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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?'"
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).
Or, heck, you can just go to London and be on camera 24/7 outside of your flat.
I read the internet for the articles.
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.
(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.
Why this always comes up again and again, that it is the same if Google or your neighbours are watching?
If you sunbathe in your neighbourhood there is the chance that 20 people see it, once Google goes around there is the chance that 2000000000 people see it. So the risk of embarrassment increases dramatically, people will stop sunbathing. That is a real effect.
What is so difficult about getting this?
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?