suffering from Big Brother with the Slashdot Effect?
./ article!
Slashdot Effect, because his website is already down, and Big Brother, because the website isn't even
linked to on the
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
To view it your computer had to download it in the first place, that doesn't mean its a virus. You don't download an executable, you download the webpage (see: html file) and everything is already in the fields. You then just click generate and off you go(someone noted this may not work anymore but I can verify that it did a couple weeks ago)
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
I'll bet you love nyt articles because you can whore karma with that link.
Am I wrong?
Google news link is:
A P.html?ex=1034654400&en=67f6d3a765aded4c&ei=5062&p artner=GOOGLE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/07/technology/07ZZ
It just worked for me. You need to change the ZIP code, as the one in the file gets blocked. (I use 09012, which is one of the APOs @ Ramstein AB, Germany...haven't gotten mail through there since 1988, but since everything else is generated randomly...)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Silicon is basically transparent to light of wavelengths longer than about 1000nm, so only very near-IR will work. The LEDs and photodiodes that let you surf from your LaZBoy with a remote operate at about 800nm, and a CCD is sensitive enough at this wavelength to be affected by an 800nm laser -- but this is invisible so you aren't going to find laserpointers in this "color." (Experiment -- shine your remote at your handicam... see anything? Cool, eh?)
Anyway, many surveillance cameras are black and white, with no color filtering or separation, so really, any color laser is useful as long as the CCD is sensitive to it. The quantum efficiency of most CCDs peaks around 400-600nm, but it is still quite high at the most common laser diode wavelength of 650nm, so there isn't really a problem. At 300nm and lower, CCDs are virtually blind without expensive processing called "backside thinning," and you won't see backside-thinned devices on common surveillance cameras because they are very expensive.
Yes, color surveillance cameras are more and more common. For a color camera, a strong enough laser beam will still overwhelm a color CCD that uses a mosaic filter (as opposed to a three-chip camera with beamsplitters). This works because the princple that the author uses is that of "blooming." Basically, if your bright source creates too many photoelectrons, the excess flows over the walls of the pixels (which are really just potential barriers, not physical walls) into neighboring pixels. Make even a one-pixel source bright enough and you can flood a whole region of the array. Since the readout electronics can't tell which pixel any given electron originated in, it just looks like one big, bright extended source on the image.
This phenomenon is often encountered by anyone who works with focal plane arrays or uses data collected by them... ever seen an astronomical photograph with long bright lines emanating from either side of the brightest stars on the image? That's blooming, and it looks like bars instead of a smudge because astronomers pay extra for CCDs with "antiblooming" sinks to the substrate -- think of them as drains between pixel columns. But the chipmakers can't put drains between rows because that is the direction in which the pixels are shifted to be read out. In addressable pixel devices, like CMOS active pixel sensors, 2D antiblooming is easier, but it cuts down on the available area for collecting light, so it often isn't used on inexpensive CMOS APS chips found in surveillance applications.
Three-chip color cameras are only used for professional video production -- they're just not cost effective for surveillance or consumer applications when color mosaic CCDs are so much cheaper. There may be some high-end consumer cameras with three-CCD technology but they aren't common at all.
Of course, all bets are off for military applications -- only the military and their suppliers know for sure what's in their surveillance gear, and I suspect that they have already contended with the problem of laser-blinding CCDs used in night vision.
I can see the fnords!
According to this it is legal to film up womens skirts...
clark625 writes:
"If I swamp out the reds, a smart technician could just look at the other colors to determine what's going on."
You probably should have bothered to read his site. He quite specifically covers this scenario and how military jammers switch between colors to make filtering useless.
My
Limekiller
Automobile Magazine did a similar test illustrating the effect of high powered spotlights versus law enforcement laser speed detection. Their findings were if I remember correctly, that with a pair of standard off-road type spotlights (most likely 50 to 100 watts or more each) you could blind the laser speed gun until you reached a closeness of a couple hundred yards or less. (Surely enough time to lower your speed.) To eliminate blasting other drivers retinas and making a sure spectacle of yourself the article placed simple plastic filters over the lenses that allowed only IR light through I believe. These lights could be hidden behind grilles or other light allowing accessories and you could wire them up to your ignition so as to not worry about draining your battery.
I ride the buses here as well and am strongly in favor of the cameras, as a means of fighting pickpockets, harassment, graffiti, and other crime.
An example where these cameras are NOT having any measureable deterent value can be found here where bullies on school buses still physically beat other students knowing full well they are being videotaped. I'm not sure there is a huge difference between child-aged bullies and adult petty criminals...
GMD
watch this
call it low tech but wouldnt a pellet gun make a much more reliable blind spot in public surveillance? well when ya think about it our right to bear arms was intended to control tyrrany by the gov't.. course a spraycan of flat black would irritate the hell out of em too. or fly vision lenses and super glue.LOL come on lets be creative,a sock,gum,taped up pics of saggy naked old people.our right to bear arms or their right to bare arms with that saggy sac o flesh.wheeeeeeeee kinda like alternate hits of nitrous and helium.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
No they don't. Casually shining a single laser pointer across someone's eye is not going to cause anyone any damage - unless they punch you out for it.
Most laser pointers are less than 1 milliwatt in power. That's really, really low. Factor in vibrations and movement and there is no way your going to damage an eye.
The reason a laser can harm your vision is that the eye sees a laser beam as a point source - it is unable to focus on it directly. Instead, the eye focuses to infinity. The beams light is also virtually parallel, allowing for the entire beam to be focused onto one very small part of the retina.
The good thing here in terms of pointers and safety is that any movement of the beam in relation to the eye (be it a person in motion, or the natural jitters in your hand) will cause the focal point on the retina to move.
Thus, in order for a laser to damage your eye it must have sufficient power to burn quickly - the spot being affected changes before cumulative affects can take place.
Laser pointers don't have that power. Short of bolting someone's head to a table, along with a pointer, then forcing their eyelids open, AND keeping the eyeball still, it's not going to happen.
This is not to say that staring into your pointer for kicks is a good idea! Don't do it. Don't do it to others. Don't say I told you you could. If nothing else it is incredibly annoying. But it's not about to permanantly blind anyone.
Now, if you have an unusually high powered pointer (ie those groovy YAG pens) you might be talking a different story.
I've had much nastier beams in the eye than any laser pointer will ever generate - luckily I've gotten away with it too.
Frankly I'm much more worried about these yahoos who are taking a wad of them and bundling them together and pointing the results at low flying helicopters or other aircraft.
Note to anyone tempted to do this: lasers in the sky make a very nice YOU ARE HERE indicator. You're basically pinpointing your position for the Cops. None to bright (ack, pun) if you ask me.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Any use of my image with out my consent will be punishable to the full extent of the law.
Plantiff "We have here your honor is video tape footage of the defendent attempting to steal a Macintosh Computer worth over $3,000 from his local CompUSA a dozen video games also a leather chair, a box of M&M's and even the store manager's goldfish.."
Me "Your honor, those images are copyrighted 2002 Treeluvinhippy and they do not have written consent of the copyright owner. I motion that the video tapes be removed as evidence and returned to the copyright holder immediatly. If the tapes are allowed as evidence I will have to force to remmind your honor about the FBI warning agaisnt public viewings of copyrighted materials. Your honor is most certainly familar with such warnings
as it appears at the beginning of every purchased video cassete. You know the one with the blue background and white letters threating five years imprionment and/or a $25,000 fine, certain death and other such unpleasantries."
>
Adults can go to jail for assault, kids can't if they're under 17 and don't commit a serious enough one. BIG difference.
sulli
RTFJ.
Am I a rapist, that you must know where I am at all times?
Am I a burglar, that I must explain my reasons for being in a particular place at a particular time?
Am I a murderer, that I may not move about freely of my own accord?
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I've always thought it would be possible to construct license plate frames that bathe a license plate in infrared and/or ultraviolet light, thereby making it "invisible" to speed control cameras (or, for the truly criminal out there, tollboth cameras), or any other CCD device. Would such a scheme actually work? Maybe put some sort of "diffuser" over the license plate to better diffuse the energy...
First you say you have ethical problems with video monitoring systems. Then you say, "if the cop isn't paying attention, or isn't there when I blow by their hiding spot in the middle of the road at 105, tough."
You don't have ethical problems with video monitoring systems. You just have ethical problems with being caught whilst breaking the law and endangering the safety of everyone around you.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
The slashdot ID.
user: slashdot223
pass: slashdot
// harborpirate
// Slashbots off the starboard bow!
I've always wondered what would happen if you put a horizontally-polarized plate of plastic over a licence plate...it would still be visible if you stood behind it and looked forwards, but if you're at the angle that photo-radar cameras look from (say 40 degrees in the UK) than it would be blocked.
:P
On another vein, what about putting an LCD screen in front of the plate, with a photo sensor to detect the flash of the photo-radar camera. Kinda like the thing that they put on satellites to block them being blinded by lasers (but much cheaper)
Cue The Sun...
Adults can go to jail for assault, kids can't if they're under 17 and don't commit a serious enough one. BIG difference.
If you reread my comment, and even yours (!), you'll see that we were originally discussing petty crimes such as "pickpockets, harassment, graffiti, and other crime" so I'm not sure why you are bringing up assult all of the sudden. But even so, I think you are thinking too much about this. You are (I'm assuming) a logical, rational human being. Children and petty criminals tend not to be logical people. You ever ask a kid why they just did something wrong and they respond "I dunno" They just do things on the spur of the moment and don't think about the consequences. And criminals usually think they won't get caught, even if the security camera sees them. If you want real deterernce, I don't think there is any substitute for an authority figure to be right there, ready to take control of the situation. I think the proliferation of surveillance cameras is not such a big help to reducing crime as it is for making people think law enforcement is doing their job.
You're welcome to your opinion, but I think if someone is going to pick your pocket a video camera is not going to make them think twice about it.
GMD
watch this
In typical freedom-monger fashion, you'll probably continue to recite these little poems until you're raped, and a camera could have seen it, or you're burglarized, and a camera wasn't there. Of course, if you're murdered, you won't be around to care, but your family will probably mourn your loss, and not have any photos to remember you by, because none of them came out.
In all 3 cases, there will no doubt be a lawsuit involved.
Ah. Mister KFG has learned the first lesson in the art of not being seen. Don't stand up. Mister KFG, would you stand up now? KA-BOOM!
-----Chaz
I wonder how something like a cap dotted with such LEDs would affect a camera. If nothing else you might be able to freak people out by walking past electronics store windows that have cameras demonstrating in them :)
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
All you do is ignite an explosive bolt within a few meters of the camera- and presto! No more worries about surveillance! ;-)
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"No, but all of those people would love to know how they can cheaply avoid those things.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Here's Michael Naimark's current draft article:
How To ZAP A Camera
An example where these cameras are NOT having any measureable deterent value can be found here [go.com] where bullies on school buses still physically beat other students knowing full well they are being videotaped.
Do you have more info on this story than the link you provided? Nowhere does it say that the kids "knew full well" they were being videotaped? There is also not a single mention in the article about it's effectiveness as a deterrent (unless of course you want to go by the logic that unless it stops ALL instances of violence, then it's ineffective).
Whether this is the right strategy is a different question.
Lack of creativity is no excuse for not having a
If you do this, it's better to use a green laser than a red laser. In San Francisco pointing a red laser may be considered a weapons felony. A green laser doesn't scare cops into thinking your using a laser sight, so it's legal. Stupid but true law.
Of course the law is for pointed at people, not cameras, but why give them any reason to go after your ass.....
Maybe not. But you might be.
So, for the sake of the children, in this post Columbine and September 11 world, you need to give up some of your freedoms for the sake of the illusion of freedom, provided by Cowboy Neal - The King of Funk!
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Why don't we just take screenshots from current movies and post them on our shirts, that way the cameras will be making pirated copies of movies and the MPAA will go sue them all. I would say use song lyrics, but the RIAA is busy suing all of the radio stations: http://www.theonion.com/onion3836/riaa_sues_radio_ stations.html
This has been proven. Video cameras covered the alleged kidnapping of a girl in our town last year, and they were no use whatever with the police investigation. We have video-footage of several thefts, and car-vandalism, again, these have not been used to solve any crimes.
Well, gosh, you've proven it there. Because in those incidents the cameras didn't "solve" the crime, clearly cameras are useless. But I'm curious: What information would they have without the cameras?
Try these: http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=l icense+plate+polarizer&spell=1
Also, states have varying laws regarding required visibility of license plates. IE must be visible from X feet. So when I get new ones, I lay them on the ground, and spray them from about 5 feet up with matte black paint. This puts a light misting of black on the plate. This in no way makes the plate unreadable. At night, however, they are much harder to read from 100 feet.
Also, in most southern states only one plate is required. Some states only give you one. Do not use more plates than are required..
That was probably just a vampire, and he fooled you into letting him go with that laser bunk
It's a thing called "privacy," and it's not something to be given up lightly. Letting the police enter any home at will would, no doubt, find some evidence that would help solve crimes, but most people think there should be some limits on police powers.
Allowing the government to attach tracking devices to all citizens would prevent a few crimes, too, I think. Should we all go downtown to get our implants tomorrow?
For any hideous crime you can identify, there are some steps law enforcement could have taken ahead of time that would have prevented it, if only the general public didn't mind having their rights trampled. That's not a reason to hand over the house keys to the government.
Many people today, especially in the US, seem to have gotten it into their heads that they have something like a "natural right" to privacy.
I will acknowledge that a pretty good argument can be made that we have a right to privacy regarding the most intimate portions of our lives and our bodies. But that's a far cry from expectations of privacy in the public sphere--such as the expectation that one has a right to walk down the street unobserved and unrecognized. Part of what it means to be a member of society is to be accountable for one's actions within that society--anonymity should be the exception, not the rule. Look at how anonymity affects the level and quality of discourse all over the Internet. This is why I have used my real world identiy as my online identity for many years now.
From the article:
There is a perfect two-word response to this: Rodney King.An example where these cameras are NOT having any measureable deterent value can be found here [go.com] where bullies on school buses still physically beat other students knowing full well they are being videotaped.
Funny, that's not what I read into the article at all (there is no statements that they did it "knowing full well" that they were videotaped. Furthermore, for those primitive monkeys that do have no concern, at least they can be removed to jail like schools as soon as possible, where they can kill and maim each other). Indeed, the article is clear evidence that something needs to be done about bullying, and hence are doing their jobs.
Jesus, God, People, it's the New York friggin' Times, fer chrissake!! Just register and get on with your lives! Your individual liberties and right to watch Babylon Five re-runs are not being compromised.
This is like a goddam circus! You should see yourselves! It's better than anything on The Onion, and scarier...
hey cocksmoker, let me make some traffic to my frontpage. whore.
-=The Dude=-
As a taxpayer who pays for graffiti cleanup, let me tell you emphatically that it is the right strategy.
sulli
RTFJ.
Hasn't anyone seen Entrapment?
Sean Connery had this laser beam aparatus that he put in the loot room. It had several laser pointers that were all adjusted to block out the cameras in the room.
And if the "eyewitness" is one that watches 24-7, unfailingly, always wakeful, always truthful? That is the camera....it never sleeps, or gets tired or hungry...it just keeps coming and coming, and it will never stop (given an ocassional replacement). It is the =Terminator= of witnesses...and I want it on my side.
Will it really be on your side? Do you have any assurance that the videos won't be forged? Do we really need big brother keeping law abiding citizens under his thumbs? I bet there are other unintended consequences that have yet to be considered even by the likes of Orwell, Gilliam and gang.
Once upon a time this was true for most digital cameras. "Hot mirror" IR lens filters designed to prevent ambient IR from "leaking" into your photos were popular accessories.
Nowdays many digital cameras have an IR filter built in (maybe not the cheap models) so I don't know how well your suggestion would work.
There have been proposals to make watermarkish tags that Digital Rights Management RIAA/MPAA-compliant digital video equipment would have to obey by refusing to copy. So all you need is a button displaying the "can't photograph this" watermark and the Fritz-compliant equipment wouldn't be able to use your picture. Unlikely to happen in practice, though.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
nice sig :-) b5 rulz
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
Were you aware that if you were to shine a laser off a window that you could take the mathematical computations and produce a very high quality recording? They dont even have to bug a room now, they can shine a laser at it. So, yeah, lasers have lots of uses.
As I understand it (IANAL) you can take pictures on a busy street without any real consequence. These people are in public and so long as they are not recognasible and that the image is of the street (and not the individual people) then you should be fine.
:)
If however you take a picture of someone attending a rocky horror picture show then you are treading on very thin ice. If you choose to sell that picture without a model release then the person in it has a very strong case against you.
This is further exaggerated since it's possilbe that there are people who dress up for and attend the rocky horror picture show in the knowledge that their workmates and friends dont know about it. If you sold their picture to a magazine or newspaper then they could also probably sue for teh emotional damage called.
In short, unless you never want to sell the pictures, then you should get a model release signed for any recognisable person. The only major exception is if the image has journalistic value.... although that's not easy to quantify
I don't relish the idea of being watched in public anymore than the next person. But, I doubt using technology to observe people in public places is an invasion of privacy. (Private bathrooms are another matter.) Public seems to me the antithesis of private.
In principle, how is this different than getting a glance from a cop on the beat? Yes, you can see the cop, and you probably won't see the cameras. But, so long as notice is given that an area is under surveillance, the legalities are probably handled.
Another precedent: Police checking for speeders. They watch us; odds are we don't see them.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Klan rally in New York fizzles under counterprotests
The city went to court to block the Klan event by invoking an 1845 state law that bars groups from congregating in public places in masks or disguises, except for authorized parties or entertainment.
America's KKK rally without masks
New York City officials succeeded in unmasking the Klan when a federal appeals court ruled Friday that the city could enforce a 150-year-old law barring people from gathering in masks. In the end, Klan members wore their traditional white hoods and robes, but with their faces uncovered.
"I've become Big Brother, but I didn't mean to be," Mr. Graham said. "It's just that there's no money in education or scientific collaboration."
Good to know that personal principles are no match for market economics. Whew.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
The main problem as I see it with the whole "put video cameras all over public areas" is that we as humans tend to judge the subjects in these recordings by a different standard than we judge ourselves. This is a well studied phenomenon. We do things all the time that when viewed by others are seen as worse than how we see those same acts.
How many times have you heard the words "I can't believe I did that!" or "I don't really do that, do I?" after watching themselves on a video tape.
It's pretty easy to judge others, but we almost never apply the same standards to our own behavior.
You could see the jurors in that child beating in the parking lot vilifying the woman and taking away their child, but going home and smacking their kids around. Not until someone tapes them and confronts them with it, would they realize how bad it looks. But I... I didn't mean... I uh, um, etc.
Did they hit their kids? Yes. Should we as a society start playing self-righteous Church Lady with video tape evidence at all instances?
Emphatically, No!!
Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
Big Brother is everywhere. In canada they want to make all ISP's log all data sent/received...Now thats Big Brother.
Anyone ever walked through the London subway system? To make that camera system blind one would need a laser light show.
What signature defines me as a person?
...Or just think of all the potential presidential candidates that would be disqualified for being nose-pickers.
Worker on phone with headquarters
"We can't support that candidate, sir. He was caught on a Walmart security camera rooting around in his nose."
"No, we couldn't supress it. CNN's already got copies. You think Ford's stumbling was bad... Sir, we're going to have dump him. Inviable candidate. Need to find someone with shorter softer nose hairs and less mucus buildup."
"Yes sir, we'll start looking for a clean nose right away. There's nothing more important in a presidential candidate natually clean nasal passages."
Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
Indeed. The temporary blindess (the same as if a flash bulb had gone off in your face) can cause issues when controlling all sorts of vehicles.
One of the major fears of law enforcement is precisely this problem. I've written about this before on /., but the scheme goes like this:
- Terrorists (or your bad guy of the day) purchases a 3watt solid state YAG laser (yours for only $12,000) and a pair of scanning galvos. Now he has a powerful, portable rig than can run off an AC inverter or other portable power source. Lets say this rig is mounted to a van.
- Go park your van at the end of a runway and proceed to scan the laser back and forth across the cockpits front window. With a tight scan pattern you are highly likely to scan across the pilots eyes.
- This won't blind the pilot for any long period of time... but final approach and near touchdown are critical stages in a landing. Startle or distract the pilot and you might be able to crash the plane.
- While everyone is responding to the crash you drive away... leaving no evidence.
Nasty, nasty thought.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
..Free Live Free...
I won't be happy until I have a yellow pixelated skull replacing my head on camera
No sig for you!!
In most countries (US, Europe...), the law says that you can take pictures in public places, but selling them or broadcasting them is something else entirely: anyone who can recognise himself on a picture can oppose its use. 'Recognisable' must be taken in a very broad sense, for instance if you take a picture of Big Ben at 2:13 on a given day and there's one tiny person at the bottom, that person will be able to say: 'it was me waiting there at that time', then you need that person's permission.
This means that whenever you take a picture with someone in it, you should have them sign a 'limited time use' form (unlimited has no value).
So the person who takes the picture owns it, but the person on it can oppose its use. This means that if you take a picture in a crowd and a dork goes: "Hey you! You can't take my picture, gimme that film !", he has no right to ask you for the film, although all you can do with the pic is look at it at home.
That doesn't help the current argument much though.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
2) Put the camera behind a two-way mirror (like all the ones in vegas, or best yet 3) Decorate your ceiling with thousands of little plastic imitation cameras, all of which look just like the real camera.
Interesting side note: how effective would this technique be against photo-radar or stoplight photo tickets?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
"No officer, that can't be me... I had my laser-pointer on... I tave witnesses that will tell you I had it on just moments before that happened, and moments after. Now go jump in a lake."
The fact is, if they can be averted by any criminals, than only us generally law-abiding citizens have something to loose (freedom), and nothing to gain. In fact, it just might mean that crimes will even flourish, since people will believe that the videocamera will capture everything.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
A genuine mirror of the article (albeit on a site that hates slashdot) gets modded down to -1 informative, while the wholly offtopic comment about raping nytimes for trying to find out who's subscribing gets modded up to +5 informative. I say this IS informative. About Slashdot in general.
-=The Dude=-
The number of home burglaries commited by hot babes is on the rise.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
My variation is to attach a number of small IR LEDs to the underside of the bill of a baseball cap, aimed so as to direct the light towards your nose and cheekbones, to confound facial-recognition camera systems.
In the winter this could provide some minimal added protection against frostbite :)
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
The police in my area use intersection cameras to record red light runners. these cameras take a snap of you if you go into the intersection during a red light, and you get mailed a ticket later.
Even though the camera is in public view, and you could argue that you have as much right to illuminate it as it has to take a picture of you, I think the police would like to talk to you if you started doing this with a laser, no? What do you think?
Nowhere does it say that the kids "knew full well" they were being videotaped?
I guess that means you've never seen one (YMMV). I saw one on my kids school bus. It's a black box about 7"x9" with a window about 1" square. A big sticker on it says something about security camera.
But you must remember the perp's (Perpetrators) are in a mindless frenzy.
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.
I'm sorry, but you are absolutely worng. The town I grew up in was one of the early adopters of CCTV. The system installed was B&W which provides better resolution (or did at the time). A BBC news report tried to spin the whole thing as Orwellean, but when asked how the cameras had affected crime, the police officer said (and I paraphrase here) "Crime has effectively ceased". To put the quote in context, he explained that the job of the cameras was very specific. To protect a large public car park (actually the towns market place) and to provide surveilance on one of the local industrial estates. Cars were being stolen and offices being broken into. After a few morons had been caught due to the camera evidence, the crime rate plummeted. How things are going now (some 10 years later) I don't know, but the whole things show one important thing. The cameras are there not to capture criminals, but to prevent crimes. In some areas this works, in other it does not, therefore care and thought need to be used when these systems are installed. I guess, this doesn't always happen however.
Perhaps you didn't read the story on these speed cameras then? At least as they're being used in the United States, they're not trustworthy at all. The big problem is, they're installed and maintained by 3rd. parties.... *not* by the police themselves. In fact, these commercial companies taking care of the photo radar cameras are getting kickbacks from each fine levied against a speeder. Therefore, it's in the best interest of the company to generate as many tickets as possible with their systems. (EG. Not really sure you can read all the letters on the license plate in that photo? Oh well, let's just assume that fuzzy letter is an E, and issue a citation against the owner of that plate.)
How do we know the things are even calibrated correctly? Oh, we're supposed to *trust* the companies contracted with the police depts. to ensure their systems are accurate! Of course, how silly of me.
Bleah.... Surveillance is fine by me, but automated systems trying to take the place of human judgement never work out very well.
A security camera in a store does not (at least in the current form) actually determine your guilt or innocence, and places its own call to authorities. It merely records what it sees on tape, for humans to review later. That's a bit different from an automated photo radar system that selectively snaps pictures of those it determines "guilty" because they operated a vehicle outside its parameters. Such systems require much closer scrutiny.
I find it offensive if someone is trying to record everything I do. I like my privacy. I don't commit crimes, I don't even download mp3's. Why should I let the government treat me like a criminal when I haven't even been charged of a crime. And they would be treating me like a criminal if they used cameras because that constitutes surveillance! Surveillance is defined at http://www.dictionary.com as:
1. Close observation of a person or group, especially one under suspicion.
2. The act of observing or the condition of being observed.
So if I am under surveillance, I must be under suspicion. What am I under suspicion for? I haven't committed any crimes, no one has even accused me of anything. Why am I upset? I guess you could say that I don't like being treated like a criminal when I have done nothing wrong.
I remeber trying this a few years ago. I read that most CCD cameras are very sensetive to ir light. We decided to try it out at the local radio shack where i used to work. I took the bar-code scanner and pointed it into the camera. The rear monitor would only display strobes of white light, and would not pick up any pictures. Lots of fun. Could potentially be used if one could somehow wide-broadcast a powerful enough ir stream/beam whatever you want to say, to toally blind cameras. At least thats what it seems he is talking about.
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
I hope you mean excessive speed. Idiots going 100 in a 50 zone, etc. A guy who does 15 over (Canada, so km not miles) doesn't deserve a $1000 ticket. 6:30am every weekday I drive to work for 100km of lonely highway. I take about 130/140km because there the road is highly visible and traffic is nil (if there are cars in my area, I slow down and watch my six).
On high-traffic times (on the way back), I've run into many nutcases that have nearly killed me. Tailgaters a meter from my bumper, etc, one guy who pass me on a DOUBLE-SOLID line (when there was a free lane on the right, no less).
Point, the only person I'm ever likely to hurt is myself, mainly if I hit a deer or something, and past 100km it's going to be a big dent regardless. I've driven past a lot of accidents, and I'll say for certain that speed was definately not the only factor, if a factor at all.
Police happily bag speeders and get cash, but they dangerous drivers are often the ones overlooked. Some guy driving like a maniac at 100 is a hell of a lot more dangerous than a conscientious driver at 130 (on even highway).
Personally, I think the cops could get more money and make the street safer if they left the speeding tickets to those who are driving excessive, and went after the dangerous (bumper-to-ass tailgaters, etc) drivers instead.
Another great idea instead of a "invisibility cloak", is invisibility glasses or hats. They could be regular apparel, but would emit a small, but wide enough beam of ir energy to encompass your face and blind ir cameras. It won't protect your whole body, but you would have that very cool blue dot effect thats in the court rooms, and for guys who rat on the mob.
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
A cheap webcam mounted in the yard or house would have done the same thing without invading the privacy of the neighborhood. If you want to be on camera install your own.
I have no problem with cameras in public but the government recording me is an entirely different thing. I don't want a giant database following me around using cameras and face recognition software.
Oh and as somebody who has had friends murdered.. there can never be justice. There can only be revenge. That will never bring the dead back and rarely does it protect others from the same fate.
If you want to protect yourself and those you care about then learn basic self defense, make them learn it, make your home as secure as possible, and don't do stupid things like opening the door to strangers. Basics every child is taught and then forgets when they grow up.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Ladies, if you are worried about indecent individuals who are now legally able to look up your skirt you now have a solution. Simply purchase a pen-laser, a little duct tape, and attach it to your underwear aiming at a downward angle. Any potential peepers will end up with a bad case of the blinks and hopefully very unpleasant itch for awhile. Camera will be blanked out.
Actually, I originally meant this to be somewhat humourous, but I wouldn't be surprised if I see these in the next lingerie magazine.
Not that I, um, read lingerie magazines or anything... they're my girlfriend's... - phorm
Simply this: Try to go through life without entering public spaces.
No. It has simply been displaced. But what do you care... not your problem anymore.
I was looking for these earlier today - not for jamming Big Brother, but for use in a display of color-change gem materials. Most gem materials change fine under fluorescent light, but some work better between 395 and 400nm, which these LEDs will cover admirably.
Lemon curry?
?Oops, got distracted by a cat and forgot the URL for UV LEDs. Here it is.">Try here. Just under half-way down the page.
Lemon curry?
You're right, I haven't seen one. Keep this in mind though, kids have to be told all the time not to run out in the middle of the street. Just because kids do things that don't seem to make a lot of sense to you and me, doesn't mean that adults (generally) do them to. The criminal element for the most part does not like getting caught, kids are often too ignorant to care.
So, you really want ultraviolet. Just barely into that range will work.
Try here for high-powered short-wave UV LEDs.
Lemon curry?
Right on both counts.
Allowing the government to attach tracking devices to all citizens would prevent a few crimes, too, I think. Should we all go downtown to get our implants tomorrow?
I don't think that anyone sane would object to that idea, if we could trust our government not to abuse those implants. I don't think that anyone sane would trust this government, or any other. You don't have to be part of the tin-foil hat brigade to agree with Lord Acton [1].
If the government wants more powers to observe us, they should begin by earning our trust. Consistantly not abusing the powers we have already given them, and consistantly punishing those who do abuse those powers, would be a great start.
[1] Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. -- Lord Acton
See what I've been reading.
A camera tapes you. If one tape-reviewer doesn't know who you are, he can ask around until he finds someone who does. The tape can be matched with other tapes in the area to see where you were and where you're going. The tape can be stored so that, a few years from now, the 'eventually will be better than 50% accurate' facial scanning system will identify you.
Not insignificant differences, especially if you live in a large town where the chances that any individual officer knows you is vanishingly small
(1) People rewrite a memory each time they play it: the stronger the emotion involved in a memory, the more likely it is to be inaccurate. A recent study asked people about their 9/11 memories: a huge % of people remembered watching the one tape of WTC North being hit on 9/11 itself, even though that tape didn't come out until the next day. Similar research occured with Challenger: a professor had students write down their memories on the day after, and then two years later asked them about those same memories. Less than 25% of students remembered most or all of that day correctly. Most had at least one major detail wrong. Except for the very rare person, we don't have anything like a video camera in our brain. Or if we do, the video camera is run by a 5 year old- never stays focused on one thing for very long, and easily distracted by bright, shiny or chocolately things.
It appears that laser jamming of optical devices has some very interesting legal ambiguities.
Consider this situation:
My neighbor goes out and buys and X10 camera and puts it on the front of his house. My house is directly across the street. I don't want a camera contiuously looking at me so I buy a $10 tripod and a $10 laser pointer, and aim it right at his camera. I leave it on continuously, making the camera worthless.
Is this legal or is one of us doing something illegal? I'm sending unauthorized photons onto his propoerty. He's recieving photons from my property without authorization. Neither one seems to be explicitly ilegal.
Seems like a couple lawyers could have a lot of fun with this one. What who you do if you were either the neighbor or myself? What is instead of being a neighbor's camera it was a camera at a local park, across the street?
Of couse, in reality, they'd probably think the camera was broken, replace it a few times, and then give up.
Life is too short to proofread.
I've wondered if it would be possible to construct some form of headwear / necklace etc. that emits "bright" IR with the aim of over exposing the image of the head
I had no front plate in Santa Cruz for two years and was never hassled.
Quite interesting reading this discussion - in the UK we've had cameras everywhere for some time now and the excuse is always that it "would have prevented [insert recent crime]". Problem is they have been proven to not really affect the level of crime, but can seriously improve investigations.
If governments could get away with it, we'd all be subcutaneously tagged with GPS tracking devices with cameras in our homes, this, naturally would also "would have prevented [insert recent crime]" which is the generic argument that "they" use.
We've sadly had a few prominent child abductions and murders recently in the UK, and I predicted that someone would bring out some form of implanted child tracking device. Lo and behold the nutter Kevin Warwick has the same idea and uses it to get some publicity.
So we all get our kids chipped... now - how many people think that once it becomes "standard practice" to have children chipped at birth, how long will it be before it's illegal to remove the chips?
Oh hello Big Brother - you're late.
That's a sorry state of affairs indeed if that's the way speed cameras are operated in your country. It amazing me that a system such as that even started.
Where I live (New Zealand) it's not like that (at least I am pretty sure it's not). Our police don't even carry guns, and I don't want them to start.
I have always wanted to set up laser pointers that were on all the time so that they blocked the site of the cameras for everyone. One could be set up for each camera. They could be placed hundreds of feet away from the building (somewhere convenient to leech power!?). It wouldn't take long for them to find where the laser was located...
Is this illegal?
I'd still snely object for a ton of reasons but I think I only need to give one: Even if we could trust the gov't, what's to say no one else is going to figure out how to track our every move using the implants?
Life is too short to proofread.
Government, government, government.
For most of a century now, there has been this meme on the loose which posits that goverment is some evil force, tho sometimes necessary, which is corrupt and needs to be reined in whenever possible.
The goverment is US. I'm not afraid of the guvmint! I'm afraid of my neighbors! Of the collective dumbness of my fellow countrymen!
The evil and wickedness, we ascribe to goverment, is actually our own. It's the classic scapegoat; the animal upon which the collective sins of the people are dumped.
The People loved Hitler, loved McCarthyism, loved Nixon, hate the press, and yes, can be led by the nose. We're going to attack a defeated nation, and this country is in favor of it. Where's the sanity?
I fear my neighbors with cameras. I fear cults with cameras. For example downtown Clearwater, Florida, is carpeted with high rez and telescopic cameras. Why? What are they doing with them? Why are they recording everyone's movements?
I can deal with a policeman watching a street corner remotely. I can deal with a paranoid security force watching for terrorists, since I'm not Arabic-looking, I suppose. But I am in stark terror of corporate cameras, private investigator cameras, and private police service cameras. The Guvmint is ultimately under control fo the citizenry, no matter how deluded they can be. But the private cams... what will they evolve into?
Sure hope it isn't. Let me know when you're exonerated because That Dumb Machine(tm) made a mistake.
Oh, too late, is it?
Our police don't even carry guns, and I don't want them to start.
Sorry, but what does this have to do with automated cameras?
-j
I forget what 8 was for.
Go straight back to life without entering public places. Do not collect the bones.
Seriously, this is a real matter. "Collecting photons" is off the point like all matter being energy is off the point when it hits your body at 300mph.
When someone can analyze someone else's actions without risking the same, that gives the analyzer power over the victim. In a "civilized" society that power would be spread equally. Not sharing the power leads to despotism, which, in turn, leads to anger. Anger leads to things taking each other apart. Very much like in that 300mph example. Or "Fight Club" for that matter.
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
The second problem is that you (or your computer) has to have a pretty good idea where the camera is. There has been some publicly accessibile purchases that hint at that sort of thing, which you can find if you follow the links on the guy's site who started this whole discussion, but I bet you can't afford one, not to mention it won't work at driving speeds. Sorry.
Without driving a tank with Class IV lasers and some serious computing power, or some very, very careful planning for a very specific operation, you're not terribly likely to confuse cameras. And if you have either, why are you worried?
-j
I forget what 8 was for.
not necessarily. If the cars were being broken into / stolen by a small group of individuals, then detaining those individuals CAN stop the problem. If they're in prison, then their law breaking has to be deferred until they get out.
That was classic intercourse!
Are you talking about Croydon by any chance?
What law prevents games companies from including real player's names in games unless they pay FIFA/UEFA/FA etc.
Have they all trademarked "Beckham", "Seaman", etc. or is it the dubious concept of copyrighting information (as opposed to the expression of it).
After all, despite what some fans think, there are several dozen "David Seaman" in the UK alone (yes the electoral roll is public information. God knows why it took Dave Gorman more than 10 seconds (with appropriate software) to look up his namesakes).
And yes I did work on a no-license game that died a death, and a big-licence game that sold bucketloads. Getting the right names in the product is very important to consumers (gameplay far less so).
I've actually thought about this before. Here in town the Department of Transportation has gone ape shit and put cameras at almost every intersection (at least 4, one pointing each direction). I thought that maybe I could tear apart an old microwave and get the magnetron out and mount it on the roof of my car. Then as I drive under the offending camera the electronics would instantly be fried.
I doubt that the DOT would approve and would probably invite some hassling by the local law enforcement but would it work? Maybe a whole array of them and a portable coleman generator to power it all....
Maybe even get a big ass steel mixing bowl to act as a parabolic reflector to up the effectiveness
Yeah yeah, I know, it would really mess up 802.11b communications in the area but hey, no one is perfect....
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, "Make us your slaves, but feed us." - Dostoevsky
No need. Pretty much everyone will own a mobile phone one day and they do the same job (don't know about the US, but it is a legal requirement for all mobile phones sold in the UK to contain GPS hardware). The really clever thing about this of course, is that they've managed to find a way to reduce our liberty, convince us that it's a good idea, and make money at the same time. That's quite impressive.
I give in! Which one are you?
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
Then the camera, being a good trusted DRM-compliant appliance, will realise it has no licence to look at you and promptly shut itself down...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Well, gosh, you've proven it there. Because in those incidents the cameras didn't "solve" the crime, clearly cameras are useless. But I'm curious: What information would they have without the cameras?
My point was that CCTV footage has rarely to never been used to solve crimes. The specific example being a TV camera watching a girl's kidnapping. Despite being able to identify many people walking down that street, no clues were ever provided which helped to find the person.
More famous example: we've all seen the CCTV footage of two teenagers kidnapping a young boy from a shopping mall. Can anyone tell me how useful they were then? Did security staff react? Did the police react? No, they showed it on the evening news.
Example from work: Colleague's car was vandalised. In a well-lit private carpark with cameras every 50 metres. Nobody was ever caught.
Another example from that same office: same well-lit, surveilled car park. Stack of unix machines were stolen from the office, and carried through bushes to a car at the nearby motorway. Cameras missed it all. Nobody was ever caught.
Personal example: my bike was stolen from luggage-van of a train. Station CCTV cameras have a clear, close-up view of the faces of each and every person involved in that theft. Was the bike found? No. Were any of the thieves found? No.
Your point seems obvious: surely cameras are better than no cameras. A chance piece of evidence is better than no chance. That is arguably true, but only if you discount cost.
Outdoor high-street surveillance cameras cost a lot more than anything you'd use in your office-security. High-res cameras, remote-control servos, and the sheer installation cost of taking up the street and planting a tower in it add up to a lot of cost. I see quotes of $4000 upwards for even the smallest cameras, without installation or cabling.
Policemen on £40,000 per year are then paid to watch these cameras. At several policemen per installation (often in a control room shared between several towns), that's a lot of money per hour. Add the cost of data-connections and the control-room itself, plus a beaurocratic overhead.
The reason this hindering, rather than being irrelevant to safety, is: This is money not being spent on improving the safety of our streets. Good street-lighting, building design, town design, police patrols, special constables, neighbourhood-watch, these are the measures which are proven to reduce crime, and these are the measures which are having their funding cut to pay for CCTV cameras.
What use is a town with not enough money to keep a police station open, if they have five-thousand-pound camera installations in every corner of every road? Even places as large as Nottingam, it's not unknown to have 3 or 4 police on duty at night, to cover vast swathes of the city. Break-ins occur at the same time/same place every night, and there was simply not enough police resource to send a guy there to arrest the burglars. Response times of many hours are typical. "Sorry we're late, but you're looking at the night-watch, both of us" a young policeman told me last time they responded to a call, 9 hours later.
I hope that some of those answers clarify my question a bit better: surveillance cameras are bad not because of the implicit somebody-watching-you (police patrols watch you too), but because they simply don't work, and divert valuable resources from schemes that do work.
So, in answer to "But I'm curious: What information would they have without the cameras?"
They'd have information from the patrol cars driving around.
"More famous example: we've all seen the CCTV footage of two teenagers kidnapping a young boy from a shopping mall. Can anyone tell me how useful they were then?"
Ah, I believe you are referring to the kidnapping and murder of Jamie Bulger.
The toddler whos killers were caught precisely BECAUSE of that CCTV footage of which you are so disparaging.
So to answer your question of "how useful were they [the CCTV cameras] then?", I would say "Absolutely vital".
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
...in his novel about a war between the US and Japan. Two CIA opeartives used huge reflector lights to blind airplane pilots.
That book is frightening by its prophetical nature... near the end of the book, once Japan lost the war, a suicide japanese pilot crashes a 747 on the Congress...
My website
Easy way to get arrested: Go to a pollitical rally where the president will be present and shine a laser pointer anywhere on the presidents body. Chances are the secret service will swarm all over you and potentially shoot you. Fun for the whole family!
I recall seeing a show on TLC about the camera systems in London used for tracking people, especially shoplifters. Some of the systems they showed off were capable of taking a blurry shot and finding a good match in a database of photos. Not sure what kinds of software techniques are available to match two different photos to the same person, but according to the show, accuracy was pretty good (I want to say something like 90%+). Scary that you sometimes don't even need to lean over to the camera operator next to you for a second opinion on whether that's John or Joe Doe....
What is your Slash Rating?
Am I a copyright infringer, that you must place DRM an all content and monitor my internet usage?
Oh, wait, you're already doing that... nevermind...
While a few may be using lasers and other devices to escape the view of surveillance cameras, others are lining up to get in on "The game." It could be 1984 by 2004!
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
In this case, you inadvertently prove my point: Once someone is missing, where do you begin searching? With the suspects, and their homes. What if they're not at home? You start looking for their car.
Once again, we here on /. carry arguments to their ridiculous extremes. I was merely trying to draw a parallel between California's use of the Amber alert system (or whatever it's called) to inform motorists of suspected vehicles the police are searching for, with the ability of Traffic Video Systems to provide to the police a tool to actively cover more ground than they could with traditional manpower.
For example: Did you know that in Maryland last Friday, they put police on overpasses and bridges to search for the vehicle driven by the suspected sniper? Wouldn't it be cheaper and more effective if we used a pervasive camera system instead of cops?
Surveillance of public places is very common in the UK, and has been for years.
In the U.S., private sector surveillance has been very common for years, too. At work, in hotel lobbies, restaurants, stores, malls, sports facilities, toll gates, etc. Look around, odds are you'll see a camera.
People instinctively resent surveillance, for obvious reasons. No one likes being "spied on". A court challenge, however, would first need to prove you have a right to expect privacy in a public place. That's very unlikely to happen.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
While an air rifle is arguably ok, NEVER fire a firearm at a camera anywhere near town. Those bullets don't magically disappear when you hit or miss the camera. They fall somewhere with deadly force. If you're lucky you'll just have to pay for an expensive side of beef.
IANAL, but to answer Kevin Kelly's concerns about legality of laser jamming. His analogy with police radar has no prescedent. The police radar is governed by the FCC, and citizens aren't allowed to deliberately interefere with radio devices. However, lasers are governed by the FDA -- and jamming police laser (lidar, actually) is, and alwas has been completely legal (except in VA).
For more information, check this out. Its a laser jammer test, but has some information on the law of laser (lidar) jamming.
Disclaimer: radartest.com kind of sucks. It is not all objective and they're particularly biased against the Valentine Research manufacturer of radar locators due to a personal vendetta between the two companies' founders/owners.
-Turkey
As far as I'm aware, here in the UK you have a right to view any footage recorded of you on a CCTV camera so long as it's not a matter of national security or anything like that. The owner of the CCTV camera has a right to charge a fee for digging out the footage (around 10 UKP, I believe). Mark Thomas did a great job with this, forcing companies to dig through their CCTV archives, and found, not surprisingly, that most either claimed they had no footage of him (despite the fact that he had footage of himself being filmed by their CCTVs), or gave him incomplete footage (for example the company who had his removed with more-than-necessary force from their carpark, while in view of their CCTV)
Well, anyways. You have a right to see what they do, in the UK at least. Could be handy
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
yes, that's quite true. The point being made, however, is that the cameras did not *prevent* the abduction and subsequent murder. Re-read the post.
it's people like you who are held up as the reason society needs these cameras.
Shining a low-power laser into someone's eyes can result in TOTAL blindness in a matter of seconds.
s er/04_beam _hazards.htm/ Laser_Biologic al_Hazards_Eyes.htm
A couple of very basic references (the first that happened to come up on a cursory search):
http://www.ehss.vt.edu/Programs/OHIH/La
http://www.geocities.com/muldoon432
In fact, *I* have a small blind spot in one eye, just from being accidentally caught for a fraction of a second by a supermarket scanning laser.
Just in case you wonder why I come unglued if I catch some moron pointing a pocket laser at people's faces.
And contrary to your assertion that any movement "will cause the eye to move" -- people have a natural tendency to look directly AT a bright point of light.
If you don't think this is a hazard, try it on yourself first. Remember not to stare into laser beam with remaining eye.
As to the "you are here" nonsense, the beam from a laser is itself invisible. It is only made visible by passing thru something reflective, like clouds, fog, or smoke.
"It's not what you don't know that will hurt you. It's what you DO know that isn't so." -- L.M.Bujold
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I can see why he was moderated as "troll," but such moderation is the same level of demonstration of personal bias as what oliverthered was demonstrating.
But then, oliverthered has the right to free speech, doesn't he? And further, he was demonstrating his opinion that people should be allowed their own opions, even specifying that he wasn't in the same boat as them. (One would normally expect Christian Scientists to make his claim, not agnostics or athiests. Such people as the latter, in this case and cases like it, hold my highest esteem.
More on-topic:
Civil rights in a democracy boil down to one thing: How tolerant the majority of the actual voters are towards others' beliefs. If you don't like it, you can go to a dictated nation that supports America's first ten ammendments.
Personally, I hate the fact that competent medical physicians can be denied access to children, or anyone, who needs medical attention. Heck, I don't even have respect the people who believe that they should pray their way out of sickness.
God gave us the means to help ourselves, isn't that enough?
Hope I get oliverthred's moderation in metamod.
What's this Submit thingy do?
And what if you miss the camera? Or just get the edge of it and the bullet ricochettes?
"I have lots of worries about how this technology is being used," said John Graham, who is the founder of BroadWare Technologies, a Cupertino, Calif., maker of software for video-camera networks, and who was one of the first researchers to send audio and video over the Internet.
--> I didn't know pr0n was considered research.
"I've become Big Brother, but I didn't mean to be," Mr. Graham said. "It's just that there's no money in education or scientific collaboration."
--> READ: Lots of money in pr0n!
['$CleverAnecdoteOrPhrase']
It's amazing what a hack job they did on David Brin's ideas on privacy. They basically described him as being someone who wants lots more security cameras so we will magically end up with an open society.
... etc...
Brin's argument is that more cameras will not be a problem as long as the cameras are watching EVERYONE. Including all of the government types
Grr...
Where's your car? With that attitude I'm sure you'd be happy to let me spraypaint it.
sulli
RTFJ.
For all we know countless acts of violence have been prevented because people were worried that someone would see them (either someone in the flesh, or indirectly via recorded evidence): It's hard to give metrics for things that haven't occurred. One of the prime identifiers that someone is a thief in a retail establishment, for instance, is when they glance around to see if anyone is looking: Criminals are very concerned about being seen.
Even if it doesn't prevent the original act, it can indirectly prevent crimes in the future. For instance most car thefts are committed by a small number of individuals (indeed, that is the case with most crimes: A very small number of people prolifically steal hundreds of cars, break into many cars, rob many stores, etc): Rather than putting a camera in a lot with a big sign saying "you are being monitored", it is far more beneficial to society as a whole (though not to the individual lot owner) to have hidden cameras to capture the perpetrators and either rehabilitate, or put them behind bars forever. It's the same thing for child molestors, shoplifters, vandals, and snipers (I bring up the MD sniper incident because right now there is almost certainly a video somewhere that captures the culprit leaving the scene, and I'm sure it'll become paramount soon enough): If you just use deterrence, then as another poster mentioned they may just move elsewhere: Better to catch them (like the Buglar incident) and remove them from the equation than to miss it altogether.
Aren't all of you forgetting the recent Washington Supreme Court ruling in which it was decided that it was perfectly within someone's right to take pictures as long as it was in a public place. If the defendents were able to take up-skirt photos, then what's to stop someone from taking a picture of your face?
If *all* individuals were monitored from birth to death how do you think that would shape society?
Personally I think that would bring the liberation of us all.
Either that or the road to insanity!
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
However, you can sure as hell bed your bottom dollar that it prevented those murderes from carrying out any OTHER murders (before you protest, let me remind you that they had already, it turned out, tried to abduct another kid before they got Jamie).
So there, alone, is evidence that the CCTV in question has prevented other murders AND enabled the murderers to be caught.
All in all, pretty good case in faviur of the CCTV, woudl you not say?
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
Not at all. I simply suggest that if people believe cameras will catch them when they speed, extremely reckless behaviour will decrease over time. Maybe not with red-light cameras, but how about speed enforcement cameras?
Red light cameras are not an integral part of the traffic light system. There is agreement that the traffic light system needs to exist, there is no such agreement on red light cameras. These aren't flaws in the system.
Oh, I wish I was more eloquent! What I was trying to say is this: If red-light cameras are introduced into a system, they are done so obstensibly at our (the citizenry) request. If the cameras cause an increase in accidents, THAT is the flaw in the system. Determine why (besides existing) they cause that accident increase. It's probably human behaviour, right? Can't we build slack into a system, maybe a number of warnings per year before the tickets start showing up in the mail? I don't have the answer, but I believe the idea that "It's broken, throw it away" is not the solution.
Let me ask YOU: when compliance with a law is so rare that it is actually considered probable cause of illegal activity in at least than one state, isn't it pretty damn likely that the law is the problem?
Sure. The law is a serious problem in that it can be interpreted in both directions by the authorities. Do you live in Florida? I would suggest you call your representative, or start some grass-roots campaign. Truthfully, I really don't have a problem with raising speed limits or your speed guide suggestion or even if we don't use traffic surveillance at all.
What I disagree with is the air of entitlement that people seem to have with the law. In other words, "If no one catches me when I break the law, it's okay!" or, "Oh, the speed limits are too low. Guess I'll just drive at whatever speed I wish!" If ignorance of the law isn't an excuse to break it, why should the belief of a law's injustice be an excuse?
It's not our right as citizens to pick and choose which laws we obey simply based on our beliefs. If a law is unfair, or a police department corrupt, or what have you, our job is to see that the injustices are remedied.
Oh, but this is /. and anything that even implies that some authority can see what you're doing is WRONG, Police are corrupt, and our rights are constantly stripped away with no recourse. Seriously, It's not as if we live in Iraq and we can't elect lawmakers to change problematic legislation. If you believe that's impossible and you won't bother to try, then I can't sympathize. Sorry.
Your information is wrong about the north tower tape. That tape was shown about 3 to 4 hours later after the towers had collapsed (shortly after noon). I spent most of that day watching TV and I do remember it.
I also remember exactly what I was doing when the Challenger went up. I had my back to the TV (with the sound off for some reason) while I was working on my fluid dynamics homework. I missed the whole thing.
in terminus illic est tantum opes
As mentioned in another post, I was doing a decent speed on an uphill, sticking in the left lane because slow RV's were dotting the right.
Passing on the right is still a lot better than passing somebody on a double-solid yellow.
weaving in and out of traffic, flashing highbeams
This qualifies for dangerous/reckless driving for me. Speed regardless if somebody is doing this going near the limit then he/she deserves a nice fat ticket.
Yup, that seems to make sense. Looking it up, Cavendish mentions:
Defamation - successful
Trademarks - obviously :-)
Copyright - Failed for "Kojak" (1975) and "Wombles" (1977)
No law to prevent people from photographing you in public, some privacy rights in the Moral Rights created by the new copyright convention (which mostly don't apply to computer programs).
Passing Off - failed for "uncle mac radio" (1947), failed for "Kojakpops" (1975), failed for "Abba" (1977) similar to the beckham t-shirt you mentioned, failed for "Wombles" (1977).
In different countries, "Crocodile Dundee" (1991) and Sesame Street characters have been protected under passing off, and in England "Ninja Turtles" succeeded in 1991, so perhaps the courts here are going more the way of other jurisdictions and buying into the idea of "IP rights holders". And the fact that it is a football game as opposed to a t-shirt or a breakfast cereal might make a difference to the courts.
yes, that's quite true. The point being made, however, is that the cameras did not *prevent* the abduction and subsequent murder. Re-read the post.
No he's right, I didn't know about the camera evidence being useful to solve those crimes. And we'd be optomistic indeed to think that the mall security would have been able to react in time to stop that.
A better solution would have to be something like the amber-alerts in the US: "Anyone sees white van KD22 3SS phone the police now" on electronic roadsigns and radio stations. When the kidnapping was reported, the store could have played-back the people leaving by car, and reported the license-plate details to be released in such a method.
In Germany oncoming traffic will usually warn you of a portable camera ahead that they just passed by flashing their lights. Nobody bothers about the stationary cameras as everyone knows to slow down for them.
Or there's the story (urban legend/joke?) of a kid a couple hundred yards in front of a camera or a cop with radar with a sign saying "SLOW speed trap ahead" and another kid a couple hundred yards after with a sign saying "Donations welcome."
The one WTC 1 film was caught by those 2 brothers- French filmmakers- documenting the life of a FDNY rookie. (Their documentary was shown on CBS months later- quite moving.) As each brother had hung out with different firefighters that day, they didn't even know if the other brother was alive for many hours after the attack/collapse. They didn't get back to the firehouse for hours, and at that point they were just waiting to see if their friends- the firefighters- were alive.
So at the time you think you saw this tape, the filmmakers hadn't yet come back to the firehouse, let alone go through their tapes to pull out that shot.
Fellow programmer, greetings! You are reading a letter which will bring
you luck and good fortune. Just mail (or UUCP) ten copies of this letter
to ten of your friends. Before you make the copies, send a chip or
other bit of hardware, and 100 lines of 'C' code to the first person on the
list given at the bottom of this letter. Then delete their name and add
yours to the bottom of the list.
Don't break the chain! Make the copy within 48 hours. Gerald R. of San
Diego failed to send out his ten copies and woke the next morning to find
his job description changed to "COBOL programmer." Fred A. of New York sent
out his ten copies and within a month had enough hardware and software to
build a Cray dedicated to playing Zork. Martha H. of Chicago laughed at
this letter and broke the chain. Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out in
her terminal and she now spends her days writing documentation for IBM PC's.
Don't break the chain! Send out your ten copies today!
For example, if \thinmskip = 3mu, this makes \thickmskip = 6mu. But if
you also want to use \skip12 for horizontal glue, whether in math mode or
not, the amount of skipping will be in points (e.g., 6pt). The rule is
that glue in math mode varies with the size only when it is an \mskip;
when moving between an mskip and ordinary skip, the conversion factor
1mu=1pt is always used. The meaning of '\mskip\skip12' and
'\baselineskip=\the\thickmskip' should be clear.
-- Donald Knuth, TeX 82 -- Comparison with TeX80
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