Internet + Wireless Cameras = Homeland Security

NumberField writes "According to an article by Steven Levy posted on MSNBC, Jay Walker of PriceLine fame is talking about a system he calls US HomeGuard. His plan is to hire large numbers of unsophisticated users to monitor Internet-connected security cameras looking for suspicious activity. Although many security details (i.e., DOS attacks, cryptography, privacy) need to be handled carefully, it's a weird enough idea that it might actually work..."

Comments

Super!

[CommieBozo]

"Unsophisticated" people being paid twice their wages at Burger King will protect me by spotting terrorists from the privacy of their own homes!

PriceLine + Cameras = ??

[bedurndurn]

Sweet, now I can bid $5 dollars / hour to watch hot co-eds in the shower instead of paying conventional webcam fees. Thank you PriceLine!

Sounds great

[pubjames]

Although many security details need to be handled carefully, it's a weird enough idea that it might actually work...

Yes, sounds like a great idea! It could be very useful where I live. We've got new neighbours, and I think they might be muslims. They're definately foreign, anyway. I don't have the time to sit at the window all day looking for suspicious activity, so if we put a web cam up it would make it a lot easier. God Bless America!

Moderation system

[maharg]

I can see it now

+5: Suspicious

Homeland security already fading

[KD7JZ]

I just heard that they are laying off a bunch of TSA screeners in our state. Americans are very reactionary. My father talks about how "9/11 changed everything". Time rolls on, eventually we will get complacent/get back to normal (depending on your point of view).

Everything old is new again

[watchful.babbler]

I'm unaccountably reminded of the "red scare" of the 1950s, when ordinary people had the power (and often the incentive) to turn in their neighbors and co-workers for the smallest of reasons: the recently-released transcripts of the McCarthy hearings include one factory worker who was monitored by the FBI because his shop foreman noticed him reading a library book on Siberia.

Naturally, it's not the monitoring of restricted areas that I fear so much as the next step. Government expanding to fill all adjacent spaces, I can't help but believe that the next iteration of that technology would be to begin monitoring public areas for suspicious behavior. Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Re:Sigh..

[inajar]

My concerns aren't privacy, I'm more worried about letting the average person run basically run this system. This smacks of 1930s/40s Germany, where you were asked to basically spy on your neighbor. It smacks of the Red Scare here in the US, where, again, you were basically asked to spy on your own neighbor. The list goes on and on.

I'm all for securing potential targets but I don't think that letting the average person run the system is a great idea. Think back a few months to an incident in Florida where three medical students on their way to their new residencies were chased down and then detained on the side of the highway for nearly 24 hours. This was all because one ignorant woman saw three Middle Easter-looking men having a private discussion in a restaraunt. I'm afraid that this system of cameras will only increase instances like this.

Re:Sigh..

[madfgurtbn]

RTFA... This system as described only sends video when it detects motion. Then once motion is detected it sends the video to three of these "unsophisticated" viewers. If they see somehting interesting, it is then sent to ten more. If there is agreement that something is worth checking out in the video, then the professionals take over.

As described, this is only useful for moniitoring places where people rarely venture, and really shoulnd't be anyway, such as power substations and bridges in remote areas, etc.

Looks like a pretty good system to me, at first glance.

At least it should be.

[danro]

Besides, why should the average american be concerned for homeland security?
I'm sure domestic any number of different things, cars, tobacco, alcohol, etc. kills more people each year on american soil than terrorism does.
Yet, I see no huge overarching "war on speeding" for example.

I'm not american, but let me tell you. From the outside this fixation on security looks a lot like hysteria.
Furthermore it seems like a lot of people in the position to do so is converting this paranoia into money and power for themselves.

I think the general US population would be much better of without these monsterously huge efforts to "increase security" att all costs.

But what do I know, I'm just a dirty foreigner.