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Hackers Rebel Against Spy Cams
Wired is running an article looking at the little ways in which Austrian technology users are striking back against surveillance. From the article: "Members of the organization worked out a way to intercept the camera images with an inexpensive, 1-GHz satellite receiver. The signal could then be descrambled using hardware designed to enhance copy-protected video as it's transferred from DVD to VHS tape. The Quintessenz activists then began figuring out how to blind the cameras with balloons, lasers and infrared devices. And, just for fun, the group created an anonymous surveillance system that uses face-recognition software to place a black stripe over the eyes of people whose images are recorded."
Cracked by macrovision descramblers. Color me impressed.
What's the purpose of a black stripe over the eyes?
How effective is it in preventing recognition?
Or is the reason less obvious than that?
Then only those who wear veils will be criminals.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
This is civil disobedience and hacking at its best. Good for them.
ummm, last time I checked Berlin was in Germany...
Newsflash, dumbass: Berlin is in Germany, not the U.K.
Seems to me like the Berlin techies have too much time on their hands..
Yes, it sure would be terrible if someone knew I was walking down a certain street at a certain time. What is the BFD? It's a public road in a public place that anyone with a pair of eyes (or in case of spotting fat people, a single eye) can spot you. Should they start banning tourists with video cam's? Privacy is becoming the next big "lets all overreact" issue.
Looks like someone can't tell where this is happening. FTA:
BERLIN -- When the Austrian government passed a law this year allowing police to install closed-circuit surveillance cameras in public spaces without a court order, the Austrian civil liberties group Quintessenz vowed to watch the watchers.
Okay, so how is this about "Berlin technology users"? Or am I missing something?
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Albeit relatively low tech in comparison. A real life counterpart none the less.i me)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laughing_Man_(an
The group in question is an Austrian civil liberties group, not German hackers and not based in Berlin. How do I know this? I read the first sentence of the article............
Of course, in your rush to make a post with a inane little political statement against the administration, you failed to read the article.
If you had read it, you'd learn that the cameras are not in Britain. Even the article submitter failed to use basic reading comprehension, since the article is about a conference hosted by the Chaos Computing Club in Berlin, where they describe the actions taken by a Austrian civil liberties group against recent legislation that enable police to install cameras in public places.
In Austria. Not in Berlin, Germany. Also not Britain.
Reading comprehension seems to be sorely lacking here.
I think the only thing that MIGHT actually get the laws changed would be as one person suggested in the article. Turn the tables on those passing the laws. Find key political figures and start saving all the video footage of where they go. I'm sure with tens of hours of video footable between dozens of people you're bound to come across a wide variety of embarassing moments.
Put those up on the web and away you go. Might actually get something changed then.
I think surveillance, even when used with the best of intentions, will interfere with people's lives. The authorities will investigate anyone that does anything different. Yet doing things different is what life is all about. When used with less noble intentions, surveillance could lead to a much more troubling society as the East Berlin residents. described in the article may well remember.
This is a scary as the survaliance system is to me. If we do live in a democroacy then the people who put the survalence systems in were elected officials who we have decided are compenant to make improtant decisions. So a vigilante group has decided that they don't like this decision and have taken action themselves instead of organising a grass roots political oposition to the decsion. That is scary. We have as much to fear from vigilante groups of hackers as we do from overzelous goverments. I know I'll get the typical responses pertianing to the failure of democroacy and the lack of properly educated voters in the system, but on sheer principle its still scary. I also suppose that I could throw in a terrible potential if acts of this nature continue, but I think thats obvious and my example would be either too far fetched or too plausible, giving other people with a lower moral standard another idea.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Of course, in your rush to make a post with a inane little political statement against the administration, you failed to read the article.
If you had read it, you'd learn that the cameras are not in Britain. Even the article submitter failed to use basic reading comprehension, since the article is about a conference hosted by the Chaos Computing Club in Berlin, where they describe the actions taken by a Austrian civil liberties group against recent legislation that enable police to install cameras in public places.
In Austria. Not in Berlin, Germany. Also not Britain.
Reading comprehension seems to be sorely lacking here.
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
Christ, even the comments are dupes these days.
Well, you already noted that it's in Berlin, but then mentioned that Germany might be soft on terrorists. But since the 1972 olympics security failure, and neo-nazi activities, Germany is not very soft on terror. Oh hell, I mentioned nazis, I've killed the thread.
Why are women so complicated? Find out how little I know here.
I was about to make the same comment to yours along the lines of "If it's in Austria, then it's not Berliners!".
;-)
Yeah, it's either reading comprehension, or lack of geography knowledge.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Make a hat that has eyes painted on the top, the damn thing can't handle two sets of eyes. Two dots that look like eyes may work too and not get you busted so easy.
Want to know why intersection cameras are everywhere?
If you are going to track someone you need to aquire them first, probably near where they live, then it's easy to follow them from there because they can only go a few ways from there.
Now you know why the cameras are in places where there's hardly any traffic, like near homes way out in the boonies.
The way to get these taken out is to track or let the politicians know that they can be tracked this way, they hate it when we the people can track their bad habits even though they love being able to track ours.
In the UK on one of the CCTV cop TV shows they have there was a good instance of dealing with cameras. Basically the owner of a house had complained that every night the camera was pointed at his house. One instance he had even seen a mugging take place outside (in London) and the camera was busy looking at the mugging but no cops showed up for some time. So one night he dressed up like what can only be described as a cross between a demon/predator (really cool looking). And he wandered around where the camera was pointing. Within 5 minutes the whole road was cordened off by numerous cops.
...somebody give these guys the 10 000 dollars...
They weren't neo-nazis you freak. They were Arabs who kidnapped Israelis.
How we know is more important than what we know.
As I said:
"... the article is about a conference hosted by the Chaos Computing Club in Berlin, where they describe the actions taken by a Austrian civil liberties group against recent legislation that enable police to install cameras in public places."
i.e. Austrian civil liberties group members are in a conference in Berlin, Germany, describing what actions they have taken to fight legislation that they see as infringing their rights in their homeland, Austria.
Lemme guess, you didn't read the article either, did you?
Let me spell it out to you, just in case:
1) Austrian government passes some law allowing police to put cameras in public places(IN AUSTRIA);
2) Austrian civil liberties group comes up with imaginative ways to screw with these cameras (IN AUSTRIA);
3) Chaos Computer Club from Germany hosts a conference in Berlin (IN GERMANY);
4) Said Austrian hackers are invited to come to Berlin (IN GERMANY), and talk about the methods they used to defeat these cameras' effectiveness (BACK IN AUSTRIA).
Now, is that better?
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
"Cameras that record, and software that analyzes are quite another!"
Not really. All this stuff "attempts" to do is what nature gave us naturally.* The only thing that we have difficulty with is memory, and some people do a much better job, than others.
Besides as already pointed out, it's a "public" space, in which the "public" do "public" things. Private is at home, behind closed doors. A distinction some of you seem unable to make.
*Think of it as an analogy to the "analog" hole. If I can see you, then I can identify you. Putting DRM on your identity isn't going to work.
They'd find themselves on the business end of a 'rendition' to syria tootsweet!
Only in America do they have sweet toots!
They are from Vienna, Austria, they just presented this on the 22C3. It's correctly written in the wired article though.
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
Think about it for a second: a surveilance system like this requires vast capital and labor to implement. Generally speaking, vigilantes (or rather anti-vigilantes, since they're preventing vigilance!) are small groups with relatively few resources. At best, they'll only be able to destroy infrastructure, rather than create it, or they'll only be able to manage small things. In fact, if the activist group gets big enough, they'd be able to just elect themselves into office or overthrow the government entirely, and get rid of the problem that way.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The general perception about politicians lately is CCTV will eliminate all problems. After the London bombing on 7/7/05, the Met spent hundreds of man hours sifting through CCTV "evidence" to find more information about the hackers, while for all practical purposes is shutting the barn door after...
Even the Dutch, once known as hacker-friendly, politically progressive Europeans, are now fearful and demanding more cameras on their streets.
Whilst recording and monitoring activities in parts deemed dangerous, not easy to patrol, prone to mugging/thefts/incidents may be worthwhile, recording public spaces is similar to littering the motorway with speed cameras...
http://efil.blogspot.com/
"It is a period of civil war. Rebel starships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire." Yes, even the United States. And it will be bloody. Songs will be sung about this day...
And the hackers are from/did this in Austria. Just the news article was written in Berlin, because the that's where the conference was taking place.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
I feel like I'm being watched... >_>
Please read my comment again. For someone who just complained about reading comprehension you just made yourself look silly with those detailed points.
I agreed with you, and said, either the submitter lacked reading comprehension skills or he lacked knowledge in geography, and thought Berlin was part of Austria.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
You can easily avoid being recorded by a speed camera. Don't speed. I know, it is a difficult trick to figure out.
Whenever you try a serious conversation about surveillance cameras an idiot like you bring up speed cameras and instantly show that only criminals are afraid of cameras. Nice way to cloud the issue.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Well now. Is this a slashdot turn of events. Before we all loved technology, and smacked anyone who besmurched our technologies good name (I.e. P2P). But now it is bad, bad technology, go sit in the corner bad. Now maybe if you all had spent your lives addressing the human side of society, instead of the techno-side. You wouldn't have quite so much to fear. J. Random Asshat, and Idiot Cop Buddy would still exists because no society can ever eliminate them, but there would be a balance to society. So if our society ever did decide that cameras in public places are a good thing (like outside Wal-mart catching abductions...and murders)? We could do so knowing that our freedoms are still going to be there. BTW Youngsters, thank your parents, and grandparents for being so attentive at the switch. Good thing this mess started on our watch.
Its interesting that this was posted on Wired almost 4 days ago. But still very interesting article. Surveillance is only going to get worse, I guess we should learn how to cope while we can.
and to quote the grandparent: But since the 1972 olympics security failure, and neo-nazi activities,
Notice that "and"? Your parent poster did not say, "which were," he said "and". He was making a (short) list of things that would tend to make Germany a not-so-friendly-to-terrorists type of place. It wasn't a statement about those that did the kidnapping... you freak :-)
Libertarian: label used by embarrassed Republicans, longing to be open about their greed, drug use and porn collections.
If you don't think that's already the case, try walking into a bank wearing a ski mask.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
tootsweet
You really should have written the Anglicised Tout suite or to be fully accurate the French Tout de suite unless you were deliberately trying to make a usa redneck joke.
And if you had of read the article it was in Austria not Britain (with a capital B)!
Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina
Destroying existing systems does nothing, as well as those systems mentioned provide zero value except deterrent people who don't understand how CCTV systems work. So the groups mentioned in the article really didn't do much to hurt the system or even explain their cause--both sides are spreading FUD for their cause. They did get some exposure, which is likely their main objective (and reminds me of the an important point made in the movie Munich).
The rich, powerful or corrupt have always had the power to invade our privacy because it's just an illusion and will alway be so. Privacy laws just protect the powerful from being watched by the masses.
Instead of fighting a lossing battle to stop this technology we need to ensure that it will be available to everyone and that the information will be open to the public. Put cameras on the streets, in the police stations and in government buildings. I don't mind being watched as long as I can watch everyone else. Living in a fishbowl can be a wonderful thing. Imagine a world where everyone is equipped with their own personal cameras and recording devices... with so many eyes spreading their light everywhere the world might become a more peaceful and civilized place.
I want my blue and white laughing man logo with "I thought what I'd do was pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes" spinning around.
You will be baked, and there will be cake.
I dunno... could it have been your derogitory comment regarding 'spotting fat people'? I agree with the moderation, but now that I've seen your response to it, I think the moderator should be commended and you'll be lucky if someone doesn't mark you -1 TROLL.
After going through 2 or 3 pages of those web cams google gave me this.
... but we can't process your request right now. A computer virus or spyware application is sending us automated requests, and it appears that your computer or network has been infected.
We're sorry...
We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your computer is free of viruses and other spurious software.
We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we'll see you again on Google.
Given that I can still search anything else and not get that message I am inclined to think that we may have tricked google into thinking that we are attacking it by every one making the same request all at one.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
and the cameras are paid for with tax-payer's money (if it's government spending going on the cameras), what's to stop them taking the cameras and re-selling them? After all, a 'democracy' is for the people, so why should 'the people' put up with crap? With the Chinese dynastys, at least their forms of government were sanctioned by the people and booted out if they were becoming corrupt, etc. The main problem with this style of thinking is that not enough people in any given society right now are fed up enough. There aren't a huge number of P2Pers, privacy activists, etc. etc.
*This reply shouldn't be taken too seriously...*
Wow...how's that foot tasting? Quite a nice lecture you gave on reading comprehension before, too bad you blew it with that post.
I think it's a good thing that comments that are playing down increasing surveillance are modded Flamebait these days.
It's like me walking into a jewish pub and saying Hitler wasn't that bad. It might be my opinion (which it isn't but anyway) but I should expect to be flamed for it.
Same thing.
The thread ends here btw.
One weird hack was to identify someone nearby, find out their phone ringtone then download it. The character would then walk next to the person then ring their own phone so she would have a conversation starter.
What should be incredibly obvious is that these systems should NOT be acessable on a public network of any form - including wireless transmission. Copper wire and fibre are cheap - digging holes to run it is expensive but not prohibitively so. We'll see a lot of consequences of amataur efforts like this which will end up being vunerable even to script kiddies with little in the way of knowledge.
like a shotgun.
Cheap. Effective. If the people really decide they've had enough of surveilence that's what will happen in urban areas too. It's why you don't see cameras in rural France or Spain, people just pop them and no society can afford to keep replacing a thousand dollar camera when a one dollar bullet will fix the problem.
I like to go with the black ski mask and hooded sweatshirt look. For some reason it always seems to get me asked to leave businesses though. Gee banks and gasmarts are so sensitive to modest people.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
LOL - I thought he was referring to the confectionary items in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and couldn't understand the link to Syria. Thanks for clearing that up ;-)
29 mpg. YMMV.
...these guys actually did something imaginative. Most so-called hackers (as touted by the media) are mere skript kiddies.
A few years ago an ISP tier-one support guy in New Zealand shared his staff login and password with his 13-year-old kid brother, who promptly shared it with one of his little friends. That friend then logged into the ISP with it and deleted a bunch of customer websites. The local media labeled the kid an "unstoppable genius hacker", interviewing him on talk shows with his face blacked-out and voice disguised, as if he was some Mafia kingpin or something. Pathetic. But the ignorant public lapped it up.
Frankly, I'm glad they're there. The speed camera thing is a separate issue and I won't go into that here.
Technology is a two-edged sword and that is why societies that develop technology for which they lack the social values to deal with always self-destruct.
Invisibility is also inherent in technology. When was the last time you toggled the states of each individual bit in RAM with a switch? That's how computers were programmed in the 1940s. These days, we don't need to care about the internal representation. Even programmers generally allow the compiler (and even the assembler) take care of such mundane details.
Wireless technology, from your cell phone to your modem, will be packed with invisible details that you cannot discern through trivial observation. How many connections are there? Unless you've a wifi scanner you can't know, because there isn't anything physical about the connections to observe.
Decentralization is also inherent in technology. Why do you thing P2P is so popular, or why the web has overthrown the central archive, why clusters have replaced vector processors, etc.
Technology also overthrows the need for labor. The luddites noticed that one in the 1800s, which is why they destroyed as much technology as they could. It had nothing to do with a hatred of technology, it had everything to do with the fact that they were being replaced with machines.
There has never been a time in history where "specific suspicion" has ever really existed, so that element isn't a factor. People have always been arrested on general suspicion, held for a certain length of time for investigations to produce something specific, and then charged. America has actually been worse than much of Europe for that - Britain won't generally allow a person to be held without specific charge for more than 24 hours, yet Kevin Mitnick was not brought to trial for many years and many held for terror-related reasons may well be held for life and never be charged at all.
(Britain, one of the most ruthless, dictatorial of European countries, baulked at anything longer than 21 days without charge under absolutely any conditions whatsoever, and nearly overthrew Tony Blair altogether when he pushed for more.)
The single-biggest problem with spy-cams and surveillance societies has nothing to do with the list (which applies to ANY technological advance, so is irrelevent anyway). The biggest problem is that the information is controlled by a minority for the interests of that minority, with no possibility of rigorous control over potential use or prevention of potential abuse.
The "correct" solution to the problem is to require the information be available to anyone. In the end, anyone can (in theory) buy a high altitude weather balloon, hook a video camera to it, and gather their own information, so preventing open dissemination doesn't provide for any more privacy or security. It just prevents any guarantees of either.
Every camera - from speed cameras to traffic light cams to CCTV cams monitoring public areas - the whole lot should be open to public scrutiny at all times. Removing the cameras will do nothing for society, any more than removing the Spinning Jenny from the mills protected jobs. Better management, better scalability, better dissemination would have protected the livlihoods back then, but by focussing all the efforts on the technology and NONE of the effort on society, mass unemployment and mass unrest was inevitable.
So easy to avoid, so trivial to implement, so naive to ignore, yet so hard to get anyone to actually do anything about.
Life used to be simpler. Well, no it didn't, we just delude ourselves that it was. Life hasn't changed. Society is bar
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Actually, this story is a something that those watching you hope for, cuz they are bored. How many people will you find in the world that have such skills and a 1 Ghz receving dish, and are willing to come over to the dark side, to hack surveillance systems, instead of making a comfy living off of their skills? Maybe 1 in 10 million, or less. Story might as well could have been about a dual-life person: Nobel prize biologist, head of genetics research and big hospital/university caught robbing a bank or something.
Christ, even the comments are dupes these days.
Nice spelling!
survaliance.
democroacy.
survalence.
compenant.
improtant.
oposition.
decsion.
overzelous.
goverments.
pertianing.
democroacy.
thats.
Happy New Year to you, too!
I got you all wrong.
When I read your earlier post, I thought that the mods had it all wrong. I thought that your comment was witty and a brilliant use of sarcasm to make a point. Then I read your followup post. I realized that you were not witty. You weren't making brilliant use of sarcasm. You're just an asshole
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
In France we had a president (Mitterrand) who spied on a woman (Carole Bouquet) probably because he liked her.
Granted she is beautiful, but this shouldn't have happened!
And for the French, the rainbow warrior show how wrong it can go. A men got killed in this other stupid affair..
That's the danger putting too much power in the hand of individuals, who check that they aren't abusing them? Or doing really stupid thing with their power?
MacCarthysm show that even with more people taking decision, things can still go out of hand, but at least we can hope that this happen less often.
Yes, they're Austrians, speaking at the Chaos conference which is currently happening in Berlin.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Instead of 100 people "spying" on 100 other people, you'd have 100 basement dwelling losers "spying" on the popular girl in school.
This is far to open to abuse by stalkers and other people willing to invest 99% of their time in abusing it.
Well, I dunno. Have you really considered how much data you are talking about? Roughly taking a continuous movie of every person (or at most small groups of people, so you can resolve individual faces), on every street, all over a city, possibly all over many cities?
576x480 pixels times 16 frames/second is 17.7 megabytes/second for each movie stream. Multiply by at least several million streams if you want a general surveillance of everybody, and we are talking about capturing, transporting and storing tens to hundreds of megabytes per microsecond.
Even if that staggeringly huge data stream could be captured and stored, the bigger question is: how can it be quickly and cheaply searched? Is it really going to be practical for J. Random Asshat to do a "Mission: Impossible" search on exabytes upon exabytes of data to find the 60 or 70 frames in which his poor target is talking to a hooker? I mean, without spending $millions or breaking into the NSA to use their supercomputers (which is bound to attract attention)? It seems kind of doubtful.
I suspect what is much more likely to happen is that as face and gait recognition gets better, it is going to happen that if you have already come to the attention of the police for some reason, and they know what you look like, or how you walk, then they are going to be able to program cameras in certain key spots (e.g. airports or at ATMs) to report when they spot you. This is conceptually similar to putting a large number of tireless, unbribeable, non-coffee-break-taking silicon cops on the street with mugshots of everyone the police want to find in their shiny steely hands.
And there really isn't any incentive to reduce someone's premiums
The times when you're the least risk is when you're young
If you don't think that's already the case, try walking into a bank wearing a ski mask . . .
and a violin case. People look at me funny. What's wit dat?
They seem to feel it might contain a gun and that I'm going to take it out and use it.
Of course, when I walk in wearing a ski mask and carrying a viola case people look at me funny, because they seem to feel it might contain a viola and that I'm going to take it out and use it.
KFG
J Random Person: I'd like some bread and cheese.
Quantum G: Bread is not cheese. It's a baked paste of cereal starch. Cheese is fermented milk stuff.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
Cross index the sale of new plasma screen TV's from local shops with the monitors showing people leaving those addresses.
... and you have the list of homes for a quick crime spree.
Now, you know every house that has a new, valuable TV that also doesn't have anyone at home right now.
Cross index that with any sales of dog food to account for canine issues
The same with jewelry.
Grand theft auto? Even easier.
.. is a system which could pick up the signal of various camera's and swap the video signal which is seen by 'the watcher' randomly ^_^
For those of you who speak German, here is a link to the video recorded at 22C3: ftp://dewy.fem.tu-ilmenau.de/2005-12-27_-_22c3_-_S aal2_Hacking_CCTV_-_Watching_the_watchers,_having_ fun_with_cctv_cameras,_making_yourself_invisible/2 2c3_saal2_3.wmv
Unfortunately it is currently available in the wmv format and with low quality only while the high-res material is being processed.
-A
its just missing the fact that they were presenting it at the anual CCC in berlin last week...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Quintessenz is located in Vienna. In the Museumsquartier to be precise. That's also where the q/gate "anonymous surveillance system" is installed. The stuff about blinding cctv by lasers was presented at the 22c3 last week in Berlin AFAICT.
How dumb are these people? I think it comes from "School of the blindingly obvious" how to do it don't you think?
There's nothing so dumb as a smart person.
Conor "You're not married,you haven't got a girlfriend and you've never seen Star Trek? Good Lord!" - Patrick Stewart
"Advanced CCTV meant to spot suspicious behaviour has been tried on the London Tube, but has proved unreliable so far."
from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4434302.stm
In Soviet Russia Spy cams rebel against you?
Defining Statistics and Social Research
Those in power are also amoral psychopathic murderers.
So, putting two and two together. . .
Perhaps 'Vandal' should be worn as a badge of honor.
-FL
As you can read in this Austrian article of the hackers themselves the camera didn't watch only the streets but it also zoomed into peoples windows, watching what they were doing in their most private rooms.
And thats a fact which annoys at least *me* - or would you be the person to show your repairman, postman and mother in law how you look like in your newest undies? No? So why would you accept a camera watching and recording your life?
Not to talk of the problems which may occure if the technics - which are know build up under the guise of terror protection - are (mis)used in ways one can imagine numerously.
BTW, video surveillance doesn't deter terrorists. Fanatics don't mind getting caught after they have finished doing their crap - on the contrary, they see themselves as heroes fighting for freedom (just like the 'other side' does).
And if you look back in the 18th century where the death penalty was imposed for pocket picking in GB it couldn't hinder the pocket-picking-rate to rise again a 100% the following year. So spy cameras should shock criminals? I don't think so.
I lag
It would be much more fun if they'd replace the head with the smiley from Ghost in the shell: Stand alone complex.
For those of you who havent seen the series; an elusive expert hacker hacks into public cameras, TV cameras and the eyes of people with cybernetic implants and replaces his head with a smiley. Here's the image http://images.google.com/images?q=laughing+man
2. On the Light side. . , taxation is THE common denominator; it is the common woe and injustice felt across all racial and political/idealogical boundaries. Even Pro-Life and Abortionists both hate paying taxes to a corrupt government. This is one major spot where the mighty will begin to topple. --The growth of healthy community is where the elite begin to lose control.
Without interference, people can quite easily build and maintain healthy community. I've witnessed it. Politics and divisive issues, media and the highly manipulative/manipulated economic forces are primarily designed and maintained to keep people disconnected. --To keep them in tightly controlled boxes so that they don't do exactly what the elite fear; come together to communicate rather than yell at each other, to solve problems and grow in body, mind and spirit. This kind of growth leads to real freedom, and real freedom leads to the elite loses their slave nation and status as the 'popular kids'. (Hm. It occurs to me that the elite really are like the popular kids in high school; they like the artificial environment where they 'rule', and they want to maintain it. It has always amused me how most popular kids are really upset when they graduate to discover their artificial power status dropped to zero and having to work on themselves in real ways like everybody else. --Usually several steps behind the curve because of the wasted years riding egotism bourn on their parent's money rather than working to actually improve themselves and learn skills beyond fashion sense and one-upmanship through gossip.)
Anyway. . . taxes are the one area where the elite will simply not be able to let up, and it is the one area which hurts unilaterally across the board, and where people from all the different boxes can truly come together to form real community.
Re-read the story about the British group destroying surveillance cameras. Their motives are not privacy related. They are destroying traffic cameras because they believe them to be an unfair form of taxation.
"The more you tighten your grip, they more systems slip through your fingers. .
-FL
i like ann harrison (afterall she's a nice woman and john gilmore's gf), but sorry, her article on wired about 22c3 is a shame. way too short and touching lectures you could write entire essays on in a single sentence. /. submission about the entire conference http://events.ccc.de/congress/2005/ got rejected..
i wonder why my
videos from all lectures: ftp://dewy.fem.tu-ilmenau.de/
were once chatting about the cameras overlooking Confederation Square in Ottawa. He suggested building a scale model, then videotaping himself in a Godzilla suit, and, well, you get the idea. Of course, we'd have needed to find the camera and haul a VCR up to it to "enhance" its output, but it sounded like a lark. Oh, those crazy eighties...
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
Right now, they are currently deploying thousands of CCTV cameras in the subway where I live. I'm gonna test something I've been thinking for a little while: epaulets and a baseball cap visor studded with IR LEDs. Cameras are sensitive to IR light, so the epaulets and visor would cast an aura around my face, making it very hard to see it on screen.
What part of my opinion (which is what I thought slashdot comments were there for) is a fucking flame?
Ever watch Garfield and Friends and see the Buddy Bears? Their theme song contains the line "If you ever disagree, it means that you are wrong." A lot of people here subscribe to this philosophy. Your slashdot ID is pretty high, so maybe you don't know this yet: If you dare to express an opinion that differs from Slashdot groupthink, you're pretty much guaranteed a troll or flamebait mod from some moron with mod points.
THERMITE.
Where does Slashdot find so many immature kids?
That's nothing. I can clear the whole bank simply by walking in with a ski mask and a tuba, weither I look like I'm going to use it or not!
Please put some pants on before you post again.
Not necessarily. They could be Ostro-Goths. Or even Austro-Goths.
ericr
yes, I am the Devil's cabana boy.
It was Judge Woodlock, in the US District Court for Massachusetts, with a gavel.
Since you can't roll back the discoveries, you can't stop people from being able to do this. All you can do is change social attitudes so that you largely eliminate the desire to do this. The only way I can think of to do this safely is through better, more extensive education that specifically deals with the study of information (a hard science) and the study of people (a social science). Once people are socially equipt to handle the information flood, they will be in a stronger position to understand how it should be altered to work FOR people, not against them.
In the end, knowledge and understanding are the only instruments that are effective at controlling information. Information availability, at present, far exceeds most people's knowledge and understanding. I do not believe this is safe, stable or sustainable.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Actually, facial recognition software could be used to index the clips in real time and make entries into a very simple database (camera 12812, frame 20060102110201, face 1828182) Then the authorites would just need to run a simple query on the index that says "select * from index where face=1828182" and they would have a list of all the frames from all the cameras where that face is present. After that it's a simple matter to extract one long video clip showing the face moving from camera to camera.
Since the facial recognition software is doing this in "real time" as the video flows in from the camera, it is essentially "pre processed" at collection time, thus making it TRIVIAL to extract the information. And we've all seen news stories since '01 that show facial recognition software pulling 100 faces out of a frame in real time with desktop hardware........ sorry to say, brother, but you're spreading misinformation.
As far as storing the video, you could use a simple decay algorythm that would decay the image over time in order to save space while keeping as much important information as possible. Say you have 30fps video at 1000x1000 resolution. Then, using the aforementioned index, you could assign a value to a clip based on the faces present. For instance, if there are no faces (IE, no index entries) the frame would get a value of 0. Ten faces would be a 10. Then you assign a "half life" to the clips (different half lifes for different cameras, of course) that determines how much raw information from the camera is saved and for how long.
For instance, frames from camera A have a half-life of 10 days. That means during processing, frames that haven't been touched in 10 days are reprocessed. Based on their value from the facial recognition engine, frames are either kept or deleted. Also, you'd use a log curve to increase the value of adjacent frames to a very high value frames. For instance, a frame has 20 faces, the immediately preceding frame has only 10 faces, it should get a value closer to the 20 because of it's relation to the 20. Frames become more valuable as they are surrounded by more valuable frames. Anyway, the software decides the most non-valuable images, and then removes frames up to the point where there are half as many frames as before. Touch times are reset and the timer is set again for 10 days. The process is repeated until: all the frames are gone or only frames with a value of 1 or greater remain. The thing is that you are doing this over time so you will only require a maximum of twice the power of the real time processing running continously to degrade the images (and once they are at their lowest quality, they are no longer checked.). In addition, the less valuable images don't necessarily have to be removed--they can be more compressed or moved to some other storage medium yet they still stay in the index.
When all of this is combined with GIS systems (as they are already using in those speed cams), it would be possible to (using only the index, not the imagery) generate a map showing a probable track of any one face either in real time or after the fact.
Suspect A is suspected of posting a sign in front of the capitol saying something negative about the corporations. Suspect A is photographed by officers and is assigned a face hash of 0A3F901...0A3F9FF. Index is queried for possible matches. A number of hits come up. Camera One one block from the capitol has a possible match on the Face. 5 minutes later, there is another match one block in the opposite direction. A plot on the GIS mapping shows that in that five minutes, the suspect could have walked right past where the sign was found.
Unfortunately, Suspect A did not commit the crime, he was merely a jogger who, at a party with a few friends, had mentioned something negative about the corporations and one of his "friends" decided to report him to the authorites, just to be "safe". The actual culprit made a simple rubber mask out of commonly available materials used in the
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Of course some comments are dupes. This goes with my pet theory that the reason why story dupes exist is so people with no karma can easily get some by nabbing and duping that comment in the dup story. Soon said person has plenty of karma and can perpetuate the process by rounding up his friends to do the same. Within months, 5-10 people have excellent karma and can affect how moderation works. All from duplicates of stories on the front page of Slashdot.
And don't get me started on meta-moderation.
-FlynnMP3
..in these cases, the police don't require any judicial over-site to place these cameras. A normal 'stakeout' requires exactly that, and I think this is might be viewed as a dangerous development.
The one time I wish I had mod points, well looks like I'm gonna just burn my karama! Excellent reference! Now if only it was being done by multiple independent groups, then it would of been perfect!
I'm not entirely sure what your point is, but if there is something you wish to say with regard to my little post, then I'd be happy to your see your views posted, (as opposed to your knee jerking).
-FL
http://img287.imageshack.us/full.php?image=axis7wi .png
(-hrair-)
Beware of the shining wires...
There has been a real explosion of survellence cameras over the past several years near where I live (Minneapolis, MN, USA). They are in nearly every business I go in, they monitor stoplights, traffic and I've even seen a few on top of streetlights in residential neighborhoods. A few of my neighbors even have them outside of their homes.
For the most part, I think these things are beneficial and can be used to catch bad guys. Crime costs all of us money. Shoplifting and other crimes against business help drive up costs and if a shopkeeper wants to install a camera to help stop some of it good for him.
If putting cameras on top of streetlights helps to reduce crime or increase the effectivness of police, I really don't have too much of a problem either. Crime hurts people and if we can use cameras to put a few bad guys away, good.
Traffic cameras on freeways help keep traffic flowing and can be used to quickly dispatch highway patrol or highway helpers to the scene quickly. Again, I have few problems with this. It makes my commute better.
Recently the city has installed photo-cop cameras on a few traffic lights through the city. The primary purpose of these cameras is to issue tickets to people running red lights. It helps to generate revenue and it makes these select locations a little safer (they are posted). While I understand the benefits, I have a problem with this. Not so much because I may get caught but because these cameras are kind of turning things around. It is a new revenue stream for the city, one that depends on petty crime to survive. Since it has shown early success there is an excellent chance that it will be expanded providing even more money for the system. A city needs money in much the same manner as an addict needs a fix. They will stoop to deep levels to get the cash. The photo-enforcment is one example of a good idea taken in a bad direction that will ultimately go too far. Soon, any light likely of providing a revenue stream will be guarded by a photo cop. Yet I doubt that this will reduce taxes at all.
These photo enforcement cameras are very unlikely to do anything for any serious crime. They are only activated when someone runs the light. I'd feel better if the tickets issued did not directly benefit anyone. Perhaps the money could be put into a fund that would not go to the city but rather into a fund that is used for something that the city does not directly control. That way, they would only have good motives for sticking the cameras up and I would feel better about them. These photo-cop fines are a form of unequal taxation that must be stopped!
(sousveillance) '... watchful vigilance from underneath ...' [0] and (shootback) turn camera back on them
Steve Mann [1] has a lot of intelligent things to say on surveillance [2], sousveillance [3] and the intersection of technology & privacy. The earliest I can find is in a 1995 paper [4]. In an article predating the Austrians, Mann advocates shooting back (with your own camera) [5].
More links can be found here. [6]
Reference
[0] Steve Mann, 'definition from Sousveillance as an alternative balance':
http://wearcam.org/sousveillance.htm
[Accessed Tuesday, 3 January 2006]
[1] Steve Mann, 'Cyberman':
http://wearcam.org/steve.html
[Accessed Tuesday, 3 January 2006]
[2] Steve Mann, 'Identity Trail - Stream 3 - technologies that identify, anonymize and authenticate':
http://idtrail.org/content/view/47/43/
[Accessed Tuesday, 3 January 2006]
[3] Steve Mann, 'Sousveillance: A Gathering of the Tribes':
http://sousveillance.org/tribesissue/
[Accessed Tuesday, 3 January 2006]
[4] Steve Mann, 'PRIVACY ISSUES OF WEARABLE CAMERAS VERSUS SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS, Feb. 24, 1995':
http://wearcam.org/netcam_privacy_issues.html
[Accessed Tuesday, 3 January 2006]
[5] Steve Mann, 'Shooting back article & pictures':
http://wearcam.org/shootingback.html
[Accessed Tuesday, 3 January 2006]
[6] Delicious 'my delicious links on steve.mann':
http://del.icio.us/goon/steve.mann
[Accessed Tuesday, 3 January 2006]
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
(-hrair-)
Beware of the shining wires...
are people and can't possibly care about EVERYONE. They have a job to do and if they are in public service it _should_ be public knowledge what their objectives and goals are as assigned. They should be freely allowed to post information about their jobs (as long as their isn't an official risk).
Catch Bad Guys?
You've been watching too much TV. The idea of there being 'Bad Guys' is a heavily marketed idea. "Crime costs all of us money", is an endlessly repeated piece of dogmatic social programming designed to make you frightened enough to allow the Government to put you under constant observation without complaint. This allows them to know when you and others like you might fall out of your little boxes and see things for what they are, and thus pre-emptively correct the parameters of your cage so that you don't ever wake up.
"Bad Guys".
You are repeating the excuses fed to you by the abuser. --Not your fault; this is the standard human response to the constant flow of social programming through the media and having only a severely limited flow of real information to work with.
"Bad Guys" are largely a myth perpetuated by the media and defined and enforced by an economic and legal system designed to create 'criminals', (ie, poor people).
You are being made a fool of. You do not need cameras surrounding you all of the time. Or any of the time. You are being manipulated. You are a prisoner. The good part is that you can wake up any time you want. It's your choice. That's the big secret which the Authorities are terrified of people realizing. It's your choice.
-FL
When cameras were introduced in central Canada to watch for car speeders Canada people discoverd the joys of paint guns. One shot and the camera is dead until it gets repaired. It was so effective that the cameras were abandoned.
I think thats where we're logically headed. We've completely outgrown our current constitution. It would be nice to tidy it up in light of today's realitiies, but it will always be dificult because the current system screwed up as it is benifits some people in power. Those people will always resist a change regardless of its merits, simply because it reduces their power. But I think that its clear we need to reduce the power of the federal government, or change the way its elected to help reign in the power it does have.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Would not they then be called OPENCircuitTV? :)
Matthew
All I can say is I just tried to renew my U.S. driver's liscense, which is harder than entering the country with a U.S. passport. You need for example a passport, proof of billing address, social security card (which nobody I know even has), old college photo ID, etc. totalling 6 points or more (that is 7 points I think above) where different kinds of documents are assigned different point values. I believe this is because the driver's liscense is likely a major the key to surveillance across databases, you know what used to be illegal. This struck home when I realized the EZ Pass system used for automatic toll payment in your car is quite useful in tracking where you move and when linked to gas station payments, credit cards, and photo ID it comes full circle and is perfectly enabling for facial identification over the innumerable security cameras you come across even in suburban life.
Personally I just wanted to update my liscense so I can rent a car when I come back home (I live overseas most of the year) and get a local driver's liscense to rent a car here. It is not impossible but obviously the country takes it much more seriously to be able to track people's movements than actually entering the country per se. As far as I can see every U.S. driver now has to supply these various documents each time he or she wishes to renew a driver's liscense.
It was not so clear to me how well this in fact would catch a terrorist especially one who was planning a suicide attack, and only hope it is just one of the more visible ways they are trying to make the country safe and not in fact the key to the whole strategy.
> I'd like to see how "excellent" you think it is after someone beats the
> crap out of you, or rapes your daughter, your wife or bashes your son
> and they can't identify the criminal using the video that captured
> the entire incident because hackers have covered their identity.
Since you mentioned it, somebody did beat the crap out of me (you insensitive clod), but instead of arresting the guy who dunnit, they arrested me. See, I had the wrong color skin. I don't trust that the people running those cameras have my best interest in mind.
Batou: Hey, Major... You ever hear of "human rights"? Major: I understand the concept, but I've never seen it in action