Slashdot Mirror
Mind How You Walk - Someone is Watching
mrbluze writes "The Telegraph has an opinion article about the future of the extensive CCTV network in the United Kingdom. Automated analysis of how and where people are walking or otherwise moving, and what objects they carry or leave behind, flags the attention of security staff. This is meant to preempt a crime and make suspects identifiable even by gait. The technology is of questionable public benefit since street crime has not decreased despite the presence of CCTV. 'An airport camera can be programmed to know what a departure hall should look like, with thousands of separate movements. A single suitcase left for any length of time would trigger an alarm. This technology was developed for use in hotels to alert staff to a breakfast tray left outside a room. Soon, it will be coming to a street near you. Why not go the whole hog and have microphones attached to cameras or embedded in street lights?'"
Already done :-( I don't know about sleepwalking into a surveillance society.
I think we're running towards it with open arms at the moment.
http://tinyurl.com/2vbx8g
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I never cease to be amazed that a government dominated by technologically illiterate lawyers tries to find a technical fix for every problem. Perhaps I shouldn't be.
Pining for the fjords
Not terrorism, facecrime... Or in this case, gaitcrime.
Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
Given that this will probably lead to hauling people in based upon spotty clues such as gait, fingerprinting them and taking DNA Samples (never to be destroyed) and then prosecuting a handful for "Failure to Obey" or some other nonsense statute thus clogging the courts with stupid cases this ranks more up there with setting someone on fire to see if their innocence will protect them.
The article is right. At best, high-tech CCTV has been used to identify people after the fact, in some cases but has done nothing to deter or prevent crimes.
This is one of the biggest problems I see with current governments' agendas to implement mass surveilance and other technology security measures - an almost total lack of cost-benefit analysis that demonstrate a clear need to implement the technology. For many of these cases there are clear privacy concerns, the potential for abuse of the system, and encroachment of liberties, and in addition there are the projected costs of implementing the systems - costs for hardware, software, infrastructure, agencies, staffing, etc. Most of the time the monetary estimates run into the billions, and that's before the usual reality of budget and schedule overruns, unforeseen implementation problems, contractor cost inflating, etc etc. And yet to balance all these costs, projected and real, there is usually not much more supporting argument than "it fights terrorism/crime/think of the children". Rarely with any sort of hard data backing up the plans, rarely with in-depth studies of test cases, or even analysis of how similar systems are working in other countries where they have already been implemented. This whole idea of "trust us, it's for the better" is infuriating coming from our chosen leaders.
And what about if the system doesn't provide the expected benefits? When was the last time a huge security program was dismantled when shown to not deliver what was promised, or even evaluated for success? (programs like Carnivore and Total Information Awareness continue on in other guises even now) Too often there are earmarks, kickbacks (monetary and political) and whatnot tied into the whole process so supporters are even less likely to admit failure when a program is still personally lucrative in some way. None of the funding for these mass surveilance and automated security measures seem to have any sort of merit-based budgeting built in. It ends up being a huge political fight to close useless programs, meanwhile the costs - monetary and liberty - continue to pile up, restricting freedoms and draining our public coffers (or in the case of the US continuing to pile onto a mountain of debt that cannot possibly be repaid without massive negative consequences). Our representatives in government need to be held accountable to hold these programs accountable! There need to be provisions, milestones, evaluations and hard-set sunset clauses that force these programs to deliver or die. And there needs to be more scepticism upfront with regard to the promised benefits that have little to no factual backing, and more than that, the coefficient placed in front of the value of infractions of liberty needs to be increased! The practice of implementing Security Theater programs with no accountability to success has got to stop. We're stepping on freedoms and spending like a drunk with no proven returns, how is that good public policy?
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Really, if the Bad People (TM) want to make modern society grind to a halt, all they have to do now is start to leave shopping bags and other, random containers lying around in public places. It would be pretty effective in making this kind of technology useless, and quite a drain on the system, if you get enough volume of bags being left behind in random public places.
Sometimes the most simple things can bring to a halt the most complex of systems. No need for anything dangerous, society will bankrupt itself trying to oversee and purify itself.
In an airport situation, I could see the cameras tracking you from the checkin counter to your gate. As soon as you identified yourself to a person or kiosk it would know where you should be going and watch you if you strayed. It would also notice things like people who meet and talk but did not arrive together or leave together. On city streets it would look for cars and people, and start to build correlation databases (i.e. Mrs. X's son always visits on Sundays).
Get used to it. The technology is only going to get smarter, and eventually the street lights will know where you are going and change accordingly. When you deviate it will issue and alert and require you to file a report.
I personally have no problem being watched as long as I can watch back. It would be interesting to know where the politicians are at 2 AM.
Why stop at every streetlight? Lets just mandate implants for everyone, and a worldwide sensor network, and get it over with.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It would of course, be mandatory to display your card on the front of any clothing you're wearing
A capital idea, my good fellow! Perhaps we can even snaz it up a little to make it not so drab. I'm partial to yellow myself. And give them funny shapes? I've always liked that one old western sheriffs wore...
Surely this is an actual, real world example of thought crime being punished? No longer do you actually have to comit a crime - simply acting like you might comit some, thinging about it, planning it in some way, or suggesting it to others is now a crime.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Why should that matter?
... and crime keeps happening at the exact same rate it ever did.
If the crime keeps happening at the same rate, how can you possibly justify the expense of the system?
Suppose the cameras and the prosecution bear out 100% capture and conviction rate
What have the cameras bought you in terms of security, if you're still just as likely to be mugged walking down the street?
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
The problem is you'd need a powerful stereo and big-ass speakers to simulate the sound of a gunshot.
But if you could do it, go all out: make it play machine guns and explosions like it's a battlefield. Then watch the National Guard deploy, since that's too much for the SWAT team to handle.
Bear in mind that the people selling these cameras are skilled professional salesmen, but the people buying them are local politicians, which requires no special education or training.
If the crime rate goes down when cameras are installed, the sales pitch will be "cameras reduce crime". If it goes up, the pitch will be "more cameras are needed to combat rising crime".
The expense will not be an issue, so long as it is only a small proportion of the money raised by taxes for other things. And if anyone raises the question of value for money, the salesman can simply ask "do you want this to be the only community that does not protect its citizens with cameras".
The trick was getting the first few cameras installed. After that, I can't see how their spread could be stopped.
It's only a bad idea if there is a helm. If there's a camera in every room, if everyone can be watched at any time, and if anyone can tune in to any camera at will, that would be fair. If, however, there's a class of bosses who can watch anyone they please, while not being watched themselves, then you have tyranny.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
And I believe the member of the public who turned them in was islamic. I salute that person for being a good citizen and for not supporting the perpetrators by remaining silent.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.