Surveillance Cameras Get Smarter

kog777 writes to mention that the IB Times is taking a look at where surveillance camera technology is headed. Soon researchers tell us that cameras will be available that not only record, but are able to interpret what they see. "The advancements have already been put to work. For example, cameras in Chicago and Washington can detect gunshots and alert police. Baltimore installed cameras that can play a recorded message and snap pictures of graffiti sprayers or illegal dumpers. In the commercial market, the gaming industry uses camera systems that can detect facial features, according to Bordes. Casinos use their vast banks of security cameras to hunt cheating gamblers who have been flagged before."

Comments

Gunshots

[Threni]

> For example, cameras in Chicago and Washington can detect gunshots and alert police

Can they tell the difference between gunshots and recordings of gunshots played back on people's mobile phones? I think we're about to find out!

Re:Gunshots

[morgan_greywolf]

Have you ever actually heard a gunshot? As in live, in person? I have. Gunshots are very loud. Much louder than a mobile phone speaker. Mobile phones simply do not have the dB range to mimick a gunshot accurately.

Re:Gunshots

[biocute]

Maybe if a mobile phone is able to simulate a realistic gunshot noise, and its owner is keen to play that in the public, police should be alerted anyway.

Re:Gunshots

[celardore]

You may be aware that the UK is ahead of everyone else in terms of CCTV surveillance. This doesn't mean that the UK has a lower crime rate though, nor does it mean that they are on top of terrorism or gun crime. There has been a lot of publicity in the UK recently about gun crime, with a famous picture in the papers of Tory leader David Cameron with a youth behind him making some kind of gang sign related to guns.

Surveillance is not the answer, it doesn't make a difference if there are too many criminals to monitor. Gun laws (as Americans will say, right to bear arms etc) are not the answer. This has lead me to believe that there is no answer. We have to be politically correct remember. Don't discriminate against trolls, they're people too.

Re:Gunshots

[garcia]

Maybe if a mobile phone is able to simulate a realistic gunshot noise, and its owner is keen to play that in the public, police should be alerted anyway.

Maybe the government shouldn't be finding new and exciting ways to do less work and employing less real people? IMHO, as soon as they start tracking us with these cameras we should start making loud gun shot noises as we shoot the lenses out.

Take back your personal freedom and stop listening to the "but you are in public!" bullshit. If they aren't willing to have real people watch you then I'm not willing to tolerate it.

Re:Gunshots

[GiovanniZero]

Depends on the gun, 22s and even 45s aren't that loud. Especially if theres lots of white noise around it (ie cars etc). If someone were trying to protest urban surveillance it would interesting to see people spoofing gunshots or random other flags.

You're probably right that a cellphone wouldn't be able to do it but building a decent facsimile thats easy to hide wouldn't be hard. You'd probably get arrested though for defrauding police. You'd have to be more innovative, maybe incorporate your sounds into a song then play it over a boom box and say that you were just listening to music.

Re:Gunshots

[maxwell demon]

What about guns with sound suppressors?

Re:Gunshots

[inviolet]

Maybe the government shouldn't be finding new and exciting ways to do less work and employing less real people? IMHO, as soon as they start tracking us with these cameras we should start making loud gun shot noises as we shoot the lenses out.

I'd rather be watched by algorithms than by humans. Humans are woefully fallible and (worse) in denial about their own fallibility. Humans are tribalistic asshats who lose objectivity if you are different than they are -- or if you aren't different.

Of course the advantage of human surveillance is that humans are so expensive that we won't pay for enough of them to watch everyone. That fact affords me the room I need to break laws in moral ways. We'd never program the surveillance computers to grant the same leeway.

Of course that would have the further advantage of eventually getting all those stupid laws undone. The only cure for a bad law is to enforce it on everyone, as only a surveillance society could do.

Re:Gunshots

[maxwell demon]

There's an easy solution to get the crime rate to zero: Just legalize all actions! Sure, it will not prevent those actions (quite the opposite), but since they are no crimes any more, no crimes will be committed. :-)

Re:Gunshots

[couchslug]

"Real people" are often dumber than the proverbial box of hammers.
I'd rather have cameras watching me any day so I can potentially use the footage (possibly along with other footage) to prove my innocence should any questions arise.
Ubiquitous private and public cameras mean the death of privacy, so I want as level a playing field as possible.

I live in a quaint little rural town. Given the choice between Bubbas eyewitness testimony or video footage, I'd feel much more comfortable going to court with pictures of truth.

Re:Gunshots

[couchslug]

Incarceration is an answer, but there is no single answer. There is no way to make people behave if they don't wish to, but we can lock them up and keep them in the slammer longer. The UK prison system is a walk in the park compared to the US.

Combine UK surveillance with the harshest US punishment and incarceration rates, and make every prison look like Parchman.
Prison should crush prisoners and utterly break their will because they are bad humans who have nullified their value to society. They can be an example to others of the consequences of crime. Take the fight to the enemy and smash them. It isn't PC to say this, but punks only undestand force.

Unless Bad Things happen to criminals, there is no reason not to be one.

"Gun laws (as Americans will say, right to bear arms etc) are not the answer."

Personal armament has been an answer for the MANY people who have used them in self defense, often without firing a shot. My wife is among them.
A deterred, wounded, or dead perp is no loss. An injured, robbed, or raped innocent citizen is.

Re:Gunshots

[Mister Whirly]

I doubt you have ever shot a .45 before, or been near one when one is fired. The .22 I'll give you - not that loud, could easily be mistaken for a backfire or fireworks. I can guarantee you a .45 would not be mistaken for a car backfiring - even with ear protection it still is quite a bang. Without earplugs, even being on the range when .45s are being fired will cause you to cover your ears instinctively. I have shot thousands of rounds from 4 or so different models of .45s, and not a single one of them could even laughingly be called "semi-quiet". 9mms are not as loud either, but usually they are so rapid in succession that you know it isn't anything but gunfire. See, living in the city CAN teach you things!

It would be very hard to realisticly duplicate the decibel level of actual gunfire on a boombox. The sounds you could get, but not the volume. And IANAL, but as far as I can tell, playing sounds of gunfire isn't illegal (unless done with intent to commit some other crime perhaps), but discharging a firearm is. If playing gunfire sounds was illegal, gangster rap would have been over shortly after it started in the 80s.

Re:Gunshots

[jZnat]

You're not the one who has to prove your innocence; the prosecution has to prove your guilt. The only case where you're guilty until proven innocent is in military trials usually regarding treasonous activity and other dangerous things.

Re:Gunshots

[GiovanniZero]

I was probably thinking of a 9mm rather than a 45. So now that someone looked up the dBs we'd need what if we changed proximity rather than volume. Get a tiny speaker right up near the mic. Wouldn't that be more manageable and more likely to trick the sensors?

Something else that I hadn't thought of is that it says the cameras detect gun shots. It doesn't say whether these cameras have microphones or not. You'd think so but what if it actually just detects flashes? Then it would be way easy to fake gunshots, maybe just use a flashbulb or something.

Re:Gunshots

[BruceCage]

I myself heard about it from a documentary on the Discovery Channel, I couldn't find the documentary itself but I found a couple of articles while Googling for it.

• More On Gunshot Detection
• Don't Fire A Gun In Minneapolis, They're Listening

Follow the links in those posts for more information.

resistance is futile

[ArsonSmith]

So, how is this going to make life change? Is big brother going to become a huge menace to society as a whole or is it going to make a better standard of living? I know all the scifi authors' opinions so I'd like to find out what are the positive sides of this?

Re:resistance is futile

[Travelsonic]

I know all the scifi authors' opinions....

Surely that is sarcasm?

While we have an obligation to allow flourishing technology we also, IMO have a great obligation to make sure the technology is protected from tyrrany as well.

Re:resistance is futile

[biocute]

As long as these cameras are installed in and made known to the public, I'm actually fine with them. It would be like an extra pair of eyes or ears for the police.

For instance, if a camera is smart enough to pick up a car accident and notifies appropriate parties (towing, cops etc) timely and accordingly, wouldn't it be bettter?

Re:resistance is futile

[Anonymous Coward]

The scifi authors got it wrong. First of all, the term 'big brother' is a blatant sexism terminology that should be banned, since surveillence is independent of gender. Secondly, unlike the 1984, the technology is so cheap these days, it is accessible by almost everyone. If you think all these 'authorities' are trying to get you, grab a digital camera and SPY THEM BACK AND POST THEM IN THYTUBE! I am so sick and tired of people who whine about how the Orwellian fantasy are becoming true when those are the same people carrying technologies to combat against such scenarios.

Re:resistance is futile

[ArsonSmith]

I know I asked the question but I'd like to post my, umm, hopes for how this will turn out.

1. Standards of Law will have to change. As it is now, if people were recorded 24x7, and held accountable for everything done, everyone would be in jail and or have racked up millions of dollars in fines. So what would this do? It would have to make laws that are much more relaxed, lenient and reflect actual intent of evil or harm.

2. punishment would have to be adjusted to actually reflect the crime. Would this also be able to change things like drinking and driving laws? Right now they are so out of control, if you have been drinking and the cops go to pull you over you have about equal consequence if you are to pull over and cooperate as you do if you flee from the police, and are picked up much later after the alcohol has left your system, but if your recorded history shows that you don't drive any worse after having a beer at the pub, but after 3 your driving habits change would this make the legal limits individualized and appropriate rather than blacked and abusive as they are now?

3. In a fully monitored society, what would be the justification for things like anti-gun laws? If Big Brother always knew what you were doing and could see that you grabbed your rifle and are now climbing the clock tower and stop you before you could do anything, how could they say that you can't own any gun you want? If I enjoy taking a fully automatic machine gun to the range and blasting off some rounds, big brother nows I like doing this and watches me ever time and tracks to see if I deviate in an attempt to go shoot up a school and stop me before that could happen. Fully monitored societies could actually be more free.

Re:resistance is futile

[Teppic_52]

To be honest, it just makes the jobs of CCTV control room operators easier, the technology isn't that new either, we just have the ability to put the thinking part of the system inside the camera now, instead of inside the DVR.
For the average Joe on the street it won't make much difference in this case, unless you get shot, then the paramedics may turn up a bit sooner.

It's the behavioral recognition systems that have the good features, they can tell the difference between someone pacing up and down talking on a cell phone and some one acting 'shifty', then track them from camera to camera around the system. Even with a 50% false positive rate on a system like that you are giving your 'Security Officers' a good head start on containing or even preventing any possible trouble.

From an invasion of privacy point of view these technologies are better, as there is less blanket coverage needed for any one area, and recording quality can be linked to a number of factors, meaning while the system is tracking that fella with the odd looking suitcase you're free to scratch your ass without it appearing on Ebaums World next week.

The Wii is amatuer to what a camera system can do

[CrazyJim1]

Imagine a 10mx10m room that has cameras on many angles. You wear different colored gear on your head, upper arms, lower arms, chest, upper legs, lower legs, and your sword. You wear a light VR helmet. Inside the room spawns monsters that you have to fight off with your sword, while the cameras track where you are.

To me, the arcade died off because home technology caught up. These VR rooms will be the resurgence of the arcade when they become a reality.

ObjectVideo

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to intern at ObjectVideo. They're a DARPA spin-off. I got to sit in the cubicle with all the PhDs and watch them as they used remote control cars to test their tracking cameras. Their products are really pretty stunning.

The basic idea is that if you have a complex with 100 security cameras, you're going to have half a dozen security guards sitting there looking at a huge bank of video feeds. Studies show that guards tend to just phase out after about twenty minutes anyway. So all those security cameras are really pretty worthless.

Instead, you run all the video feeds through a set of servers, the servers can detect moving objects and track them. It's more sophisticated than basic motion detection. They can differentiate between cars, dogs, trucks, boats, etc. They can even tell if you drop or pick up a bag, or throw something. Some applications of their technology can be used to monitor highways for instance: cars traveling north-to-south produce no alert, while cars traveling south-to-north set off the alarm.

This technology removes the human restriction on scale and overcomes the diminishing returns barrier to deploying huge huge banks of CCTVs all over a chemical plant, or military base, or corporate HQ, or national border.

(And as a side note, their IT guy was a real hard-ass about information security. He gave me a personal, one-on-one, 45 minute lecture about everything I wasn't allowed to do, or even think about doing, when I arrived. Guy had the place locked down tight, and easily out-nerded the dozen or so PhDs who were doing the actual coding and development. Just sat in the server room with the petabyte backup drives and listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio. Hilarious.)

PLEASE someone, hook these to a traffic light.

[Mr.Scamp]

Would someone PLEASE adapt these new intelligent cameras to work with traffic lights? Cameras that can tell how much traffic is coming from each direction could move a lot more traffic. I can't count the amount of time I have wasted at red lights when there was NO traffic at all coming the other way. Intersections that can intelligently route traffic would be uber useful.

Re:PLEASE someone, hook these to a traffic light.

[rfkm]

Someone already has. It's just a matter of getting your city/county/state to pony up the money to install a new intersection management system.

And the problem with induction loop sensors is that they are prone to failure and expensive to replace. You don't need to dig up a lane every time a camera needs to be replaced.

Re:PLEASE someone, hook these to a traffic light.

[owlnation]

You need to bear in mind that traffic flow isn't confined to one junction. It relies on the complete matrix of most if not all traffic lights in a city. So, although any one red light might be holding up traffic where there's none from the other direction, that may also be to manage flow further into the city centre in the same direction.

That said, in principle there's merit in what you suggest, but all the cameras on all the lights would need to be hooked into a program to manage overall flow dynamically.

And I've never really understood why we waste energy having traffic lights on, say between 2am and 5am, in most cities.

"switch view to camera with movement" feature?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

I'd think "switch view to camera that detects movement" would be a good-enough feature for most places. That would at least alert a live operator to a view where something MIGHT be going on.

"Interpret what they see?" Wanna bridge?

[Ancient_Hacker]

"interpret what they see": is a bit of a strong statement.

lat time I checked, AI wasnt up to the task of discerning whether someone was spraying a wall with Lysol, or spray paint. or spraying with the intent to cover grafitti, or to add new grafitti.

Methinks someone is applying a generous dollop of wishful thinking.

Doubt it.

[Kadin2048]

Most sound effects / recordings of gunshots aren't accurate representations of the sound (aka, air pressure waves) produced when a gun actually goes off. They're more of an artists' interpretation of what the human mind thinks that a gun sounds like, based on what we remember them sounding like after we've heard one.

Most speakers can't accurately reproduce a gunshot, because they can't move enough air at one time to create the pressure wave. They play something that's more of a "boom," when in reality a gunshot is a sharp "crack" (followed by reverberations / reflections from the room or surrounding objects). Not being able to play the initial 'crack' very well, they over-emphasize the reverberations.

A 'gunshot sensor' would probably be a microphone or microphone-like device that was purposely de-sensitized so that it only received particularly loud, sharp sounds. You might be able to fool it with something explosive (like dry ice and water in a soda bottle), or where there was a significant release of pressure (car backfire), but most sound-reproduction systems wouldn't cut it -- they don't move that much air at once. Even with things like backfiring and explosions, you could probably filter them out if you wanted to, because I doubt they're the same when you really look at the waveforms (I suspect that the high pressure escaping from the small aperture of a gun's muzzle makes a very distinct sound from a car backfiring through the 1-2" muffler), even though they sound the same to a person, because we're not good at discriminating very loud, sharp sounds.

OT: I wonder what a nearby lightning strike "sounds" like to a microphone with the capacity to accurately measure the maximum amplitude of the sound?

Re:Doubt it.

[GFree]

Most sound effects / recordings of gunshots aren't accurate representations of the sound (aka, air pressure waves) produced when a gun actually goes off. They're more of an artists' interpretation of what the human mind thinks that a gun sounds like, based on what we remember them sounding like after we've heard one.

I'm reminded of a saying about how sound engineers describe the methods used for obtaining good gun sounds:

If you want a pistol shot, use a rifle.
If you want a rifle shot, use a shotgun.
If you want a shotgun blast, use a Howitzer.

Re:Doubt it.

[feepness]

If you want a pistol shot, use a rifle. If you want a rifle shot, use a shotgun. If you want a shotgun blast, use a Howitzer.

Crap, I need a Howitzer recording... anyone got a spare atomic weapon?

Define cheater?

[schwit1]

"Casinos use their vast banks of security cameras to hunt cheating gamblers who have been flagged before."

Casinos would have us think that card counting is cheating.

Re:The Wii is amatuer to what a camera system can

[Tarlus]

"You wear different colored gear on your head, upper arms, lower arms, chest, upper legs, lower legs, and your sword. You wear a light VR helmet. Inside the room spawns monsters that you have to fight off with your sword..."

Well, there's kind of a line between the sleek elegance of the Wiimote, and just flat-out looking like an idiot. :P

I wouldn't bet on it ...

[richg74]

In the commercial market, the gaming industry uses camera systems that can detect facial features, according to Bordes. Casinos use their vast banks of security cameras to hunt cheating gamblers who have been flagged before.

The tests of facial recognition technology in which the results have been made available (e.g., in airport security trials) have been failures. I'm pretty skeptical that there's anything of substance to this until I see some evidence. The intelligent student will readily observe that the casinos have a strong interest in having people believe that the technology can do this.

oh goodie

[band-aid-brand]

This has made firecrackers much MUCH more entertaining. *runs off to buy stock in black cat fireworks co.*

If only..

[hack slash]

I could've done with some smart surveillance cameras on my property last night, some fucker stole my two mountain bikes :(

But the joke's partly on them, one of them was waiting to be junked, brakes shot, chain twisted, chainrings bent, tyres bald, bottom bracket does a very loud SKREEEEEEEE sound when you try and pedal and it weighed half a ton. The other was from Halfords.

Setting a bad precedent

[segafreak]

TBH this sounds like it would set a really bad precedent. Think about it, if the cameras are trusted to interpret what they see, then security guards stop being employed and noone is watching the video screens. But what if the camera malfunctions in some way, and ignores activity it should be alerting the law about. More to the point, imagine the problems if someone could hack the system - camera's report a terrorist threat at X location, and half the local police screams round to a house where they find an old lady singing to her dog. Meanwhile the other side of town, a bank gets robbed cos attention is diverted. I know this is the extremes of possibility, but I would only want to see this technology being adopted if people realise someone still needs to watch it....

Re:Car Stereos

[inviolet]

A tiny phone speaker isnt going to do it, but some of those thumper stereos they have in those neighborhoods just might set them off.

It is true -- a thumper stereo can set off even a very advanced gunfire detector... but in a different way than you are thinking:

• Car equipped with "thumper stereo" drives through a sensor-equipped neighborhood.
• Quiet, mild-mannered WASP (like me) hears the stereo and so finally crosses the annoyance threshold.
• WASP opens fire on car.
• Gunfire sensor detects the sound and notifies the police.
• Police arrive, survey the scene, and photograph the bullet-riddled car (including the now-destroyed thumper stereo).
• Evidence is presented to a jury of the WASP's peers, which is statistically certain to include at least one person who has lived near a car equipped with thumper stereo.
• Jury deliberates for ten minutes and then declars the incident to be "Very, very, very, very justifiable homicide".

Re:Gunshots - way above threshold of pain

[rubycodez]

yes, grandparent poster can look it up, a .45 or 9mm is 155+ db, a 357 magnum 160+ db, even the lowly .38 special 153. No car stereo or boom box ever made sounds like that, you'd go painfully deaf if that level of sound lasted even a second. I find the 9mm higher pitched but not quieter than .45 ACP. Even lowly .38 special out of my snub nosed Ruger SP101 has a roar under the high pitched crack that no one is ever going to mistake for a firecracker.