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Camera Watch: Links to Public Webcams
Mikkeles writes "From an Associated Press story: 'It sounds like a chapter out of "Spy vs. Spy": Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have launched a project called Camera Watch that lists Internet cameras that monitor public spaces, letting Web surfers try the role of bored security guard.' The site permits searching for an available webcam in the geographical region (US) of your choice. About 600 webcams of 6000 in the pipe are now available."
Webcams let surfers play security guard
m watch -- notes that a few of the "jail cams" had been disabled due to lawsuits
Associated Press
NEW YORK -- It sounds like a chapter out of "Spy vs. Spy": Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have launched a project called Camera Watch that lists Internet cameras that monitor public spaces, letting Web surfers try the role of bored security guard.
The project is part of "Surveillance of Surveillances," an effort by the school's Data Privacy Lab to monitor the exploding number of cameras watching the public. The group hopes to learn enough to propose policies to govern the cameras' use.
The lab is in the process of posting links to 6,000 of the estimated 10,000 public Web cams in the United States.
The site includes everything from gray stills of traffic in Rockville, Md., to video of students meandering across a campus in Washington D.C. and even lenses peeping on jail buttfuckings in Tennessee and Louisiana.
The site -- http://privacy.cs.cmu.edu/dataprivacy/projects/ca
if we have a lot of these at movie theaters, airport queues, and wherever else there might be congestion, people can adjust their travel behavior accordingly.
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
sounds like a chapter out of "Spy vs. Spy"
Sounds more like 1984 to me.
I like to use the World View of Live Webcams to get my voyeuristic fix. It's kept fairly up to date, and has hundreds of cams.
....they were slashdotted within seconds. But seriously, how would you handle a DoS on a network of webcams? Anything over the internet is reliable enough for security monitoring given attacks like DoS/DDoS?
pfft. that was quick.
No.
The site -- http://privacy.cs.cmu.edu/dataprivacy/projects/cam watch -- notes that a few of the "jail cams" had been disabled due to lawsuits.
We don't want to let you see what happens in a jail. We do want to keep an eye on you so we can more easily put you in one.
I let my distant family keep an eye on my surroundings with them. They can check out the weather, etc.
...on http://www.e-sheep.com
Look at the story called 'spiders', the one about al quaida.
(Forgive me, it's early, haven't had coffee...not EVEN gonna try a link...so just cut n' paste).
Don't park drunk, accidents cause people.
Finally, I can see watch how boring other people's lives are for free! The internet? They still have that?
Truly a concept that has crossed every 't' and dotted every slash. Mirror anyone?
I'm pretty sure I heard about something just like this a few weeks ago. Was it just a proposal for this project or someone else doing the same thing? Anybody?
Something distinct that people will remember better than my name
I don't want to see the US, give me a cam in the red light district in over in Amsterdam that pans.
I think Fox is gonna license the camera footage as a new reality tv series "World's most exciting random camera footage."
www.google.com
I'm concerned that;
if a webcam gets slashdotted, will it lock up? - until some technician shows up and reboots/powercycles it?
Privacy begins with
We interupt this program to bring you a special announcement.
... Film at 11.
Users from the hacker website 'slashdot.org' today attacked an brought down the nation's super-duper internet monitoring system. Hacker's by the name of 'Hemos' and 'CmdrTaco' are said to be in FBI custody
The Anti-Blog
Something tells me that the following quote has been changed from the original story.
'even lenses peeping on jail buttfuckings in Tennessee and Louisiana.'
I wonder how they'll police this? Honestly, I think it's a good idea in theory, like especially when dealing with troublesome intersections that cause frequent accidents. Having the public watch the cams and call in accidents as soon as they happen could be a *very* good thing. But the problem is that you'd need someone to police the people viewing the cams to make sure that if they acted on what they saw (or think they saw) that it was a real and legitimate problem.
Or maybe I'm just misunderstanding the article. I guess that at first read through, "the role of bored security guard" makes it sound like you'll watch the cameras instead of the guards, but I guess that you could be watching them in addition to the guards/security that normally view them.
But if THAT is the case, then I guess this brings up the question, is this then just for entertainment value? You know it's a sad but true fact of life that if people saw something bad that happened, they'd just be like "oh, that sucks" or laugh or whatever, and then go on with life just being glad that it wasn't them.
-Through the server, over the router, off the firewall... Nothing but 'Net!
The Camera Watch project is part of our Surveillance of Surveillances ( SOS) effort. We are constructing a repository of links to publicly available on-line webcams, where the webcams of interest are those that observe the public in public spaces. At present, we estimate there are about 10,000 such cameras displaying public places in the United States. Our goals are to assess the number and nature of such cameras, explore potential uses, and analyze and propose related policies and best practices.
Our database is just being launched. The current edition of the database has only a few hundred direct links to cameras with about 6,000 links currently queued for processing. We expect to have these included in the database over the next weeks.
You can search the database for a camera or submit a link to a camera for inclusion in the database.
Wow, 6,000 camera links queued for processing. They should write a bot to check the links for up-time-ness and verification.
I have 2 routes I can take to work. If my normal route, the fast highway is clogged up because of an accident or bad weather, I can take the normally somewhat slower alternate route. Gotta love technology.
Whats funny is when there is an accident, the operators zoom in with the cameras so you can see the damage up close LOL
I remember that there was another site a while back on slashdot that was planning on paying people to watch webcams like this. Anybody remember the site. I can't find it with /.'s terrible search engine or google's.
"Men lie."
"Yeah, about sleeping with other women, but never about bioluminescent plankton."
-Dan Brown
Can I yell "You Kids! No running in the goddam mall" remotely?
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
.... watch public places sitting in a cybercafe or from the hills of Afghanistan!!!
It's like millions of cams were used at once, and then suddenly silenced... by slashdot.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
We can only hope the rest of the cameras follow suit...
See, now you have good reason to stay inside and read Slashdot 24/7...
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Technology: another prayer answered.
down the street from me to see if the bus is coming. I wonder if MUNI is up on this-- the pilot program for tracking buses seems to have fizzled out...
here is my webcam.... /. me
http://gorbycam.camarades.com/
watch my cats sleep
I discovered this a short while ago myself, and was surprised to find one within just half a mile of my own home, just off a street on my regular commute. I come within a hair's breadth of appearing on camera every morning, and I never knew it.
I keep a couple locations on shortcuts, and sometimes I check out the sunrise in other states over my morning coffee.
Anyone want to post some ASCII art of the webcams?
It lists 600 webcams? More like 404 right now...
Sailing over the event horizon
0 to /. in 8 minutes.
But I don't think there are any wannabe security guards.
I've known some security guards in the past, they were all aspiring cops or FBI guys. Some of the stupidest folks I've ever had the misfortune of meeting.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Too bad there isn't a webcam on their server, so we could all watch it go up in smoke live.
Do not read this sig.
Whats funny is when there is an accident...
What's funnier is that you live so far away from where you spend the majority of your waking week that you use an automobile, the internet, and "alternate routes" just to get there.
If I can suggest a non-technical solution... Move closer to work or bring your work closer to you. You'll have more free time to surf porn before walking or cycling to work.
Gotta love technology in the hands of the clueless.
The webcam site is slashdotted. Can someone with adequate bandwidth put up webcams in the same 600 locations and broadcast? Thank you.
Anyone in London remember this creepy campaign
No, it would cause oscillation behaviour.
If all people look at the line and it's full, nobody goes there and now it's empty, so everyone goes there. Repeat as many times as desired.
This is why no routing algorithm takes in account queue length.
About 600 webcams of 6000 in the pipe are now available. /. effect.
And, of course now that this has been announced on Slashdot, within the next half-hour, there might be only 10% of those 600 that survived the
Karma: NaN
Sounds more like David Brin's Transparent Society. The difference is that here you are potentially watched by anyone at all, in 1984 you are potentially watched by a small group of people who control the cameras.
This is not a bad thing. David Brin actually discusses this in depth in his book Transparent Society."
A person watching the camera is no different than a person standing on the street corner watching people go by. Well there si a difference: the person watching on the web is a witness wwho cannot be intimidated into silence, and nobody knows if they are being watched in that public space.
I don't fear the loss of privacy, because there is no privacy in public spaces. I do like the idea that any would be wrongdoer does not know whether he is being watched or not.
Someone here maintains a pretty good list of webcams on campus. There a few cams that I go past every single day and I never knew they were there. Same being said for the computer lab cameras. I always thought they were for security, and not being broadcast over the net
Posting a link on slashdot to a page that has links to a huge amount of the world's (public-sphere-invading big-brother) web cams is a great way to help prevent those cameras from being used.
Woohoo!
report a neighbor!
After all, judge ruled up-skirt cams are legal. Anyone want an up-skirt cam?
I need to get together some friends and stage muggings/beatings/hit and runs/etc in front of local camaras.
... seeing how many different cameras you can flash or moon. Others will be trying to post pictures of everyone flashing or mooning the cameras!
What? I'm bored, leave me alone.
"Understand you're having a little Jimmy Page trouble."
How many of you clicked on "Beach or Ocean View"?
And just what were you planning to surveil? : )
---------------------------------------------
SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
...
One of the reasons I was told that a webcam may not go over well at the college I work at is the question of "If it can be monitored, is there an obligation to monitor it?"
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
The Camera Watch project is part of our Surveillance of Surveillances ( SOS) effort. We are constructing a repository of links to publicly available on-line webcams, where the webcams of interest are those that observe the public in public spaces. At present, we estimate there are about 10,000 such cameras displaying public places in the United States. Our goals are to assess the number and nature of such cameras, explore potential uses, and analyze and propose related policies and best practices.
I don't usually like to downplay a research project without hearing it through, and/or talking with the project members, but I'm going to make an exception this time.
From the project page, it looks like a lot of valuable time and resources are being wasted on reinventing the wheel. Many databases of online webcams already exist. EarthCam is just one of them. This is another, as was posted in an earlier comment.
Moreover, surveillance cameras act as deterrents for a reason: their presence. A would be criminal is less likely to commit a crime, if he/she knows that a camera is watching/recording his/her moves. Then it doesn't matter if somebody is actually watching the video, or whether it is being recorded for later auditing, or neither. This is the reason why you see " Warning Surveillance Cameras in USE" Notices at many gas stations/etc. It doesn't really matter whether the camera is being watched or not.
Concealed surveillance cameras on the other hand, are meant to actually catch criminals instead of acting as deterrents. They usually require action on part of the surveillance team in order to identify criminals, or even detect suspicious activity in the first place. To prove useful, such a camera would require constant/reliable monitoring, for which dedicated teams are hired anyway. People would not want to depend on a random number of remote users to monitor such camers.
So, to end the rant, I think the concept of using webcams for any purpose other than entertainment/traffic monitoring etc is inherently flawed, and hence QED.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
"Ass to ass! Ass to ass!"
I can't even sit through an episode of OZ.
~~I went to battle M.C. Escher, but drew a blank...~~
thus my moniker, circletimessquare
;-P
everyone go to camera #3343
that's me in the red shirt by the lightpole waving
hi everyone!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm not familiar with Amsterdam and there's a lot of sections in that site. Could you link to the hoochie momma sections?
Security guard? Maybe a collectively blind one. Ten thousand people looking at the same blurry, 10fps image isn't very helpful, at least not for identifying people. Most public cams are so lo-res and slow that unless we can get the crooks to move in slow motion and put their faces to the lens for a seconds, it's going to be limited to "hey, there's someone there, wearing something red, I think. Or maybe it's an Irish Setter, or a tomato."
As usual then, it's all about the bandwidth. High-res cameras with 30fps minimum, swivel and zoom controls, and why not toss in sound? Then maybe you've got something. That something would still be a privacy catastrophe, but at least it would be a crisp, interactive privacy catastrophe.
% grep "women\'s dorm" camwatch.htm
%
Darn.
I love technology, what else could have turned a programmer into a p0rn*
Thanks / .
...but I see a wonderful opportunity for all sorts of shocking pranks and behaviour ^_^
Machine9dotNet
Since I'm starting grad classes at RU.
Doesn't seem to work this semester.
I really wish they had a Palm PQA version I could use with my Kyocera Smartphone to figure out of the C bus driver was taking another one of his hourly crack breaks.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I'm not so sure I care about public webcams. I'd like to see webcams focused on our public sector. Services like Police, Fire, City, State, and Fed. employees should be monitored at random. Screw letting the government watch us, let's watch them!
If the govt. is so ancy to be watchdogs of the private citizens in our world, we should have the opportunity to be watchdogs for these organizations at our whim.
I think that civil rights violations would go down. Police are crooked wannabe thugs anyway. Tax money would be spent more efficiently. Govt. employees are lazy.
The unfortunate downside of this is that we have CSPAN in the US and our politicians are still crooked punks trying to sneak crappy laws by us everyday.
I wish my sig link were broken so I had an excuse to manually craft a sig everytime...
"As a college student with money... or with parents who have money"
I can't complain, as I wasn't bad off thanks to family help too, but a lot of my friends in college are just making it by with a job, student loans, and an often-bar refrigerator.
Prisoners lose a lot of their luxeries... but remember for f*ck sakes that they're in there for a reason, and part of that is punishment (also protection of society, etc). They lose a lot in freedom, but at least they're ensured a decent meal.
I think this fits cause a store is a privately owned place with public access. I recently installed a system with 4 panning cameras in an antique store that was having very bad shoplifting problems. There is a monitor in plain view of people entering as well as tape recording and streaming via a web server. The shoplifting instantly stopped. Motion detectors autodial the 2 owners via wireless cell at night in case of a break in and they can instantly view activity inside the store via the Web. A UPS powers the system (including illumination) in case of electrical failure. Not entertaining but very useful. And a way cool project :-)
This sounds like a perfect example of a site you would expect to be filled with dead links in about 8 months. This is espescially so as it is coming from a university and is therefore likely tied to some sort of research grant which will eventually run out leaving nobody paid to maintain the database....
Come play Moral Decay!
I don't have the time to watch all these webcams
individually. Can't these guys watch
all the cameras for me, concurrently, and just show
me the most statistically significant pixels?
Or perhaps "Gee, we can strike here! No one is watching except geeks!"
BWAHAHAHAHA!!!
Yeah, that'll work.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Now we'll finally know how Billy gets straight A's with Ms. Schmoe..
Which cam is in the womens change room? ;-)
That plumber's van has been in front of our house for a long time.... I didn't even know the plumbing was broken! Call me clueless! At least this public camera is clueing me in!
We need a network of webcams so geeks can watch other geeks watch geeks! Where do I sign up?!? ;)
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
Search Results Perform another SEARCH or a SUBMIT Error Running HTX File: file://camsx/camfind1.htx Database error: [S1001][Microsoft][ODBC Microsoft Access Driver] System resource exceeded.
I think that any camera that observes the public should be part of the public domain.
The prime benefit is the ability to monitor police activities. It would just be an equitable way of distributing the freedom to observe. There is no way to stop the proliferation of cameras and the inherent undermining of personal freedom other than to open all the cameras to everyone. This of course would require an act of congress but what the hell we can dream right?
Four hours later and the site is still dead. LOL
Anyway this is a re-hash and old news.
I know i'm late on this post, but I wrote a program that lets Win98+ have a live background w/webcams. I have some great cams listed too. Pretty nice to checkout if you have the time.
Live Background Program for 98/ME/2k/XP
Enjoy!
The world's population is six billion and rising exponentially... Every human has two eyes.. Technology allows humans to see many things and many people at once.. People are getting more and more paranoid about things.. So does this mean that one day all privacy will be gone when we hit critial mass?
Try not to let life get in the way of living.
So here is my idea:
Could one collect the information streaming from these cameras and use it as a source for random number generation? Over a large number of Webcams the rate of information change must be huge. At any given point you could also single out darkened cams and use their CCD noise too. Doesn't sound too difficult to do (for someone else, someone with brains that is). How would this compare to typing randomly and jiggling my mouse as a source of random numbers?
If you outlaw the law, only criminals will have laws
this is a bad idea. Spying on people for the sake of an "expiriment" is nothing more than thinly vailed invasion of privacy.
MMORPG Fan? Prove your worth!
I live in Glasgow and we have CCTV cameras throughout the city centre (and quite a bit beyond), checking on us all the time and making us think harder about behaving nicely. If I could see what the folks monitoring the systems could see, I'd be a lot happier about the surveillance.
Making all the CCTVs in a city centre webcams is the answer to "Who watches the watchers?" We do. If the naughty guard is zooming in on the booty shots or looking in folks windows we can check the time, report it directly, and get them the disciplining they need. It'd be a balance to the one-sided oppressive feeling the current systems engender. I wouldn't need any sort of control over where they were pointed, just being able to check out (whenever I felt like it) what they were watching would be good enough for me.
It'd bring folks back to the city centre here, too. When they realise how boring it is these days. And they can see the lack of anything happening from the comfort of their desk.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
if you catch people kissing
20 if they're both gals
When I lived in Seattle in teh mid '90s we used to do this.
The transportation department setup monitors that showed the rate of movement of traffic, and displayed the route across the bridge from Bellvue to Seattle (520 IRRC) - it would show green dots or red dots depending on the speed of traffic, and you could use a couple of cameras along the route as well to see how traffic was.
No article on webcams would be complete without mentioning the coffeecam, arguably the world's first webcam.
It came online in November 1993 (the camera was actually put in service late 1991) but sadly, monitored its last pot of coffee on 22 Aug 2001.
R.I.P., Number One.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
are here :
Cam Girls Live
Directsex Live
Seventeen Live
The original intention of most of these cameras was, indeed, to provide a tool to evaluate traffic congestion (at least, this is what I saw from the links to Pittsburgh cameras). The University of Pittsburgh has had the live cameras for a long time, too, with the cool addition that useras can control the camera. The first time I saw this at Pitt was about four years ago. And now, these guys at CMU are taking the credit for putting all those links together in a webpage and claiming they're developing a "Surveillance of Surveillances' system"... easy, when the hard work of installing and maintaining the cameras has been (is) done by others... (sigh)
would be neat if we could take the times square video, and set it as desktop background :)
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
How about this for a sig? "Ten months since unemployment; please feed me? Just look for the guy with a cardboard sign, printed from a nice laser printer." A hint: the typesetting will be perfect.