Slashdot Mirror
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."
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?
An interesting concept, but no.. what they're pointing out is that the video would be run ALL THE TIME, and discarded after 5 minutes. When the cop presses "record" the machine would save the video from 5 minutes before the record button was pressed in addition to all the current video until the "stop recording" command is sent.
Just gotta remember my EMP when driving about.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
It means that video is continuously recorded, with the oldest video overwritten, and that when you press "record", you don't really start recording. Instead, you just mark a spot in the video stream, and the software takes the time three (or five) minutes previously as the "start" time. Those video bits wouldn't then get recycled.
Makes sense. You're only going to hit "record" after figuring out something interesting is going on, and you can't hit the button immediately.
"...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
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 ----
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.
"cops" will now be in high definition. will they record the busts in surround sound too?
The cool part is with 5 channel audio, when they bust a skull with a night stick, it will sound JUST like they are in your living room!
Gives "Reality TV" new meaning.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
"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.
You...doing shit you didn't.
No, Vern. They just let him in.
Why not put in a HDD big enough for a WHOLE shift? Then make the drives external and changeable, at the start of a shift the cops insert the drive. It records the whole shift (including all radio traffic). At the end of the shift the WHOLE thing is stored somewhere. This could be seen as a bit of envasion of privacy, but could also protect them in court. There's no way that could really "edit" the tape with it showing.
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.
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.