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DVRs for Cop Cars
AEton writes "News.com is reporting that IBM is developing digital video recorders for cop cars. The systems involve a digital video camera and reusable hard drives which police officers will take with them on their shifts; centralized servers with up to 3.5 TB of storage will hold recordings. The cameras continuously record and cache old video in a "Tivo-like" fashion; tapes will start from three to five minutes before the cop turned on the recorder. Unbiased, high-quality recording could have a compelling social effect; and at the very least, we're headed for HDTV Cops."
"The cameras continuously record and cache old video in a Tivo-like fashion; tapes will start from three to five minutes before the cop turned on the recorder."
Not sure I understand, this means that after you press "record", the DVR travels three to five minutes backward in time and catches you in the loo a few minutes prior? Surely the video would spool to disk 3 to 5 minutes after it was recorded. Maybe I can use one of these after I get pulled over for speeding to travel back in time and brake in advance...
If you believe the paranoids, this will make it ever easier to generate evidence on the fly, without havingt o go to the extra step of encoding all that raw tape.
--- http://foo.ca
There'll be a black market for geeks to hack these things so the cops can switch them off and not be caught hitting on hookers for "favours".
Trolling is a art,
Or can cops turn it off when they wanna go Rodney King on someone's ass
--------
Free your mind.
It strikes me that a really good watermarking technology is needed before this type of technology will be truly trustworthy. Imagine a Rodney King scenario, but since the cops have it on digital video they could "edit in" some attack footage before the beating starts. Call me paranoid, but it would be possible.
A.M.
Pimpin' all the Karma Hoes!
Yes, but will there be a secret code that you can type into the remote to enable the all-important 30-second skip feature?
Just gotta remember my EMP when driving about.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
"...well yeah, Bill, I really like the new TivoCop Recorders they issued us, but I swear mine thinks I'm racist or somthing--you should see what it puts in my "Favorite Citations" list..."
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
"cops" will now be in high definition. will they record the busts in surround sound too?
Whlie i am also 100% for privacy, they only turn them on during a traffic stop.. Sooo at that point you have given up your rights of privacy in relation to that particular event.
If you are then set loose, they wont keep the recording as it serves no value. they already recorded the transaction of your name/time/location.
it helps keep the whole incident straight, for BOTH sides..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This kind of thing Long overdue in Austin
The system works just as described: The system is always recording to a programmable-length buffer; once the officer cuts his disco lights on, the buffer becomes a permanent file and current events are appended to it.
I didn't ask any questions about how easy it was to erase files off the system, but I remember seeing a keypad on the unit and the guy I brought the bike to did enter a code before he got into any of the menus. It would be easy enough give those codes to the station chiefs, but not the patrol officers.
This is not my sandwich.
Unbiased, high-quality recording could have a compelling social effect;
Unfortunatly, I somewhat doubt these will be available to the public w/o editing.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
"I've been coming up with an in-car multi-angled record to HDD system to"
"I was planing to use Freevo or simular, a notebook some webcams and wireless lan"
" I was also trying to figure out how to get a finger print scanner hidden in an unsuspecting place, like the gear shift."
Batman, you should really start posting anonymously.
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
Imagine several years from now, when most police departments have this system, and routinely record everything. Along comes a case like Rodney King, arrest is made, flashing lights, radio calls, etc ... and the recorder wasn't running. Pretty damning evidence, I'd say. Th epublic will say so too, the lawsuits will be settled for bih chunks of change, and the bad cops will at the very least have to be a lot more careful and pick their rage times more carefully. They will either leave the force, or hold themselves in check on duty and beat up people off duty, in which case they will probably go to prison.
This is going to do wonders to get rid of corrupt cops.
Infuriate left and right
You...doing shit you didn't.
No, Vern. They just let him in.
I'm guessing that within ten years it will be impossible to prosecute anyone in court unless the entire arrest is recorded.
This is not my sandwich.
After reading everyone's suggestions on how a policeman who did something questionable might want to 'game the system'; i.e., get the disc to record over the problem moments...
I wonder what will happen when they put REALLY big drives in these things that record the whole shift. More police cars unfortunately running off the road and exploding in flames, I suppose (with the drivers miraculously saved.)
Another thing that came to mind - this device could be the equivalent of a 'black box' on an airplane - you could have BlueTooth enabled guns / batons, health montoring devices in the uniform... this could bring a whole new level of evidence to bear in a Rodney-King style event. What if the police could show from a EKG strip that the cop really was scared for his life? Interesting stuff...
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
I will tell you a secret: people goof off sometimes when they work. One example: I bet at least a third of comments posted here during the day were written by people "on the clock." If you think there is something "wrong" with that, screw you. In western countries, we do enough work, goofing off and all.
It pisses me off that it's exactly the public servants who absolutely need to be competent who are eating the brunt of our "accountability on the job" insanity. Public school teachers and cops are perfect examples: We don't pay either very well, and both are losing more and more flexibility each year. It seems like in the USA, you are probably "down-and-out" with a liberal arts degree if you become a school teacher, and to become a cop, you are probably a complete asshole who trips on power because nobody liked you in high school. That's because no one in their right minds would work these jobs with "purer" motivations.
This is not how it should be! We should be making these public professions attractive to reasonable, intelligent people! Instead, it seems we just make them crappier every year with new restrictions and new Orwellian "accountability" measures.
If this doesn't bother you, ask yourself this: how would you feel about your job if every single thing you do were recorded on digital video, and then reviewed? We might be heading to a world like that in our constant obsession with economic growth. We will have paid video reviewers who are themselves videoed and reviewed by other reviewers.
some possibilities to be thought about:
1) broadcasting the video.
These are public officials. As long as you've got their activites on video, why not broadcast them in the same way their radio signals are?
The same reason cops are using encrypted channels: "Safety". Supposedly being able to monitor the activities of a public official puts their life at risk. The alternative, however, is an unaccountable public official. Which is worse?
If my tax dollars are paying for these cameras, then they're paying for their output, too. At the very least, I want equalized access to the archives - whether available only through a warrant (for both cops and defenders), or, ideally, completely unconditional access. There are lots of possibilities...
Basically we had a system hooked up to a digital camera that recorded to temporary files. If something tripped off a sensor, it was configured to save the previous X moments of video rather than dumping the cache file. Really, it makes sense, since for spontaneous events you really want what happened to get your attention, not necessarily what happens afterwards (or both).
As for the duration of recording... wouldn't it be nice if the recordings weren't viewable by the officers on duty. That way, it could be juggled to a little over 5 minutes (or a lot over), and anyone trying to "wait out" before pressing record would be S.O.L.
The systems involve a digital video camera and reusable hard drives which police officers will take with them on their shifts
Where can I get one of these new-fangled reusable hard drives? Image a Beowulf...
You can always tell who is going to get arrested while watching COPS. Its simple. It is the guy who is NOT wearing a shirt.
Phredd - "I have found people tend to take you far less seriously once you start waving your genitals at them..."
I don't think the primary purpose of this camera is to keep cops honest. I think it may occasionally have that effect, but the cops can always find some way to disable or destroy it. But that's OK, because really, the majority of cops are pretty clean. The cameras will be most useful as evidence against people the cops arrest.
I'm one of those pathetic losers who watches all the police chase shows, and in one a cop pulled over a car with two people in it. He smelled pot and took them out to search them. The driver came out without an argument, but the passenger bolted. While the cop chased him, the driver took a bag of pot out of his pocket and threw it into the woods where the cop couldn't see. Cop caught the passenger and hauled him back, searched both, found nothing. He brought them both in to the station (the driver had a suspended license or something) and, while reviewing the tape, caught the driver throwing the pot away. Went back to the scene and found the drugs no problem, since he knew exactly where to look.
Or the other case where a cop pulls somebody over and then just gets shot. The cop walks up to the driver's window and gets shot right in the head. It's happened before and it'll happen again, and while the cameras won't save the cop, they can at least pretty much guarantee the conviction of the guy who shot him. Higher-resolution cameras let you see more detail, like facial features and eye color, that can allow even more convincing positive IDs.
Anyway, I think this is the real reason they want the cameras. All the other benefits are great, of course, but they're just bonuses.
Then it will be mighty suspicious if a cop's video "suddenly breaks." Perhaps two independent recorders would be called for?
My wife was visiting a friend in Brazil recently, and they were staying at a hotel. Her friend was accosted one night by a security guard who had red eyes and was acting funny (likely he smoked pot), and hit on her and put his arm against the wall, blocking her path. He followed her up to her room.
She has a friend who is a cop, and he was with her that night just prior to dropping her off; he has the receipt from the restaurant they ate at, marking the exact time they left, and they went directly to the hotel. Strangely, ALL VIDEO stopped working that night.
Which is actually better for my wife's friend: now the hotel has broken two laws, a sexual harassment as well as a federal law of destroying evidence. I hope she wins.
We're entering the strage era of having no privacy outside the home (and little privacy inside, as cops use thermal imaging to detect tomato growers). If we're going to record, I think it best that we record everything, especially all government employees -- including politicians, police, and military. As others have said, these recordings will reduce police corruption.
And if we recorded politicians 24/7, we'd end the era of "big oil" deals, and RIAA/MPAA-mandated legislation, and all sorts of crap that goes on in back rooms that nobody ever hears about.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I was with a friend who was pulled over for a suposed DUI, when he had been drinking nothing but water. The police officer made him do the field sobriety test, which he completed without a problem. Then they arrested him for DUI for apparently no reason. To fight the charge later he wanted his lawyer to get a copy of the cop car tapes that showed him doing the sobriety test. The lawyer said that quite simply the police in this area stopped using them, because it was causing them to LOSE too many cases. Eventually the blood test came back 0.0 so the charge was dropped, but any action against the officer was more or less impossible due to lack of evidence, no video.
1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions so your result is way off. 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.
Bad assumptions abound here. Yes, this could make citizens safer from police. And since "Police Abuse of Power" is a popular meme it may seem like it's all daisies. First off the article doesn't go into nearly the depth needed to establish authentication. For instance: The recorder authenticates all the video to prevent changes, and it will have a checkout system to keep track of which officers have checked out which hard drives.
This could mean the officer get's handed a clipboard and "signs out" a drive, like he does a gun or any other piece of equipment. For evidence that can be so damaging (to both victim and jerk (whichever they may be)) the standard must come up to a whole new level. Anything less than outstandingly modern security will allow the tired mystery novel scenario to occur:
Officer A switches tivos with officer B; Officer A checks out drive 1 while signing for drive 2. Officer B checks out drive 2 while signing for drive 1. Officer A goes out to do something bad. Officer B drives a rush our traffic route so there are no tickets to hand out. That night they check in their drives, but Officer A has wiped his. Later Officer A is accused of a crime and has video to prove that he was somewhere else at the time. The fact that Officer B's drive crashed that day is not compelling evidence of anything.
The device that checks out the hard drive should be a black box digital time clock that puts it's own signature in the data of the drive. The vending company should make the public keys available to verify the signature, but keep the private keys out of the reach of law enforcement altogether. The officer that checks out a drive should type his pass-phrase into the checkout terminal so that it can generate a second signature that cannot be replicated without the pass-phrase. The Tivo-like computer should, in addition to other features, keep a running log of which hard drives (by signature) have been inserted into it and when, and these logs (up to the last say 100 insertions) should be included and signed on each new hard drive that goes into the Tivo. So any hard disk mucking about would be distributed over all the hard disks in the pool, and they would therefore have to destroy them all to successfully cover this stuff up. With the addition of signed GPS location/timestamps swapping/editing could be pretty tough especially if the tivo device derived it's signature from an unremovable factory issued SIM.
It's worth noting that I've never seen an episode of "Cops: A night of police screw ups."
Censoring the things they don't want seen is already the norm, and it will continue to be unless we legislate it otherwise.
is anyone else worried about how IBM, makers of some not-so-reliable drives of late, is making this? I sure don't want real evidence being destroyed because of a hard drive crash.
So they hit "record" at the end of five minutes. Later, when they are being charged, the tapes is reviewed and the recording starts with a guy in cuffs. The very fact that the process leading up to that was not recorded would make the entire recording suspect. In fact, not recording from the moment the suspect is pulled over or approached - i.e. as the cop gets out of the car - would be highly suspect.
Sure, a dirty cop could try scripting what goes on for those five minutes before he hits "record", but careful review of the recording is likely to show up inconsistencies. Besides, what suspect is going to spend five minutes re-enacting his arrest? Something like this: Cop takes cuffs off, walks back to the car, backs up several blocks and drives forward counting off five minutes before hitting "record" and getting out of the car. What suspect is going to stand around acting like the cop just drove up during this little five minute idiocy?
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Now, hook a wireless transmitter up to that videocam and let the reality-police shows abound! Think of the possibilities. Stream the video from selected cruisers live on the 'net. You get a UI to select the cruiser you wish to view, and voila! you are right there in the action.
That would be my biggest question, since the digital format is an order of magnitude easier to seamlessly edit than analog media.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Wow...Tivo for cops, sounds like fun. Wonder if it comes with a monthly fee or if you can buy the service for a one time fee?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
If theyll stop holding me to their orwellian laws. If they dont like having a camera following them everywhere, well, too bad. Stop putting up your fucking spy cameras on every corner, stop with those redlight cameras that are there only to generate money.
I dont like being watched by camera all the time either.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
I'm working on the same type of DVR product at the company I'm with. We're starting small, but already have one paying customer, and a handful of trial units in the field with local law enforcement agencies.
The response is excellent, both the officers and their supervisors love the units. One of our trial units has already captured a fight between officers and a suspect, who accused them of brutality and harassment, and the video clearly shows that the officers were doing only what was necessary to restrain the suspect.
We have a shorter pre-event recording time, since we're currently using RAM to buffer the video. We're using ruggedized (IBM) laptop hard drives for our storage medium.
Of course there are plenty of ways an officer could defeat the system: smash the camera, beat the suspect behind the car since the camera faces forward, drive the car off a cliff, cut wires to the unit, etc. -- but it still offers a new measure of protection for both the officers and the people they come in contact with.
>So they hit "record" at the end of five minutes.
No, there is no "hitting record" here. Read the article - the recording starts when the lights go on.
If my math is correct, the video they record with this system equates to about 734MB/hr or 208KB/sec. That's roughly VCD quality using MPEG-1 compression. Not anywhere near the bitrate needed for HDTV.
Yes.. that's a nitpic. So sue me.
" No statements about the compression algorithm used were made in the article."
They said 3.5 terabytes of storage held 5,000 hours of footage. Doing the math I arrived at 700 megs per hour. I am not a mathematician so if I messed up a decimal point then somebody please correct me. Assuming my math is right, then the only possible way they're storing the footage is to use a codec, likely of MPEG4 relation. (DivX maybe?)
"Second: 13 gigs/hour at 720x480 (DVD quality) is not uncompressed. It's compressed DV, which is (I believe) a variant of Motion JPEG. "
I damn near argued with you on this point, but I decided to verify your claim about it being MPEG based compression before doing that. Glad I did because you're right! DV is probably MPEG related which means that it is a lossy codec. I didn't know that. I've read a million times that it's a lossless codec. However, I did an experiment, and you do lose quality every time you compress with DV. I'm *very* glad you mentioned that because now I know not to use that as an archival format. I guess the reason that myth is about is that you can copy the DV video from tape to tape without generation loss. That's absolutely true. You don't have to de/recompress to transfer the footage. Damn, I've been reading a DV mag a lot lately and never latched on to that detail. *grump* In any case, my claim that it was lossless was wrong. That probably negates that whole point there. (Maybe... the difference wasn't noticable without heavy analysis.)
I never meant to imply that the 13 gigs/hour number was uncompressed. That's the native format of digital video cameras. They're not going to capture it uncompressed. I don't think you can do that with today's products. (I might be wrong, been a while since I looked that up.)
"Third: Given that laptop hard drives are available in sizes up to 60 GB, it's entirely possible for them to be storing raw DV video. With a 60GB laptop drive, you could store over 5 hours of video without recompressing it. Go to a shock-mounted 3.5" drive and 60GB is SMALL."
Capturing that much footage isn't the problem. The problem is archiving it. If a single officer is capturing 60 gigs of day, you run out of terabytes REAL fast.
"Derp de derp."
It seems like a cheap "this is what really happened" camera would be a boon for people on the road, and insurance companies, etc., would save a lot of litigation of the "I didn't rear end him, he backed into me on the freeway" kind.
I know there's one guy in New York who rides a bike with cameras fore and aft, but I think they're on a conventional portable VTR.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
I'm single, and have no kids...so, no problems there, but, I was raised in a house with a gun, and I was taught by my Dad a respect for firearms, and how to use them..etc. I knew where they were, and never touched it except for once, when I was about 13 or so...home alone during the summer, and some bum came knocking on the front door,wanting some water...I had the gun in my hand safety off...told him to leave. He finally left...I put the gun back, and told my folks.
I guess it depends on your kids, and how your raise them around fire arms. I grew up in the southern part of the US, and guns down here are part of life...lots of hunting..target practice...etc. Most everyone I knew, had guns in their houses, and my friends and I all knew where they were...but had been taught they were not toys...and would have had hell to pay if we got one and it wasn't an emergency.
I actually did not purchase a gun for myself till I was well out of college...I partied a lot, and just didn't want to risk having a party and one getting pulled out..etc. But, I grew up, and when I felt responsible enough to own one...I started buying. I have had carry concealed licenses in the past...don't have one now since a move..but, may get one. If I have kids, I'll be more cautious about them and all, but, will also teach my children gun safety, and how to respect them, much as my parents and my friends' parents did....
But, all that being said...not everyone should be a gun owner. It is a major responsibility...if you can't trust your kids..don't have them...if you have ANY doubts that if you have to pull a gun that you will shoot and shoot to kill...you do not need to have one. I've thought long and hard about this, and have taken safety courses, and regularly practice shooting...I like to think I'll know what I'll do if faced with the decision. You never know, but, I've mentally drilled myself on what I need to do. If someone is in my house, and threatening me, my friends, or someday, my family, I have no moral problem at all and emptying 16 shots into the assailent (sp?), and not checking the body till I've slapped another clip in....
It definitely is an individual decision, and not one to be taken lightly.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The problem with these old fashioned techniques is that not hitting record at the start of an incident will be against regulations. In that case starting a record session in the middle when there are cries of police brutality will be sure to get the jury to both get the prisoner off and also end the cop's career.
There are likely other ways to get around this (the fact that the cop has physical control of the hard drive sounds promising) but dirty cops will have to have an entirely new level of sophistication to get around the system.
In short it's going to clean things up for a while at a minimum.
The number of illegal and dangerous manouevres I see every week is significant, and I doubt that this is specific to where I live. I was pondering the idea of having a DVR like this and passing on recordings to the police (and volunteering as a witness to attest to the locations, times and accuracy of the recordings). It isn't going to happen any time soon, especially given that I'm going around on a bike not in a car, but maybe some time in the future it will be practical to fit DVRs to vehicles. The mere fact that they are commonplace would, I hope, act as a deterrent against the sort of crappy driving that people mostly get away with now. (Bad cyclists are another matter; without registration plates it's going to be hard to identify them. They're mostly a danger to themselves, though.)