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Britain to log all vehicle movement
dubbayu_d_40 writes "Using a network of cameras that can record license plates, Britain plans to build a database of vehicle movement for police and security services: rollout begins in March. Can't someone just swap/steal/disable the tracking device? Seems to me just another way to track the average citizen and not those wishing to avoid authorities."
It is only targeted at law abiding citizens.
Between this and data retention they are going to know about everyone we contact and everywhere we go. It would be different if this was only to be used for finding stolen cars or tracking known criminals but they plan on monitoring everyone.
It seems like we are getting closer and closer to that futuristic dystopia and it scares the hell out of me.
That cuts it, I'm moving to America!
I would be interested to see an impact study of this in a couple of years.
I'll guess it'll show to be effective against common crimes, but little else.
I'm opposed to police state measures. I'm not afraid and I see little reason for anyone to be afraid. You have a much better chance of winning the lottery than being killed by terrorism.
The fascists are playing on people's unjustified fears.
Who will guard the guards?
I have never seen a story where tinfoil hats were so neccesary, and so useless.
:-(
Good bye privacy.
I'd just like to point out that anybody wishing to drive dodgy vehicles around the Trafford Centre's car parks, should be more careful -because they have these cameras too. They look like tannoy horns, and are i think on most entrances to Manchester city centre!! -these things have been in place for a while now.
Britan has long had the world's largest CCTV surveillance system. It has failed to prevent crime, though helped catch criminals. This will likely be the same way. My intuition is to say the costs, including to civil liberties, will outweigh the benefits, but considering that Britain is on the new front lines of Islamic Extremism, this may be worth it. Tracking associations is key in fighting organized crime, such as terrorism.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Steal the tracking device...what tracking device? They plan to use cameras, which will record the plates of passing cars. You submitted the article, but didn't read it?
What I found most inane was the notion that a vehicle traveling near another vehicle of interest can be incriminated by association. How did they ever come up with THAT idea?
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Like, how hard would it be for a "terrorist" to get fake licence plates and stick them on a car?
No sig today...
Logging might actually feed the police with false information: I mean it's not a hard to make replicas of plates belonging to someone else... someone with the same kind of car.
That way the terrorists or whatever can actually use the system against the police
So now I'm asking, why put this system up in the first place... only to scare people into quiet submission? Seems that way to me...
sig?
They also plan on using this setup to catch speeders. The time it takes to move between cameras can tell exactly how fast you're going.
Surveillance like this is not bad with the proper checks and balances on access to the data and how it is used. But those checks can erode. Sure the data may not be abused this year or the next, but what about 20 years from now, or 100? Can we really be so certain that our democratic institutions will hold together? Sure, today's leaders might have our trust (barely), but how can we possibly put trust in people who aren't even in power yet?
I, for one, am worried about the world my 3-year-old will come to know.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
And you'll be fine.
Vote Quimby!
I fail to see how this is any worse than, say, a bunch of Americans voluntarily buying vehicles equipped with OnStar that tracks your vechile's movements pretty well by means potentially more insidious than cameras.
Any chance of getting this law to go in a more benign direction? If there's going to be all these cameras anyway, might as well see if the data they pick up can be made public so that abuse of the data is reduced. Gaak. Crazy times we live in!
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
It's always refreshing to be reminded that there are still places that hold privacy in lower regard than America. But how long until we follow in Britain's footsteps?
In all seriousness, I am fine with having cameras tracking my car (assuming it was adopted in America). The only argument I'd give is that it's against our rights, but I have no personal attachment to the position of my car. In fact, I'd LOVE it a criminal stole my car and was brought down only a few miles away because these cameras were able to quickly identify the position of it. Also, I'd like to insert a cliche: I've got nothing to hide.
I fail to see how this is any worse than, say, a bunch of Americans voluntarily buying vehicles equipped with OnStar
Key word: "voluntarily"
No sig today...
Can't someone just swap/steal/disable the tracking device?
Maybe the article submitter should read TFA before he submits it? There is no "tracking device", the cameras recognize ordinary license plates.
...when the President of the United States has just admitted to authorizing his administration to break the law on at least three dozen separate occasions, thereby repeatedly and flagrantly violating his oath of office, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court's interpretation of such?
...when the Vice President of the United States has declared that his office, and the office of the President, are entitled to ignore laws it finds inconvenient? Even laws specifically written to check their authority?
Why is there not more outrage? Why are impeachment proceedings not beginning this very moment?
Where the fuck did my country go?
transfered data rate for 1 vehicle = 300kbps
so for 10 million
data rate = (10000000 * 300) / (1000 * 1000 ) gbps = 3000gbps = 3.65 GB/sec
What kind of network infrastructure do you think is needed ?
I think they are out of their minds to even think of doing this. They can very well have police man on every block running after the vehicals instead.
we'd be fine.
Do we get those fascist ideas from Britian, or do they get them from us? Its like we're in some sort of private competition with them or something.
(scene of darkened interrogation room date is February 30, 2011)
authoritarian voice over loud speaker: 671476! on march 3, 2006 your vehicle was observed crossing the San Francisco Bay Bridge. There were 2 people in the vehicle. Who was the other person and where were you going?
subject: WTF? Whois 671476? My name is rodgster. I have no idea what the F@$& you're talking about. That was 5 years ago.
authoritarian voice over loud speaker: 671476, don't play games with us. Our records go back even further.
subject: come on! I don't remember what I had for lunch last week.
authoritarian voice over loud speaker: 671476, maybe you'd like to see the in-car surveillance? Would that refresh your memory?
-video clip plays-
subject: hey that's me and my girlfriend (in my bedroom)! That's it! I know my rights! I demand to be told what I am being held for! I demand to see my lawyer right now!
authoritarian voice over loud speaker: sit down! 671476, you have no rights anymore. Now, if you continue to be uncooperative we have some openings down in Gitmo.
Who will guard the guards?
can't find a link, but wasn't there some nifty device constructed recently to sense and then blind CCD imagers? something about using it in movie theaters to stop piracy, etc. I wonder if such a toy could be outfitted to a car to blind the traffic camera's, assuming they're digital.
This story broke a few days after Pc Beshenivsky was shot and killed in Bradford W Yorkshire, and the police claimed to use new technology to track the get away car. This was the new technology that just happened to be on trial in Bradford and certain areas in London.....
Coincidence????
An interesting quirk of UK law is that you can restest a copy of all CCTV footage of you.
In London's ring of steel and also at ports, been done for years now, they even have it mounted inside police cars. Nothing to see here move along.
Can't someone just swap/steal/disable the tracking device? Seems to me just another way to track the average citizen and not those wishing to avoid authorities."
In this case, the "tracking device" is the license plate, which is tracked with a large network of cameras. So the short answer to your first question would be "yes", and the answer to your second question would also be "yes".
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I read through the article, and I had a deja-vu experience, where Brave New World and Minority Report both came into my thoughts at the same time. Strange.
Anyway, I was thinking that if a system like this was ever successfully used as evidence in court, that would be the tipping point; after that, it would be an all-out hackfest. Lots of people, for a whole host of different reasons, would want to have the ability to "plant" false data in this system, to later be used as evidence against other people that they wanted to frame.
Remind me to take a taxi or bus wherever I go, if this system ever comes to Canada.
When a police woman was recently shot dead in Bradford, the gang who were responsible had bullied a man into hiring a car in his name. The man went to the police before the murder had been committed, but the police just filed his complaint and didn't link it to the murder until too late.
The car was tracked on the camera network (it already partly works), but as it had been hired in his name the police arrested him instead of hunting down the gang.
As this network becomes more widely known, this is going to become more common - gangs will bully and blackmail people with no criminal record into hiring cars, and may even, to prevent them going to the policeabduct or kill them.
And, of course, criminals will habitually carry several sets of false number plates, so that they can change the 'identity' of their vehicle several times in the course of a journey.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
In britain, at least they are being up front with what is happening. Here, we have a treasonase president that lies, yet complaigns about the person(s) that told the media that he was lieing and spying. Go figure.
England has come up with a lot of things that have been copied and implemented everywhere - experiments with anarchy, revolutions, modern armed forces, postal system, police system, metros, special forces, mixed economy, wearing flags as underwear, etc. how soon does the rest of the world catch this?
Manojar - pronounced like Manager
In Bath, in the South West of England http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=bath, they are already using a system like this. 30+ cameras read your number plate as you drive around the city. A computer checks your number plate against a database and if you have no insurance, MOT or tax, a policeman on a motorbike is dispatched and you are pulled over for a game of twenty questions.
Having been caught myself once for having no MOT, I am pleased about this new system. The government suggests there are 1 in 10 drivers drive who illegally in the UK. I thought I could get away with it as the odds of getting away with it seemed good. Maybe everyone will pay their way now.
The theft of number plates is likely to rise as a result of this new system. Using stolen number plates for stealing petrol and avoiding congestion charges is already on the up.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
are these thousands of cameras going to be monitored? Is this part of the national healthcare plan for dealing with the disabled, just hire them as "security personnel" and have them watch TV all day until something explodes? I could totally do that job, if I had a laptop and a good wifi connection...
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
So yes, you want to break into a system built by competent people, and photoshop the same car into 500 video feeds without detection? 'cause, you know, good luck with that.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
operation designed to drive criminals off the road.
Errr, I think they meant operation designed to make criminals steal more cars.Like tinyurl, but one letter less! http://qurl.co.uk/
Some mod marked this guy as flamebait when it definately isnt, he brings up some good points though i disagree with him about it might be worth it.
Yes
0 05&NewsID=64
y /vrm_security.htm
from http://www.aatrust.com/index.asp?PageID=31&Year=2
Last year, in the 26 UK police forces that now record the crime, there were 14,176 confirmed thefts of number-plates. Up to one in 250 vehicles may be entering the London congestion charge zone on false number-plates and more than £14 million is lost annually by petrol stations from drive-offs, mostly involving cloned cars.
To counter this it looks like that the British government is looking at RFID tags in numberplates
from http://www.dvla.gov.uk/public/consult/vrm_securit
(i) Electronic tagging has the potential to provide the most reliable method of preventing the misrepresentation of a vehicle's identity through the display on its number plate of the registration mark of another vehicle ie "ringing" or "cloning."
slashnik
Everytime one of these "big brother" posts hits slashdot, I provide a link to perhaps the single most insightful article I've seen on this subject: the "Transparent Society".
Written some 10 years ago, it laid out, for the first time, the actual problem with the non-private, cameras-are-everywhere society, and what we, as people can and should demand to keep the powers in check.
If you've not read this seminal work, I strongly recommend that you do so!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Criminals use the train/Bus network for their nefarious activities and have done for years.
The government have been building this database for several years now. Its illegal to own a car and not have it taxed even if its off the road. (it is free if you declare it off road). They now have a pretty much complete database of every vehicle in the UK. the owners details and insurance, tax status and the ability to read from the number plates.
Which is complete overkill to catch a few tax dodgers.
So donning my tin-foil hat...
This is actually about road-tolls. I think the government realised some time back that GPS tracking would never work. however set these bad boys up and down the major roads of Great Britain and you've instantly got a shiny new tax revenue system. I truly hope I'm wrong on this but I can't any other reason why the government would have spent what must have been a huge amount of cash to get this system to work.
Our society is addicted to data but can't handle it. The boss asks for a report on company revenue so someone gives him a report of sum(register_cash_float) and incorrect assumptions get made. Major corporations are the worst. Their databases become stagnant over time, and innocent people suffer because the workers have no option but to trust what is on the computer screen. All is not lost though! Your 3 year old is growing up in a digital world. They will learn skills that you have no comprehension of, and will shape the world as they see fit (unfortunately not as you see fit). Then we can all explore space in peace and harmony.
In the event of my death, I wish to donate my Karma.
Sorry it is already live and working.
99% of police, law enforcement officials and judges are honorable people, at least when they enter the profession. The possibility of corruption and injustice, however, is huge. That's why we have open courts in most Western countries. An official's sense of honor and fairness is our first and best line of defense against injustice but it can't be our only. Allowing the public to see how the government treats its citizens can confirm fair justice is being done. While, sites like TheSmokingGun.com that take people's personal problems and turn them in to enteraining human misery, are deplorable, perhaps more deplorable is what might happen if all court cases were closed. How would we know if equal justice was occuring? We wouldn't.
I certainly don't want my fellow citizen's watching me drive to work, or go to the grocery store; just as I don't want my fellow citizen's reading about my embarrasing run in with the law. But the only way to prove to the citizenry that I got treated fairly by the courts is to make sure its open to all to see.
I suppose this will have to be the same for CCTV in the future, lest some people are monitored by the police and prosecuted over every infraction, and others are allowed to commit infractions with impunity.
Thomas Jefferson When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
The answer to this is of course to get a SUV and a can of spray-on mud! The SUV establishes the bona-fides that you actually were out in the mud off-road somewhere, and the mud just happens to coincidentially (ahem!) obscure your number plate.
An interesting fact known to many bikers is that the current fine for not displaying a licence plate on a vehicle is only £20. Also, since it's a 'Construction and Use' offence and not a driving offence it doesn't add any penalty points to your driving licence. So if you're a biker going out for a blast take off the licence plate, stick it in your back pack, and "it fell off" should you get stopped by the police.
How, would the deliver that though? Do you have to tell them where you were, what cameras saw you?
Instead of going for the outright conspiracy theory, consider that authorities were just waiting for the right opportunity to spring their plan into action. If there's a high profile shooting, roll out the surveillance...
I'm sure some of this went on with 9/11 - if there's a terrorist attack, roll out freedom limiting changes to the law, attack Iraq, etc...
Anyone know who I complain to? This is outright ridiclous and I want to bitch and shout about it as much as possible to all the right people.
So these right people are..?
I like muppets.
Put an infrared lamp on each side of licence plates and all that the cameras will see is a blank white area, as they register this wavelength of light. Done.
This country is heading down the paralysis by analysis route.
Studys of such constituent parts and their interrelationships in making a mockery of Democrazy opps Democracy and are human/civil right/left's
One English man seeking refuge, and takers ?
MOT (originally Ministry of Transport) is UK shorthand for the annual vehicle test that is required for all vehicles that are more than 3 years old. A valid MOT is required to enable you to pay for the vehicle tax (Road Fund Licence) which must be displayed on all vehicles.
This seems to be derived almost entirely from Terrorism vs. No Clear Argument against. This shows how little privacy is valued in political debates when it is pitted against crime. And hypothetical arguments are also subjugated to concrete examples of crime that could have been prevented or brought to justice by these kinds of measures.
Privacy advocates are going to have to step it up a notch if they're going to prevent this kind of idiocy. Even the politicians who don't like these measures can't really argue or vote against them in most cases because nobody has put forth a simplistic and stunning argument against yet.
The system is currently in use in certain areas of what people in the UK call "the city". It has been in place for several years after the IRA bomb attacks and other issues. They are now rolling out that number plate recognition system across many other areas. It does not require them to have any device on your car except that you have to have a number plate. However the system for number plate issuing in the UK is heavily floored. There are so many cars that are driving around uninsured, un taxed and without an MOT (road worthy certificate) that it will really only be an issue for the people that are law abiding as the people with out their car registered and on the road legally can still get away with whatever they want.
Moving forward they need to really start working hard at defeating the uninsured, untaxed cars from the roads. Its not that hard to do have several big crack downs. At the end of the day it will reduce the overall cost of motoring in the UK as there will be less risk of being hit by an uninsured/untaxed motorist which costs everyone more.
Some of the implications of the system they are implementing is that they will be able to calculate distances between cameras and KNOW if people are speeding, They will also be able to proove that particular cars/trucks/bikes are in certain areas at certain times. That in itself is a great benefit for tracing criminal activity.
In many places in the UK they already have the CCTV cameras in action and they do record the cars going along the roads. However they are just adding the ability to track the number plates.
Traffic cameras in the US operate under odd circumstances - if you get caught speeding, or even running entering an intersection on red light, you'll get ticketed, but no points will be assessed against your license (at least where I live). What does this say about the motives behind these cameras? It says(at least in my mind) that they won't mind at all if you keep speeding or entering an intersection too close to the red light, because each infraction means an additional $100 or so that will be entering the city coffers. This seems like a sleazy way to run a government.
On most motorway bridges there are cameras that look into each line of the motorway, if these can read numbers plates like most petrol station and speed camera can. Then they have already been tracking movement for years !. I personally don`t think this is any big deal, if the goverment knew I visit the in-laws 3 times a year, surely they can come up with some sort of tax relief on it.
Once the system is implemented, motorised road users could be charged for each journey, allowing the roads to be finally privatised (required under GATS the American system).
Motorists could be charged a higher fare when the roads are busy and a lower fare when they are not, just like the railways, the airlines etc.
Fed up with Labour. I already voted against them in this election, but seeing as my constituency is full of out of work 'scrounging from the government' layabouts who don't get off their fat asses because the government gives them armfulls of cash every month, it was hardly likely that the vote would go any other way.
What pisses me off the most is the usual 'this is being done to try and catch terrorists' - ffs, we've had ONE single Al Qaeda related attack happen in this country so far and THAT was from people that the government never suspected as they were British Muslims. How exactly would license plate tracking catch legal residents of the united kingdom if they so desire to blow themselves up in a public area?!
Why can't they spend the countless billions this service is going to cost to implment where we bloody well WANT and NEED it - in the schools, in the hospitals, on pensions for our old people.
Fucking fuckers. It really makes me mad. The priorities are fucked - this terrorism 'excuse' for taking away our rights is just really starting to piss me off.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
I'd love to know what they are going to do about all the strange number plates that have wierd fonts or the numbers or letters distorted to look like something else; all to try and make the number plate look like some semblance of the name of the dickhead driver.
Plus for the terrorist angle; what are they going to do about foreign number plates, and cars from other EU countries.
It sounds to me like Blair and his gang are lying again, what a surprise.
No but, yeah but, no but...
I'm more worried about people who can swap/steal/disable all or parts of the database!
http://outcampaign.org/
The documents for the GPS system all claim that it's about reducing road congestion, but I do not find this justification to be credible.
Firstly, there are ways for charging tolls on congested roads that are far cheaper and easier to implement than putting a "Little Brother" in everyones car. A mandatory RFID unit in the number plate and a pickup loop in the road come to mine. And secondly, it's not credible that road pricing is any more effective at reducing congestion on roads that are the only viable option for a particular commute, in the light that the far more obvious negative motivator of the unpleasantness of driving in a traffic jam does not have a similar effect.
The disadvantage of this method is that it can only track you in areas with the infrastructure. Of course, this is not a disadvantage of your only goal (as stated) is to reduce congestion. On the other hand, it's a real downer if your real aim is to track the whereabouts of every vehicle in Britain, whether they be on the motorway or the moors. Since the alternative is so much cheaper to implement (by their own estimates, a GPS onboard unit would cost £100, without the labour to fit it, some £3 billion pounds to fit to the UK fleet of 30 million vehicles), one has to conclude that this is their aim.
Once you note the EU directives quoted in these documents that refer to an EU-wide standard for GPS road-tolling, it's not difficult to see that this is something that has had widespread approval for some time.
And you have to start wondering about the real reasons for Galileo. They can claim they want independance from the US, and the way the US has been acting, this is more credible now. But one of the features of Galileo is that it has been designed to operate far better than GPS in urban areas, which would seem ideal for the purpose of vehicular tracking. I can't help but make the association.
... especially on the A77/M77. I *deliberately* fuck up the traffic through the SPECS-monitored sections by moving to the right and slowing down to 35mph.
Ummm... firstly, a true pedant wouldn't use the ill-defined term "average."
Secondly. If you have a physicist's training then you should certainly know that the mean value theorem (aka the fundamental theorem of Calculus) says that the speeder must have at equalled their median velocity at some point in the interval, even if we don't know what that point is.
So yes, they measure it - they take measurements and then deduce a minimum value for the car's maximum velocity. That's no different from any other measurement that physicists do in the lab using basic deductive tools.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
I first read it as "Little Britain to log all vehicle movement", that wouldn't have surprised me. http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/bbcone/int/promo/img2/i/-/ comedy/littlebritain/
But "Britain to log all vehicle movement", that's just bizarre. 1984 indeed.
the SPECS cameras on UK motorways and A roads already do this and issue speeding fines based on the evidence: they read your plate at one point, then about 2 miles down the road another camera reads your plate again. If average speed > speed limit (plus about 10% for speedo inaccuracies) then you get a ticket.
I don't believe that bicycles are required to carry a number plate in the UK.
... most criminals are stupid (or, perhaps, they would choose some other walk of life).
Like the burglars who left $20 bills scattered round my bedroom floor, as they didn't realise that these funny little green pieces of foreign paper could be exchanged in any bank for real money.
In the UK police regularly set themselves up at the roadside with a camera linked to the databases, and regularly catch large quantities of bad guys for relatively little cost and effort (the obvious motoring offences, such as driving without insurance, but also villains wanted for plenty of other things, the cops just didn't know where they were).
Now, the bad guys fall for this regularly, despite the facts that:
(1) they could have avoided being caught by changing their number plates
(2) the police set up these traps in the same places each time, and the places are hardly a secret, so they could have avoided these routes.
They're just not very bright.
Oh wow, either crims will use taxis, or start using bicycles, or invest in dynamic, lcd type character changing
plates, aka old bond spin plates.
Remember 1930-1943 - IBM helped germany monitor jews/gays/bad dudes, any massive govt 'monitorying' is evil as its always
missused by lame dimwitt MOFO nutcase psycho path loosers with no friends or soul.
prisonplanet.com learn the truth, the govt is the wraith and the borg and the cylons!!!
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
You may have "nothing to hide" but that doesn't mean that there aren't people out there who would like to keep the color of their boxers private. Just because your a rampant extrovert doesn't mean everyone else is too.
Think about it, if no one bothers to oppose this kind of thing because they have nothing to hide when it gets to where some agency wants to do something you don't like, maybe survalence cameras in the bathrooms of every house, it will be too late for you to do anything about it.
Sticking your head in the sand just puts your ass up high where its easy to give you the shaft.
Get your home microwave oven take it apart, convert it to a directional beam, and pump the 2000watts to the
cameras/detectors from you car. Whammmo!
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
It would be a relatively simple job to add software code to the system which records the colour of the car as well as the plate, and does a lookup in real-time to check its correct.
This way some fake plates could be identified remotely and police could be dispatched.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
when it comes to the goverment or anyone else seeking power over others there are no coincidences
Following on from the introduction of drug sensors in sewerage drains, its become necessary to monitor who is taking a dump at any particular time.
Blair: "I want to deny drug users the use of our sewer system, non drug users have nothing to fear." "We need to fight them in the sewers so we don't fight them in the streets."
I think we should move on from the 1984 comparisons. Let Orwell get some rest.
A much more appropriate and unused comparison is "V for Vendetta":
http://www.shadowgalaxy.net/Vendetta/vmain.html
1984 + Dark Knight + Utra Violence = V for Vendetta
"Never trust a computer you can't throw." -- The Mac
Why the hell does this British story carry an American flag background telling slashdotters to vote yet one story down actually about US businesses does not?
What if the system was designed completely different? The system would hold a list of cars that are stolen, uninsured, travelling without a valid MOT or untaxed and distribute that to cameras, which will in turn report if such a car is located. Then if you are a law abiding citizen, paying your car taxes and keeping your car road worthy you have nothing to be afraid of and your movements are not registered.
?SYNTAX ERROR
Emagine what would happen if say the people were to start using the data.
Statisticly prove that
A) cops like hanging out at donut shops. Maybe a few mintues longer than there official coffee breaks.
B) Maybe the Mayor likes to knock off early and not put in a full 8 hours at work.
C) Emergency viehicle response is slower in some areas.
D) Maybe next time the police end up shooting a poor unarmed brown skinned man in the head a few times 'just to be safe', the cameras'll be working that day.
The number of car-jackings in the UK has been increasing as modern cars are a lot harder to steal. This system will just increase the value of a legitamate vehicle to the point where criminals will be more willing to use increasing violence to obtain one. I can't help thinking that a lot of public money will be spent on something that the criminals will find ways around. Creating cloned vehicles being the obvious way. The system might be able to detect multiple cars with the same number plate in different places. But probably not before sending the registered keeping a speeding ticket for travelling from Birmingham to London (>140miles) in 2 minutes!!! Also... living in the UK I had my car MOT'd recently (MOT=compulsory annual roadworthyness test). The garage had just starting using a terminal that gave them access to some database of car details so they can inform the ''system' that a car has passed its MOT. I was chatting to the garage owner and he said they almost always get several hundred results on a number plate search rather than just one! So it could be that the underlying data is in such a state that the whole system won't work. I DO think that single APNR cameras are good at catching crims. But I'm not convinced that system can scale. Si
Well if you are suggesting a consipracy of the government wanting to introduce the system nationwide that involved them killing one of their police officers, then you're off your head. If on the other hand you are suggesting that they chose this moment to publicize their plan because the system had just help in catching a murderer, then no that wasn't coincidence, thet's very sensible politics.
If the software in use can recognise the text on a numberplate I'm sure it could recognise the colour of the vehicle. Since the make, model, colour and lots of other information is recorded in this database it wouldn't take long to work out if the plates belonged to a particular vehicle or not. Further more if the plates were non-existant, or the vehicle supposedly registered to the numberplate had been scrapped (as recorded by the database) it could (and I'm sure it does) send an alert to the police which includes its last location and a still photo of it taken from the camera.
Britain has centuries long tradition of emigration-stimulating (or even emigration-forcing, deportation of citizens offshore) policy... this is just begining of another wave. Even stubborn Brits will reconsider that option when this legislation is extended on persons themself (with this attitude "Britain to RFID tag all residents and log their movement" is just around corner).
Timing is interesting..... they've been trialling the thing in secret for months, then 4 months before the big rollout they use the stuff to help track the car....
I'm not saying there's a link, just noting the timing of the events is very 'interesting'
I am from Germany. We have this already.
Our system is targetet on Trucks, but it already records all license plates.
This system seems to be engineerd so perfectly and efficiently, it would make many former East-German STASI-Members drool.
Now, I can transport Long-Guns on the airlines in a proper box or case with the proper forms filled out. Pistols are harder to move about, but it's still legally possible. Note, there are also various laws on carrying weapons on your person, the Right to Carry and the rights about transporting firearms in your vehicle from State to State.
Actually, I've followed the exact same rules for flying with everything from fully automatic weapons to handguns & rifles. As for 'forms' there is exactly one where I am: An affedavit that the firearm is unloaded.
Locked hard case, unloaded. Ammunition in original container or one that holds the rounds individually. Basically you're fine as long as they aren't just loose in the container.
Experiences may vary depending upon airport, state and city laws, and experience of the representatives therein. Sometimes you can run into trouble because the agents(baggage agents, TSA screener, airport police, etc...) don't know the laws.
I don't read AC A human right
I saw this coming when Blair was first elected, I left the UK on the day Labour won the election.
I have returned for short visits occasionally and I am amazed at how much of a police state the UK has become already, and it is not as if any of it is making the quality of life any better. The measures used now just serve to make the general population more afraid and these new measures will just reinforce this fear, of course the criminals wont be bothered by these new infringements on civil liberties.
Why do governments insist on controlling the minutia of life? It is almost impossible for anyone to go for a day without breaking some law after all ignorance of a law is no excuse, and I have just found out that playing DVD's on a Linux box or shouting "nonesense" can both be illegal. Whay difference does it make to anyone but me if I drive without a seatbelt? My safty is my business and not that of a government or a so called public servant, if I make a reasoned decission that the risk of driving without a seatbelt is acceptable to me then the matter is closed.
By the way I currently live in Germany where there is very little crime as it is against the law.
The End of Sex.
there would be no USA. How'd you like them apples?
Good god - if we are in 1984 now what will it be like in.. in the year 2000!?
Its a good job that we have such reliable 'criminals' and 'terrorists' that they will always tax, and insure their cars to themselves....
Slashdotters are a bunch of more than average intelligence; but why do you all lose your heads when a subject involving cars comes up? Just like Joe Public himself does. Is this some corrollary of Godwin's law? There was a saying in the 1800's that in the "free" UK you could do whatever you liked as long as it didn't frighten the horses. Today, it could be re-stated as " ... as long as you don't hold up the traffic". Cars have become Tin Gods.
Does anyone really think that a policeman is going to sit there watching and reporting on where you drive? About 20% of the population would need to be employed on this alone. It isn't practicable. The use of such recordings is to examine them after an incident has occurred, to see what cars were around at the time (and see below).
Then there's the "criminals can swap number plates" argument. Sure, but they have been able to do that for the last 100 years, so what's new? In fact big-time criminals swap cars too. Yet number plates remain one of the most valuable tools in detecting crime and pursuing traffic offences. After a bank robbery at least the police would be able to see what direction the robbers took, and perhaps correlate it with a car (or plate) change.
Then you think you will be convicted if your car is seen "near" a criminal's car. Whan nonsense - some of you seem to have no idea how the law, and law enforcement, work. The police would like to see those "near" the crime as witnesses. Clearly if you happen to be just driving by, you may be a witness. OTOH if you have accomanied the crook's from the scene back to the same East London railway arch then you will have some explaining to do. I have no problem with that. The police do not "convict" people, the courts do that, and convictions have to be made on a coherant structure of evidence, not on one glimpse of a number plate.
Up to 50 years ago in the UK there was a great deal of citizen involvement in law enforcement. If a shopkeeper shouted "Stop Thief", any able bodied men in the area would have downed the thief or mugger and sat on him until the police arrived. In city centres there was a policeman at *every* main corner (intersection in US?) - about 200-300 yards apart. If there was trouble they would blow a distinctive whistle to summon two or three others within a minute or so. These days the thief would sue you, and the policemen have been cut for economy. I live in Bristol (pop 400,000) and understand that on a typical evening there are no more than six policemen on patrol - in cars of course. Yet you Slashdotters think we are a police state! The result is that crime and disregard of traffic regulations are rife. Yet you lot crow that "cameras have not cut crime". The fact is that there are not enough police to deal with everything that can be seen on cameras. The police need all the modern aids they can get. The criminals don't hesitate to use them.
Number plate cloning which is already prevalent in the UK is quite sophisticated.
Criminals will travel around looking for a car which perfectly matches the colour and model of the car they want to disguise. They will then note the registration and clone the plate.
Hence when the registration of the criminal's car is put through the PNC or ANPR systems, it shows an 'innocent' car of the correct make, model and colour matched to an apparently correct plate.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
I think so. In reality, organized surveillance has always been a policing strategy, as cops "walk the beat," keeping an eye out for suspicious activity. If this job can now be done better by video cameras, or some fancy robots, then so much the better for public security.
There's a film coming soon based on Alan Moore's "V for Vendetta" comic series. I've not read the comic but the film seems to be about a vigilante taking down a police state government who are running the UK.
My question is, does anyone know if V is available for real world work? Can we borrow him to get rid of Tony Blair?
I mean we are going to track the movement of all vehicles, citizens will be required to have ID cards on them at all times, the police can now arrest and detain people for 30 days without any evidence if terrorism is suspected, demonstrations are banned within a kilometre of Parliament and there is soon to be a database of all children in the country which is clearly a back door to creating a database on all citizens.
What was that saying about life imitating art?
I'm sure the criminals have a way round it, but when you order new numberplates from a garage in the UK you must provide them with your vehicle's registration document, a valid MOT certificate and your driving licence. All this information has to be recorded by the garage and the garage's name and post code must be marked on the bottom of the plates.
I know this because I had to get new plates recently and didn't even realise I needed to provide all this until the girl behind he counter at Halfords turned me away because I didn't have it. Apparently the law changed about two years ago.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/15/21 59244&tid=158&tid=219
The police handle false information every day; criminals (and, I suppose, even terrorists) love to weave webs of lies. And what are the police for, if not to scare people into submission? (This is how society works: you teach people to hate crime; you make people fear arrest; and you capture and imprison any residual fearless scoundrels.)
Go on foot, or bike, or use public transport.
--- Back to the trees, back to the trees !
To be sure, a criminal state would implement such surveillance with or without your consent; it would set its own stage.
Besides, Britain is known to have the highest and fiercest range of paparazzi. Wouldn't it be easy for them to slip few bills and know where the stars are?
cars are watching YOU!!!!
... This has nothing/little to do with terrorism and it's unlikely to cut "real" crime.
For example the Yorkshire Ripper was caught by a Policeman doing his job, pulling over a car with dodge plates, and arrested him. Cameras wouldn't have caught him
Light fingered burglers don't tend to drive to commit their crimes either....
The main reason I can see for this is to (yet again) punish motorists who are speeding. The theory is simple. Cameras can monitor have far you have travelled, and they know the distance, ergo work out the speed. This already exist it appears to know be used to cover ALL the country and ALL travel. - Just THINK of the profit^H^H^H^H^H taxes^H^H^H^H^H "fines that will be reinvested" the government will get
If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever
Jaj
"if the system detects the licence plates and identifies them as being duplicates..."
So you just make sure the owner of the duplicates isn't going to use his car the day of the crime and has a rock-solid alibi. The "system" isn't going to know the difference.
Even if he's not part of your gang it should be easy to find somebody who always plays golf on Thursday mornings, a doctor who's attending patients all day, or whatever.
After that you just need some blank plates and a black marker pen to fool the cameras.
No sig today...
Many police tactics can be dodged by a clever criminal, but few are nimble enough to dodge them all. If a policeman suggested going to a criminal's house to arrest him, by your logic you would tell him not to bother, as clearly a smart criminal would have an unknown, secret hideout.
That's a spoon!
Coincidence? Probably not. London and Bradford make perfect sense for the trial of this new technology.
London makes sense because it's the capital. It's the most likely place for a terrorist attack to occur.
Bradford makes sense because it's absolutely full of muslims.
sudo killall humans
If the government are going to insist on taking away our rights by tracking car traffic, they could at least give us something in return. In tokyo, the traffic is also monitored using their license plates, but they use their system to help relieve traffic congestions. Cars are timed between certain areas to estimate the traffic flow, and while the system would be ideal for catching speeders, it is not used this way... in tokyo everyone drives 2km/h faster than the prescribed speed limits. And it works, in tokio you get traffic information (Vics) which is accurate to 100 metres. So if you need to, you can leave the motorway or main rd, and move onto the side streets. I think, if britons were given a bit of this service they might tolerate such a vehicle logging system. Especially in London, where there are already more cameras per person than in any other city. (Don't quote me on that!)
A more benign direction is what we need. After all, if this happens in America, with our tax dollars, shouldn't we be able to view this information, to hell with the Patriot Act and NSA bullshit? This is OUR MONEY, in OUR AFFAIRS. I think we have a right to know about it.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
uh, i meant "coincidence? probably." I didn't mean to suggest that our government purposely killed a policewoman. Although i wouldn't put it past them if they wanted something bad enough....
sudo killall humans
Just as it is (perhaps WAS) with photography and video... once you are in the public areas (which constitutes part of public domain, [disclaimer: I'm a hobbyist photographist]) you are automatically consenting to have your picture taken, especially if you walk in front of a camera shot where you show up in the picture as well with the subject of the photo.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what the newspaers and media do to get their photos published. At least here in Tennessee.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"walking" will be deemed a suspicious activity.
Seems like such a waste of resources to watch dear ole Grandma go to bingo or church.
Put license plates on burqas and RFID chips in korans.
Camera's outside mosques and youth centers.
Don't target innocent people. Aunt Maggie is not the oner responisble for the Tube attacks.
The cameras will pick up your number as you drive off the ferry at Dover (or where ever it is). Just keep a log of registrations entering and leaving the country.
One night you are fast asleep in bed. Bad guys drive a car, the same model as yours with your number plates, across town. As they get near to the target they ring on a clone of your phone, to check the target is there. Shoot the target.
Drive the car back to your house. Disappear with the car.
1) Find Tony Blair's personal number plate
2) Stick it to every car in the UK on one particular day
3) ???
4) Profit!
Orwell's "1984" was an alarm clock we slept through.
you seem to have missed the point. A hack does not have to be digital, a system like this is open to more physical hacks, is you've got some people assisting..
The reason we use licence plates is that cars are mass produced to be identical, and thus it is overwhelmingly hard to tell, say, 2 red 1992 Ford Escorts apart, especially on camera.
Given this, it would be comparatively easy to confuse the system with a few identical cars, right down to the plates, driving around at the same time..
"I couldn't have robbed that bank in Milton Keynes, your honour, the records show my car in Dundee on that day."
And for the benefit of the future canadian bus passenger in the grandparent post, alas here the buses contain CCTV cameras too...
You said this...
I've got nothing to hide either... oh wait, yes I do - I play legally purchased DVDs under Linux and that's illegal. Is a major software manufacturer, or in the mentioned case of Linux, OS type *REQUIRED* to provide support for a patented technology? Especially without royalties being paid? Here's my opinion...
Honest answer... NO. If I create something that I intend for everyone to pay for, especially something that is (when it was created) top of the line, I damn well expect someone to pay for it, or at least the ability to use the technology incorporated with it. If the tech I used was free, I would not charge for it, I'd just charge for the disks, power usage (like a burner drive uses shit for power to begin with,) and my time/labor. The music industry are the corporations that are taking this way too far.
For my dishonest answer?? I say yes, because if they intend to market this technology to everyone, they should be able to provide it in a format everyone can agree on. This is almost like VHS/Betamax argument as far as usability goes. Beta has had a longer shelf life, VHS had more advertising. Yet BETA was for the most part superior. >. Crap. I've Used both, recorded live video from my computer to both. Beta handles 60FPS vid streams *FROM MY COMPUTER* (important note, not from another tape device but digital-analog) much better than from VHS-recorded tapes using 60 FPS cams. But your own example of the abuses is correct and accurate, as well. We all know our government is conspiring against us to make them rich and us middle-class/poor/destitute, but fsck that, we know better. It's up to us to make sure the GOV'T fecks off, hardcore.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
This is already pretty much in place, number plate recognition is already being used in conjunction with CCTV in loads of places and only a month ago it was used to find a get away car within days, of police shooting suspects who went from Bradford to London. This seems like a combination of special interests: The police obviously want more speeding revenue (who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to have the police make money directly from the crimes they solve?), anti-terrorism agencies want to know who blew something up, intelligence agencies probably want to find whistle blowers and people they 'dont like' and im sure car insurance companies want to use this for their pay-as-you-drive services. If it wasn't for the data protection act im sure a nice collection of companies would to see too.
Of course the system could potentially be used for good - I mean considering its coverage I would hope, no, expect, no, demand, that within a month of it being turned on, car theft will have dropped to a fraction and recovery rates for stolen vehicles will be almost 100%. If this isnt the case then I would like to know why?
This is just one of many creeping surveillance systems, people over here have given up caring anymore, I just assume im always on some sort of camera as soon as I leave my house, im probably right. We have bigger issues to deal with at the moment - such as the parliament protest-without-notice ban, Guantanamo bay, 30 day arrests, trials without juries, shoot to kill polices and the drain on our military by wasting its time in Iraq etc.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Now, people will say "They paid for the streets, they can do whatever they like."
Nope. The PEOPLE paid for the streets. The people paid for those cameras, and their operation too. And I guaren-fucking-tee they'll be used for something other than just catching criminals. Wives tracking husbands, husbands tracking wives, stalkers tracking victims, people tracking people that have no legal reason to be tracked.
Now there's no saying, "Well, I was in another part of the country when this store got broken into." It will have to be, "I was at the store. I've been convicted twice of armed robbery, but it wasn't me this time. It was some hooligan on foot."
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Some future government will find it has all it needs already in place for dictatorship. And not one element will have been installed for malevolent reasons. All will have been installed from the best of motives.
Family courts meet in secret, names of those appearing before them cannot be published, and there is no appeal from their judgments. It protects children.
Foreigners can be subject to preventive detention without trial. To defeat terrorism.
Anti social behaviour orders can make any act by anyone, and them alone, a criminal offense. We have to do something to restrain people making everyone's life around them a misery.
We will be tracking dysfunctional families, and interventing to help children at risk of future criminal careers. Why wait until it is too late and they have already started?
We have covered the streets with cameras, to defeat street crime. Now we will track all vehicle movements, to deny cars to criminals. Next we will film all faces on all streets, so that we can track down the wanted and the terrorists.
We will have compulsory mental health medication. It will cut down on crimes committed by those in care in the community who stop taking their medication.
We will record all details about an individual on an ID card and will make this card the access point for benefits and medical care. We have to do something about benefit fraud and illegal immigration. And having all medical records available instantly will dramatically improve emergency room care.
I am not being ironic. We really do not have to worry much about this government. The intentions really are good. But the effect is increasingly to make practical liberties dependent on the goodwill of either the government or officials. I don't know what the answer is, but the lesson of history is that you cannot always rely on this, given swings of popular feeling in times of crisis, which may coincide with elections. But this is an argument you never hear in the UK.
What does a video featuring Single White Females have to do with this?
I love this British humor!
Let's imagine there we'd like to keep track of any vehicule position every 5 minutes.
So, if Maths still works on both sides of the Channel, we have about 105K positions for each vehicule in one year.
If we suppose that the UK has only 50 million vehicules, we end with 5.2 trillions of positions in one year.
The funny guys there would then need to store those data and possibly do some calculation over them.
Nothing really impossible nowadays, but I'd use that storage, computing power and money for something more useful.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
I wander if one could craft a number plate like this: '; DROP ALL;
Is it a crowded political debate?
This shows the British government, similar to the U.S.,
can not control their population any other way. Controlling
poverty, friendlier foreign relations, less class division,
etc. These measures reduce crime, but they're not the
choices current administrations make. Our current "leaders"
lack guile and are not persuasive or clever enough to
guide us with their intelligence. Rather than architecting
an organic, autonomous society, they have chosen to
pen us in via technology.
Speeding ticket income is like an inverse lottery: it is highest if you can make drivers believe they will not win the prize (get caught).
They will not be that stupid... I hope.
I recall it had really neat rotating number plates - there were several in variouos nationalities. Sounds like a perfect solution for well prepared criminals.
.. horses ... pedestrians ... boats?
But what are they going to do about bicycles
"Cats like plain crisps"
Thats what I've done for the last 2 years. Never been stopped once
by plod. Sure , you can still get done on the rear plate but it
cuts down the amount of surveilance by 50%. And if you're really
worried (and I'm getting that way), smear the rear plate with mud
so 1 or more of the characters are unreadable.
Ha! you clearly don't have yourself 5 (or more) kids for the government to provide child benefit (read: beer and cigarrete money) and a council house for. That's how the 'Neets' (not in Emploment, Education or Training) live around here. Fucking scumbags.
That's really the point, isn't it? It doesn't target criminals at all, except insofar as any citizen might be a criminal. By targeting the general population, they greatly increase the number of things to investigate when criminal activity does occur. But criminal activity will be a miniscule portion of what they are actually recording, and more significant criminal activity will take steps to cover its tracks and deflect attention (stolen license plates, etc.), so this will only end up stopping petty criminals, make things safer for organized crime, and give anyone who wants to invade other people's privacy a very convenient infrastructure for stalking, eavesdropping, following, etc. Crap like this only helps real terrorists, and the ones it helps you catch are amateur enough that they would have been caught anyway without this.
If you have nothing to hide what is the problem with a daily cavity search and tissue sample?
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
all the data to you under one unique identity number. Unfortunately, this
is part of the ID Card Bill currently going through the House of Lords.
I wrote about this
yesterday.
Oh, did you also know this Government passed an identical
law to Hitler's Enablement Act? This law enabled Hitler to assume
absolute power after he burned down the Reichstag and blamed it on communists.
My Grandfather fought Hitler across two continents to protect Britain from
this kind of totalitarianism. The least we can do is help the resistance
campaigns at Privacy International
and No2ID.
1984 aspects of this aside, real traffic modelling requires this type of system.
Anyone who has ever been stuck in rush hour going into a major city knows that driving
15 miles an hour and coming to a hard stop every 4 minutes is not the most efficient way
to do things. If we could feed all our driving data to computers and get our Queueing Theory experts on the job then we could design fault tolerant traffic control systems.
When you get on the highway, open up that laptop or watch a DVD because Big Brother will make sure you get there faster and more safely than you could yourself.
I wrote about this yesterday.
Oh, did you also know this Government passed an identical law to Hitler's Enablement Act? This law enabled Hitler to assume absolute power after he burned down the Reichstag and blamed it on communists.
My Grandfather fought Hitler across two continents to protect Britain from this kind of totalitarianism. The least we can do is help the resistance campaigns at Privacy International and No2ID.
Why is this entire gun control thread not modded off-topic?
This is my "Realtime Air Traffic Control: For People" working at vehicle resolution...n ymity-good-thing.html. 9.250603.31
http://www.mindpixel.com/chris/2005/07/end-of-ano
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?off
"So, imagine a Google Maps interface to all the public cameras in the world. Anyone can look through any camera at any time. That's phase I. Phase II: Universal Continuous Identification of all people in public space. Think air traffic control for people. Collision alert when known sex offender nears an unsupervised child?"
There is already a similar system in place. The congestion tax monitors license plates, and if you don't pay the tax to be in some of London's busiest areas in a car of your own they mail you a ticket.
Horses are fast becoming the green vehicles of the future
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
If you are a serious criminal it might not prevent too much, but for a lot of the idiots out there it will if not help stop them, at least catch them.
I work at a place that accepts checks, and the bank we deal with has a policy of making sure that we get 2 phone numbers for all the checks that we take. It does annoy some customers and for a while I agreed with them thinking that well if anyone if going to be writing bad checks then they wont put their real numbers on them. WOW was I wrong, now not counting the ppl who make honest mistakes (and I'm guessing at those by the people who when you call them and tell them they come down that day or the next and pay the returned check fee and apologize and tend to look embarrassed), out of the people writing a bunch of bad checks, the majority of them give their real number, and a lot of times cell phone numbers too.
It really blew my mind how stupid ppl can be, so if you think that this system wont catch a lot of the average idiots stealing cars or what not then think again.
Cheers,
Ducky
Hold on, let me re-read that submission again.
"Using a network of cameras that can record license plates, Britain plans to build a database of vehicle movement for police and security services: rollout begins in March. Can't someone just swap/steal/disable the tracking device? Seems to me just another way to track the average citizen and not those wishing to avoid authorities."
OK, I'm used to posters not reading the article, and to editors not reading slashdot, but is this the first instance of a submitter not reading his own submission? It doesn't use a tracking device, they photograph people's license plates.
My head is throbbing now.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
This is the beginning of the permanent end of all privacy.
Suppose this doesn't get built; will that help you? Not for long. Consider a (near) future in which wireless webcams cost, say, a dollar, and Internet-accessible disk storage for a year of images, another dollar. Now even children, let alone police, are going to stick cameras absolutely everywhere. Add some recognition software (license plates, faces, whatever you like to track) and index the heck out of it. Now anyone on earth can name anyone else on earth and see a complete, photographic log of nearly everywhere they've gone during the past couple of years.
Unless technological trends show a surprising change, this WILL happen. Even if England's insane government doesn't do it, it it will still happen.
Want to be more scared? Fast forward 20 more years, to when those cameras cost one cent and are the size of a grain of sand. Buy a thousand and scatter them all around someone's home, maybe tossing them in the window or tracking them in on your shoes.
Do I really want cameras everywhere, watching everything? No. Do I know a way to stop it? No, but we sure as heck out to slow it down until we figure out how to limit and control it.
all it means is that people will get kidnapped and told to
drive their vehicles to a location, where they will be held
for several days until their vehicle has been safely disposed
of.
in cases where the vehicle is expensive, it may even be worth
the criminal's time to actually kill the owner rather than have
them identify the people and the location to where the vehicle
was driven.
i _got_ to get out this country, it's becoming more fascist
than hitler.
How could someone be shot and killed in Britain..? They banned all guns..
Oh wait, that's right, they just took away the guns of the law abding Britons and the criminals are still armed...
When guns are outlawed...
from the cameras with one of these.
That's under consideration too. There are plans in the pipeline to also make 'tamper-proof' number plates mandatory: these are designed to self-destruct when they are removed.
e p_veh_num_plate_sec.htm
http://www.dvla.gov.uk/public/consult/consultee_r
"19. The use of number plates that cannot be re-used once detached from a vehicle would be a major step forward in preventing the theft of number plates for cloning vehicles or to avoid congestion charges etc."
It's also worth noting paragraph 1. of the same consultation document.
"The culture of secure number plates that we are attempting to develop requires that plates should no longer be seen as isolated commodities but as an integral part of the vehicle. "
the baliff's certainly aren't legally allowed to flag down cars and stop them: so do they do it in conjunction with the police?
Another victim of the new tyranny, John Catt, was subjected to a stop-and-search by police, who recorded the purpose of the search as 'terrorism' and grounds for their intervention as 'carrying plackard and T-shirt with anti-Blair info'. There you go, then: an anti-Blair slogan on your T-shirt is grounds for suspicion of terrorism, even if you're 80 years old.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
...to be politically incorrect and include racial and immigration statistics. A lot of the "gun violence" in some US states is perpetuated by illegal aliens who are career criminals, and a lot of the "children and guns" stories apply to teenage gang bangers, who by virtue of age alone are considered "children", even if they are 6 foot tall and 200 lbs weight.
This may be a question flung into the fray from a perspective left of center, but I think it deserves to be asked: Why is this, or any sort of civil data aquisition for that matter, such a threat to the average joe? I, personally, am happy to be recorded at the ATM. At a recent visit to Indianapolis, IN, I was given a tour of the police control station benieth one of the war monuments and the whole downtown area of the city is observed 24-7. This didn't frighten me, it made me feel safe. The same goes for the road. If I am speeding and am caught, I offer no plea to the officer - I was speeding. I suppose I just don't understand what civil rights are being fiddled with. If I am not in my own home, I don't expect to have any viable level of privacy. Maybe that is a generational thing, but I have always felt this way. This isn't to say that privacy should ever be compromised; I think the phone-tapping hub-ub of recent note is an invasion, but I don't think the city tracking what I do in public is.
- skinnytie -
What if all these new monitoring technologies would be used to add some extra transparency and accountability to the goverment? If they are so keen on them and feel that their use is a good idea, let the citizens be able to see what the officials are really doing? After all they have nothing to worry since they are only thinking of the good of the citizens and thus nothing to hide?
No, British citizens would never vandalize tracking devices...
Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
"This is not a Republican-Democrat issue."
It is to GWB fanatics.
They really believe he is a bright guy who is doing his best to prevent the the terrorists from popping up in your garden.
They ignore a lot of stuff that contradicts their belief, as long as Bush comes on TV every now and then and reassures them that that it's for our own good. That's enough to strengthen their beliefs.
Substitute Clinton with "the Jews," and you've got Hitler's platform down pat. If things get as bad as we fear, it'll be on the head of nationalistic morons like yourself.
I applaud you on your over-the-top comparisons of Bush to Hitler and your amazing ability to name-call. With such rational arguments, it's amazing how more people in the country don't see things your way. I wonder what it's like to have all the answers? I guess that's just for morons like me and the grandparent commenter to wonder.
This is not a Republican-Democrat issue. It is not a conservative-liberal issue.
Let me guess... You have liberal leanings. You're furious at the state of the country right now. You're willing to make all sorts of nonsensical comparisons of this administration to past atrocities and call people names because you can't understand the "insanity" of what's going on right now. Only problem is, if as the grandparent comment implied, this were Clinton or Carter instead of Satan incarnate (Bush), you'd have no problem with it.
Let me clue you in on what's going on. Democrats aren't performing very well. Largely because of rhetoric like your comment. Because of that, swing voters such as I are voting for Republicans. I know you can't understand this but someone is not necessarily a moron just because they disagree with you. Just like I have voted for many Democrats in the past (including Gore in 2000), some day I hope to vote for a Democrat again. Want to hasten that process? Realize the world is in fact not coming to an end and shut your mouth (likely for the first time in your life).
And when your own government evolves into the largest group of criminals, you do what? "Vote" them straight, out of power? Really? This is beyond a joke. Please go study some history. Ask the dead folks from the holocaust and the gulags what they think about government being the only ones legally to own firearms. Oh wait, you can't, because they are gone now, and it is so trendy to ignore history isn't it? In the twentieth century, more people planet wide were murdered by their own governments than were killed in warfare or normal day to day "street crime". do you grok this yet, or dispute it? And this is *still* happening today. Just because it hasn't gotten around to anyones pet country they live at currently now is absolutely no guarantee it won't. That's just smug misguided optimism, it's not based on any historical precedent, because the opposite is just hard data, researchable. This mass despotism always comes about slow until it reaches a tipping point where the government has enough command and control and surveillance powers, based on that eras tech level, *plus* having their citizens effectively disarmed. That step usually comes first. That's when the despotic tyranny fun n games really start. It may take some years, but don't worry, those "enlightened" nations will experience their own dictatorships and massacres and pogroms.
You discover your husband abusing your three year old daughter. You have no proof and have been getting psychotherapy. You flee with your daughter. Now imagine that husband is a highly respected law enforcement officer. Better ditch the car until you get a false identity. Oh wait, the identity broker was busted on the freeway...
Why are fake plates not an issue with this system? 1: if a plate isn't registered/taxed, it'll flag it up on the system and the car will be tracked. 2: if a plate is stolen, most people would replace their plates within a day and/or use their front plate on the back (where it's more important). The system will then notice that it's spotted the same plate twice within a short time, 20 miles apart. 3: it is possible to do simple recognition of cars : you can easily measure the size of the car and it's colour (although not at night). If someone nicks the plate off of a shogun and puts it on a micra for instance, even a 'dumb' compputer system could tell the change in size. also why would terrorists take the risk of using fake plates? There are lots of police patrols which do random plate testing, there's a huge risk of them getting pulled over when they could just take public transport... But then using the dreaded T word is being used to push through every law that robs citizens of it's rights at the moment...
I think it's inevitable that this sort of video will be captured, stored, and used--prices for the equipment are getting cheaper and cheaper. In another few years, you'll get solar cell operated cameras the size of a matchbox that transmit their information wirelessly and that you can stick anywhere you like.
The problem is that the police have special access to this sort of information. That way, when you are accused of something, you can't even construct a defense--the government can select specific information to pressure you or blackmail you.
Rather than trying to fight these developments, maybe we should fight for making all the information public: the president's trip to his mistress or bar should be as much public knowledge as your own trip to the mall.
Given that the UK government needs to take all these extraordinary measures against terrorism and crime, it is evident that terrorism, violent crime, and property crime must be rampant in Britain; a nation that was actually reasonably safe and prosperous wouldn't need any of these steps.
So, the message to both tourists and investors is: if you value your life and property, stay out of Britain.
CafePress.com is an easy way to make a single unique tshirt. Not expensive either.
Enjoy!
Criminalise the people you can catch.
How appropriate, it is the land of George Orwell's birth
Thanks for the link, but the whole point of the video is that privacy is important in order to keep the "big, bad, corporate bogey-man" from knowing everything about you.
Why is the ACLU not more concerned about government infringement on privacy? That's the message that should be spread.
The whole point about limiting government -- that the the founders of the United States understood so well -- is that government power can be used tyranically. Even assuming that our present government is the most benevolent possible and able to be trusted with absolute power, what happens when people less benevolent get into office and are able to exercise such power?
That's why the aware person is zealous about keeping his own matters private -- even if he has "nothing to hide." Just because a person has nothing to hide today does not mean that what he has done today won't be considered a crime at some future time under very different political conditions.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
I don't see how this will affect terrorists/criminals, who will use stolen/rental cars with legit plates.
Oh well, what the hell...
Tell me this:
If you were to pull into a parking lot of a mall and swap plates with a car of the same make/model (shouldn't be hard to find), how many days/weeks would it take your average person to notice that their plates have changed? Okay, so then someone has your plates, but create a chain of swapping plates on 5 cars and they'll never quite find it in time... giving you a few days to do your damage. Find someone on vacation, go into an underground garage of an apartment and find a covered car or car where someone looks like they've been in Florida all winter.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
all those cars that drive on the wrong side of the road!
I'm not criminally minded, but I have to say if I were to commit a serious crime, step one would be to use someone else's car. For minor crimes, people will just steal plates.
Heck if someone "swapped" plates on my car it might be weeks before I even noticed. I just don't look at my own plates that much.
So basiclly I see this as a move that will increase vehical theft, and even worse increase car jackings.
Think Deeply.
Face it, if Bush were a democrat, you'd blindly accept everything he does... Just like the 90's.
Amazing how someone gets modded -1 just because the mods don't agree with him ideologically. The funny thing is they just hit you with "Overrated" so they couldn't be meta-moderated into never having mod points again. A funnier thing is that with as many overzealous anti-Bush liberals from around the world as there are on Slashdot is that they would've been perfectly safe modding you falsely as a "Troll" or anything else they wanted. Their buddies would've sworn to any statement that made anyone appearing to defend President Bush look bad.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
Governments seem to be waging a war on people's rights. What is the aim of a war? To remove the enemy's fighting ability. How do you do that in this war? Remove their ability to arm themselves, reduce their education so they don't even know they're losing their rights. Just think about it. A few decades from now, we won't have many rights left (following current trends), and people will start to notice, uneducated or not, but they won't be able to do anything about it because they are armed merely with votes, which probably won't be worth anything anymore. I think gun violence isn't the problem, it's merely a symptom of a larger problem. Removing guns from the populace isn't the solution to gun violence, though it just so happens to remove the people's ability to defend themselves from the government, so....
The first difference is the opt-in nature of deciding to buy an auto with OnStar.
When the topic of tracking people comes up, I'm suprised to see the lack of discussion of cell phones. Currently the phone net work can track you to the nearest cell. This is how OJ was found leading to the famous "low speed chase" in the white Bronco.
Think Deeply.
Do they intent to keep records of all recorded traffic in the whole country and for how long? This looks like a pretty massive video archive. And how are they going to data mine and find useful information to present it in court and incriminate someone?
This leads to some interesting AI and data mining applications? Which brings me to another point, why are geeks so cheap. I mean we build all this "kewl" technology that anti-geeks use against us? When will the geeks wake up and take control of what they have invented? Why give it to the enemy cheap.
HELLO? Radical muslims are killing people?
Name a war where security laws weren't passed? The important thing is to make sure these laws are reversable so that after the war is over and the laws have surved their purpose they can be done away with.
Did you know the teaching of German was outlawed during WWI? The ACLU was formed back then to fight such laws. (Yes, the ACLU is almost 100 years old!)
How many lives are you willing to pay to preserve your rights perfectly? Are you willing to sacrifice your mom for your cause? Is sacrificing somebody else's mom okay?
Let's be practical.
In Soviet Union government log... Oh damn. That's exactly what the Brits ARE doing! Stalin would be proud.
Insert witty sig here.
First of all, driving a motor car on a public highway is basically a very public act, as it is performed in plain sight of everyone nearby. Therefore, one shall not have too much hope of having privacy whilst engaging in this endeavour.
Second, anybody who witnesses people driving their motorcars is perfectly entitled of taking notes of which motorcars pass them by, as well as reporting the said movements of motorcars to anybody they bloody choose to do so to. Therefore, the act of putting television cameras to do so is a mere mechanization of that perfectly legal work.
Third, driving a motorcar on a public road is absolutely not a right, but a mere privilege bestowed by the authority upon proving the (alas) minimal competence necessary to drive a motorcar following the established legal standards. This privilege can be withdrawn at any time by the authorities if, for example, one person does not abide by the rules set forth for the proper conduct on public roads.
The argument that monitoring road travel is an invasion of "right" and "privacy" is therefore an aweful bunch of bollocks wrapped in pure poppycock.
"Immediately after the events at the travel agents three men were seen running to a silver vehicle which was parked in Howard Street... We have trawled through many hours of CCTV and have a number of sightings of the vehicle... This includes a sighting of the vehicle travelling along Morley Street at 3.02pm, moments before the events at the travel agents." He said the vehicle was seen 40 minutes later travelling along Manchester Road, out of Bradford city centre, in the general direction of the motorway network.
That doesn't sound very automatic to me.
And the six people arrested in London the next day were all released without charge.
This looks like a step back, not forward in the freedom area. What's next? tracking devices in every citizen?
"And leaving the scene of the bank roberry was a car apparently belonging to Margaret Thatcher. Film at 11..."
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
Why do you Brits seem to always have to live out your Literature, War of the Worlds (WW II), 1948 (now)?
Interesting premise.
So all those countries withouth constitutional rights to gun ownership are full of opressed people without the means to defend themselves, according to you?
Where did the IRA get their guns? the Palestinians? the Sandanistas?
For that matter, where did the Mujahadeen get their arms?
Sorry my friend. The *right* to own a gun has nothing whatsoever to do with actually owning one. If that were the case then criminials wouldn't have them (since they are prohibited) and yet.. they do. How do you explain that?
People always use that excuse -- the ownership allows us to rise up in armed resistance against our government. A useful goal I will admit. But I'm thinking that if it becomes necessary to rise up.. finding firearms with with to defend/attack will be the least of your worries.
Also, I might point out that the other side of that hypothetical conflict has fighter planes, laser guided bombs, tanks, submarines, battleships and cruise missiles. Not to mention other technologies of warmaking. The Iraqi reisistance has (twice) received the full brunt of this power (and at least they started with an organized armed force). Guerilla war on a large scale seems to be the only effective defence -- complete with suicide bombings, roadside bombs, hiding among civilians, etc. Are you willing to become the people your country has demonized? Because if you're going to be fighting against "the most powerful military in the world" you're going to need to be.
5) Force you to participate in the system whether you like it or not.
While I disagree with the nature of this system, nobody is forcing you to own a car and drive it.
Great. Can the police please keep an eye out for my stolen car? It's been gone for years, reported stolen, and never been found.
(actually, a very sensible cross-check would be to compare the general colour of the vehicle with the registered colour of the vehicle that is supposed to have that registration).
I've got a feeling that, as with their experience with the in-car ANPR cameras, they pick up far more discrepancies that need investigating than the traffic cops have time to investigate.
http://www.google.com/search?q=-40F%20in%20C :)
There are several trivial ways for this system to be defeated.
I've seen several sprays and license plate covers that produce a glare when attempting to photograph. They can be applied to license plates to prevent speed trap cameras. They still allow the plate to be visible to the eye but cameras can't get a good picture. They are cheap and will become commonplace if such a widespread system is put in place. You could probably get the stuff at any gas station. I don't normally speed or run lights, but I'd get it if I knew I was going to be under the eye of such a system.
If lots and lots of people were being fined by such a system, I would suspect there would eventually be a bit of civil disboedience arise. Some people may start taking bb guns or wire cutters and dsiabling the cameras that exist on their way to work.
It could even turn into a sport like geocacheing. People who get tickets could go to a website and describe where they got a ticket and the approximate locaation of the camera. Next, someone will disable the camera.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
ACs don't bother. You're filtered. I don't even know you're there.
1. Then why are you writing to us in your sig?
2. Do you think we are affected by what you do or don't read?
Do you really think that you rifle, shotgun and/or pistol will be all that effective at defending you from your government. Perhaps you missed the advance in weaponry employed by the armed forces and police since 1776.
Face it, the government is far better armed than you and they out number you. Don't count on your NRA buddies for help either. To many of those guys are so full of nationalist pride, that they would follow whoever is running this country as long as they wave the flag and say "God bless America", even if they were a red cape, have horns and a tail.
After they finish prying you gun from you cold dead hand, they will release all the evedince about you being a member of a terroris cell and and child molester to boot. Well that's what they will tell the media they are going to do anyway, so that's what they will report and by the time the media notices that they never did release that information, they will have better stories for thier headlines so no one will hear otherwise.
"The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people who want something."
Major Major
Don't you get it?? I want the right to freedom and liberty.. not 'free' health care. It is our right to own guns which protects our other rights. It is no coincidence that fascism always starts by banning guns. Once the population is at the governments mercy, then the rules of the game change.
It strikes me that the amount of data collected in this system will be pushing the boundries of current systems. For the system to be used as evidence in court, there must be photographic proof that links the car to the numberplate. So you would be looking at about 500Kb per numberplate recognition. The system will aim to catch 35 million number plate reads per day and store the information over 2 years. This would require around 20,000 Terabytes of storage. In order for the system to be useful, all of this data would need to be available for online searching. As around half car journeys take place during the 1 hour evening and morning rush hours the system must be able to write around 3 Gb per second to disk. On top of that, the plan is to increase storage to 5 years of data and to triple the number of numberplate recognisions. The system would then be looking at 150,000 Terabytes of storage and 9 Gb per second write to disk. While it may be possible to achive all of this, I think the technological difficulties will either send the budget through the roof or the govenment will have to limit the system so much that it will effectively be crippled. Much like the governments overspend on the National Program for IT (NHS) and their disasterous handling of the Child Support Agency system (amongst other IT disasters), this will turn out to be another white elephant.
Karmady is the best medicine.
Implant an RFID chip in everyone. Stick a camera with sound pickup in every room (make it a requirement for a building permit). Connect all the new sensors together to powerful central computers and build databases for every person on their movements, sayings, potty habits, etc. This will eliminate crime, make the children safe, prevent spousal abuse, wipe out drugs, and identify every osama minion for re-education to our superior way of life.
There is no reason, let me repeat, no reason for this.
This is the most Orwellian, absolutely fascist krap I've ever seen.
Whats worse is that in Oregon and Washington, they are getting federal money to test a similar program.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
If the crime is reported to the BCS, doesn't that make it not unreported?
Aside from discussing the meaningful impact of word choices, the BCS is itself conducted by the very UK government which foists pervasive monitoring upon its population. What are the odds of THAT?
1. We tell the mere-citizens they need to be monitored very carefully.
2. We tell the mere-citizens that our unofficial survey shows crime is down because we are spying on our own populace.
3. !!!
4. Profit.
Do you really think that you rifle, shotgun and/or pistol will be all that effective at defending you from your government. Perhaps you missed the advance in weaponry employed by the armed forces and police since 1776.
... succeeded, oddly enough. And more recently, the US seems to be having a bit of trouble with the peasants in some Middle Eastern country, I think.
It's too bad you weren't around to tell the North Vietnamese that they didn't have the equipment to fight the world's most technologically advanced military. As it was, they foolishly tried and
I think this argument is often a veiled way of saying that you're too cowardly to even try and preserve liberty, no matter what tools you're given. Nothing has changed since 1776 in that respect; people like you will always leave the hard work to others, hiding behind your facade of cynicism.
Steal (v.): to take which does not belong to you, such as removing the fucking cameras!
I believe the submitter did read the article, you just misread their summary comments.
(On the other hand, you mostly redeemed yourself by noting the nasty business of guilt by proximity.)
"Seems to me just another way to track the average citizen and not those wishing to avoid authorities"
Oh, GIVE IT UP already. Have you actually sat down and spent some time thinking what is actually to gain by tracking AVERAGE CITIZENS?
NOTHING.
Are you -that- bored with your life that you need to wave your little warning flag in the air everytime "The Government" come along with some new scheme and try and shoot it down as antisocial?
I call shenannigans. It's a big load of crap. Fighting terrorism? Didn't the 7/7 terrorists use public transport?
Seeing as we are forced to have a system like this, I'd like to make it damn clear what it implies to the people in charge. Someone should start a website that tracks every movement of as many people in government and the police force as is humanly possible. I bet they'd scream bloody murder if their privacy was laid waste like that.
Rotating number plates are standard MI5 issue I expect:
http://members.aol.com/cotsmm/cotspg4.html
As always, the British Intelligence services are one step ahead of the criminals...erm..30 years ahead I suppose.
An SUV that looks like it has been off road is likely to draw a lot of attention in the UK, nobody takes them anywhere more adventurous than their kids schools or the supermarket car park :)
. . . I can't wait to get all the new Google Earth placemarks!
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face! It's just a goddamned piece of paper!" -- George W. Bush
car is technology and in detail is a kind of dangerous technology for the user and other people around. i consider cars a kind of technology that should be avoided as much as possible and government should help people to have mobility services with minimal use of personal cars.
i find this website so interesting: http://www.carfree.com/
privacy should be paranoid only when related to phisical person only: health, politics, sex.
i agree about the idea that if u want to use a weapon, like a car, u should be prepared to declare anything about that use.
i also agree with rfid systems and black-box for cars.
surely i think that travelling by train, cabs and pedal-bikes shouldn't be monitored no-way.
bye
ppp
I'm definitely smelling a new Angelia Jolie movie in there. Hey, maybe we can dig up the Prodigy to do the soundtrack!
Why don't they just kill everyone? No more possible terrorist, and no more possible targets. Terrorists won't stand a chance then.
On a more serius note, what are we trying to protect if we take away our own freedom in process?
I've actually participated in a traffic survey that was quite similar to this back in my days as a starving college student. The State of Kansas used a very similar method of license plate tracking to determine how best to improve their highway system.
Of course, back then, we college students just sat by the side of the road, baby-sitting Hi-8 cameras and reloading tapes in freezing cold and rainy weather.
Then later someone manually logged the license plates and times and fed the list into a computer that calculate where the heaviest traffic was and was the driving patterns were.
Of course, once the system is in place, it can have both positive and negative uses but for people to assume this means they are going to be victims of a big brother type system is absolutely absurd. There's not enough resources to monitor everyone by their license plate alone. Plus, in order to link the plate with a driver would take additional man-hours and research, possibly court involvement (not sure about UK but it would require a warrant in America), so I'm fairly sure this would only be used in the event of very dire crimes. Sure, this means that if your info pops up in the area where a significant event happened, you may be contacted by authorities, but much more likely as a possible witness than a suspect.
I'll give you points for a clever rationalization, comrade...
But this scenario falls under the "give em and inch and they'll take a mile" category.
Apparently you don't realize that once government gains a certain "right" or ability via legislation, it's almost impossible to get government to let go of that right or ability.
If anything, government will then add to it's rights and abilities, and build on previous laws, rather than relinquishing said abilities...
The U.S. congress passes laws every year based on knee-jerk reactions, laws that later turn out to be very bad, against common sense and in hindsight a mistake.
I'm actually astonished that the citizens of the U.K. would decry joining the EU and using the Euro, all the while putting up with this...
In a republic such as the U.S., the government is an object for the people.
Your post intimates that the government or "authority" as you call it, some kind of monolithic, authoritarian structure, not beholden to the wishes of the constituency.
But then again, this is Britain we are discussing...
Then let us ponder on the database paradigm, shall we Herr Hogger.
Once data is entered into a database, financial data, vehicle movements, etc, it is impossible to really protect that data.
A perfect example of this is all of the credit data firms in the U.S. that have been hacked, with said data spread all over the internet, most likely in the hands of organized crime.
To assume that since the data residing on servers ran by police or government is more secure than that ran by private enterprise is an exercise in futility...
Who will have access to the data? Who will secure it? Who will audit that it is secured? We are to trust the government that they are doing what is in our best interest?
Personally, after five years of a Bush white house and Republican controlled congress, I'm in no mood to trust them in decisions such as this.
But good luck in your new found police state.
Don't fret though, the U.S., in it's new ultra-fear footing and box-cutter-phobia mentality, will soon be the next contestant in
"Bend over and take it like a man, you limey sod!"
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
their car with a box lunch, a pillow and a blanket and head for London to create the worlds largest traffic jam as a protest!!!
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
Not to give them any ideas, but wouldn't RFID tags be easier than camera's tracking license plates? Less room for error, and false positives?
Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity. -Nikola Telsa
If they want to implement some sort of electronic pay-per-mile billing system, they are closer to that with these tracking systems. Fighting crime is just how they are selling it to the public. The world is becoming a scientific dictatorship.
Simply awesome news. Notwithstanding the knee-jerk wanking by self-described privacy advocates/libertarians etc, i think this is simply awesome for all law-abiding citizens. i hope they transition to requiring all number plates to also have bar codes on them. would reduce errors.
Take it to the next level and if a vehicle is behind in motor vehicle dues, the computer should automatically dial the home number of owner and offer to charge their credit card.
Like everything else potentila for abuse exists. rather than impeding innovation and retarding progress, the proper solution, i believe is to put in checks to prevent abuse.
i will immigrate to the first country which requires automatic collection of DNA samples at birth.
too much effort is being wasted nowadays by civilized societies, in detering and punishing crime, when simple solutions such as above will go a long way in drastically reducing the effort.
the effort saved could be used to procreate and when space runs out colonize moon and mars.
The cops think you know something about someone. You aren't talking. They go through the logs and find out you visit Adult Establishments. They mention this to your boss. They offer to let your wife and minister know as well. Do you start talking? Do you EVER go ANYPLACE that you would rather others do not know about? Do you want the police to have a list of EVERYWHERE you have been? Do you want anybody who can crack or get access to the system to know where you go and when regularly? (from 9:30 to 11:45 the house is always empty) Merry Christmas!
Recording number plates is not to 'track criminals', 'invade privacy', or any of those other things people keep spouting on about.
...
Also whats this connection with terrorism - WHY IS TERRORISM added to any conversation of this nature. This would happen even if terrorists did not exist! So please stop talking such rubbish. The more you believe it (terrorism) the more your belief will help those that want to get there way (national cameras to track terrorists).
They are installing cameras across the country to better understand the flow of traffic. This is for 3 main application areas.
1. Track individual vehicles: It can be used to record the history of where a vehicle has been and has gone. So, I have nothing to fear from this, sure I may be one of those unfortunate one in a million that gets caught up in something by mistake, but I am a law abiding citizen, why should I worry? Well I shouldn`t, I am out in public, anybody can stand there and make a note of my numberplate. Why should I be concerened if automatic cameras record that information. In fact if I get my car stolen it may help the authorities recover it!
2. Monitor patterns, and understand volume, how vehicles travel around the country. This will help strategic planning, development and greater efficiency. In the short term, I believe this is the main reason these systems are being put in place. To monitor traffic flow, provide real time response to issues, but also to provide learning and understanding of the flow of traffic and making strategic decissions on those changes.
3. Longer term plans which may include average speed monitoring by calculating when you join then leave the motorway. A national strategy for charging tolls for travelling around the country. Plans to address strategies for reducing emmisions etc
(I am not particular to crime, anyway: the eradication of absolute poverty, war, and tyranny should also, I think, be at the center of our political activity, rather than our own comfort and well-being.)
Old fashioned detective work is tedious and technology can eliminate the need for it. If we just label everyone as a suspect it's a lot easier to make a conviction. Of course in this brave new world, innocent is subjective and therefor irrelevant.
East Germany tried to monitor their civilians the hard way, and surveillance costs took a very significant percentage of the nation's budget.
"Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one." -- Benjamin Franklin
"There is no such crime as a crime of thought; there are only crimes of action." ~ Clarence Darrow
"A society gets all the criminals it deserves." --Emma Goldman
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
you know those things you see at the library and in administrative offices that make computer screens unreadable by anybody who isn't directly in front of them? Somebody should make a license plate equivalent.
Of course, gun laws don't prevent people from obtaining firearms. It does, though, make it harder for people to get them and it prevents large numbers of people from having them. If you were an unpopular leader, what would you rather have? A large number of people who were pissed off but had no real means of revolt or a large number of people who were pissed off and a significant percentage of them just happened to have guns for other reasons? Even if that relatively small number of people didn't stand a chance, they'd still be a handful to deal with and certainly an incentive to either "deal" with them in an unpopular way or to step back from your unpopular policies that pissed them off in the first place.
As for criminals obtaining firearms, well, yeah, that's gonna happen whether or not guns are completely banned. The solution is not to completely ban guns (and thereby preventing the vast majority of law-abiding people from owning them), but to increase the penalties of using a gun in a crime, i.e. calling any crime involving a firearm attempted murder.
Britons, revolt against your spying Big Brother govnmnt!!!
Givem Hell!
Can't someone just swap/steal/disable the tracking device? No, of course not, they are not using tracking devices, just using images of your license plate.
This is going to sound like an urban myth, but I promise you it isn't, because it happened not to a friend of a friend, but an actual friend!
Approaching an intersection, the lights changed to red, but the driver judged that it wouldn't be safe to stop in such a short distance so drove through on red. A patrol car spotted her and pulled her over on the next block and issued a ticket for dangerous driving and violation of the red signal. Her protests that pulling up so quickly would have caused a more dangerous situation - the following car was tailgating, as usual - fell on deaf ears. So anyway she took the ticket and drove away.
Next block, the same thing happened, only this time she learned her lesson and hit the brakes to stop on the line. The following car barelled straight into her. And yes, it was the cop who just did her! Sweet justice... This time she asked him to get some other cops to come and deal with it, and there was a lot of argy-bargy... but eventually her ticket was revoked and the cop who did her was reprimanded. The law does allow you to run a red light if it has just changed and to stop would create a more dangerous situation than running the red light would. The only thing about this story I question is that here the lights go green-amber-red, so there is some warning of a change... so there was probably some element of her chancing it - but then again I know the stretch of road it happened on and the traffic speeds are quite high (60-70km/h) and the amber signal only lasts a second or so.
Has anyone else noticed the tendency of Britain to be a fascist policy beta test site for the US? It's like more and more outrageous civil-liberties-destroing policies are rolled out in Britain, the reaction of the all-too-sheepish public is checked, and those that pass w/o too much hue and cry make their way into US policy.
Why is the British government so paranoid???
Sounds like somebody is going to make a killing in UV strobe lights.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
It'll probably get hacked within the first year and be used to out the comings and goings of public officials...
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
Many real-world phenomena, such as our economy, are dynamic and even cyclical in their nature. Consequently, you'll see an agency under an activist leadership, like the Federal Reserve for example, tighten or loosen its policies in synch with the behavior of the economy. Why shouldn't our restrictions on freedom also wax and wane in natural rhythm, not unlike the way economic policy does? We can use macro-level indicators on crime for instance, to then set the tightness or looseness of our laws affecting crime. In nature, sexual reproduction has in most cases come into dominance over asexual cloning type reproduction because sexual reproduction 'scrambles the locks' so to speak, by varying the genome to help make it harder for viruses to adapt, and to promote the diversity useful for natural selection to occur. Likewise, if our laws and freedoms are absolute and unchanging, then the criminal elements will adapt (and already have) to those laws and to any deficiencies and loopholes in them, to take advantage. But if freedoms tighten and loosen cyclically, just like economic policy, it could become harder for people to take advantage of the laws. If economic policy is not ossified into the constitution but left to periodic re-evaluation, then why can't our rights and freedoms be subject to periodic review and change without extreme difficulty?
Sounds like a good idea to me... I'd like my country to do the same. It sounds like a good method of localizing the impact of crime and apprehending criminals faster. I don't think it's the terrorists they are after...
The British government is set to replace all citizens with mobile robotic platforms fitted out for remote thought control. The entire camera network and all domestic surveillance systems will be dismantled as they will no longer be required.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
what we're trying to say is that those other rights are much more important for actually keeping your liberty and avoiding bad regimes. If you give them away while thinking "well, I've always got my gun", you're being suckered into a very false sense of security.
sudo ergo sum
I have read Atlas Shrugged and I consider it to be a convincing attack on the ethos that you wrongly attribute to me. "No surveillance" and "no crime" are mutually competitive political demands. Balancing them is an example of a personal utility-optimization problem no different from that encountered by any child in a candy store. How these demands are rightly met in practice, by force or otherwise, is not my concern here.
Last time I checked, your face is far from hidden in a car. In fact, on every one of the photo-radar speeding tickets I've cerimoniously received from the local authorities, my face through the window has been clear as day. Throw in some good infared imaging and they could even do it at night (though they don't ... yet).
.. I bet if you looked like him, those darn photo radar tickets would just get lost in the mail!
About the only way they aren't going to track you, assuming you don't have some biometric chip implanted in your ass, is if you walk everywhere with a ski mask on. This of course poses other issues, particularly when trying to participate in certain retail and banking activities. Plus I think you're going to get arrested just on principle walking around in that sort of thing.
No, face transplants are where it's at these days. Need to conceal your identity in modern-day society? Become Captain Kirk! Or maybe the President