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Thinking About the SnitchCam
Saint Aardvark writes "From Dan's Data comes a fascinating look at the consequences of tiny, wireless video cameras: "Right now, it's hard to prove that (for instance) riot police really beat the crap out of innocent people at a demonstration....Live streaming video from multiple cameras operated by lots of people at the same time, though, will be a different matter. Even without cryptographic jiggery-pokery, it'll be practically impossible to get away with even minor editing-room spin doctoring, if thousands of people around the world have the original footage on their hard drives." "
Between the need to keep myself safe from injustice by documenting/recording everything, and massive invasion of privacy by documenting/recording everything...
Can someone reason me out of this conundrum? Is there a way to have my cake and eat it too?
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
Hey cops get accused of things all the time. It seems to me these cameras might cut both ways.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is just some guys idea. A lot of people have ideas... what makes this one great enough that, say, Sony would start making the cameras he is suggestions?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Funny, a while back here in the UK there was a program about people who used tiny cameras which sent the image of credit card pins & numbers when put into an ATM back to a mobile sitting in a nearby street and I wondered how long it would be before I saw one used where I live..
Then last week, while walking through town at college I saw a swarm of police around an ATM machine with one of them holding those little camera strip things they put on ATM machines to look nicely inconspicuous while recording stuff.. Yeah they can be easily abused and it happens a lot, costs millions, but so can everything in the wrong hands, n they're cool
In Quebec City, 2001, I shot 3 hours of DV footage. People getting surrounded and beaten up. An elderly woman having a cannister of CS-555 lobbed at her. It did nothing. Some of the footage was even plyed on tv. I guess it's not brutality if no-one's bleeding, right?
-Leigh
When I was in London a couple years ago, I knew that I was on-camera everywhere I went and I felt safer. Part of that was because I knew that policemen were watching. I think that if I knew that the people watching and analyzing my behavior were just people with an axe of one type or another to grind, or goody-two-shoes types that want to force their morals on everyone, I'd feel less safe rather than more safe.
Curiouser and curiouser, and doubleplusbad, methinks.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
What's needed is the ability to take pictures or video, have it transmitted wirelessly to a trusted third party who can attest as to content and time stamp. (I've pondered this sort of system in vehicles, so that a driver could record a "Driving While Black" type incident, and be able to provide evidence to his attorney that would be more likely to stand up in a civil suit.)
Such a system would also require cameras that provide tamper-resistant digital signatures for each frame. This wouldn't make doctoring impossible, but should quiet some of the objections to this sort of evidence.
Also, last I checked the PATRIOT act is fairly limited in the other two regards you mentioned, especially for information stored or disseminated outside of US territorial borders.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
... it's shoking at the 1st time... it's somewhat disturbing at the 10th time... and it who gives a fuck at the 1000th time.
Just think of those footages you saw last time about children dying of hunger. Can you remember what did you do? Opened a new can of Coke?
Just a Random.idea
I hate to say it, but does "original footage" even *mean* anything any more? In the day where "Photoshop" is a verb, I posit that it doesn't. Not really. It just plunges us back into "he said, she said" expert-witness land, where, to a large extent, we already reside. The only people it will solidly convince will be those who took it -- and, since they were there to start with, that doesn't really accomplish much. As a means to catch your babysitter yapping on the phone, it'll be fine. For anything more than that, though, I wonder.
I sincerely doubt that it would be harder for the public to have access to evidentiary information if that info is privately gathered and spread across the Internet, no?
Have you missed all the news stories about servers being confiscated? Even those in countries other than the U.S.?
Also, last I checked the PATRIOT act is fairly limited in the other two regards you mentioned, especially for information stored or disseminated outside of US territorial borders.
Read it again......and weep. Then vote!
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
The only problem with tiny wireless cameras we face today is that some of the people can only see the negative consequences of their omnipresence, like industrial espionage, blackmail, or even worse, voyeurism, which while clearly controversial is not even nearly as important as the anti-fascist tasks described in the article. This very article, however, sadly fails to address those concerns, which might be percieved as a bias for those who are against such an intrusive technology and violation of privacy in the first place. In my opinion this article would be perfect if it didn't lack the arguments refuting the concerns I outlined. "Don't ask me what Sweeping Social Changes will be caused by such pervasive cameras; my ability to foresee techno-consequences stops at the certainty that it's a bad idea to let anyone called Brundle near a teleporter." This, I believe, is not enough to convince the sceptics.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
With apologizes to Dr. Stallman, I'd like to point out that information systems to which everyone has access to the information it manages/monitors/etc. are less prone to abuse by bureaucracies or governments. Take "red light cameras," for example. These are foisted on municpalities under the auspices of "public safety" (e.g. fewer red light runners, ergo fewer intersection accidents). However, since the operation of these systems is typically obfuscated, these systems invariably become nothing more than revenue generators. Yellow lights are shortened, in order to increase the "catch." Never mind that this "forces" people to "run the yellow" and thereby increase the likelihood that there will be a ROW-induced collision.
If everyone had some way to monitor exactly what these cameras saw, exactly how the lights were timed, etc. it would be dissected in public enough to prevent these sorts of scams. The same goes for "safety" cameras in public. If you saw exactly how much of an invasion of privacy a given camera amounted to, you would bet there would be fewer of them, and those that are allowed would better meet the specified purpose (instead of "once it's there, nobody will notice we're not looking just at what we said we were").
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
I was going to post about David Brin's book, and stopped to search to see if someone else had first. I'll add a few comments.
Brin's a smart guy. He starts with the premise that these technological tools are going to exist, are going to be cheap, and will be easy to use. It's hard to say he's wrong on these points. His thesis then, is it healthier in a society to restrict their use to government only, or to let everyone use them. Again, he's a smart guy and if your gut tells you that their use should be restricted, you should check out his arguments at least and see that they don't make some sense.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
Every part of the US government seems to have a decent amount of checks and balances except for our horrible law enforcement officers. It would be nice if video cameras were a lot smaller and higher quality (and on all of our cell phones with hours and hours of storage and battery life) so we could catch them in the act.
I live in a college city that has about five times (it seems) the normal amount of officers. There's too many police here so they get bored and find things to do.
I've seen police pick fights with drunk college students and the results are never pretty. Often times, the students are groaning but complying while the police are tapping people with batons, shoving them, yelling at them, and patting down anyone at random.
I've said this before on Slashdot, but I once had a buddy get arrested for resisting arrest - without any other charges. He merely resisted arrest even though he wasn't arrested for anything. Cops were breaking up a party and he was leaving and he said that they have no right to be there... and one cop grabbed him, threw him down hitting his chin and elbow on the pavement, and arrested him for resisting arrest.. The charges were eventually dropped but his chin has a scar now.
I was thrown up against a car once and patted down for 'an officer's safety' after I asked for his badge number multiple times when he refused to give it to me. He stopped us for going 45mph in a 45mph zone, though he said we were going 62mph but he didn't have it on radar.
The proliferation of these small cameras everywhere, though hurting privacy, will definitely help in combating crappy cops. I would have loved to have a camera at the last party I was at that got broken up.. I doubt forced entry is an acceptable method of breaking up a party.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Conspiratorial overtones aside... I mean, really, I gotta see this mythical Ashcroft League of Priapatetic Darkness (or whatever it may be called by the moveon.org crowd these days) bust into a server room in West Armpit, China and run off with the results of some guy's DV recordings before the public sees it...
Hint: It is literally impossible to stop information once it gets online and out to the public proper.
The German government tried the censorship route in 1996 over a shitty little online rag called Radikal, and they couldn't stop Germans from seeing it (or even slow 'em down by much), even back when the 'net was damned tiny compared to what it is today.
The Chinese, which do have a totalitarian government right now, can't even stop their own population from proxying and satelliting their way out beyond official governmental firewalls and seeing whatever they want. This is in spite of a government which does have (and exercises on an alarming basis) the power of life or death, freedom or imprisonment, over their citizenry.
Hell, there's a damned hard fight in keeping the frickin' child porners to a minimum, and there's no nation on Earth that endorses that stuff. What makes you think that the US gov't is any more efficient in stopping information that half the planet's leadership couldn't give a dried dog's turd about.
The PATRIOT Act is limited to US territory and any foreign country which agrees by treaty to help enforce it. The list of signatory nations ain't all that damned long.
So, please, lay off the wolf-crying. Gad.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Remember to VOTE!
For who? John Kerry voted for the Patriot act, as did every other senator save one. George Bush didn't veto it. This is just another issue where there's no difference between the candidates. The same plan for Iraq. No mention of the War on Drugs. Same gun control policy (Guns for hunters, not for militias). The differences in their health care plans will just shuffle a little money around amongst the richer folks.
John Kerry focuses on outsourcing when that is a miniscule percentage of jobs lost. John Kerry focuses on getting drugs from Canada, without asking why drugs here cost so much. It's all misdirection. George Bush is left as an exercize for the reader.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Who needed context for Rodney King?
The man was on the ground, surrounded by at least 4 cops, and was being kicked and hit with batons. I don't care what he did or said before that point. Really no I dont. He was on the ground and they continiued to hit him. They did not even try to cuff him or otherwise restrain him until they were done getting their jollies off.
Now if the tape showed him be hit to the ground with batons and immediatly one of the police jumped on top of him and restrained him and all other violence stopped... then we might talk about context leading up to that point. Thats not what happened. They continued to hit him after they should have stopped and moved to restraint.
Why they started hitting him is not important at that point.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Can you imagine if not one person voted in the upcoming election. Now that would make a difference. Seriously though, people push voting to no end.... I wonder why. And what if I dont like any of the candidates? or for that matter, the entire system of government?
This AC is spot on. Voting just lends legitimacy to an illegitimate system. If we had 100% turn out, that just gives the "winner" the opportunity to say "The people have spoken"
Just government rests on the consent of the governed. It's about time we withdrew that consent. Given that 50% of the population fails to vote in any election, I'd say we already have.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
In addition to tear gas, pepper bullets, sonic weapons and microwave beams, the riot police will in the near future use the slashdot effect to knock down any nearby wireless nodes. "Look at this cool page!" they will post, pointing to some poor activist's IP number. With wireless disabled, they will proceed to bust some heads.
And they'll do it time and time again without Timothy getting any wiser. Who notices dupes any more?
This wouldn't be too hard to do (in all seriousness), would it? Just flood the wireless frequencies with noise before calling in the Riot Squad... You can build that kind of gear from spare parts at Radio Shack and mount it in back of a van.
History does not record the forward leaps and bounds civilized society has made, nor the precipices from which it has been pulled, by the judiciously well-placed but otherwise private administration of a veteran law-officer's wooden stick.
For instance, consider the fine officers of Selma, AL and Seattle, WA.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Actually a better, far more realistic scenario...
Say you (or your sister) were a pregnant college girl walking in to get an abortion, and the local "right-to-life"thugs decided to video tape you and use that to identify and/or harass you.
Oh, you agree with the right-to-life thugs? Well what if the abortion clinic uses the same cameras to video tape and identify you and sends some pro-choice thugs over to firebomb your favorite church. Or gives the video to the police to "investigate" you.
Any technology is likely to be misused by people wanting to discredit, harass, or abuse their enemies.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
Much the same is already happening. In the olden days, if you recklessly blew through a red light, a cop would stop you, assess your intent and/or emotional state and make sure you didn't do it again. Nowadays, you can blow through ten lights in a row and get 10 citations in the mail two weeks later. This hardly discourages incorrect behavior.
In his novel Earth he described the effect
retirees with nothing better to do
had on petty street crime has they
walked around with their "TruVues" on which
wirelessly spool video to storage on central
servers. Would be criminals just simply didn't
bother, and elders knew they were untouchable.
That's horseshit. The vast majority of those that don't vote do so because they are too damned lazy to either a.) get their asses to the polls or b.) educate themselves enough on the issues to be able to make an informed decision. Only a small fraction of those who abstain from voting do so based on some ill-conceived moral perogative to not "lend legitimacy to an illegitimate system."
-Matt
Duke '05
Dude. Seriously. "I couldn't get to the poll?" I bet in school your dog ate your homework.
Register as a permanent absentee voter - you vote on your time, you mail the vote in (or drop it off at the county) and you avoid last-minute crap like people reregistering you in a different precinct.
If voting ain't a personal priority, that's your deal. But if you don't vote, then it's not, "because I had to work late," it's because you're a lazy bastard. Own it.
Oh, go on, check out my job.
It would discourage me from blowing through red lights. It wouldn't stop me from blowing through lights 2-10, but when I got those tickets, I don't think I would ever do it again.
You could always move to place with a different form of government. Why don't you try a middle eastern Muslm controlled country? Of course if you are not Muslim you would be arrested(worse?) if they found you worshiping a non muslim god. How about Cuba? That's different. I hope you don't like expressing this type of anti-establishment rhetoric in public, because Fidel would have you locked up(or worse) and throw away the key.
Or maybe you'll just have to stay where you are with all your freedoms that others have provided for you with their lives and hold your nose in disgust.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
The theory goes, if they cover or turn off the camera and someone makes an allegation, the cops look guilty already and the accusation gets heard, instead of the coppers all giving the same story.
Good idea and it's sure to happen with continued advances in available/affordable technology. but I suspect those things would need to be made very rugged, else they would "fail to work" and "have technical problems" quite often. Not that I would ever accuse one of Our Finest of anything...
Actually, similar things have already happened with the video cameras used in many police cars. And of course the footage does double duty for TV shows such as "Worlds Worst Polica Chase Videos" or whatever they're called.
Tag lost or not installed.
Not voting means elections are decided by people who are not you. If everyone insightful enough to perceive flaws in the electoral system doesn't vote, you get a government elected by the dumbest, most apathetic, least observant, and most single-minded.
If you don't like the system--and sure, there's plenty not to like--then agitate to change it. There are many sensible ways to do this. Abdicating your right to be heard isn't one of them.
I should buy some cement.
I seriously wish the seattle police woulda done even more. I cheered them when I read the paper the next day. Even though the article tried to make it out as something bad.
Well they did go apeshit on a bunch of mostly peaceful protesters instead of arresting the violent ones like they did the previous time. I was in Seattle when it was happening. I wonder how many of the violent protestors were planted by the cops - it seems to be increasingly common.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
> I wonder how many of the violent protestors were planted by the cops - it seems to be increasingly common.
It's not more common at all, there's just been a bit of a gap since they last had to do it. The police (and other agencies) used to regularly plant provocateurs in the demonstrations against the Great Military Adventure in Vietnam 35 years ago.
What a long, strange trip it's been.