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Google Street a Slice of Dystopian Future?
An anonymous reader writes "According to a recent CNET article, Google Street View 'is just wrong'. The short piece which makes up part of a larger feature about 'technology that's just wrong' goes on to explain that Google Street View is like a scene from George Orwell's terrifying dystopian vision of 1984 and that it could ultimately change our behaviour because we'll never know when we're being watched. 'Google? Aren't they the friendly folk who help me find Web sites, cheat at pub quizzes, and look at porn? Yes, but since 2006 they're also photographing the streets of selected world cities and posting the results online for all to see. It was Jeremy Bentham who developed the idea of the Panopticon, a system of prison design whereby everybody could be seen from one central point, with the upshot being that prisoners learnt to modulate their behaviour — because they never knew if they were being watched. And that doesn't sound like much fun, does it?'"
I love it when arts majors try to emulate Orwell and struggle hard to dream up "dystopian" scenarios in anything and everything to appear sophisticated in the eyes of their colleagues..
God only knows we are living in dystopian times, with our society under attack from left, right, and corporate interests which don't fit into any pat category..
But Google street view is hardly a "live view" where neighbors snoop upon each other. It's just a one-time snapshot of a spot. If you happen to be bonking someone on the street just at that moment, and don't want your face (or whatever) on camera, tough. Do it indoors..
One picture in 6 mos to a year video surveillance does not make. Now those ATM and security cameras that have been around for 20 plus years EVERYWHERE are not scary, but GOOGLE's once a year picture - now thats BIG BROTHER for you... Dodos..
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fPgV6-gnQaE
Google takes a photo like once every 6months. You are NOT being watched. It is NOT a spy camera. You should NOT be doing anything bad visible from the street. If you are jerking off outside on main street as a giant van with cameras rolls by. Well i'm sorry, your well kept secret is out. Points are:
A: They do it from a perfectly public location that many people will pass daily.
B: It is not a surprise, they aren't using spy technology it is a giant google van.
C: No laws are broken, why gang up on google about it, bring it to the house and see what happens (i can't imagine taking pictures outdoors being made illegal).
I'm OK with it if we really get to see everyone AND we get to know who is AND _was_ watching who :). That means some logs are kept on the watchers.
Basically it settles who watches the watchers - anybody if they have nothing better to do.
No fair if a Privileged Few get to opt out and we don't.
A van drives down the streets once and takes pictures. Maybe in a few years they'll do that again. Now if you happened to be in one of them maybe you'd have some feelings about that, but one snapshot of you every few years hardly amounts to a surveillance society.
Why aren't people more optimistic? This is a sort of poor telepresence: you can get a small part of the experience of traveling to some cities without actually going there.
I own two cats, you insensitive clod!
...do not always have a camera in them. They work on the same principle of providing the possibility that you're being watched.
The effectiveness is probably going to drop significantly when the watched know they outnumber the watchers to such a degree that there's no way to track them all even if they're in view. Whether or not this is useful in a prison would really depend on the cost of implementing this centralized mass-surveillance over adding guards(who would also be on hand to stop what's being seen as well).
The difference between 1984 and Google is that google allows anybody to view the street.
Sorry, google just doesn't feel like "big brother." Nor does it seem to be going in that direction.
Welcome to Costco, I love you.
What value is a face with no name, or a street on which you know not a single person? Data only has value when used in conjunction with known facts, and the only people in the end who are going to be burned by such knowledge are the ones who reject it instead of learning how to use it for their own and other peoples' benefits.
Furthermore, at least google has its images of public space open for people to view at all times. If you wanted to look through a government owned public camera do you know where to go, who to ask? Can you even get permission to observe those feeds? There is always a bigger bogeyman lurking around each corner, so at least meet him on your own terms instead of waiting for him to come at you when you least expect it.
I've flipped through the article and the little pictures. It would seem that the authors are trying to put an "It Came From The Deep" feeling against technology [and materials] that they don't currently see a market for or appreciate the market force behind. It's not unusual for people to fear things that they don't understand.
It is, however, unusual for a Tech publication to attempt to use fearmongering as a tool to bring attention to technology that their writers don't fully understand.
I can only hope that this piece was not meant to reflect that attitude of all of the writers over at cnet - it's certainly not flattering.
- Avron
Since the whole damn thing is contained in the summary.
It would be nice if the authors had explained why they thought they had a right to privacy when in public, or whether they believed that Google was taking pictures inside people's houses. But I guess a fear mongering rant was what they were in the mood for instead.
"Choosing to refrain from producing another person demonstrates a profound love for all life" [vhemt.org]
For decades, corporations and government have had the technology to watch us. Google has allowed normal people to see that kind of data. We can now not only see personal details about each other, but also spy on our bosses and "leaders". Google (and search/database technology in general) has an amazing democratic potential.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
That is a very different issue from whether the cameras should exist. There are very real privacy issues. However, I do not believe most people will change their behavior.
I looked up my home address and the Google Street View was off by about 10 house numbers. With that kind of inaccuracy, I'm not worried about it.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
had a job where you need to drive somewhere you have no clue what the landmarks are etc. As a field tech, street view is a nice bonus. When I can use it I use it. If it reduces my blood pressure a couple points then maybe I get to live an extra year. And besides it is hardly real-time. I don't see protests of businesses that put webcams in their store fronts.
Where's the "+1 My Brother" moderator point when you need it.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
People who rant about this are obviously kind of paranoid. There's not much chance you'll be caught on google street view's camera in the first place, and if anyone was specifically looking for a picture of you, I'm sure there are much much easier places to find it than driving around in street view all around your neighborhood hoping that you might have been outside at the time the google car drove by...
Weaksauce as they say...
My apartment is visible on Google Street View, which I found a bit unsettling because the street it's off isn't really a street. But Google drove down it and took pictures. It was on Google Maps, after all. Thankfully my blinds were down that day so you can't see inside, but you can see the outside.
On the other hand, that's one instant of time a good year or so ago. It's not constantly updating. It's not like there are cameras inside my apartment constantly watching me. It's not exactly dystopian, just somewhat unsettling.
Now if it were constantly updating, allowing people to follow my car around, then I would be worried. Otherwise I don't really care.
On the other hand, for the most part, Google Street View is mostly useless. It doesn't really offer any information that you can't get from the satellite view. I frequently go over unknown routes using Google Maps (or Google Earth - same diff) but I have never really found street view to be that useful. There are probably some exceptions, though.
(The second one is actually worse than it appears on street view, since it used to be a rotary, and they haven't made a complete circuit. Go ahead, try and guess which lane is which from the satellite image.)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
There are plenty of cities around the world that have extensive surveillance networks, the worst IMO being London. In DC, there's the network of microphones that were only supposed to be hooked up to gunshot detectors, but hey since they're already there let's use them to supplement our network of video cameras.
Google doesn't care what you do, and they don't have a real time view of it. Your local government may, and this is what we should be fighting against. 1984 and The Right to Read are old hat. Half the stuff described therein is commonplace today. We're onto the next level, where Enemy of the State and 24 are getting closer to reality.
This can have good and bad consequences.
1) Bad behavior will stop, because people won't want to be seen/recorded doing bad things.
2) Good behavior will stop, because people won't want to be seen/recorded doing those things, because a significant number of people think it's bad anyway.
3) Some bad behavior will be reconsidered/redefined as good, because people will realize that everyone does it and it's harmless anyway.
4) Some bad behavior will be encouraged, because enough people want to see it that it will be encouraged/reinforced (Girls Gone Wild).
5) Some innocent behavior will stop, because people look bad doing it (the macarena).
In short, it's complicated.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Put in address. Click street view. Notice that the house shown has a street number that doesn't match the address you entered. Unfortunately, too much information, not enough accuracy. Having surveillance that thinks your house was the scene of the crime when it is not is that dystopian future.
Tonights forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely-scattered light towards morning
Google is giving access to StreetView (and pretty much every other service) to EVERYONE. This is NOT the same as some big-brother, 1984 scenario.
Don't you think you would change your mind, maybe just a little bit, if all the surveillance cameras in the UK had a website that allowed you to view everyone, just like the "watchers" ?
My problem is, and always has been, that certain people think they are "higher above" others. That's why you get the classic public "surveillance", where a select few watchers have access to all of the cameras, and no one else.
But what if everyone had access to it? I would be totally for that. It would even the playing field. Not that there's any game to play, but at least we have access to the same technology the big-brother "watchers" had, and that makes me feel like I'm not so much under a microscope, but part of a community.
Google Street Views is NOT the one to attack. Google is doing everything the right way - they're giving us ALL access to information. Isn't that what we want??
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
My god man, the oh noes of it all.... First off... does anyone remember amazons A9 system... which also had a street level view attached to a map? Google is great, but they didnt pioneer everything. And i certainly dont remember an uproar about that.
... oh i dunno... London insano CCTV setup (and the one they're looking to build out in NYC). Until then... stop link farming add views for dumb articles.
In any case, Orwellian? jeez... Ive found the street level view exceedingly helpfull looking for Real Estate, finding certain stores (from memory) and tons of other things youd be quite thrown off to think would be helpful... Does a single shot of a public treet taken once every (X*years !? interval?) randomly long amount of years somehow constitute an all seeing eye effect that'll oppress the masses under an omnipresent authority?
NO.
If this guy wants to bust out the tin foil hat, look at the MSN maps six satellite real-time triangulating updating app their work on... thats something that can make the average joe wonder if they're being tracked by evil accountant monkeys. Or maybe even making a mention of
--LionelC
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
Wasn't the time to complain about Google's evil street view months/years (?) ago when they introduced it? I mean...it's not like concerns are suddenly no longer valid, they just aren't really topical or 'news' anymore.
I'm torn about Google street view. It isn't like it is filling a valid need (although neither was google earth, but that was cool). I don't have a burning desire to see what the storefront to X restaurant looks like. I should expect that the restaurant will be at the address listed. I could look for my own house or my work, but it seems to me that the marginal cost of providing that service (per road, not per user) is absurdly high. While google earth can populate its database with one purchase of remote imaging data, they need to send out GPS equipped trucks in order to get a single street.
On the other hand...it isn't really violating privacy. It is aggregating information and that aggregation in itself is possibly a privacy violation, but on face, things in public view are not private. If google catches you wanking it on the street corner and you get fired then maybe you shouldn't have been wanking it on the street corner. I am prepared to accept that it is not an unalloyed good. I understand that public information, once converted to an easily accessible form, may cease to be public. If your license plate held your name and address on it instead of a number that resolves to your name and address, you would be much, much less willing to display it. The same may be true here.
but this isn't news.
The technology in and of itself isn't the problem, people are the problem. Vehicular homicide is wrong but we are smart enough to blame the irate driver and not the car. Why do we have to put a morality on everything. Google is just creating and innovating so as to stay on top.
The main difference here is, Google has a proven track record of not being evil. No one raised hell over Google maps showing how you park your cars. Or their initiative to list as many businesses as possible.
Does this have the potential for abuse? Sure, but so does the information you give to your Pizza company for delivery...
http://www.aclu.org/pizza/
"Teach a man to build a fire, and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life."
That's terrible! We haven't even figured out how to prevent these buildings that are out in the open and easily observable from public places from being seen by every day passers-by. And now we can see them on the internet too? What is the world coming to?
Oh, and open the borders, and photographers should have rights to take pictures of copyrighted works displayed in public.
This is sort of a last-year issue.
Last year, I was living in an area of Silicon Valley that was covered by Google's van. There's good coverage of my house. Really good coverage. You can see both cars in the driveway and read the license plates. You can, just barely, see me in profile through a window.
I don't really mind.
Google is the new Panopticon? I think there are far more serious things to worry about. Databases that hold huge amounts of data about you, surveillance cameras, over-reaching government.
I think that the erosion of privacy/anonymity is a real issue, I just don't think Google is the thing to get worked up about.
"Eye halve a spelling chequer, It came with my pea sea, It plainly marques four my revue, Miss steaks eye kin knot sea"
Google doesn't even own the pictures, they get them from another company, just like their maps. GMaps is just what's displaying it.
That's hot.
To quote Foghorn Leghorn, "It's a joke, son."
The 1960's era horror picture of a screaming teen?? Rating things on a scale of "David Bowie" to "David Blane"? Claiming the internal combustion engine is "just wrong" because it runs on tiny explosions? The article is tongue in cheek. The author is poking fun at unreasonable fears on the one hand, and on the other poking fun at technologies that get on his nerves (Twitter et. al.) by calling them offensive to human sensibility and threats to the earth.
Its a SINGLE PAGE out of one of those shitty Ten that lists. Jesus fucking christ.
As much as this dystopian future bothers me, and as much as I fear the use of this information in the wrong hands, I'm beginning to realize that it is inevitable. You probably have a camera in your pocket right now (cell phone) in addition to a real camera you may have, and a webcam that is built in to your laptop. That's three cameras per person in an industrialized city. The government has its eyes too. Private businesses also put up cameras to deter/catch theft.
There are just too many cameras. They are too easy to obtain and deploy. The cost of storing video is hitting rock bottom. It's not really a problem to keep all video produced by a given camera, forever. (Argue this point if you wish, but it is becoming more true every day).
Our problems with copyright WRT the internet are due to the fact that the marginal cost of copying hit zero. Likewise, the marginal cost of obtaining video footage of any given place, at any given time, of any given person, is also heading quickly toward zero.
So, what are we to do? Any attempt to legislate away cameras is doomed to failure. Because the marginal cost is zero, the camera use would just become surreptitious (as the downloading of bits).
I think the only workable response is to accept the fact that everyone has video, and make sure that everyone else has video too. We need to be able to shoot video of public servants, shop owners, and our neighbors, because they sure as heck are going to be shooting video of us. The "no photographs" at customs, museums, art galleries etc must go. It's not a winnable fight for them. Yes, people's behavior will be modified, but I don't see any alternative.
There are a couple of upsides to this...evidence in crimes/trials will improve greatly if cryptographic verifiability can be added. (Human memory sucks) New technologies will allow really cool things like eyeglasses that record everything you see in your entire life, catalog faces, places, and objects, and lets you search an automatically generated database of your own experiences.
-- Bob
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
Maybe it's me but I fail to see how a map so advanced that you can actually see the building you want to go to is bad. Also the whole purpose is not to monitor people, unlike the camera's that the city of Chicago is putting up at pretty much every intersection. It's not like the images from the van's are uploaded instantly and they have one on every block of the city. It really annoys me when people always look at every tech like it's going to be skynet or 1984, tech is basically to make our lives better, that some of it is used for our own survalence then thats just an unfortunte side effect.
Hmmmmm. Government/Corporate surveillance cameras are definitely a bigger privacy/totalitarian concern, along with RFID chips. Keep an eye on Google, though. After all, wouldn't an evil entity want to be perceived as benign? hahahhahahha
You've got to be kidding me. Anyone who thinks that Google Street View is like 1984 is a moron.
There are two enormous differences between Google Street View and Big Brother:
1) Google takes pictures for street view every now and then. It's by no means real-time. If someone looks up my address and sees me out mowing my lawn, the only thing they know is that sometime in the past year, I mowed my lawn.
2) Google takes pictures only in public places. Guess what, everyone can see you there anyway, and in many cities you're probably already on an actually live video feed. You're not being watched any more than you already were!
Are there really no better conspiracy theories to post today? Come on.
Let's outlaw driving down the street, then, as it is even more invasive. The person doing that needn't content himself with an instant, but can stick around until he sees the most intimacy-compromising moment the day offers him (from the street, that is)
tone
tone
IMHO we already live in a dystopian future. It's not exactly Orwellian in nature at this point and it seems that a more critical distinction would need to be made. I don't think that Orwell's control systems were simply about technology, it was much more about how the state used the technology. In San Francisco there are already cameras all over the place. Everything we do is already tracked. Your cell phone has a GPS built into it that can track you at all times. That tracking information may never disappear and could be used now or any time in the future. I'm not saying throw your cell phone out but be aware of what you already have committed to. That said I think it's important that we recognize how the technology is currently used, how it's been abused in the past, and how it could be abused in the future. In the case of 1984 Winston Smith did not have access to the technology, he was only subject to it. In our case we are subjects of the technology but we still have access to it. That alone is an important distinction, and belies a very different program (we're more interesting to marketers than spies). I think it's important to questions Google or any other entity that further erodes privacy in any manner. Who's using it? How is it being used? Can we choose to opt out? When and where can we choose to opt out? Is this patently invasive technology or not? For instance when the NSA hires/forces/steals Googles information on citizens domestically then the use issue becomes something important for the republic to question. I think it's important to get away from our impulsive reactionary response to "Orwellian Future" and start thinking critically about what we are really dealing with. Orwell would write a very different book if he were alive today, and we should start thinking in those terms.
All glory to the Hypnotoad!
"Sorry, google just doesn't feel like "big brother." "
A true big brother wouldn't seem obtrusive to most people. Orwell's hero was the exception to the rule.
I do agree with you, since it is a snap shot of a moment in time(redundant, I know) and can't be used for monitoring, and correcting behavior's. PLUS it's done very infrequently, to infrequently to have the effect that mention in the write up.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If your home address is off in Google Maps, you can now move it yourself. Try it, it works!
You can of course use the same feature to hide it, if you are so inclined.
The article author will be instestinated.
This CNET article misses the point entirely. Google is not, and never will be, the problem. The problem is going to be the following:
(1) The local city government monitoring your car at every intersection and every stretch of road, and mailing you a ticket every time you exceed the speed limit by 5 mph or fail to beat the red light by 0.01 seconds. Go drive around the Phoenix suburbs and you'll see your future. You can pick up half a dozen robo-tickets just driving to the local mall and back.
(2) Every local business and every neighbor on your street recording you every time you go out for a stroll or take your dog for a walk.
(3) Your own spouse/parents/children/significant other putting you under 24/7 surveillance without your knowledge "for your own good".
The "Death of Privacy" scenario is inevitable, thanks to Moore's Law. And it won't be Google or the federal government doing most of the watching - it will be your family members, or the people in your neighborhood, or the folks running the local business nearby, or the city councilperson you voted for, because every one of them will rationalize that no one is really being hurt, and because the technology will make it so easy to do that they won't be able to resist the temptation. You won't be able to stop this trend any more than the RIAA and MPAA can stop unauthorized digital distribution of music and movies.
We've always had this... You are watched by everyone else. They aren't really out to get you, but if you act too stupid or do something too annoying then you'll be sorry!
Society works because everyone wants/tries to control everyone else's behavior. Behavior that we don't like, we label as childish, stupid, anti-social, or criminal.
I don't care anymore that we are building God or at least Omnius. God is supposed to observe and control everything. We are far from building God. Omnius was limited to watching all humans, enslaving most of humanity, and controlling them. That's something that I think we could do in a generation or two if we worked at it. Heck, add in RFID, and Omnius could monitor almost all objects.
I'm not really worried about Google or Google Street view as of yet as long as we don't have robots or real AI. The only thing that I really fear is other humans. Other humans will setup the rules for Omnius. Omnius could be a great thing for humanity. It could enslave us for a few thousand years, or breed us anyway the rules were setup.
Omnius isn't just going to pop into existence. It'll be funded and built by people. Humanity is childish, stupid, anti-social, and criminal. Omnius would have a hard task of trying to raise humanity to be adults, relatively smart, social, and non-criminal.
It's kinda funny how we've been evolving our social control devices from little old ladies/shamans to religions, to communism/socialist governments, towards some google government. We will build Omnius on day. I just hope that when we do that we'll have matured that we don't need it as much.
Since when do you have a reasonable expectation of privacy when you are visible from a public street?
I'm going to take a wild guess here: Some folks have never lived in a small town.
Gay love, interracial love, marijuana smoking, promiscuity, driving fast, p2p... these were all "is just wrong" items from yesterday.
Today, they're the norm.
Don't fight progress. This "is just wrong" means soon it will be right, and we'll see the ignorance of our past ways. Either that, or our society is dying through lack of values in common. But either way, you won't feel any pain.
While Bentham did theorize the panopticon as a penal architecture, it's important to note that it was also intended by Bentham to be an architecture for the workplace - a disturbing paralell. Regardless, it was Foucault's analysis (and not Bentham's own, which saw the panopticon as an unproblematic moral reformatory) of panoptic architecture that developed the most cogent discussion of how power works (in corrosive ways) within the panopticon. Foucault's discussion has routinely been applied to critiques of IT (perhaps the most well known being Shoshana Zuboff's "In The Age of the Smart Machine"). So while it's nice to note Bentham here, it's probably more true to the spirit of the piece to keep Foucault in mind.
how many people are sitting at computers that have mics and cameras trained on them that may be remotely controlled? how many have telephones in their homes and offices with speakerphone mics that may be remotely controlled? how many are using networks where every transaction is logged? how many have tracking systems in their cars? welcome to OnStar. at least when Google takes street view pictures, they publicize them and share them.
They are still there you know. Down in their silos. Waiting to show us all the real meaning of 'dystopian'.
But hey, lets worry about Google Streets.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Google's work only brings one more camera to the street. In most urban areas people are already photographed day and night. Banks, stores, city government, transportation departments, tourists, spy sats. and on and on. Everyone has a camera on me.
Or maybe I'm just paranoid?
Anyway, One more camera won't really hurt that much.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
"...Come a day there won't be room for naughty men like us to slip about at all. This job goes south, there well not be another. So here's us, on the raggedy edge."
Ironically, found using Google.
Science never settles, never rests.
What's important isn't that Google occasionally watches you. What matters is that you do not know when Google is watching you, and that just like a Panopticon prison inmate, you will change your behaviour to compensate for this unpredictable loss of privacy.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Are you trying to say that there's a negative side to porn?
which is totally what she said
Is there any proof that the FBI wasn't already doing this, and just not letting you see it yourself?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I love using street view to check out neighborhoods before calling about a rental or house for sale (usually a link from craigslist). I in fact used it today to show my boss a house I am looking at to rent. I like street view, it is a useful tool (the address locations could be improved).
Peace,
Adam
(i can't imagine taking pictures outdoors being made illegal)
It looks like the pendulum is swinging that way...
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
At this point the class (a mass lecture of 150) got quiet...
"Oh, and look in his window! See that lamp? The guy who lived upstairs from me used to own that, and he gave to the guy who lives there. I remember that - it's a nice lamp and it was a great day. We all sat around drinking beer. Oh - just like the guy down on the corner over there."
We zoom down the street to the corner.
"Yeah - I recognise him - lousy stupid drunk. Really bad attitude. Never liked him."
"So that was fun, wasn't it kids? Dropping in on their lives, looking into their homes? Nice. so, now let's open up a new tab and I'll type in http://www.opentopia.com/hiddencam.php and look here - links to CCTs we can look through. Excellent. Click on this one, and look - we get CONTROLS- we can move and zoom the camera. Looks like we're in some university, similar to this one, but it looks like a very different time zone. Hhhhm... Let's zoom in on those kids over there. Look - one of them is picking his nose. Pig..."
The class got REALLY QUIET...
"And now, let's type in a some search criteria, like "inurl: view/index.shtml?videos=one" and look - an entire list of open cameras. Let's look at this one. Cool. People working in a call centre in Argentina. WORK YOU LOSERS! WORK!!! WORK HARDER!!! MAKE ME RICH!!! Hahaha! funny isn't it?"
No one laughed. People were squirming as we went from one private scene to another.
"OK - so today we're going to watch portions of some hollywood entertainment fodder. It's called "The Truman Show"."
They watched it with new eyes. They were guilty. They had sinned. We had gone from "isn't this interesting" to the "global panopticon" with a visceral sense of what surveillance really is as we watched people work, scratch themselves, goof off, pick their noses, BE HUMAN BEINGS.
RESIST THE SURVEILLANCE STATE. TAKE YOUR SPACE BACK FROM THE GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE INDUSTRY.
It's not that Google Street is evil, it's not that a CCT in an airport is evil. It's not that a CCT in a parking lot is evil. But in aggregate, it is evil, and Google is not helping.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
If you are looking for a good piece of fiction on the Panopticon in modern times, you should give The Traveller by John Twelve Hawks. It is a trilogy and this is the first book, the second The Dark River came out this summer. It chronicles the lives of the last "travellers" who can move between this world and several other realms, the "Harlequins" who defend them, and their epic battle with the "Tabula" who are trying to build a real world Panopticon for the entire world, starting with certain cities like London/Berlin. One of the interesting things about the books is the way the current world, with all the automation, cameras, etc. are quickly becoming a real panopticon. The author, who puportedly lives "off the grid", touches on a lot of real world stuff and extrapolates fairly convincingly where it might lead in a short space of time. There are also interesting "other realms" one of which gives an interesting picture of what Hell might really be like. It wasn't so much as scary as it was without hope... probably as good a description of hell if I ever heard one. I've found the books intriguing and pretty much a "can't put them down until I'm done" kind of adventure.
Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
- It is not constant surveillance, but a static image.
- It's arguable whether or not it is even surveillance. Surveillance would require tracking people - these are just street pictures. If Google were to take new pictures every week, and then analyzed when/where they saw a particular person each week, then it would be surveillance.
- Google isn't exercising any power over people with this, so it is entirely irrelevant to the Panopticon.
If you want to talk about the privacy considerations associated with Google Street View, or the possible implications in the future, that's fine. Just don't paint it as a modern-day Panopticon when it is obviously not.One thing about ubiquitous surviellance, is that it has limits too. Even if they record everything, nobody is looking at it. At best, it is archived where it can be looked at later during an investigation. Really, more surviellance just forces the gubmint to purge their files more often to save disk space.
Maybe there's the outside chance that it could all be monitored realtime by some facial recognition software that automatically alerts the cops so they can harass 'suspicious' people, but that's really not likely for most cameras. It probably won't ever get to the point where nobody wears sunglasses or hats anymore because they are tired of being harassed by the cops whenever the cameras can't recognize them.
...
Street view is pretty cool looking. If I see a Google van I'm going to do my best to get in the picture. I wanna look up my street and say see that? That's me flipping a bird on my street! It's not big brother retards.
God only knows we are living in dystopian times
"Dystopian" is relative. Compared to my youth, yes. Compared to my Grandpa's youth and all times before, no.
Since mankind's past is dystopian, why shouldn't the future be?
But wait - we already live a utopian future, at least most of us in an industrial country. We have pleasures and gadgets and things kings of old couldn't even dream of! 100kph surface travel, flight, far fewer deadly diseases, refrigeration, television, telephones, you name it.
We don't burn people at the stake, most civiliced nations don't execute anyone, etc.
Yes, there is a struggle between those who want libetry and privacy, and those who want to amass personal wealth and power, but the second group hasn't yet won. Thet struggle has probably been going on since before we became homo sapiens.
Compared to generations before mine we live in utopia. To quote Max Yasgur at Woodstock, "we must be in heaven, man!"
As to Google maps, I agree with you and don't see how still pictures are going to invade your privacy unless one of these cameras catches you picking your nose or scratching your balls. A bigget threat to your privacy is the cameras that are everywhere now - red light cameras, ATM cameras, hell there's some Orwell style cameras on 5th street here in Springfield to keep people from pissing in the alleyways, sans the "big brother is watching" signs.
It's a little late to worry about Google street, here in Springfield anyway.
-mcgrew
PS- I was an art major, you insensitive clod!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
All of these associations of Google with 1984 and the Panopticon leave out very important facets of the surveillance... Google records public spaces and ANYONE can look at Google and see what's up there, providing many useful benefits. The other two's monitoring target public AND private areas and are tools of an authority, and keep their results in the hands of that authority solely as a tool for control.
If Google Streets can be kept open and records data in the public sphere, the benefits for other uses will far outweigh it's value as a tool of oppression.
Are we likely to significantly change our behaviors because of increased surveillance?
Or, as a society, are we more likely to loosen our cultural norms and not care as much about what people are caught doing, because, as it turns out, we all eventually get caught doing something for which someone else can fault us? (excepting illegal activity)
When an item or event is uncommon, it attracts attention. When the market is flooded with it, it retains little value, and warrants little attention.
Won't SOMEBODY think of the strip club aficionado???
Point 1: Google's been collecting photos since 2006 and still hasn't completed a first pass.
Point 2: The odds of anyone seeing any specific image already on Google Streets are vanishingly small.
Point 3: Even if people appear in the photos, they aren't identified by name.
Point 4: The vast majority of places where a person can be photographed are neither incriminating nor embarrassing.
That's a far cry from Orwellian surveillance. As for deterrent effect, I could spend a week standing on the corner with a rocket launcher in one hand and a big sign that says, "I'm going to blow up a bank vault," in the other, and still have a better chance of winning the lottery than getting caught because someone caught me through Google Street.
... for the benefit of the irony impaired.
Three Squirrels
Do No Ungood
[/sarcasm]
While I was out today, I was probably filmed 20+ times. Not by Google ofcourse but by a multitude of public and private cameras. So why is Google Street View the problem then? It isn't, it just shows us what it means to live in the 21th century.
Do people know why you are out in public, where you are going, what your intentions are, or just that you are out and about in public? Isn't that obscurity to some degree, privacy?
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Just wondering, cuz the gaggle of post anarchist anti globalist we hate America loons is especially rich here today.
I like the street scenes because when you're trying to find a building in an endless row of office bldgs its good to know what the bldg looks like, especially when they don't post their street numbers anywhere you can see from your car.
They do know that Google Street is not a real-time video feed, don't they? Not exactly a surveillance tool.
This might just be reason #7,458 that living in the city blows.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I live in Dallas and it's great to look at home listing on Ebby Halliday and then look up the addresses on Google Street to get a feel of what the neighborhood looks like. Saves time and gas... thanks Google!
I would like to assist them by providing moon shots the next time they pass near my domicile. Please request schedule dates and times for the runs so that I can assist their efforts.
...include such terrible tech travesties as Hello Kitty, Guitar Hero, and the internal combustion engine. .../call shens
The heavens do not fall for such a trifle.
Unless, of course, you're prohibited by law from doing an activity inside, so you're forced to do it outside.
And you're forever immortalized doing that activity after you'd told your significant other you'd quit...
Not that I'd ever do that.
Corollary to Hanlon's razor: Any significantly advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
... I plan on dropping trow. So yea, I guess the thought of being watched does change my behavior. However, you have to consider that the effect is hardly orwellian if my chosen behavior is personally expressive and anti-establishment.
There's more than one camera that point into people's houses, and traffic cameras are becoming a universal problem but that's the least of the real worries. Your smart new cellphone can record and text index your conversations while "off". Your ISP is practically required to monitor your email and web browsing and the FBI or CIA can duplicate that work when they feel like it. I wonder if ChoicePoint has all that integrated that into their database, along with your GPS whereabouts and credit card records of everything you buy. Total Information Awareness was more than a catchy phrase, it's big brother's way to gloat, "We know you better than you do." Google's records are nothing next to that even if you use them for everything. Their camera program is trivial and done better by others, as you noted.
Free software can only eliminate part of this, the rest has to come from telco, banking and medical regulations that work. The information should not be stored or traded without a search warrant.
In the Panopticon the people in power can watch the people without power, but not the other way around. That way, the surveillance strengthens the existing power structure.
/. have, from time to time, stories about people getting fired for silly stuff like having fun at a party. But the puritans tend to be the people with most to hide, witness the "moral majority" leaders involved in sex scandals, or the anti-gay senators who attempts to buy sexual services from male air port personnel.
In the transparent society (which is what the Google services move us towards), everybody can watch (figuratively, it can be in the form of a web based profiles, not necessarily cameras) everybody. This works the opposite way, while the people with power can watch the powerless, the powerless can also watch the people with power. And the people with power have more to lose, so the effect is towards equalization. Who watches the watchmen? In the transparent society, the answer is that the citizens (everybody) watches the watchmen.
In the US, one of the major concerns for the transparent society is oppression based on the puritan ideals that are especially strong there.
So while some people might suffer from puritan suppression who might have "got away with it" in a less transparent society, the major thing being under threat from the transparency is the puritan ideals themselves. The only thing that allows puritanism to survive is hypocrisy. Without the possibility of hypocrisy, there won't be any puritanism.
Or, at least, my wife and I recently found out that it was. While I had fun looking at all of the shots, my wife went into panic mode. She thought that this was an awful invasion of our privacy. After all, she reasoned, some pervert could use it to stake out our house where our kids live or a thief could use it to figure out which homes to rob. (The latter, apparently by figuring out which houses had expensive looking cars.) I pointed out that the pervert or thief could do the same thing by just casually driving around a few blocks. The one snapshot doesn't really reveal too much about our house. In fact, I can list the facts that it reveals in two points:
1. Our house is blue. (Though I happen to like the color blue, this doesn't reveal much about us. The person who owned our house two owners ago apparently loved blue and had literally *everything* in the house painted blue!)
2. We have a red mini-van. If you're really good, you might figure out what make/model. Maybe even which year if you happen to be a real whiz. But still, that's not much information. Does owning a mini-van mean we have kids? Maybe we haul stuff around and got a good deal on it? Maybe it means we have teenagers and need more seats/room than a small car provides.
The snapshot doesn't show my car (used to commute into work). It doesn't show us or our kids. It doesn't show how much we earn, whether we have expensive stuff in the house, whether we have a home security system, etc. It doesn't show a lot of things that a thief or pervert would be interested in. All it shows is what is available to be seen from the street. And even then, they blur out some details. You can't read our license plate and one of our neighbors (caught entering her car) either has her face blurred or the resolution is just bad. Either way, you could get more information driving down our street than you could get from Street View.
The strange thing is that I'm usually the one harping about invasions of privacy and she's usually the one rolling her eyes thinking "Is he talking about that stuff *AGAIN*?"
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Just watch this video.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Some, like Steve Mann from University of Toronto have said the answer is for everyone to carry surveillance gear, so we are all watched and watching at the same time. Try taking a video camera into Best Buy and start filming the people who work there and see what happens :-) In any case, the bajillions of live cameras -- and insecure "GeoCams" -- are much more of a threat to privacy than what Google is doing. A while back I made a slide show of screen grabs from several publicly accessible Geocams. You can see them here if you like: http://penopticon.com/geocamming/
Is this sig nificant?
The concept of the supreme being being, god, is the same as a guard in the Panopticon since you have an all knowing being that might be watching you but you can't see him. Google street maps is not updated that often and is not designed as a way to monitor or control behavior like it's with religion. I do agree, however, that the concept of being watched isn't that great but if it does get you in the back yard and you reasonably expect not to be photographed you have wiretapping laws to your advantage to get it off the net.
Apparently the author of the article doesn't understand that "they" are already watching. Through every ATM and a healthy chunk of other cameras. Google Street View is just the common man getting in on the action. It hasn't added surveillance where there was none, it has added navel-gazing where there was surveillance.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Not anymore. Since Google reported the fact to the world, the animal rights goons have come and taken them away.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Google Street View is heavily scrutinized for personally recognizable information and you can have personal information removed.
There are live cameras on every corner; that's what you should worry about, not Google Street View.
If I were in the UK I would think that I would be a lot more worried about the constant government surveillance than the once every 6 months or so surveillance of google.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
What if Google just made a decent effort to make sure people aren't photographed near so called "sensitive" areas, like strip clubs, liquor stores, etc. Obviously this couldn't completely solve the problem because it would just be Google's (hopefully) best judgement at work. But it might work as a start. One could also still use the report function on street view if they wished to have their photograph removed.
Will Technology Force us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?
by David Brin, Ph.D.
This is a tale of two cities. Cities of the near future, say ten or twenty years from now.
Barring something unforeseen, you are apt to live in one of these two places. Your only choice may be which.
At first sight, this pair of municipalities look pretty much alike. Both contain dazzling technological marvels, especially in the realm of electronic media. Both suffer familiar urban quandaries of frustration and decay. If some progress is being made at solving human problems, it is happening gradually. Perhaps some kids seem better educated. The air may be marginally cleaner. People still worry about over-population, the environment, and the next international crisis.
None of these features are of interest to us right now, for we have noticed something about both of these 21st century cities that is radically different. A trait that marks them distinct from any metropolis of the late nineteen-nineties.
Street crime has nearly vanished from both towns. But that is only a symptom, a result.
The real change peers down from every lamp post, every roof-top and street sign.
Tiny cameras, panning left and right, surveying traffic and pedestrians, observing everything in open view.
Have we entered an Orwellian nightmare? Have the burghers of both towns banished muggings at the cost of creating a Stalinist dystopia?
Consider City Number One. In this place, all the myriad cameras report their urban scenes straight to Police Central, where security officers use sophisticated image-processors to scan for infractions against the public order -- or perhaps against an established way of thought. Citizens walk the streets aware that any word or deed may be noted by agents of some mysterious bureau.
Now let's skip across space and time.
At first sight, things seem quite similar in City Number Two. Again, there are ubiquitous cameras, perched on every vantage point. Only here we soon find a crucial difference. These devices do not report to the secret police. Rather, each and every citizen of this metropolis can lift his or her wristwatch/TV and call up images from any camera in town.
Here a late-evening stroller checks to make sure no one lurks beyond the corner she is about to turn.
Over there a tardy young man dials to see if his dinner date still waits for him by a city fountain.
A block away, an anxious parent scans the area and finds which way her child wandered off.
Over by the mall, a teenage shoplifter is taken into custody gingerly, with minute attention to ritual and rights, because the arresting officer knows the entire process is being scrutinized by untold numbers who watch intently, lest her neutral professionalism lapse.
In City Two, such micro cameras are banned from some indoor places... but not Police Headquarters! There, any citizen may tune in on bookings, arraignments, and especially the camera control room itself, making sure that the agents on duty look out for violent crime, and only crime.
Despite their initial similarity, these are very different cities, disparate ways of life, representing completely opposite relationships between citizens and their civic guardians. The reader may find both situations somewhat chilling. Both futures may seem undesirable. But can there be any doubt which city we'd rather live in, if these two make up our only choice?
I needed to find a Bank of America branch close to where I work so I can run out at lunch. Google maps showed me were it was, but I knew that area was a strip mall, and didn't know which side of the street it was on or where in the malls it was. Was it next to the street, did it have a street entrance, etc. The satellite view only showed the malls and a few buildings that might be banks.
... A few weeks ago my wife was going to an event in a part of the town she wasn't familiar with. I was able to use street view to call up the intersections so she could get a visual reference where the turns were, kind of like a little pre-ride. I was able to show her the front gate of where she needed to turn into. She doesn't do well with 'drive 1.3 miles and turn left' directions. She likes to have 'There will be a Shell station on one corner, turn left and go past the Starbucks.
... I always keep the front shutters closed.
Using street view I found the branch, then reversed a little down the street to see where I needed to turn to get into the mall. I could see where the drive up ATMs were, and the stores around where I needed to turn for reference. I even found out there was a right turn only lane and a 'right lane ends' sign where I needed to turn.
Now, for most of you cagers out there, who cares. But I ride a motorcycle, I have a hard enough time watching out for cars, since I don't know which ones are not watching out for me. Watching for addresses and stores along the side while in traffic adds to the risk of riding and driving.
Another example
Granted, we can't depend on the data being 100% accurate. Things change, and in Phoenix they change a lot.
This service may take a little privacy away from very few, but I can see where it would make a lot more people's lives easier, and add some measure of safety. I don't have the definitive answer about which is best overall, but I know which I prefer. I could see how future home buying sites could utilize this feature for virtual drive-bys of homes and neighborhoods.
If you are that concerned about your privacy, look up your house and make sure. I already have to go online periodically to opt-out of credit-card offers and telemarketing. Not to mention my three free credit reports a year. Add it to the list of things you need to do once or twice a freakin' year.
I checked my house
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
So you mean as a result of Google Street View people might begin behaving as if...*gasp*...someone could see them FROM THE STREET???
OH THE HORRORS!
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ok. So, if you do something embarrassing, illegal, or otherwise noteworthy, someone might get a permanent picture of it, but you are in public. Is it reasonable to have any expectation of privacy at all in public?
I'm sorry, but the allusions to Orwell go way too far. I'm curious if there is a version of Godwin's law that applies to use of Orwell references?
Live forever, or die trying.
"I used it in a class"
I doubt it, that being said, I'm sure I could make up stories like you did, I just choose not to.
"Would you want photos taken through the windows of your home show up on the internet for the whole world to see?"
One question. Is it the world's responsibility to conform to your expectations and not to look in, or is it your responsibility to engage in basic measures to protect your privacy?
The answer is obvious, and demonstrates why you are wrong.
Tavriya
It's kinda useless now, but it's not a stretch to envision them making video driving directions. In other words, in addition to the map you can watch a video of the drive. The one thing I use Street View for now is to familiarize myself with what an exit will look like and how the road split looks in person. Unfortunately, the speed makes it a bit less useful. But a video created at one time on the back end that I could review, rewind, etc. would be awesome.
You see, I work as a professional thief. I used to have to drive around the city looking for good areas, which wasted a lot of time and money on my part. Google has taken out the crappy part of my job, though! Now all I have to do is log on and take a look at who has a plasma TV, game console, or home theater that's easily accessible from the front of their house. I can even see if there's a nearby vacant lot where I can set up shop without anyone noticing.
I figure I ought to be able to crank up productivity at least another 50%. All you haters need to think of the people like me who are making a hard-earned living off this!
I don't want it, but that's where we're heading one way or the other. Eventually, it will be possible for people to have an always-on 360 degree panorama video recording device that uploads on-the-fly to offsite storage. It's an inevitable evolution of the technology. This will possibly cause us the loss of some privacy that we now enjoy. On the other hand, can you imagine what it would be like if every power-tripping authority figure knew they were probably being securely recorded at all times? Right now those people will tell you to your face that they're doing something illegal, but since they know there's no proof they just do it anyway.
So, like I said it is inevitable. The big benefit will be that with the deluge of data, it will be much harder for people to sift through it. The question will be if the access is balanced. Will it be in the hands of everyone so they can get the benefits as well as deal with the privacy sacrifices, or will it be in the hands of the few so the many lose privacy and get no real benefit from it?
Every time I read a citation of 1984 in regards to privacy concerns I wonder if there is an Orwellian equivalent to Godwin's Law. In any discussion on privacy, it is inevitable someone will cite 1984 - sooner, rather than later. And in my experience it is as often as not by people who understand the premise, but have either not read the book, or really didn't care to when they were forced to read it in school.
I didn't grow up during McCarthy. I never saw Nixon live on Television. I hadn't heard of J Edgar Hoover until he was already dead. Let's face it, Orwell's intent with 1984 is culturally irrelevant to me and most people in my generation. The concepts explored are very important, hell, they're fundamental to our modern notions of freedom, but while 1984 is arguably more relevant to us now than ever, citing it in relation to privacy concerns opens the door for arguments that derail the entire debate.
Besides, there was more to the book than just issues of privacy.
Here's my thought about not knowing when we're being watched - there is a serious danger that the conservative movement might come to a profound realization: If there IS a God, he's ALREADY watching us all day every day from every angle. We should ALREADY be moderating our behaviour based on this fact. Are we really giving up anything by adding man-made technology to this Holy Truman Show?
After all, if we aren't moderating our behaviour and are doing wrong, we're not just breaking secular laws, we're sinning against God Himself.
I think Orwell was as concerned about this evil root taking hold in our society as much as any fear of communism destroying our freedoms.
Communists, Terrorists, they come and go generationally. Humans faith in God has been directing our cultural and social evolution for thousands of years. Will people give up freedoms in the name of God that they wouldn't give up in the name of the war against terror?
And people wonder why the founding fathers had such a hard-on for the separation of church and state.
I'd say that depends on your point of view. I'd say the internet's biggest blemish is people who feel the need to spout off like ignorant bigoted jackasses. Besides, if you don't like gay porn what are you doing on sites that put it in your face?
I think street view is an awesome idea with so many possibilities.
Not only does it help with navigation, I get to see more of the world without having to actually go there, if you look at some of the 3D video streaming tech it's like being a tourist you get to watch people going about their daily lives.
Not only this but I can see this being great for teaching car AI.
I don't think the privacy thing is really an issue as the people complaining about it stay in their basements complaining about Google anyway..
I just now searched Google Maps for my home address, and brought up the satellite view. It shows only two areas of my subdivision and only one row of houses. Today, there are three areas fully built with a fourth well underway. If Google Street View's data will be this out of date, most people will have nothing to worry about.
It's a very dark ride.
Two words: Paintball gun. Wear a mask and nondescript clothing while you do it.
If everyone picked a night, walked outside and painted over 3 cameras, the cost of cleaning the cameras would be prohibitive and the city would have to stop their program.