Slashdot Mirror
Chicago Developing 'Suspicious Behavior' Monitoring System
narramissic writes "Over the past few years, Chicago's Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC) has been blanketing the city with a network of thousands of video cameras in an effort to remotely keep track of emergencies in real time. Now, with the help of IBM, the network is getting some smarts. IBM software will analyze the video and ultimately 'recognize suspicious behavior,' says OEMC spokesman Kevin Smith. 'The challenge is going to be teaching computers to recognize the suspicious behavior,' said Smith. 'Once this is done this will be a very impressive city in terms of public safety.'"
...Brothers.
Obviously, this software will do squat. And obviously they'll be flooded with false positives. Assuming they still try to investigate all of these leads, they would need to increase the size of their work force - i.e. more jobs. Which is good. But does that offset all the taxpayer money going into this ultimately useless program?
...welcome our Minority Reporting overlords.
Seems like it might be relevant to my offline rights, but since this YRO section is for News affecting your ability to live as a free, responsible person online , it's not appropriate.
And if they use this to stop people who are acting suspicious... Err... Is this even legal? I know IBM also has some nifty facial recognition software... Hmm... Just, hmm... But, really, is this legal???
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Robot Officer: Dave, you are under arrest.
Dave: What for?
Robot Officer: Hal says you are acting suspicious.
Dave: Picking my nose is acting suspicious?
Robot Officer: Yes you might be about to litter.
This is not a good idea now the cops can just say the computer said you were suspicious so we have reason to detain and search you and your car.
Should get really interesting when they integrate this system with the latest US Army battlebots!
Chicagoans should go out of their way to act "suspicious" in front of these cameras if they want to prevent the onset of a nanny state. Wear thick coats during the summer months, keep their hands in their pockets, look back and forth. Hell, maybe sticking their tongues out at the cameras would constitute suspicious ...
Besides, where they ought to be placing these cameras is in the halls of Chicago's city government.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
I'm never watching any of his movies again!!!
Well, after this weekend...
Cool, so, we're not even pretending anymore that the use of cameras are anything less than the complete and total expansion of the panopticon, are we? I mean, of course, you'll still have the people who say "well, if you aren't doing anything wrong, why are you worried", but for the most part, we're pretty up front about the fact that we're going to be using cameras to keep our citizenry under the thumb. Who defines what constitutes "suspicious behavior", local cops, politicians, computer techs? There will be essentially zero guidelines for the implementation of this technology, so what's to stop the local PD, or the DEA from auto-flagging someone who looks like they're raising a pipe to their mouths, or, even better, engaging in nefarious acts like leaving the house late at night? And not just that, but how many citizens will have their rights violated because of a false positive from the "suspicious behavior" flag? Will the flag be enough to get a warrant to search someone's car or home?
End of the fucking universe, right here.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
If this were being installed in Boston, it will then become a crime to behave in a suspicious manner. See 2007 Boston Mooninite scare.
Conform! Conform! Conform!
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I'd wager the false positve rate is going to be very high, and it will be interesting to see if they can bring that down. Something like an alert for a stolen car ( or a car related to an amber alert ) could generate a very high false positive rate if the car is a common make/model.
On the other hand, if it teaches criminals to act in less "suspicious" ways, then the system will be of no value or perhaps even detremental ( showing no "suspicious" behavior when criminal activity is present, leading to a false sense of security ).
A Human Right
that I do not consider a computer capable of doing. One of them being judging suspicious behavior. I RTFA, but seriously, I don't even know if I can write down what suspicious behavior could be defined as. People standing around for a long time? Constantly looking over your shoulder? Having lookouts? Being where you shouldn't be? I know that its goal is to just forward video feeds from thousands of cameras to a handful of operators, but it seems like they're going to get alot of crap. These things can always be observed, but it takes a human's gut feeling to really judge whether or not it feels suspicious.
http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u196/thelordofcheese/mooninites_Tshirt.png
What's next ? Hollerith numbers tattooed on wrists ?
Wasn't there an article on how the massive London camera network doesn't actually do any good? And that one has real people monitoring it. Who really thinks a computer will be able to do a better job at something so nebulous as "suspicious behavior?"
Oh, that's right, nobody. However, that doesn't stop the company pushing this from trying to make a buck. It's sorta like the DRM companies. The DRM companies all know it doesn't work, but companies keep falling for the salesmen's lies.
Didn't Microsoft eventually rename that "Windows 95?"
How many times have I heard this on an AI related project? "Once this is done..." is a fantasy, especially when they already describe it as a "trick" and a "challenge." From TFA:
Challenge, indeed. I'll believe it when I see it.
Scratch that. I'll believe it when the system sees it.
..if they ultimately made the jump to Windows Vista Premium Extras Suspicious Behavior Detector v 5.0(the home edition) that they could just take the next step and shot the suspicious behavior perp right on the spot.
Like they say..software, judge, jury, executioner.
I hope he makes a movie about it. Clerks III: Suspicious Behavior.
... I won't get mugged? WTF are the police downtown after dark?
Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...
"'Once this is done this will be a very impressive city in terms of public safety.'""
Impressive if your main hope in life is to live in some sort of Orwellian nightmare. Hey, here's a thought. If you put cameras in every house you can cut down on child abuse! You don't object to that do you? What are you some sort of kid toucher? Won't somebody please think of the children!
So much for Chicago being the lovely city I wanted to visit again.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
If this works well against regular people, why can't we turn this around? I'd love to see a system designed to keep an eye on the activities of government employees and executives and elected officials. It would watch for suspicious activity such as bribe taking, shady dealings, conflicts of interest and spending too much time in airport restroom stalls.
Seriously, if they can design systems to watch the people, why can't there be a system designed to watch the government?
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
We can't even make a translator that works and you're going to look for "suspicious" people? Is that some kind of sick joke? What, exactly, constitutes "suspicious" and wouldn't that be almost impossible to code in any meaningful way? Hell, we humans can't even agree on what "suspicion" looks like and now they want to teach a computer. Good luck with that.
I expect that "suspicion" is a fairly complex process in the human brain (it relies on a lot of different senses) so I am having difficulty understanding how anyone in their right mind would undertake such an effort.
At best, this is just a cash cow for the developer, who won't be able to come up with anything useful, and a total waste of taxpayer money.
At worst, this will be a kind of voodoo evidence, like a polygraph test, that can be used against anybody. And of course, like a polygraph test, the results of the 'suspicion machine' can only be interpreted by an expert. It will give a false 'aura of objectivity' to scapegoating and persecution.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
One way to combat something like this is to prove it's a big waste of money. If it is ever implemented there needs to be a coordinated effort to put thousands of people around the city doing "suspicious" but legal behavior. There will be so many reports that the authorities will soon realize there's no feasible way of keeping the system running.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
... and unless we've made astounding progress in the last 5 years (as in, someone created a strong AI), IBM is full of crap. Completely, utterly full of guano.
Here's how the system will work.
head covered: check
metal flash: check
loud sound: check
Result: sound warning
There's absolutely no way in hell that the system is going to be able to do a real-time analysis that goes beyond basic image and sound recognition that is coupled with a set of expert rules. Why? Because no will have the time to properly train the system. And even if someone would be insane enough to do that, it'll still fail, because context is utterly missing.
Example: someone runs out of a store in a hurry. Someone comes after him. Should the police be involved? Did someone steal something from the store, or did two people find out one of their friends is in trouble? Or are they late to a movie?
This system is doomed to complete failure and is nothing but a boondoggle for IBM. Kudos to the IBM salespeople who sold Chicago on this system. They're able to sell fridges to eskimos, I'm sure.
The only thing that really worries: the politicians who drank the kool-aid. For those of you who live in Chicago: vote them out, or move. This is a sign of serious trouble on the horizon.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I'm not sure, but the combination of the internet(TM), slashdot and Firefox just alerted me to some suspicious governmental behavior in Chicago...
@AlexSheive
I want the police to catch 'em in the suspicious thinking stage.
Hard to imagine a more suspicious activity than geocaching in a city...
This is a typically ignorant response to a complex problem. Those who do not understand technology (both strengths and limitations) continually try to apply it in situations where nothing will be accomplished.
The human issues that drive crime will not be solved by surveillance even if every square foot of Chicago is monitored. In this scenario, only the innocent will suffer.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
Now we just need cameras in every home.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -Benjamin Franklin
I suddenly have the urge to hire a bunch of poor starving theater majors to act suspiciously for the cameras. I wonder how it will take for such street performances to be outlawed, and then how long will it take to get those 'Stop Confusing the Cameras' laws overturned.
Slashdot | 10000 Cameras Ineffective At Deterring Crime
and i live in chicago, sigh....
for the first dispatch to investigate the "suspicious behavior" of two kids chasing each other down the street.
Seriously...what's that quote again? "Technologists always question whether they CAN do something, but never whether they SHOULD"...
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
'Once this is done this will be a very impressive city in terms of public safety.'
Cause it's worked SO well in Britain. They've installed millions of cameras, and the crime rate has gone up.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Where is a thoughtcrime tag when you need one?
I don't have a microwave. I do, however, have a clock that occasionally cooks shit.
Here's the discussion about that article. Plenty of opinions on both sides of the issue there.
- Somebody taking a leak in an alley (sure it's nasty, and a felony, but is it worth it?)
- Two members of the same sex kissing?
- Somebody wearing a T-shirt saying that "Bush is an (insert favourite invective here)"
- A gang wearing medieval knight outfit including swords. (can be a weapons felony)
- ...
Just take your pick and figure...So much for probable cause...
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
You are aware, of course, that few things are as suspicious as pointing out that the Emperor(s) strutting around naked, right?
'Once this is done this will be a very oppressive city in terms of public conformity.'
Cops: OMG Look at all the Ninja's and Pirates ! That is suspicious !!!! C
Guns are for wimps... Use a crossbow.. this way you can pin them to their chair when you go postal.
You know, like, if somebody encrypts any of their Internet traffic because they don't like the idea of Comcast snooping inside my packets to see what they're doing... well, obviously they're acting suspicious and must have something to hide.
Why else would they believe in outmoded concepts like "privacy"?
It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself - anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide.
IBM is working closely with Giraldo Rivera. The real-time system is similar to the one used to discover Al Capone's hidden treasures. The FP system (False Positive) has always been able to see through wall and recognize something where there is nothing, but now you can expect lots more excitement where there should be none.
are they really going to be using this to look for terrorists? No, because terrorists don't act suspiciously. If they did, they probably would have been noticed before they stole four jets and crashed them. Ever spent time in a major city? Walk around, one of of every two people will look suspicious. Will this system be used against homeless people? They're some of the sketchiest people walking around, but I wouldn't call them a threat to national security. Same thing with skateboarding teenagers. How about a couple dressed in black walking together at night. That must be grounds for a DHS response team, no? What this will eventually be used for is a major encroachment on civil liberties, which will be whitewashed in the name of security. How long before we see Youtube clips of videos taken from this system of people having sex in cars, or if the cameras can pan and tilt, of people in their homes?
And what is the city government of Chicago really afraid of?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Can have a happy-happy, joy-joy day.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
http://orwell.ru/library/novels/1984/english/en_p_1
Of course, we'd have to know what exactly defines "suspicious behavior". On the other hand, I'm completely against false positives and people arrested without motive. An old law (now banned) in my country stated that if a cop detected "suspicious behavior", he could arrest the "suspect". In turn, this resulted in many abuses and trivial arrests.
But the system is OK as long as the cameras only get flagged as "hey this guy might be suspicious - check it out".
From TFA:
The REAL problem is leaving everything to the system and not doing something on our own. What would happen if the system fails?
If the cameras pick up a lot of people breaking a particular law, but the cops do not enforce that law (they only arrest or ticket a small percentage of the people,) then couldn't you get those convictions overturned on the grounds of selective enforcement?
And imagine the civil lawsuits against the city when the cameras show a crime, but the police fail to respond for any reason or if they're late in arriving.
And then there's the lawsuits about what constitutes a crime. Do the cameras ignore jaywalking? If so, then jaywalking laws fall under selective enforcement. Or can you sue the city when the cameras reveal an intersection with a high number of jaywalkers, but the city doesn't do anything about it and someone gets hurt?
Location, location, location. It would be interesting to have a few of these cameras watching the politicians. It would also be amusing to see how many civil rights protests occur because of biased camera placement that leads to biased crime statistics.
Data can cut both ways. It should be amusing to see what the ACLU, Democrats, Libertarians, and demagogues do with such knowledge.
This is just silly. I understand that people would prefer to PREVENT crime instead of REACTING to crime, but you can't PREDICT crime as an alternative. Prevention and prediction are two very different things.
To prevent crime, educate the populace so as help to instill acceptable ethics and a sense of shame. Help them to acquire the resources they actually need and stop telling them they're less of a person if they don't have the "best" of everything. Teach people about people and reinforce those teachings throughout life.
To predict crime, go see a psychic because they are just as likely to choose an imminent criminal due to "suspicious" activity. You'd spend less money this way. You'll need it for the counter-suits.
Truth of the matter is that the nation isn't a fan of raising their children. Nor do they look kindly on higher taxes to reduce classroom size so that teachers can be mentors as well as lectures. And since crime prediction is a fantasy, the best we can do is crime reaction.
You are awash in a sea of fiercely stated opinions. Obvious exits are: 'File->Quit', 'Reply', and 'Page Down'.
The people pushing this are nice, gun-grabbing, Liberal Democrats. What could possibly be the problem?
It's interesting how opinions differ based on the people's backgrounds. The american background (at least in slashdot) is guys with anti-govt paranoia, sick tired of being surveilled because, yes, it's Big Brother in there.
However, I live in a country where crime is rampant, the majority of police officers are corrupted, and criminals go out of jail with blatant impunity.
When I heard about security cameras and identifying suspicious behavior, my first thought was "hey, this could do a lot for crime prevention in here" - specially because our police forces are limited - a couple thousand officers for a city of millions.
On the other hand, isn't public space SUPPOSED to be monitored by the police, precisely for crime prevention? I'm thinking about the old movies where a guy in blue was patrolling the parks and making sure everything was in order. After all, it's public space. Privacy belongs to private areas.
The concern about privacy should focus on the camera network security. You don't want Mr. 3v1l Hax0r tapping on the camera network and selling info on potential victims like they do with e-mail addresses and SSN's.
fta:
"OEMC's Smith would not say how much the city is spending on the project or when it expects IBM's video analytics capabilities to go live."
In an article talking about government, the city of Chicago, keeping eyes on it's citizens, getting information from us by watching us... Smith would not answer a question about how much the city is spending on the project, which, since it's a city budget, is a matter of public record? On top of that, the journalist did not dig for this information himself?
This one way flow of information is going the wrong way.
targetted on certain neighborhoods, crime actually increased.
Beware of unintended consequences.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
this is wrong, because two identical videos can be produced by two different behaviours.
in a video, you can have two identical videos of a person taking a piece of candy from a counter.
they have a different behaviour -- and yet, one paid for it, and the other is stealing.
if (skinTone peach) cops.Send();
Moreover, the system may in fact increase the numbers of false positives on the very grounds of its existence. People may act suspiciously because they are worried that they may be considered suspicious. It's the feeling you get when you walk out of a store without buying something. (At least I get it). I feel like people will think I stole something, so I automatically become overly self-conscious of my behaviour even though I did nothing wrong or planned to do anyting wrong...
The 12th picture fits so terribly on this one that it almost hurts.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And:
So at present it probably does nothing at all. But with questions being raised in other places about the usefulness of CCTV. They have to do something to protect this decision of theirs.
The same thing has been occurring with electronic voting machines. Once the politicians sank money into them they cannot admit that they are anything but perfect because they own the decision. They feel that an admission of bad judgment on the part of any member of their party let alone themselves will be disastrous. Ergo they'll push millions into untested additions to because the vendors promise that it will pull their asses out of the fire.
This camera thing is no different.
Merely being "suspicious" is not illegal. Mere suspicion is not enough for probable cause. This is INSANE!
Mr Smith knows that appearances can be deceiving. Or should I say, Agent Smith?
Many subjects will refuse to accept the program.
...just like their schemes to allow millions of dodgy illegals in with zero checks, disarming and demonizing the law abiding legals for the most part, and maintaining that ludicrous "war on some but not all drugs". All those are just rowsing successes in making crime go away.
Kevin Smith has officially gone over to the dark side.
With the recent revelation that crime has increased in London in the areas with cameras how can anyone say that cameras are the solution? Clearly this is a waste of money for some ideal feel good factor and yet another intrusion on the general privacy of normal people.
"its just for emergencies".. now its for monitoring.. soon for active deterrent..
Typical. Tell the public its for 'good' things to get them to buy off on it, and by the time the true intentions are known its too late to turn back.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Through this letter, I intend to serve as a facilitator who will help you draw your own conclusions about Richard B. Cheney. That is, I'll be your "guide on the side", not a "sage on the stage". With my assistance, you'll soon gain a deep understanding of how Cheney has no fixed ethical principles. To get right down to it, there is little doubt that all of Cheney's views about life come straight out of "Teach Yourself Expansionism in 30 Minutes". In reaching that conclusion, I have made the usual assumption that he complains a lot. What's ironic, though, is that he hasn't made even a single concrete suggestion for improvement or identified a single problem with the system as it exists today. This is not to say that the extent of collaboration between him and the most vengeful hedonists you'll ever see is currently unknown, but presumably significant. It is merely to point out that his secret police have been staggering around like punch-drunk fighters hit too many times -- stunned, confused, betrayed, and trying desperately to rationalize his snooty circulars. It is doubtlessly not a pretty sight. Cheney's flunkies consider his roorbacks a breath of fresh air. I, however, find them more like the fetid odor of larrikinism.
Even giving Cheney the benefit of the doubt, he truly believes that all minorities are poor, stupid ghetto trash. I hope you realize that that's just a perfidious pipe dream from a prolix pipe, and that in the real world, it is more than a purely historical question to ask, "How did Cheney's reign of terror start?" or even the more urgent question, "How might it end?". No, we must ask, "Does Cheney contend that his opinions represent the opinions of the majority -- or even a plurality -- because it fits his political agenda or because he's too ignorant of the facts to know that he seems to be expressing an irrational preference for remaining in some previous century while the rest of the world hurtles forward?" Here's the answer, albeit in a somewhat circuitous and roundabout style: He has gotten away with so much for so long that he's lost all sense of caution, all sense of limits. If you think about it, only a man without any sense of limits could desire to commit senseless acts of violence against anyone daring to challenge his destructive publications. Cheney thinks that the Universe belongs to him by right. However, no clear-thinking individual would have the temerity to develop a credible pretext to forcibly silence his opponents. Cheney, you are welcome to get off my back this time and stay off. I would like to put forth the possibility that when he was first found trying to foster suspicion -- if not hatred -- of "outsiders", I was scared. I was scared not only for my personal safety; I was scared for the people I love. And now that Cheney is planning to set up dissident groups and individuals for conspiracy charges and then carry out searches and seizures on flimsy pretexts, I'm terrified.
Cheney spouts the same bile in everything he writes, making only slight modifications to suit the issue at hand. The issue he's excited about this week is McCarthyism, which says to me that Cheney's more than manipulative. He's mega-manipulative. In fact, to understand just how manipulative Cheney is, you first need to realize that he maintains that he has been robbed of all he does not possess. This is hardly the case. Rather, there is growing evidence that says, to the contrary, that his actions are rife with contradictions and difficulties; they're completely malign, meet no objective criteria, and are unsuited for a supposedly educated population. And as if that weren't enough, he wants us to believe that unpatriotic fork-tongued-types are inherently good, sensitive, creative, and inoffensive. How stupid does he think we are? This isn't such an easy question to answer, but let me take a stab at it: I am not concerned with rumors or hearsay about him. I am interested only in ascertained facts attested by published documents, and in these primarily as an illustration that I assert that I hate
Ultimately? Think? Might be able?
He isn't selling a product. He's selling a dream!
You can't take the sky from me...
Let's apply a little Bayesian reasoning, shall we?
Given that system X identifies your behavior as suspicious, what is the probability that you are a terrorist? This probability is written P(T|S). This is what we want to find.
Bayes' Rule: P(T|S) = P(S|T)*P(T)/P(S).
P(S|T) is the probability that the system will identify you as suspicious, given that you are a terrorist. You can call this the system's "accuracy." Let's be generous and say the accuracy is 99.99% = 0.9999.
P(T) is the probability that you are a terrorist. Let's say that this probability is one in a million: 0.000001.
P(S) is the probability that the system thinks you are suspicious. There are two sources of suspicion: true positives, and false positives. The true positives are given by P(S|T)*P(T). The false positives are given by P(S|~T)*P(~T).
Let's again, be generous, and say that the false positive rate P(S|~T) is only 0.1%, or 0.001.
P(~T) is just 1-P(T) = 0.999999.
So, let's substitute everything in:
P(T|S) = P(S|T)*P(T) / (P(S|T)*P(T)+P(S|~T)*P(~T)) = 0.9999*0.000001 / (0.9999*0.000001+0.001*0.999999)
What's that equal, everybody? 0.0009989 which is about 0.001, in other words 0.1%
What does it mean? Even with a system that has a true positive rate of 99.99% and a false positive rate of only 0.1%, the probability of a "suspicious person" actually being a terrorist is only 0.1%.
In other words, these systems are inherently useless in identifying terrorists. This is because terrorists are inherently RARE in the population. The massive accuracy of the test cannot make up for this fact.
It looks like this person is trying to sell crack. Cancel or allow?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The system is not even complete yet and it has already found suspicious behavior.
Namely, by the fascist asshats at the OEMC.
So now who's gonna go lock'em up for attempting to subvert democracy?
"challenge is going to be teaching computers to recognize the suspicious behavior."
Yeah, especially since humans aren't very good at recognizing suspicious behavior on a reliable enough basis for law enforcement.
... this video. Now is this considered suspicions behaviour? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYf5vYwakXE
TOP DSLR Cameras Reviews of the top DSLRs
After all, they were so helpful to a certain regime in keeping track of holocaust victims in the distant-enough-to-be-forgotten past. Why shouldn't they be keeping track of the millions of people that ebb and flow through Chicago itself?
I am already smiling as I think of a number of ways to "hack" and or phreak this system. Wear a ball cap, or hoodie, and merely walk around looking down, and shuffling quickly with shoulders hunched. Dart in and out of dorrways quickly, occasionally pausing to look over your shoulder. Could be fun to set this sytem into overtime alert just by having people "act" suspiciously, all the while not actually doing anything.
IBM computer will look for,
Anything being done by Black or Hispanic males between the ages of fourteen and thirty.
Anything being done by Middle Eastern males under eighty five years of age.
Shabbily dressed or dirty looking people of any age unless employed by a rich person or corporation.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
On the other hand cops are going to hate this because they could be held accountable for their actions. Although I'm sure any incriminating video will be lost. It is nearly daily that a new story comes out about an abusive cop in the city. Luckily a few have been caught on video.
We'd have to have half the population of the city sitting in front of the monitoring screens!
Nobody's watching, most of the time, which is probably why they aren't much of a deterrant to crime. Their main use seems to be after the crime has occurred, when some grainy, indistinct footage is pulled out of some archive or other.
Don't get me wrong, I hate the CCTV situation in my home city, but it's not as if you have to go around thinking you're being watched. You aren't, the government (thank god) hasn't managed to increase tax to the point where it has the budget for that. Yet.
...were also processed like cattle in the 1930's, thanks to Big Blue. I am saddened that they haven't changed all that much, assisting a totalitarian government in having an omnipresent peering eye. Read up on it. The past is being repeated.
So, what about the mentally ill and disabled people? Will they be harrassed till they leave town?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
...see my comment posted earlier on a related topic.
A decade of this sort of nonsense and there will be a market for charm schools to teach people how to dress "normal," walk "normal," and act "normal."
I feel very sorry for the borderline-mentally-ill.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The door creaks and starts to close on freedom.
Soon, with face recognition and license plate OCR (already used in several places) they'll track everybody, everywhere in public.
If we need a Constitutional ammendment to stop this, now is the time.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Considering Chicago's political history, they'd better not put up any cameras near city hall.
Have gnu, will travel.
In Chicago they have gangs. Gangs that recruit from school yards. Gangs that have "community breakfasts" where they get people together to show what good things the gang is doing in the community. Activities sanctioned by the city in parallel with shakedowns, drug sales, street battles with automatic weapons, and other sorts of things you would expect.
The police know who is in the gang and who the leaders are. Arresting them is pointless because nobody is going to testify and sending a gang leader to jail means he no longer has to fear being shot by rivals - it does nothing to remove him from active control of the gang. Can't lock up the entire gang because that would be racist - we would be punishing black people because they are black. The "gang" part of it gets lost in translation somehow.
Chicago is a haven for gangs, gang violence and whatnot. There are some places where the gang is far more in control of the city than the police are. Putting a camera in these locations has been the current strategy because the police then do not have to have a manned presence there. Someone can sit and watch the camera rather than sitting in a patrol car in the area. They might be shot if they were caught loitering in gang territory.
Yes, there are other places in Chicago where the gangs do not rule. There are no cameras there. There are tourists, restaurants, movie theaters and so on and so forth.
Chicago is hardly unique in US cities. New York and LA also have the same issues. Chicago is just the first place where the police are often in active retreat from gang territory replacing manned presence with cameras. To watch as the neighborhood descends even further.
In other news: Humans will soon be flying using nothing, other than their own bodies. According to spokesman C. Imanut, "The challenge is going to be creating enough lift using just arms, hands and perhaps ears," said Imanut. "Once this is done, flying people will be common."
Obviously, he doesn't know that flying is all about falling to the ground and missing ...
When asked if there were concerns that the new technology would interfere with the privacy of citizens, spokesman Kevin Smith deferred to his assistant who asserted "snooch to the nooch. Bwaaaaaa!".
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
wow...
Will it detect horny women?
The apostrophes are in the wrong place. It should read:
Chicago Developing Suspicious 'Behavior Monitoring System'
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
is to roll out the ED-209s for an "integrated solution".
Many times I have thought of wearing an Internet-connected wireless camera to record my surroundings in case of a crime against me or my property (ie the laptop I carry, and although it is empty of useful information as I store all of it on my secure server, with the laptop being used merely as a terminal, I still don't want it to be stolen) while I'm walking. However, the same people who use cameras for the same purpose in their premises prohibit other people from doing exactly the same. Supermarkets and department stores happily record all your moves, but a sign warning you that "photography is prohibited", as well as the various new laws introduced after 911 around the world against photography in public places or near some buildings, makes you think how you can protect yourself without being considered a troublemaker. Unfortunately it seems that in the present society one is forced to rely on the willingness of the authorities to protect you against criminals, and you don't have the right to protect yourself.
Assume one trillion possible indicators to sift through: that's about ten events -- e-mails, phone calls, purchases, web surfings, whatever -- per person in the U.S. per day. Also assume that 10 of them are actually terrorists plotting.
This unrealistically-accurate system will generate one billion false alarms for every real terrorist plot it uncovers. Every day of every year, the police will have to investigate 27 million potential plots in order to find the one real terrorist plot per month. Raise that false-positive accuracy to an absurd 99.9999% and you're still chasing 2,750 false alarms per day -- but that will inevitably raise your false negatives, and you're going to miss some of those ten real plots. source: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/data_mining_for.html
I've lived in Chicago for over 11 years, in neighborhoods all over the city, and watched these cameras proliferate. Their effectiveness is questionable, as the criminal activity they're intended to prevent just moves to neighboring residential blocks. The drug dealers aren't dumb - they can see the blinking blue lights as well as anyone else.
Given the Chicago Police Department's record of torture going back over 3 decades and a coverup in which the current Mayor Daley continues to participate the notion of giving them more power is terrifying. Especially since even when police misconduct (oh, say, murder) is caught on film, nothing happens.
Perhaps the most depressing part is that the cameras tend to get installed only when rich white folks move in. A block in my multi-ethnic neighborhood that was all ganged up for years (though it's 2 blocks from a police station) suddenly got cameras (and the streets repaved) when the condos went up.
I mourn for my city. If we actually manage to land the Olympics, I'm outta here.
--Pete
Get em boys!! He must be a crook.
And all you were doing is trying to get the rock out of your shoe.
Well, I came a long way to be here today
And I left you so long on this avenue
And here I stand in the strangest land
Not knowing what to say or do
As I gaze around at these strangers in town
I guess the only stranger is me
And I wonder (yes, I wonder)
Yes, I wonder (oh, I wonder)
Is this the way life's meant to be?
Although it's only a day since I was taken away
And left standing here looking in wonder
(It's your life, it's your life)
Ah, the ground at my feet, maybe it's just the old street
But everything that I know lies under
(It's your life, it's your life)
And when I see what they've done
To this place that was home
Shame is all that I feel
Oh, and I wonder (oh, I wonder)
Yes, I wonder (wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder)
Is this the way life's meant to be?
Too late, too late to cry
The people say
Too late for you, too late for me
You've come so far, now you know everything my friend
Look and see the wonders of our world...
And I wonder (oh, I wonder)
Yes, I wonder (yes, I wonder)
Is this the way life's meant to be?
As I wander around this wreck of a town
Where people never speak aloud
With its ivory towers and its plastic flowers
I wish I was back in 1981
Just to see your face instead of this place
Now I know what you mean to me
And I wonder (oh, I wonder)
Yes, I wonder (yes, I wonder)
Is this the way life's meant to be?
And I wonder (oh, I wonder)
Yes, I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder
Is t
This is a dangerous trend.
The point is not about we have nothing hide and so it doesn't matter. Its not about us, its not about now. This level of surveillance and control places extraordinary power in the hands of authorities who could very well misuse it in future, and when there is power there is inevitably abuse, after all human beings will man these system and we all know how fallible we are.
What happens if some despotic regime comes into play. Such systems will allow them to easily control and perpetuate themselves.
This is just one more of the mindless ideas that control freaks in government are increasingly thinking up under the cover of security, we have to stop such people and the ideas and mindsets that are driving us towards a big brother society. This is a very real threat to freedom and the future of free societies, we ignore it at our own peril.
It's only funny when you are not in the minority.
...what happens if you shine a sufficiently powerful laser pointer at a surveillance camera? From a legal perspective, that is.
I can see masks become popular again.
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
At first the cameras were deployed in the "bad" areas of town. Along streets like Roosevelt where the area was not developed, where public housing was available and where open air drug markets were allowed to operate. Then cameras started springing up at major intersections and now I'm starting to see these surveillance cameras in very affluent neighborhoods. I am definitely starting to get the feeling that our movements are being more closely tracked and recorded as each day goes by. For example, the CTA has been pushing people to register for the Chicago Plus Card which allows their travel on the public transit system to be recorded and monitored. The State of Illinois has been pushing people to register for the I-Pass tolling system which allows their travel on the Illinois highway system to be recorded and monitored.
I grew up in a small town near Peoria, Illinois, moved to Chicago for college and have now lived in the city for just over eleven years. I used to catch the el across from the Rockwell Gardens projects and I can honestly say that I feel completely safe walking around most areas of the city at any time of day or night. Public safety seems to be a dubious reason for the cameras; people generally don't fsck with you unless there's a reason.
I suspect that these cameras are going to be used to monitor certain neighborhoods, groups of people (blacks, hispanics, peace activists) and to make it easier to issue citations for things like jaywalking, speeding, illegal parking, etc. I just don't see them as being effective at deterring violent crime. How is it in my best interests for city officials to be able to track my movements from home to work and back again? If you want to hire more police officers, fantastic, but I have a problem when you want to record my movements in public for later analysis.
I hate to say it, but I think the surveillance state has already come to Chicago. How long will it take for the police state to follow?
Here are a few other ideas that will make the city very very very safe:
- Kill all the population. No people = no crime
- Cement their feet to the floor, and use very long straws to feed them.
- Cut all their arms and legs off
Just because something will "make things safer" is NOT a good reason, much less a carte blanq to do it.
I didn't read TFA, but I'm sure he said something about thinking of the children.
morcego
I work in the city of Berkeley, CA and I know it will never work here since some of the population is on some form of hallucinogen drugs and people yelling at nobody is "normal" behavior.
I betcha this system leads directly to monitoring your blood pressure, heart rate, pupil dilation and perspiration. And also that general nervousness about something will be considered suspicious behaviour.
Combine this with face recognition and movement tracking... Seriously, I think this is heading towards "precrime" and thought police.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Americans will no longer have the right to act strangely. Kick a wall somewhere and you're gone.
"Maybe we should have stopped them, sir."
"Stopped them?"
"Councilor Chesku and his wife. Maybe we should have stopped them leaving the surveillance zone. We are supposed to watch everyone."
"That is the meaning of surveillance, yes. Have you been studying in your spare time, Forres?"
"Sir?"
"You think we should have stopped them, do you?"
"It is standard procedure."
"For a member of the High Council there's no such thing as standard procedure."
"The book says --"
"Never mind what the book says, Section Leader. All you have to worry about's what I say, right?"
"Absolutely, sir."
"Absolutely, Section Leader. And what I say is that if a High Councilor wishes to swing stark naked through the trees and spit on the surveillance scanners, then swinging stark naked through the trees, spitting on the surveillance scanners becomes standard procedure, at least for him. Or his wife."
"Now there's a thought."
"Huh! Not one to dwell on, given your present rank."
"One law for the rich, eh Major?"
"There's no law for the rich, Forres, and even less for the rich, personal friends of the President."
[Forres puts his feet up on the console]
"They are only civilians, though."
"Do you want to join them?"
[Nods at feet]
[Forres takes feet down]
"Sorry, sir."
"If you want to get on in this man's army, Forres, you've got to learn to distinguish between civilians who are and civilians who aren't."
"Sir."
[Thinks twice]
"Are and aren't what, sir?"
"When you know that, Section Leader, you'll be ready for promotion."
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Big Brother watches vids of you, instead of you watching vids of Big Brother!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
this technology sounds exactly like what i'm looking for. all i want is for my computer to bring me a beer when it "see's" i'm thursty. can't wait! go ibm!
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
http://www.dot.state.ri.us/bikeri/pedlaws.html - search for 31-18-11 - "Any person jogging or running during the time from one-half hour after sunset to one-half hour before sunrise, shall, in addition, wear reflective material which is visible by low beam headlamps from a distance of at least five hundred feet (500')." There's a bit more on the original page.
Finding more is hard, but I have no doubt there are. Google has not been good to me in terms of searching for state laws. Perhaps there is a niche for a specialized search engine somewhere, but isn't that what Lexus-Nexus does already?
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Does this mean I have to stop furtively putting money in parking meters?
Are you kidding me?
"The challenge is teaching the computers...."
"The challenge is going to be teaching computers to recognize the suspicious behavior."
No kidding?
Am I missing something, or is that very much an understatement?
we can begin phase 2. Mounting a machine gun under each video camera. Then, when the computer is really certain the behavior is suspicious, it can take action to make us all very very safe.
"the government's position that you are in the public and thus not anonymous in your actions."
Unless you are a police officer, they seem to be "immune" to the law....
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
a) How many bombs go off in Chicago? b) How many people are murdered? Just like in the UK, here we have useless technology that only profits manufacture and government yet doing nothing to cure the social ills that are the reason for said murders and general problems facing the US and UK. Hopefully the American people will rise up and stop this madness before the US becomes like the UK, whereby CCTV has done nothing but isolate people and prevent a false sense of security. Remember folks, it really is all about money. Democracy is being replaced by a cold distant mechanised alternative. And unlike the movies, which superhero is going to stop it?
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
I suggest we all read "How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion" by Daniel H. Wilson. Specifically, page 90 "how to fool face recognition" and page 104 "how to fool gait recognition".
Useful in other places for things like spotting large numbers of marching Buddhist monks.
For knowing where to send the soldiers to break up the protests.
For working out who to target.
For working out where the ones who manage to escape go to.
Will it make us safer? Are we so paranoid anyway? With all the health and safety nanny state paranoia seems to have gone mad!
It will be a very funny city when the cameras alert the cops to every harmless street crazy,skateboarder,crippled person,schitzophrenic,mime and old person that crosses its path.
Big Brother is still too stupid for toys like this.Take them away and spank hands.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I'll just stop sprinting down the street while I cheat on my taxes.
On this subject I would recommend the Parable of Ruritania: http://www.clock.org/~fair/opinion/parable.html
Hope the IBM's software able to be smart enough regconize the harmless toy knives which my children alway used to play with their buddies on the street...