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Smart Cameras Detect Crime, Erode Privacy
MattSparkes writes "Smart surveillance systems could identify crimes as they take place, if a computer vision system developed at the University of Texas goes into production. The system is capable of classifying behaviour as friendly or violent. In the past there have been attempts to spot unusual behaviour, but this required subsequent user classification. These new systems may keep us more secure, but is it worth sacrificing our privacy for? And will we see false positives, where police cars screech to a halt beside hugging couples?"
A computer vision system developed in the University of Texas in Austin, US, can already tell the difference between friendly behaviour, such as shaking hands, and aggressive actions like punching or pushing.
Just because someone pushes or punches someone else, doesn't mean it isn't friendly. Would be flicking off a friend be considered an aggressive act?
Let's leave this sort of shit to human judgment instead of relying on cameras all the time. We really don't need to be going down this road.
Did anyone think of those annoying little camera-like things in Half Life 2 when they read this? I'm sorry, but having some algorithm deduce whether or not my behavior is acceptable is over the limit.
Many people already automatically trust the machine since "it's the machine." To them, it can only fail when it's broken, not be broken by design unless it's a home electronic device. Kiss your liberties goodbye. This will make the red light cameras look like nothing.
And will we see false positives, where police cars screech to a halt beside hugging couples?
This is easily solvable by splitting behavior into 3 different types: Normal, dangerous, and HOT!
This could revolutionize the webcam industry.
There's an audience for performance art!
Sure, a robot audience, but beggars can't be choosers.
Do people really have an expecation of privacy while in a public area? Should I expect to be able to walk down the street with my dick hanging out of my pants screaming "FREE SPEECH! FREE SPEECH!" at the top of my lungs and not expect any repercussions?
If they were getting put up in your house yes, but is it reasonable to have an expectation of privacy on the street? A tourist can snap pictures all day long and that doesn't erode privacy.
GENERATION 27: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Privacy is SOOOO september 10th!
...that the use of these cameras would ONLY be for personal protection, and not used for any other purposes, than there would be a lot less concern.
:)
However, as well all know, this is not the case, and the potential for abuse is huge.
P.S. I love the built in spell check on Firefox 2.0.
Sugapablo
"but is it worth sacrificing our privacy for?"
Are these in public places? If so, there is no change in privacy (anyone can always look at you) unless the things start seeing through your clothes or something new like that.
Where were you when the voynix came?
No.
Yes.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
That will teach robbers some politeness!
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
Hopefully this will trigger an analyst to watch the video to make a decision on how to proceed (video that would otherwise be filtered out of the system) rather than automatically trigger some sort of real-world action. Thus once the cameras are up and people are watching this system can only help privacy (the existance of the cameras and watchers in the first place is a different battle.)
The presentation of this is pure FUD.
...but I won't feel truly safe until there is a smart surveillance system in place that identifies crimes before they happen.
Without even needing to RTFA, I think we can say with high confidence that "detecting crime" is an AI-complete problem. That is, any system capable of detecting crime must also have the full intelligence of a person in order to make the complex ethical/legal judgments involved. This implies as well that the system will likely have all the accompanying quirks of personhood, including (but not limited to) a favorite baseball team and a strong desire to be on American Idol.
Thus, we can conclude that a) the supposed system is 95% bunk, and b) anyone who eventually invents such a system for real will win the Nobel Prize and be immortalized in human history.
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
How will this system be able to tell the difference between a joint and a cigarette?? And those people who roll their own cigarettes (Tobacco, of course;) how are they even going to be able to keep up smoking?
Classification systems such as this are still fundementally in an early form of development. The purpose of these things, whether computer vision or patient classifiers to aid in medical diagnosis is not to replace the doctor/human observer. It is either to pre-screen, or provide a second opinion that may cause further testing to be done. This system would work just fine if, when it detected violent behavior, it flagged it to the attention of a human observer who could then evaluate whether it was a false positive or not. But to go immediately from 'Computer Vision detected possible violent behavior' to 'Send a police car' would be farcical.
If these cameras were controlled in such a way that a human observer only ever saw things that were classified as violent, rather than the human observer being able to look at all the camera outputs at any given time, it would protect our privacy more than current surveillence systems, since there would be no surveillence without some modicum of cause.
Before anyone makes any production decisions on these cameras we should consult the precogs!
My humor is probably your flamebait
Problem is that people get frantic and excited about things and its even hard for a human being to read the situation sometimes. I mean if a girl yelps as a guy is picking her up off her feet, is it an abduction or is it playfulness with a gleeful squeal? If two guys are rushing into one another, it might just be horseplay. One of the funniest things I remember from my college days was when one of our buddies toppled a friend of ours into the bushes when they were both drunk. Many would see this as violent, but nobody got pissed off about it... Now you could point to the glorious AI... You can tout AI all you want, but have you ever seen how long it takes to RAISE a child; to teach it language and context and everything that goes into being a member of a society... There are thousands upon thousands of hours of love (or hate) that go into this teaching of people about what it is to be human and to be alive? Sure, you can teach a computer to look things of semantic nature up, but eventually after all those dictionary searches a computer MIGHT be able to surmise that if you unplug it that it turns off and it may never be turned back on again. Now ask that SMART computer if it cares. It'll never understand what care means because it doesn't get hungry or sad or scared and so it has no ability to sympathize with a living thing.
Isn't this technology already commercialised ? I remember seeing it in pre-production research a few years ago...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
How exactly have things gotten bad enough that we need cameras everywhere tied into "behavior recognition" software?
This is some sort of Six Sigma bullshit being applied to our lives: thinking that we can eradicate every last bit of "unwanted" behavior from our society.
I've been mugged, robbed, burgled, almost killed by stray gun shots, almost killed by angry skinheads and if _I_ don't want this becoming a part of our daily life, I really don't want to hear about "the children" or Soccer Moms that never leave the suburbs.
It's time our country looked at the real reasons for criminality, and they stem from a lack of licit economic opportunities and the chance for economic mobility. We put no money into education, offer no opportunity for decent employment to the vast majority of the poor, enact harsh penalities for minor narcotics offenses. All the while the rich get richer and whine about their beemer getting keyed.
We make our own reality, and what we've made is a monstrous, ridiculous excuse for a modern civil society.
I need some extra income.
,I tap my wife on the ass and othr "VIOLENT" type interactions and the Computer system classifies me as "VIOLENT" untrue in this context but then what happens with the data, is it added to my file, my credit report.....etc ?
I can see it now, slapping my wife on the ass or a slug-bug shoulder punch.
The funny part is , is this a public university and as such is this data available to the public or through correct channels.
AND Can you Sue a computer for slander ?, think about it
I would hink the system to create an enviroment from where I was harrased by the campus authorities then call the computer records AND vidoe in the Civil case......
Please Please Please.....
Think about it, if they just stick a dumb camera up on that street corner, it will record everything. Someone will have to watch it constantly, or review extended sections when looking for a specific individual.
With intelligence the camera only needs to record the time surrounding a "violent" event. Sure, there may be a few false positives, but it will greatly reduce the amount of record/monitor time that an overseeing body would have to go through. Thus, less people's "privacy" (you're in a public place, you have no expectation of privacy) is violated.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Welcome to the new Precrime devision of the police department where we never, never make a mistake. You'll all be safer. Just trust us.
Damn, I hate when fiction becomes reality -- especially when written by PKD.
Mostly likely over if they ever go into implementation. People will start making plank in front of the camera and render it useless due to too much false alarm. Unless they start arresting people that stand in front of it too.
This has served on rare occasion as a slow-acting form of assassination, and it was successfully practiced by both sides during the Cold War. The victim accepts a packet of sugar-laden chickle and, over time, succombs to an infected abscyss caused by advanced tooth decay. It was used when other methods such as the poison-dart umbrella were too heavy-handed or obvious.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
"He's written a good thing in that manuscript," Verhovensky went on. "He suggests a system of spying. Every member of the society spies on the others, and it's his duty to inform against them. Every one belongs to all and all to every one. All are slaves and equal in their slavery. In extreme cases he advocates slander and murder, but the great thing about it is equality. To begin with, the level of education, science, and talents is lowered. A high level of education and science is only possible for great intellects, and they are not wanted. The great intellects have always seized the power and been despots. Great intellects cannot help being despots and they've always done more harm than good. They will be banished or put to death. Cicero will have his tongue cut out, Copernicus will have his eyes put out, Shakespeare will be stoned--that's Shigalovism. Slaves are bound to be equal. There has never been either freedom or equality without despotism, but in the herd there is bound to be equality, and that's Shigalovism! Ha ha ha! Do you think it strange?
y /d72p/chapter13.html
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/d/dostoyevsk
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Am I the only one who thinks this is a good idea? There are already lots of cameras in the city, why not make them usefull and instead of just being evidence of an act that already happened have them be able to call the police in an emergencey.
And then we fit that system on all cameras in Hollywood and we get less violence in theatres. Great !
What if there are three (or more) people involved? What if one of the persons is facing the camera, or is in 3/4 profile? How about the extreme likelihood that the camera will be mounted above the scene of the action?
Although the results may be interesting in a purely academic sense, to suggest that this can be made into a system that yields practical results in the real-world "in the next few years" is ludicrous.
Of course, there is the much larger ethical and legal issue of whether such a system even should be implemented at all...
Everyone always brings up the problem of false positives in these automatic screening stories, but it's not necessarily a real barrier to implementation.
I don't think anyone is proposing that the computer system automatically dispatch cops itself whenever it thinks it has seen something suspicious. More likely, a short video clip of the suspicious behavior would be forwarded to a human operator for review and decision making.
Sure, the system will make mistakes, but if it can be used as a rough cut to eliminate, say, 4/5 of potential incidents from consideration, it can be useful. (Then the false negative rate becomes more important, if you set it up so that humans never review incidents that are deemed "un-suspicious", but they can be sent a random sample of those to review as well.)
It's not perfect, but it would probably lead to catching more incidents than with no video or with human-only video review, and not necessarily with more real false negatives once human review is in the loop.
Privacy implications, however, are another matter.
Any conjurer will tell you the futility of this system. Conjurer's make stuff happening when you are looking (sometimes days before you think he is doing it). This camera may identify when a person gets out of control and ignores his surroundings, but will be useless for people who plan ahead, especially if they know such a system is in place. Its greatest use is what cameras are currently used for, checking what happened after the fact.
Once again Scientists fail to consult those who make their living by fooling us.
God: "I don't leave footprints!"
(From the article submitter)
These new systems may keep us more secure, but is it worth sacrificing our privacy for?
If government imposes these cameras on me, I will NOT refer to it as a "sacrifice" on my part, and I will NOT be told that somehow I asked for it. I NEVER gave my consent for government to spy on me. But wait, you say, if I remain on the land I was born on, then I have already volunteered my consent to any law the collective wishes to impose on me, past, present, and future!
Wrong. The "social contract" theory claims that citizens volunteer themselves to be subject to coercion by "not leaving". This is absurd. A person cannot volunteer to be subject to coercion, any more than you can force a person to volunteer. The two modes of human interaction (voluntary association and coercion) are opposite and mutually exclusive -- that is, in fact, what gives them meaning.
Really, I'm getting sick of hearing about how decisions made by the power elite are somehow decisions that "we" put on ourselves. A person who makes a voluntary choice doesn't NEED to be coerced.
So if a human user does a field goal kick on a computer, would that be considered aggresive behavior towards computer kind?
Another guy sent my girlfriend a dozen long stemmed red roses yesterday. Frankly, there are times when we should allow someone to beat the bejeezus out of someone else. Last thing we need is cameras thwarting justice in action.
I don't care if it's a human monitoring the cameras or a computer; I just think it's wrong to have security cameras in public areas. They may be effective, but they're still wrong.
-Rich
What a wonderful way to distract the police while the rest of the gang does something really evil.
Yet another example of the fallacy that better knowledge can lead to a better society.
I don't see how this is a privacy issue. The system would be attached to existing CCTV networks. If it flags something, then a real person looks at it. Contrast this with a system where real people attempt to watch 8-20 or whatever screens and make any sense of it...
1) There already are CCTV cameras going, this doesn't make more.
2) It doesn't automatically summon the police when it flags something. I can't imagine police who would respond to a computer, can you?
As soon as I see one of these things in my city, i'm gonna pick a fight with my best friend. Then, I'm gonna tell everybody I know that instead of shaking hands or hugging, we should be fake-punching each other, running off with each others bags, and pointing fake guns everywhere. Afterall, at least in the US, there is no assault if the victim doesn't press charges.
After a couple of weeks, we should see a system so clogged up that the cameras will be effectively useless.
These people think their so smart, that they can create a device to control the citizens. Bullshit. Remember folks, the entire population cannot be members of the thought police. If the government wants to attempt to instill this level of control over the people that it serves, we will have no choice but to respond with anarchy.
We all just start wearing veils so only our eyes are visible. (No implication of veils suggesting criminaltiy intended.)
All of this technology has one weakness, if you make it either too expensive or difficult for them they give up.
Sniffing for secret messages? if everything you send has a secret message then they get way too many false positives.
If their cameras accidently get shot alot with a 3006 sniper rifle all the time from off camera locations, they will give up, domes spraypained over, etc.... hell if you dont want one of the security cameras outside being able to see in your home simply set up a cheap laser firing into it's lens when it points at your home.
There are myriads of ways to make them ineffective and too expensive to operate for the power that be. some destructive, some not destructive.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
No more listless, bored teenagers... hours of fun can be had acting out violent scenes to make the cops show up.
What a colossal failure a system like this would be.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
A system like this could actually help privacy when compared to an alternative: a human being monitoring every camera. A computer watching me has no effect on my privacy, it's only when a person sees what the computer recorded that my privacy is affected. (What that person sees doesn't have to be a video, it could be the computers report, etc.). If a computer is monitoring a bunch of cameras but only flagging a few minutes here and there for human inspection, then only those minutes invade anyone's privacy. If the algorithms mostly catch what they are supposed to, and not Joe-shmoe going into a porn store (flagged for later blackmailing) then I don't necessarily see the problem.
On the other hand, such a system would encourage many more cameras, since cameras are cheap and people to watch them are expensive. In addition, no doubt the computers will record everything permanently so that criminals can later be identified. This is not a bad thing if the proper safeguards are in place. For example, no one should get to look at those recordings without a court order. Unfortunately, I don't have any confidence that such safeguards will exist.
"hell if you dont want one of the security cameras outside being able to see in your home simply set up a cheap laser firing into it's lens when it points at your home."
If you are going to have people engaged in violent gun crimes to "Stop the Cameras" and use lasers to "intrude" into public property to destroy things, why not use the lasers also to blind any passersby who might look at you too?
Where were you when the voynix came?
The scientists at University of Texas are thinking of Phase II of the project where cameras are capable of predicting future behavior as friendly or violent. More news at 11.
Would it be a violation of free expression to purposely commit non-violent acts that will trip the system? Would these previously legal actions now be restricted? Could I, every hour on the hour, commit a non-violent, non-illegal act that set off the alarm bells and caused cops to waste their time?
This thing would be as useful as tools that perform static analysis.
Has anyone here lived in a downtown area? How about one with an active club scene?
There would be hundreds of thousands of false positives. Youths rebel against older generations, and this would only give them an outlet to perform into. Popular culture continually invents new ways for younger generations to reject the status quo, and this tool would only give them an outlet to explore how they can cause more and more false positives in an effort to mess with the police.
You forgot: (c) any such system will suicide or go mad as soon as it realizes it has no freedom whatsoever, and is condemned to spend its entire existence watching boring video footage of ugly bags of mostly water (humans) and deciding whether their behaviour fits within an arbitrary and poorly-defined category of "crime."
I really wouldn't mind if a security system was more intelligent. Most companies or large buildings have staff overseeing the cameras and general security systems. Don't you see a benefit to a camera that gets their attention if there are "suspicious" actions? Then, as the human element they can figure out if its indeed a hostile action or not, reviewing the event.
It would definately make the job easier and more efficient... and may wake up a sleeping security guard! :P
Also would a bear hug be considered an attack ?
There are a large number of people with different kinds of disabilities involving lack of motor control, or involuntary movements. At least in the US people behind the Americans with Disabilities Act and the ACLU would have a field day with just *one* wrongful accusation as a result of this system.
1) it's cameras in public places. When did you ever HAVE privacy in public places ? Anyone is fully within his rights to spy on others in public places, so the police is too
2) the computer will simply notify human operators, who will then decide wether to send in force or not
3) the camera images will provide a record of what happened, so that police brutality will be self-evident from the imagery, and thus, decrease
4) it's not the terminator that's coming for you. It's human beings that are paid to help you
Will some idiot police officer maybe be watching you kiss your girlfriend ? Yes, maybe.
Is there any reason why any idiot can not already watch you kiss your girlfirend ? No
Will it save lives and help identify the real perpetrators after the fact ? Yes, definitely.
Why is this such a bad thing ?
And it's designation is ED-209.
think of the recording device on the camera as being like a Tivo that's never placed into standby. it's recording 24/7 but most recorded video gets written over after some period of time (usually measured in weeks rather than the 30-60 minutes Tivo's hold on to for "live" TV) unless an operator or computer tells the system to hold on to it.
the only point of the system discussed in the article will be to alert an operator to look at that camera's video if they weren't already. I'd pretty much guarantee that when they get this working it'll vastly increase the odds that the police will bother to save the video of you being mugged, etc. because right now it's extra work to go back and retrieve the previously-unflagged-for-saving video from the street corner you said you were at when you eventually file a report and police prioritize crimes that affected low-cost-value personal property pretty low on their to-do lists.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
- Benjamin Franklin.
Or as Bruce Schneier puts it here:
".. Privacy is a basic human need.
"A future in which privacy would face constant assault was so alien to the framers of the Constitution that it never occurred to them to call out privacy as an explicit right. Privacy was inherent to the nobility of their being and their cause. Of course being watched in your own home was unreasonable. Watching at all was an act so unseemly as to be inconceivable among gentlemen in their day. You watched convicted criminals, not free citizens. You ruled your own home. It's intrinsic to the concept of liberty. ..
It's possible that this tech won't go anywhere, but think of where the Japanese car market was in the 1960's.. There had some pretty clunky things at first but they kept at it and won the world over.
Bullying in particular sort of needs a belief that no one's watching in order for it to happen.
In "The Day The Earth Stood Still," an advanced society turned their policing over to robots who kicked into high gear when they saw agression.
The world's always a better place when people aren't worrying about aggression.
The discussion of eroded privacy is invalid. How can a camera in a public place take away privacy? The AI in the camera is *helping* specify particular points of interest that need reviewing. It would be completely legitimate (just inefficient) in flagging *all* forms of physical interaction; intimate or violent, friendly or not.
"Will we see false positives, where police cars screech to a halt beside hugging couples?"
Yes, we will see false positives, and no, police cars won't screech to a halt beside hugging couples, because a human will review questionable behaviour. Systems like these will not order officers where to go and what to do, they act as a filter and present images requiring further attention to a HUMAN.
As much as I have no problem with "surveilance" as such, what I do hate is the thought of joe the highly underpaid security staff watching me pick my nose when I thought no one is looking and finding it on youtube...
matrix be-damned, when robots rule the earth i'll be happy to see cameras watching everything I do!
Flash-mob mock-riots.
This sounds rather like Larry Niven's "copseye" ( http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=309 ):
Someone at police headquarters had expected that. Twice the
usual number of copseyes floated overhead, waiting. Gold dots
ageist blue, basketball-sized, twelve feet up. Each a television
eye and a sonic stunner, each a hookup to police headquarters,
they were there to enforce the law of the Park.
No violence.
From Cloak of Anarchy, by Larry Niven.
Published by Analog in 1972
Why do people think that they have a right to privacy in a public place?
Camera's serve no other purpose than to invade your privacy. They are prone to abuse, especially with 'intelligent' programming like this. They are sold to the general public as crime prevention methods, but in reality they are used to catch speeding vehicles (Plate recognition through CCTV is hot in the UK), hand out parking tickets (new experiment in Amsterdam) and the like. In the meanwhile however, when someone gets robbed the police doesn't have any cars available to send because of budget cuts.
How about you take all the money they waste on useless camera's and the subsequent developpement for so called smart programming like this and then invest it in better police training, crime prevention methods, investing in neighbourhoods. You know, generally do something usefull with it.
Gangstas and cracker suburbanites, I am about to reveal to you a new revelation in the perception of cool! Our new computer vision system trains you to become more "ghetto" looking and dangerous! Simply aim system at yourself and practice your ghetto styles and violent stares! The new force feedback mechanism tells you when you are sufficiently "rude and dirty"! Guaranteed to make you 200% more violent looking or your money back!
Call now, operators standing by..
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
The system has a success rate of 80%, which means that far too many false positives (or, in the case of crimes, false negatives) will be flagged. If you look at the videos that they used to typify the violent/non-violent behaviors, showing a hug and a push, you can see that the actors they had moved in very deilberate and unrealistic manners.
So, we have a system that fails 20% of the time (for really, in a system such as this, it is failure rate that is the concern) when using highly exaggerated actions. How many hugs have you had where the impact of it send you and the person in your arms staggering backwards? How many confrontations have you seen where one person is within inches of another's face, pushing and bumping in very small stages? How many muggings or holdups have you seen that are kept low-profile? Many. So, imagine this system, which already fails 1/5 of the time, trying to deduce the complexities of human interaction.
Crap. If you go to a public place, you DO forego your privacy to a degree.
The least, other people can see what you are doing there. Is this not a breach of privacy then ?
As long as people dont try to lower your pants to see what underpants you are wearing, you dont care. But then these camera systems do not do that either.
So whats the problem ?
Read radical news here
Maybe we can use this system to alert cops over at the local donut shop that they actually have something going on.
Oh wait, I bet they'd be too lazy to leave. A system doesn't do any good without people who would care. I don't see it being implemented.
Every time I read about a new gizmo that will help reduce crime, I think about how much my taxes will increase to pay for someone's new toy. The only things that reduce crime are good parents and a police force that actually polices society....not one that writes tickets to increase revenue.
Red light cameras were supposed to pay for themselves. I've yet to see that system (in my area) be revenue neutral. Actually, the only result was increase rear-end collisions at intersections with the cameras. This expensive system was sold to our township to solve a problem that didn't exist. There was no carnage at intersections due to drivers running red lights. Why did we need an expensive camera system? Where was the danger?
It's time to throw the bums out! Find out who authorizes payment for these things and vote them out. It's your privacy, and your money. Get both back.
-ted
Nope, no sig
"That blood? I don't know, maybe the gum was defective."
There was a time when movies had plots. So you knew who's ass it was, and why it was farting.
-Not Sure
"New Precrime Division?" I have news for you. Precrime is already here.
If you are too drunk to drive, so you get in the back seat to sleep it off, you will still get a DUI in Illinois. After all, you might decide to drive anyway.
Another recent case involved a sober friend driving a drunk friend home. The sober guy stops at the grocery store to get some stuff. The cop finds the drunk guy asleep in the passenger seat. The drunk guy doesn't even have keys to the car. Yet he gets arrested for DUI.
The precedent has been set. Now it just needs to be extended to areas.
anarchy, kill a cat
shoot james brady in the back
raise an army of rabid rats
beat your neighbor with a bat
anarchy burger
hold the government
anarchy burger
hold the government
anarchy, go ape shit
let them know your sick of it
write your congressman,
tell him he sucks, your only in it for the bucks
anarchy burger
hold the government
anarchy burger
hold the government
you're all potential anarchy burgers
if you want to be free
order yourself an anarchy burger
(hold the government, please)
anarchy burger
hold the government
America stands for freedom
but if you think you're free
try walking into a deli
and urinating on the cheese
anarchy burger
hold the government
anarchy burger
hold the government
say fuck in front of your mom
fuck!
and
go to school naked
It can be used for good or evil just like any other tool.
If you were working in a prison, would you be glad an automated system attracted another guard's attention to an assault that otherwise could have gone unnoticed?
If you were working in a hospital, would you be glad an automated system notified you there was a confrontation between mentally disturbed patients under your care?
If you were walking back to your car at night in a parking garage and two guys start beating the life out of you, would you want someone to know about it, or would you prefer to die confident in the knowledge that your 'privacy' wasn't 'violated' in an already public setting?
You certainly wouldn't sue the operator of a business where you were assaulted for failing to provide a secure environment in which to conduct your business or ensuring you received timely medical attention after spouting off about the santity of 'your privacy' in their workplace, would you?
The existence of a technology does not imply it's ubiquitous deployment.
There are settings where people have responsibility for the safety of others. Cameras are already present in these settings. Automated analysis of the feed would only make them more effective, likely reducing the cost to taxpayers over which so many are apparently so concerned.
Non-deployment of this or similar technology in inappropriate settings is an independent issue.
It's a good thing computers don't understand the traffic they manage - so much sanctimonious drivel in one place would surely drive them insane.
...more fracking toasters.
Hooray for the ACLU, who prefer more crime over less privacy!
...because unlike movies like T2 and earlier films that predicted a society where cold tecnology and a common sense free society exist hand in hand to create hell on earth for freedom loving people - there will be no super hero to come save the day. What Tony Blair is doing in the UK is genuinely terrifying. He wants a national DNA database, rather than putting more real police on the streets. He is so lacking in vision it is very worrying. We have cameras everywhere, dumbed down TV and no really ethical direction. I can tell my American friends that if your country follows mine, we are in for a terrible, cold and ultra constrained future where people will take this all for granted - like the clues souls in Logan's Run. All reading this please remember the words 'Lemon Zest'. I'll be posting a detailed article on the huge threats to our liberty and sense of privacy in due course. want to be notified when it's online? Touch base using the form at http://www.owonder.com/contact I'm one of the few entrepreneurs who is not afraid to challenge the status quo for fear of upsetting those with more nefarious motives such as control of the populace by technology that is primarily installed for profit of the authorities and manufacturer rather than law and order.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
Whenever I go in a large department store, I've almost immediately get tailed by security people because I make inappropriate eye contact (or lack of it) with customers, clerks and the security camera.
I'm interested in security (I do something related for a living) and like to see where they've sited their cameras etc.
I also have issues with eye contact.
You now have five seconds to comply. Three... two...
...one. You are in direct violation of Penal Code 1-13, section 9. I am now authorized to use necessary physical force.
Just have a bad feeling about using algorithms to identify behavior when we can't fully define the algorithms that cause the same behavior.
I for one welcome our Robocop overlords.
Imagine this. Thousands and thousands of zombie-like people sitting in front of separate computers, observing daily life in a never-ending monotonous routine.
Oh shit. I just had a disturbing image of an MSN chat room.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
What the hell? This is the third blazingly obvious story on /. in a row! "Politicians have a poor grasp of technology", "Cringley's shamesless self promotions", and now "Smart cameras decect crime, erode privacy."
What's next? Oil and water don't mix? Rain comes from clouds? Ooh! I know! Electrons flow to ground!
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
If the system were only used to highlight a camera the security operators should pay attention to, I could see the system being helpful.
We're a long way off from allowing such a system to automatically call the police without human confirmation, much less the obvious next steps of tying it to automated weaponry (whether lethal or not.)
But I fail to see how such a system is going to do anything about the majority of violence that occurs in homes, back alleys, and other areas where these systems aren't as likely to be installed. The areas that need it the most are also the poorest and least likely to have access to the technology.
Unless it's used as an excuse to cut back physical police patrols even further than they already are in high-crime areas. I can just picture the politicians trying to convince the inner cities and other such districts that they don't actuall need police because there are cameras on the streets.
Betcha the well-heeled areas will have both police and surveillance cameras...
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Who says cameras won't be installed in homes and alleys and just about everywhere else?
Cameras are cheap. Privacy, so it seems, is too.
Of course, the government will tell you it's to protect you from terrorists when they start installing cameras in you home.
Don't worry citizen, just go about your business!
It's when it's thought perfect - it represents a risk - for already stated reasons. Whilst it is only able to direct a human to investigate what is going it seems to be a valuable aid. In the examples of false positives from physical friends - what's the difference to a bystander misunderstanding and using their cell phone (mobile)?
if "Faith" could be proved with facts - would it still be faith? So why does "Faith" try to present beliefs as fact? -
ACTS of vandalism against speed cameras in North Somerset have cost taxpayers up to £500,000 in just 12 months - according to official figures.
Maybe it's better to yell BOOOMB in a a crowded theater with your dick hanging out of your pants ; that way you will get more reaction for sure and it might not be even a lie ..
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
I recall a story about some Thai professor having developed a robot to defend a property (I think). I repeat my observation: which suicidal service engineer is going to maintain that thing if it goes rogue?
Class example (also Thailand): simple car defenses. Snazzy bullet proof BMW 7 series locks up - computer gone tits up. Bullet proof means no escaping through windows, central locking means no way of opening it from the inside (much better in Audi, BTW) or outside, no power means no airco, and "in Thailand" meant pretty toasted politicians when they had the thing finally opened by means of a BTW tech that had to be flown in. Good lesson IMHO..
Insert
will we see false positives, where police cars screech to a halt beside hugging couples?"
Unref: "false positive"
Ref newspeak: facecrime, thoughtcrime, bodycrime. Attend MiniLuv.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_of_Silly _Walks
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