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?'"

Comments

Ok for now

[Idiomatick]

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).

Re:Yet another panic-y article from no-clue crowd

[jandrese]

Or, heck, you can just go to London and be on camera 24/7 outside of your flat.

A Pointless Rant

[timholman]

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.

Re:A Pointless Rant

[blhack]

(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. This is a safety problem.
I live in Old Town Scottsdale (a phoenix suburb with lots of shops and bars and stuff that you can actually *WALK* to) so i do a lot of walking around intersections and stuff. All of the intersections have those red light cameras on them, and there is almost ALWAYS a photo radar van parked somewhere around old town.
When people see these things, they stop paying attention to anything that is going on around them EXCEPT for the van/camera/light.
What is more dangerous?
Somebody running a red light by a half a second or so, or somebody stomping down on their Huge lifted escalade (uhg..) to try and speed up and make it through the yellow light without getting a ticket.

Tempe (another suburb, home to ASU) is even WORSE. They recently installed stationary cameras on Rural(scottsdale rd) just north of University. Anybody from this area knows that this is one of the busiest areas in tempe (traffic wise). It is the main route into and out of ASU.
Well, when you're in thick traffic, driving 50mph, and suddenly the person who is just in town visiting sees the camera and slams on the brakes all the way down to 20mph without any warning (except brakelights) it causes accidents.
Lots of them.

When did we get to vote on this matter?
And who the hell voted FOR it?

I used it in a class.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

The lecture went "hahaha - we all know know about surveillance, right??? So, let's pretend I'm tired of living here and I want to move back home. let's look at realtor.com - I'll need a place to live. Oh look - a nice house in the neighbourhood I want. Cool. click on that, and oh - look - the interior of the place is photographed. Nice kitchen - big bathroom. Ugly carpet, but I can change that. And that credenza? Urp - that'll have to go. But that's OK. Now - let's see what the neighbourhood is like. Excellent. Google Street goes right by the place. so we'll enter the address and look wher ewe are. Oh - we're right in front of the building. nice - and look! The PEOPLE ARE MOVING OUT OF THE HOUSE. There's the moving van parked right in front. Excellent! And there's the neighbour - I recognise him because I used to live around the block from here back in the late 90s. Cool..."

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