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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.'"
You have to field test your research somewhere, this one just happens to have a big juicy contract with it probably.
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.
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.
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.
Cars parked where they aren't supposed to be... cars that drive around the same building several times... obviously none of these people have ever been to Chicago.
In Chicago driving around a building several times is what you do before you decied to park somewhere you aren't supposed to be parked.
Sounds like putting cameras in the forest looking for trees.
You are awash in a sea of fiercely stated opinions. Obvious exits are: 'File->Quit', 'Reply', and 'Page Down'.
Just walk around goofy...try to set huge ranges of standards for normal/abnormal behavior...throw the stats right out of the window.
That or everyone come to town on "dress like a stick of dynamite day"....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........