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Real-LIfe Distributed-Snooping Web Game To Launch In Britain
corerunner writes "A new internet game is about to be launched which allows 'super snooper' players to plug into the nation's CCTV cameras and report on members of the public committing crimes. The 'Internet Eyes' service involves players scouring thousands of CCTV cameras installed in shops, businesses and town centres across Britain looking for law-breakers. Players who help catch the most criminals each month will win cash prizes up to £1,000."
That pigeon just ate a worm!
But we *can* afford prizes up to £1,000 for public citizens that are effectively doing police work ? This world is getting way too weird for me... Or perhaps im just getting old :)
What a terrible idea. The Potential of griefing people in real life from the internet is a very stupid thing.
Its just getting more Orwellian.
Wow, and to think that we thought things were bad in the US. Even Dick Cheney never dreamed of anything like this.
I wonder who's snooping on the snoopers?
You Brits should demand to have unfettered access to these cameras. It might have been possible to claim that this was not technologically feasible before, but not any longer. You paid for those cameras. You paid for that information to be gathered. You should be able to access it.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
all ur base are belong to us
What took so long? I don't know about ya'all, but I've been waiting for this for quite some time. Does anyone know how long this has been kicked around as an idea? It seems a natural extension of the surveillance society, when you consider the problem of actually understanding what all those cameras are seeing. After all, how else are you supposed to pay for all that manpower? Until technology can do it for us, we've got to have someone checking out all that footage.
This would be more scary if people actually got in trouble for breaking the law in the U.K. - but it's still pretty craptishous.
Anyone who argues against the "slippery slope" argument for More Cameras == Bad should be shot. Now. So anybody can be challenged for anything now, just because somebody who's trying to win a chunk of money thinks they saw something wrong?
When can we pay to get cameras in people's homes and watch them?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If someone is going to be snooping, it's only fair to have everyone snooping. The only oppressive element of CCTV is the idea that only a select few people get to snoop and thereby gain some sort of advantage over everyone else. If everyone gets access, you still lose privacy but at least no one gains power.
Is the game available to people in the US? I can imagine a horde of fat rednecks trying to make a living by watching some brits on cameras 12 hours a day.
Don't worry my Brit friends, we'll keep a close on eye on you. Just to keep you safe.
What goes to the person who reports the most false positives?
We may be heavy handed with the rest of the world, but we are still nowhere near as controlling of our own populace. The more I read about England lately, the less I have any desire whatsoever to go there.
Giving the public access to the big brother camera network will open up unprecedented opportunities for cyber-bullying, especially for people living in dwellings whose front doors are within the frame of a camera.
You only need a few miscreants spying on some poor bugger, then sending harassing and threatening SMS messages as s/he moves about the city in the normal course of his/her day.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
The movie Brazil was originally to be named 1984 and a half. I think we need an update called 1984 and three quarters, one that updates to the fact that Britain has become even more ludicrous than the movie Brazil.
No, this is dangerous. Very Stasi-like. This is a disturbing trend in official and informal law-enforcement because it encourages things like community-based harassment. People will band together and participate in government-sanctioned stalking of atheists, commies, homosexuals, or whomever else they just don't like.
It is simply turning the people against each other to distract them from their discontent with their government.
Wonder if they'll only limit this to citizens.
£1,000 for the person with the MOST crimes.
Say you have 100 people wanting to try and win this prize.
1 person reports 400 crimes, but the average is around 40-50 crimes.
So for £1,000 a month, you get 5000 crimes reported.
-
It'll be interesting if 4Chan decides to start trolling this.... thousands of people reporting Pedo Bear at the Palace, or just any single crime somewhere cops aren't.
Can I just sit and watch for members of Parliment to leave work and report them as peeping toms?
is just so 80's East Berlin. You would think that somebody, somewhere would have learned a lesson. Fargin' sheeple. Just remember, when the cops come for you because somebody at a PC somewhere said that was you mugging the old lady, that it was you who sat on your lazy ass and let them do this because "only bad people have something to hide." Idiots.
Nothing like being paid to spy on your fellow man. They should really just offer rewards for catching people having sex on cctvs. Less ethical issues to deal with, and they would probably still have a lot of crimes reported.
Sorta of brilliant in an evil, completely awful idea, sort of way - crowdsourcing crime enforcement. Should've just signed up for a Amazon Mechanical Turk account, might save some money.
Firstly, this is the Daily Mail - a rabid right-wing tabloid newspaper that typically has headlines about how Polish immigrants are going to knock down all our schools to open up christian vegan lesbian holistic bomb-making camps, or something.
Secondly, it would be entirely illegal to do this under UK law. We have things like the Data Protection Act.
No, this is dangerous. Very Stasi-like. This is a disturbing trend in official and informal law-enforcement because it encourages things like community-based harassment. People will band together and participate in government-sanctioned stalking of atheists, commies, homosexuals, or whomever else they just don't like. It is simply turning the people against each other to distract them from their discontent with their government.
Yeah, you're unfortunately, but probably, very right. Seems that I'm not as cynical as is required by today's world. Thanks for taking me down to earth again and clearing my head.
(I would mod the parent up if I was able to mod)
Well this will give all of those Chavs, Idiots, and Baby making West Asian Immigrants in the UK who live off the government dole something to do other than sponging off the government and doing nothing. Now they can sit at home on their huge subsidized butts and play "Virtual Peeping Tom" to make sure none of the working folks jaywalk on their lunch breaks.
Maybe now they can contribute as "Jack-Booted" Government squealers from the comfort of their government housing.
I guess the next step is to start having them monitor online traffic and squeal on anyone who says something non-PC on a message board so we can throw people with a difference of opinion into jail.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Its like "Funniest home videos", only now its more than just break your dogs spine to get the prize, now you can break someone elses dog's spine in streetview!
What a crass, badly thought out cop out. As if schadenfreude needed more promotion!
There are two types of "crimes" one is crimes that harm others and in general are a big deal, things like murder, rape (real rape, not some 18 year old having sex with a 17 year old), theft and even some forms of vandalism. Those things should be reported. Other things are still "crimes" but they harm no one except possibly the person doing the actions, things like light speeding with little to no traffic, underage drinking/smoking, some things classified under drugs, etc. However, its not the crimes that are a big deal that will be reported it is the stupid little crimes which shouldn't even be prosecuted or in some cases have laws forbidding the actions.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
This game is really fun but does anyone have a driver for this peripheral? Can't get it to work yet and am looking forward to turret-based content next year.
My work here is dung.
You don't get to choose which camera you see each session. In fact, the location is 'secret' (though you may be able to figure it out). Single person surveillance won't work.
This is an opt-in service where specific people can pay a fee to have their cameras monitored by the game's players. It has no connection with the CCTV network already installed by British officials. It's basically just a very stupid and sensational business venture that will probably fail, because who's going to be willing to pay 20 quid a week for random internet people to watch their CCTV?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/26/big-brother-dropped-channel-4 "Channel 4 confirmed today that it will axe Big Brother after a decade following next summer's 11th series." Only seems appropriate.
I dont know what to say, im just so damn sad. Democracy is a hollow word that has forever lost its meaning.
HTTP/1.1 400
... is that it's a more productive use of people's time than playing the Lottery. Higher odds of actually getting any money out of it.
Yes you can afford it. Assume an officer is getting paid £10/hr. That is a rather cheap cop. Now he normally works 160hr/mo (assuming a 40hr week). The combined citizenry is working well more than 160hr/mo, and only being paid 1000 which is a mere <63% of what the cop was paid. More hours and less pay? You are getting a bargain. Maybe they will shell a couple of more police for a second and third place "prize".
Didn't Search Engine cover something similar happening in China? Yes, yes they did. And it didn't work out too well for people as I recall.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
But businessman Tony Morgan, a former restaurant owner, said it would give local businesses protection against petty criminals, and act as a deterrent once 'Internet Eyes patrol here' signs are prominently displayed... ...He said: 'This could turn out to be the best crime prevention weapon there's ever been.
Or alternately, this could turn out to be a short-lived failure. He sort of missed the proof of concept phase of his planning.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
In addition to all the above legitimate concerns, add sexual harrasment and a live "hot girl at location X" Twitter feed or whatever. Not to mention filming and recording of partners, ex's, bullying victims, etc. And if you thought "happy slapping" with a phone camera was something, wait till you see what people can do when broadcast live on the Internet. If a group wants to harras you, it's going to much easier for them to do so, as you say. What do you think will happen with a system like this in the hands of Anonymous or some group like them.
Of course you might be able to use this to monitor the police, but if so, expect them to implement controls on that asap.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
So, if I'm reading this correctly (along with the rest of TFA):
There should now be a virtual jar to insert a virtual nickel for every time concepts from 1984 are implemented in real life.
Brin makes an argument that not only are we going in this direction, but that this direction is inherently reasonable. I'm not sure I agree with all of his claims about using "public shame" to help shape a more harmonious society, but it's still worth the read.
More about his book here.
yours,
kbs
(3) Big Brother's best evil idea ever.
Translating to 'leet speak is left as an exercise for the reader.
Your courageous and selfless spelling corrections have made me a better person.
Nothing will be able to stop my Fake Crime Street Theater gang. I'll keep those snoopers glued to their monitors for years. Crimes that never happen. Victims who don't exist. Jam the system.
or just any single crime somewhere cops aren't.
Or where cops are.
Any ideas what happens to reports on cops committing crimes? (I have one)
Any ideas what happens to reports on cops committing crimes?
I'd say they disappear down the memory hole, but users will be able to capture the video they are using locally, and repost on YouTube for fun and profit.
Ergo, this program will be shut down within weeks as it reveals cops committing crimes. Either that, or the feeds will be scrubbed of all police presence "for the protection of our hardworking constables on the street" prior to distributing them.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Yes, but people aren't stupid (okay - not in all ways). It will be pretty obvious to most people participating that they're not going to win against the strange obsessive person who has no job and no life and racks up 100 crimes a week. So cash prizes aren't going to be much of a motivation for playing this. Which means most people playing it will be doing so for other motivations.
Let's face it - the primary use of such a system would be lonely males jacking off over live feeds of unsuspecting young girls. In fact, if we want to oppose this system (and we do because we don't like living in a combined police state and mob-rule society), pointing out its wonderful desirability to peadophiles is probably the best approach to take for most.
Of course there will be those with other motivations also. Those with a particular hate-agenda will love this.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
"You have nothing to fear if you are doing nothing wrong" Yeah right... ...First they came for the communists, and I did not speak outâ"because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak outâ"because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak outâ"because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak outâ"because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for meâ"and there was no one left to speak out for me...
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
This idea is wrong on so many levels. I hate Hitler analogies because they tend to be polar opposite examples of the argument they attempting to counter, but this one seems to fit.
The BBC did a documentary a few years back "Nazis: A Warning From History' http://www.amazon.com/Nazis-Warning-History-Samuel-West/dp/B00097DY66/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1255030547&sr=1-1 that touched on this very subject. Granted, the UK isn't the Third Reich and I'm pulling a very specific instance from that documentary, so please understand that I'm not suggesting a one-size-fits-all with regards to that regime's policy, but an accounting of state-sanctioned surveillance by civilians.
In that doc, there's a segment that reveals that the Gestapo actually didn't have very many official staffers out in the field and relied heavily on "neighborhood watch" participants to implicate other citizens in activities that fit a broadstroke definition of 'suspicious behavior'. Years later, a woman was confronted about a statement she had submitted to the Gestapo about a woman neighbor that she had reported for suspicious behavior; the 'suspicious' woman was detained by the Gestapo and never heard from again. The original documents were presented to her, showing her signature and her statements which were read back to her. She remembered the woman mentioned in the statements, recognized her handwriting and signature, but disavowed that she wrote or submitted the statement.
The documentary example is the far end of the spectrum for state-sanctioned civilian surveillance. Given that people will recieve rewards for their efforts and the program is marketed as a game, it adds more fuel to the fire that people will misuse it. Once implicated in such a program, a person's name or guilt can never be expunged.
All we need to finish off the program is a Norsefire logo http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ab/Norsefire-logo.png and a picture of the High Chancellor Adam Sutler http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8d/250px-Sutler2.jpg.
Cool, so if I've called dibs on the cameras in the House of Commons, and the House of Lords, then I win - cause I've got the most criminals!
Just because your crime isn't prosecuted doesn't mean you're not a criminal.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
A clever criminal would use this as a planning tool. No need to sit outside a bank in a car doing your recon. Take your time identifying patterns of movement/behaviour. Spend some time finding out the blind-spots and how best to utilise them. Determine just how good the resolution is and how much obfuscation/masking of identifying features is required to remain anonymous.
Oh yes, what a lovely little tool.
Add remote-controlled sniper rifles and you'll get all those fucking Unreal Tournament campers to play it.
In a way that's very non-Orwellian. You see the fundamental concept of the Orwellian idea is to have one instance impose on your privacy, in which case this instance uses this data against you, but if we're all imposing on eachothers privacy, what has changed? Other than the very extension of our privacy. I'll give a comparison. Say that none of us had eyes, thus no vision (no echo location isn't allowed either), our privacy would extend much further than it does today, but what if one person, or a group of people suddenly gained vision, these people could use this to receive information about you when you thought you weren't being observed. That would be Orwellian. In the case where everybody (well except the few blind people) get to have vision it no longer becomes Orwellian. It might still be frightening, mostly for those that fear getting something unwanted caught on tape, but in the end it's equal for everyone. If (when) we have a surveyed society I hope that we all get access to the footage at anytime, live or recorded. Equal makes it fair, might be right or wrong -- but still fair.
I am the lawn!
I didnt see it as 'routing out' 'people we dont like' it could turn into that. But as a stalkers wet dream. Think about it you can stalk people even when you are at work. Im sorry but putting this in the hands of stalkers (people who just need to know where someone else is at at all times, these dudes are beyond creepy) is just ASKING for a lawsuit.
I know a couple of people who are borderline stalkers. But they are just too lazy to act on it. My current gf has had 2 of them. She is too nice to them and it encourages them but that is a different matter. One basically would sit outside of her apt for hours on end waiting for her to come home. Getting her to go out with me to dinner is hard to do sometimes, she is still afraid to bump into people the stalker knew incase they say something to him. With this sort of thing it would make a stalkers life much easier. They can wait at home and not arouse suspicion of anyone.
Or better yet what if you are a burglar. Just keep an eye on one camera and you can see when someone leaves for the day. Then you would have all day to clean a place out. You can even survey the place without even getting close to it. People were doing this with google maps. Imagine what you can do with a live feed!
I would be more worried about the existing real criminals before making up lynch mobs (which could easily happen too).
This is not a tool that should be in the hands of ordinary people. It is even questionable if it should be in the hands of the people who have it now.
The reality is it will be amazing how quickly this is turned off for 'ordinary' people once a few politicos/stars are outed doing something they shouldn't.
Britain: still creepy as hell then.
It is simply turning the people against each other to distract them from their discontent with their government.
What are you talking about? This is double-plus good!
The problem with surveillance cameras is not the cameras themselves, but who watches the watchers? Cops have been shown to zoom in on bedroom windows, innocent women on the street, just being official and unpunishable peeping toms.
Now the watchers are the public. I have zero problems with this kind of full time surveillance cameras. The best thing to happen to civilian control of the police state since Rodney King and cell phone videos.
Infuriate left and right
Cheater!
Send some young prospect to commit a crime in view of a camera
Report him to the authorities
He goes to jail (or gets a slap on the wrists) and earns "Cred" for both you and your gang
You get money
Profit!
. .
Seriously. This is the kind of thing that, if allowed to continue, will lead to an enormous civil war. Pervasive law enforcement, with cash rewards? Are they fucking INSANE?
I *hope* that they don't let this happen, or if they do, the public outcry is enough to make them end it.
People will band together and participate in government-sanctioned stalking of atheists, commies, homosexuals, or whomever else they just don't like.
By "people," you apparently mean Christians, capitalists/conservatives, heterosexuals, and moralists. I guess atheists, communists, homosexuals, etc., are all peace-loving hate-hating people that have an inherent aversion to stalking or harassing or any sort of "bad behavior," whereas others - like Christians and conservatives - only profess to believe in "higher authority," God, law-biding citizens, etc....
You probably just mentioned the ones that you particularly dislike or feel are discriminated against/harassed (I could show you a lot of Christians/capitalists/conservatives/heterosexuals/moralists that are, though....), but it's an interesting bias? :)
This must be a stalker's wet dream.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Seriously...did anyone else immediately think of the Youth League?
No, no, no, that's too American. You don't have enough bureaucracy or scapegoating.
In Britain, the police would deny that any officers have broken the law. Then the video footage would go on YouTube, and some newspapers would get the story. The IPCC (Independent Police Complains Commisson) would open an investigation, and the police would deny any wrongdoing again, even when shown the video.
Some time later, the IPCC will say there's a systematic problem and the blame lies with the police managers. A junior police officer will be sacked, and the manager will be promoted.
Later, another police officer will claim he should have been promoted instead, and claim he was discriminated against. After an investigation into police prejudice, he will eventually get the job, with his predecessor getting a large pay-off.
This all costs lots of money, so four police officers will be replaced with part-time community support officers. They don't know what they're doing, so they'll arrest someone for photographing a train -- hopefully captured on CCTV.
Now I can finally find out where that pretty girl who stands on my train platform lives :)
Summation 2
Bloddy Murder! Arrest that pigeon!
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Someone outside of the Inner Party having access to the CCTVs is not Orwellian unless everyone is tasked with reaching an arrest quota. One small potential plus is that society kind of gets to vote on what laws are just, as hopefully most people won't narc out on people breaking bad laws. I'd probably rather have more "citizen's arrests" (moderated by police) and less direct police arrests personally.
Also, by having access to the CCTV content, people might even catch particularly clumsy police committing crimes and getting them arrested, which would be awesome. I'm not from Britain though.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
This is both brilliant and terrifying all at the same time..
On one hand excellent we catch toe rags quicker with a lower overhead for manning the CCTV.
On the other I am terrified about the power this gives the government and I expect we will soon be living in 1930/40s Germany with the SS around every corner.
If ever there was a time for a Guy Fawkes type plot now is it, before the madness gets worse..
Yes, but does it support achievements?
Achievement unlocked : "Spot 4 graffiti artists in under a minute"
I can see the boards on GameFAQs now...
Summation 2
So, do 'gamers' get + or - points for identifying crimes and bullying and corruption events perpetrated by law enforcement? =P
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
+20 i-have-mod-points-every-other-day-but-not-today-:(
Requiem for the American Dream
I in no way agree that substituting police with voyeurs is a good idea. In fact, this sounds like a horrible idea in so many ways. However, I was just answering the OP's question of affordability. All it will really take is one or two OCD, patriotic voyeurs to make this program "successful".
I'm surprised though that US politicians haven't thought of this. "Conservatives" would be creaming their pants saying things like "more criminals using less tax dollars". Both "Liberals" and "Conservatives" might even claim, "you can see where your child is at any moment, and know they are safe".
Bottom line is that this is an idea likely to "work" even though it has too many draw backs and scares the bejebus out of people like us. I'd rather live in a world filled with unknowns and is a bit scary than live under constant surveillance, but somehow those in Britain allow their government to do this.
get started on my perl "i saw a rape" script...that is, after i finish creating my 3000 accounts first ;)
Good people go to bed earlier.
No need to worry about the Total Information Awareness program though as it was shut down as soon as people got wind of it... Pfft!
If "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and "it was beauty that killed the beast" then "please stop staring at me".
One cannot help but wonder when the first child will report their parent for some infraction of the law? Who knows, maybe the common wealth will erect a statue to that child, as so many deposed previous governments have done so before.
And while your fake crime is ringing up the false positives, the real criminals will be doing what they do best - making street crime invisible to the cameras. A subtle pickpocket in a crowd won't be easily solved this way. An assault at the periphery of a camera's range by a hooded thug won't result in an arrest. But I'll bet they catch a whole lot more dogs pooping illegally than they ever have.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
The problem is that the CCTV cameras have proven to be very ineffective in deterring crime.
The MOST effective has been cops patrolling - either walking the beat, on bikes, horse, or patrol car.
This is going to increase crime:
This is just taking a bad idea and making it worse.
What's the right balance between social cohesion and personal freedoms where society can continue to exist whilst each individual is able to enjoy the freedoms they're entitled to ?
What people have forgotten to consider is : can a completely anonymous society continue to exist as a society ?
Social cohesion has always depended on a degree of control of the individual by the group. That, naturally, caused a lot of pain to anyone who stepped out of line. When people started to migrate to cities, their privacy increased. Hell, to this day gays will move to the city in order to escape the intolerance felt back in the small town they come from.
While privacy increases, social cohesion decreases and unsurprisingly this gets abused by criminals etc who benefit from the increased anonymity.
Now with the ability of the common citizen to view the cameras, we're seeing the return of the control of the individual by the group.
I'd like to argue that this could in fact be a GOOD THING. People won't be watching out for if you're gay or foreign or an unmarried couple but will be watching out to see if they can catch you red-handed committing crimes. In a way, the fact they don't know you but are watching out for the crime removes the prejudiced attitudes and only leaves the question of : is this guy in the picture breaking into that car or not ?
This could actually be the solution to a major social problem.
1: Image recognition technology hasn't matured enough to reliably detect crimes based on video information. This program will likely be terminated, or transformed, once that technology matures sufficently. I'm not sure what they'll do with their compiled list of citizens who are good at observing and reporting on other citizens. 2: Recruitment of the citizenry to advance the aims of the state is a long time goal of such governments. It is yet another way that people can serve the state's desire to monitor and control people. The reasons a citizen would choose to join the surveilence society's monitoring and control programs are about as spooky as the potentials for state abuse.
Moderation : -1 Conservative Viewpoint
I've watched this mentality being pushed by governments more and more over the years. It's a move toward the old Soviet Union days in which nobody knew who was spying on them. Everyone had to live in secret and tell no one their inner thoughts and desires.
It was an old Soviet diplomat who said that, while the Soviet Union was becoming more like the Western countries all the time, the Western countries were becoming more like the Soviets at the same time. That time has now come.
This will lead to parents against children, children against parents, brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, stranger against stranger. Nobody will be able to trust anyone. We will become nations full of spies, only we will be spying on another.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
I think he was using typical US-centric boogeymen. If it was Cultural Revolution China your list would be the one to consider.
I think the interesting bias here is that his original comment didn't say anything about "moralists", but you added them in to the hit list. I guess that means communists, homosexuals, and atheists are immoralists in your Book?
The excessively self-righteous will band together and participate in government-sanctioned stalking of whomever dosen't fit their ideal.
Fixed.
You missed out the bit where they are unable to find an actual criminal, so they shoot someone else instead.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
In 1984, citizens were encouraged to spy on each other and report possible dissidents to the authorities. So yes, this is very Orwellian.
RTFN
Maybe I'm just an evil bastard, but I can see this being used to coordinate crimes better...
Like the tech guy in Ocean's 11.
This is precisely the sort of solution I had suggested earlier for the threat of the UK's ubiquitous cameras becoming a tool for Big Brother: let them become part of an extended "neighborhood watch" program and keep the cops' and other agencies' hands OFF, unless and until an actual citizen reports something. I guess somebody was listening or thinking the same thought? Let the citizens monitor and control the system, not the enforcement arm (police) of Big Brother (guv'ment).
This will be great for planning crimes.
Knowing where people are, their habits and the location of cameras and security guards should make planning a job much easier.
I hope there is an option to record the video feed, as sometimes people only leave their properties occasionally. Having a whole weeks worth will make planning burglaries less time consuming.
http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/5125.html In the USA, atheists are obviously distrusted even more than homosexuals. I guess that communists would have similar ratings. Perhaps his feelings aren't just "feelings"?
Ezekiel 23:20
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment But this time you get to put people in jail. Maybe you can find your "friend" and put them in jail. Fun!
It all starts at 0
This is twisted....
I agree.
But I don't think we're going back. The best solution is to "watch the watchers", so anyone can go back and see who was viewing any particular cam at any particular time.
Last post!
...I could show you a lot of Christians/capitalists/conservatives/heterosexuals/moralists that are, though....
Only because they deserve it.
Don't dismiss the reference as out of hand, or at all trollish. Parsons was turned in to the Thought Police for talking about anti-Party subjects in his sleep. By his own child.
On every street corner, on every petrol forecourt, in every bus stop and in any public building... Remember that from now on, someone is watching. They have a financial incentive to catch you.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I don't know, but I certainly hope they will demonstrate it in full force on some deserving target[1] soon enough. With some luck, it will be horrible enough that the whole thing is cancelled.
[1] And yes, I know exactly how inane the idea of a deserving target is, given the topic of this sub thread, and grandparent post in particular. Take the phrase as tongue in cheek.
May we live long and die out
I'm sure this will work swimmingly well for them -- until citizens start reporting misbehaviour by the cops, then it'll all suddenly come crashing to the ground.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
will be watching you and wanking.
But we *can* afford prizes up to £1,000 for public citizens that are effectively doing police work ?
If your police officers are earning less than £1,000 a month, that might explain the corruption. Otherwise, this is, economically speaking, a deal vs just one officer. Given that you're going to have dozens or maybe hundreds of snoopers, all vying for the prize, effectively working for nothing unless they actually make it to the top, this is going to be equivalent of at least ten officers, which I'm positive you're paying more than £100 per month.
That's not to say this is a good idea in any other respect. Except for the suggestion to use this to monitor the police (that should be almost the only thing citizens should be doing with this "game"), it's a horrible idea.
It's not Orwellian. Orwell was intelligent. This is likely just foolish or dishonest. This:
"Players who help catch the most criminals each month will win cash prizes up to 1,000."
should be, in my opinion, translated as this:
"CCTV cameras have so far been a huge waste of money. The reason is that it takes 1,000,000 hours of looking at cameras to find one illegal act. [I'm guessing.] Criminals are not so stupid that they perform for the cameras. So, we will try to get the work done without paying. We are wording the announcement so that we won't have to pay at all if someone catches only one illegal act."
This is the last paragraph of the story: "Last month it was revealed that Britain has 4.2 million CCTV cameras - the equivalent of one per 14 people - one-and-a-half-times as many as Communist China."
It would require 36,792,000,000 hours, 36.8 billion hours, each year to watch 4.2 million cameras. Booo-ooo-ooordom.
What's happening in the British government? Things seem to be becoming crazy.
The story says it is a scheme by a "former restaurant owner". Quote: "He will charge those who use the service, which could eventually include local authorities and even police forces as well as shop owners, £20 a week per camera to have their CCTV included on the site - amounting to thousands each year." Who will pay 1,040 pounds each year to possibly have someone watch one camera?
Actually in this case it is rather easy and clear-cut: the organizers and promoters of this "contest" are quite deserving of this sort of attention indeed. Anonymous should simply turn these would-be Gestapo members' self-righteous shit on them. See how they like the taste of their own medicine, the feeling of their own petards up their asses ... you get the idea.
at the end of a paragraph to format it.
See? Pretty cool, huh?
If I had a neighbor who I figured was running a crack house or a meth lab, I'd love the chance to narc them out. Or, if I was concerned about vandalism of my house or car, it would be nice to have this sort of ability.
The down-side is being harassed about my small dog pooping at some random place. I'll usually kick the poop into the street, but this might not pass muster with the 'authorities'.
Best regards.
It would have been more appropriate if they axed it years ago.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
You'd think this worked by charging monitored businesses. No. It works by charging viewers to report crimes.. Read the Terms of Service. It costs viewers £1 to report an event. The captured image is sent to the camera customer by phone. The recipient rates the report, but the viewer doesn't get credit back if the report was good. The only payoff is the the monthly prize of £1000. They're going to take in far more from the viewers than they pay out.
Viewers do get a credit of £3 per month they can use for reporting, so it's not totally pay to play.
Each viewer is shown four random cameras at a time. Every 20 minutes, or if they report something, they get a new set of cameras. So viewers never get to see the results of their reports.
Apart from the fact that long before the novel was written, there were governments, and governments in those days did the same thing.
So it's about as Orwellian as horsedrawn chariots are Chryslerical.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You probably just mentioned the ones that you particularly dislike or feel are discriminated against/harassed (I could show you a lot of Christians/capitalists/conservatives/heterosexuals/moralists that are, though....), but it's an interesting bias? :)
Boohoo, poor little privileged majority members, life is so hard for them.
Buck up you whiner - discrimination is a fact of life, it will never go away because people are inherently tribal.
That it gets spread around a little more equally is the best realistic outcome.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Anonymous' idea of a "deserving target" is not something usually lines up with any rational persons' idea, rescuing abused felines aside.
Irrelevant question. This isn't a government project, it's a private company that has decided to try a new and stupid business model. The "we" in this case is not taxpayers, it's business owners who are willing to hand over the cash to a security company that has a very suspicious way of ensuring somebody pays attention to the video feed.
Well you had me until you said a police officer would be sacked. Once the police federation's lawyers figure out he's caught red handed they tip him off and he can resign "on health grounds" - backache, stress, something that can't be disproven - on full pension. As long as he does so before the final verdict of the tribunal, he's completely untouchable.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
They already do that. When the police beat up someone or hold them down and shoot them in the head repeatedly, lo and behold! all of the cameras in the area are "malfunctioning".
Similar to the upcoming US election results
I'm of two minds.
On the one hand, I think this could be ripe for abuse. However you could implement controls to address most of the problems. A reputation system could punish users who falsely report crimes. Government review of all flagged crimes (these are cameras, so the feed should be still be available) would ensure that people who are falsely flagged are not unduly persecuted. Not allowing users to choose which cameras to view would mitigate the issue of stalking.
Really, this is little more than a broad-scale crime tips system like we have in the states. You can be rewarded for information about crimes, if they lead to a conviction. In fact, if implemented well, this system is better because the evidence of the alleged crime can be reviewed without imposition on the subject.
But *who* will watch the watchers? Almost certainly, someone with a stake in continuing the program; so abuses will still go unreported.
http://www.blueservo.net/ lets you watch the Texas border for illegal activity. I don't think you can win prizes, though.
I can go with that. Anyone can be self-righteous, even if you believe there's no such thing as "righteousness." On the other hand, self-righteous still implies Christianity.
That and people define it very differently. Some people think "self-righteous" is there when it's really just a "high moral standard." Most people seem to think all Christians are self-righteous, for example, when many Christians actually consider self-righteousness to be Biblically sinful.
How about just "some people" or "bad people." Completely vague and open to anyone's interpretation. Or perhaps "Angry" people would work...
Why am I here arguing this? I have no idea :)
...but spying on each other isn't the way to do it. If only there were an effective, compact, portable, widespread and personal means of deterring violent crime that could replace the oppressive omnipresence of the current CCTV-based system. It'd have to be small, light and easy-to-use, and also be easily concealable so the bad guys wouldn't know who's carrying the deterrence and who isn't.
Something like this might work. Too bad they're illegal in the country formerly known as Great Britain.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Imagine the power of over 9000 cameras!
I think he was using typical US-centric boogeymen.
In the UK. :)
I referred to "moralists" because typically, people seem to get accused of being "moralists" for having morals like ... homosexuality is immoral. Most homosexuals are not accused of excessive morality. That's not the word usually used to describe them. Specifically, I used it to refer to people that think homosxuality, communism, or atheism is wrong for a reason other than an organized religion like Christianity, Islam, Bhuddism, or what have you.
Buck up you whiner - discrimination is a fact of life, it will never go away because people are inherently tribal.
I'll have to remember that quote next time someone complains they couldn't get the job because they're black?
I had no idea that some discrimination is acceptable and those discriminated against just need to put up with it, and some isn't and we need to take action immediately to rectify it... who decides?
You clearly have no idea what kind of people are going to be watching this like a hawk.
Old home bound busybodies with nothing to do focusing particularly on calling the cops on the hippie degenerates and their maryjawana cigarettes and their long hair commie music while keeping a stern eye on any 'Negros' and the darned hooligans in their communities.
People with lives and more sensible moral character will be out doing better things than watching CCTV cameras and tattling on their peers, while major crimes with victims will likely already be reported, minor crimes are really all this has the potential to unearth.
Web Developers: Celebrate to our roots! Animated Gifs and Tiled Backgrounds, dont let our history die!
It would be a lot more entertaining if there were sniper rifles attached to those snooper-scopes. Virtual vigilantism. muahahahahaha.
Hope is the currency of fools
What about using the network of cameras to commit crimes? By being on communication with someone watching the feed, you can be instructed on how to hide your illegal activities. All you need is a bluetooth headset.
"There is a large crowd around the hot dog stand, blend in there." "Camera is panning away.. go NOW" "Camera is focused on garbage can." "The camera is panning to you, face away" "The cops are approaching on Mulberry Street, use Stockton to get out!"
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Isn't it obvious that global control freaks are playing us off one country against another (who will riot first), one person against another (who will report the other first), one belief against another (who will start a holy war first)?
And if anyone makes too big a fuss, they don't get version 1 of the latest subjugation idea, but their tax rate and bailouts go up one notch, while their government handouts drops one notch.
I come here for the love
God, if only you were as smart as you think you are.
This is what happens when a complete dunderhead takes a freshman philosophy course. You know what they say about a little bit of knowledge..
You are welcome on my lawn.
Alright, I'll make sure to remember that. On a side note I'd love to rat on those leaving their dogs turds on the street. I'm serious, there is no easier way to ruin someones day than to leave dog shit behind for him to step on. When I see someone leaving dog shit on the street I always lecture their ignorant asses, and if they don't listen I walk behind them screaming "hey everybody, you know that dog shit you try to dodge everyday, forcing you to stare down at the street with every step you take, the shit you occasionally step on, this guy is the reason for that, he refuses to take his responsibility", and repeat. I'll be honest -- I don't even care that it's against the law, but if your actions affect me, then I'll make sure that my actions affect you. Fair and square. I just hope there were less pussies in the world and more people like me, at least in that sense.
Oh and by the way I've worked both at kindergardens and elderly homes when I was younger, and I've had to clean up more shit than you'd even imagine -- asshole. And there's your paragraph.
I am the lawn!
In 1984, citizens were encouraged to spy on each other and report possible dissidents to the authorities. So yes, this is very Orwellian.
RTFN
I did read the novel, but there's a big difference. The citizens in 1984 were never allowed to view surveillance, so they were never on an equal scale as the government. And fundamentally this is what frightens people, that someone with an upper hand controlls you. When that upper hand is given to everyone the concept isn't the same, and you taking things out of context doesn't make it so.
I am the lawn!
Can we please all not forget that George Orwell was a nasty little man who would have gladly seen the universities closed and everyone who wears glasses jailed? He hated higher education and wanted a world where everyone was a worker and lived drab lives of bare sustenance. He idolized the uneducated working class and believed in the worst parts of communism and fascism. His "ideal world" would have been a nightmare that makes the one in his comic-book novel look like utopia.
His real beliefs were as close as you can get to a bipolar mixture of the worst of communism, populism and fascism. George Orwell was an earlier version of Glenn Beck, without the winning personality.
Like Ayn Rand, he was a damaged personality whose bitterness and hatred resulted in novels that are misread, misunderstood and used by equally damaged people to justify antisocial behavior.
The problem is not that people read George Orwell and Ayn Rand, but that a significant number of people who somehow enjoy their books decide never to read any others.
You are welcome on my lawn.
What happens when a citizen volunteer spy reports on police or government officials breaking the law?
I'll usually kick the poop into the street, but this might not pass muster with the 'authorities'.
And it shouldn't. Aside from being disgusting for your neighbors, you're spreading whatever diseases and parasites your dog might have. It's really not hard to clean up after your dog.
Like as not, good or bad, omnipresent surveillance WILL become a reality eventually. Technologies get cheaper and more readily available, and as long as SOMEONE wants to implement it it will be implemented. That is unless someone develops a countermeasure.
Big Mother is watching you!
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
Popo Bear molesting doughnut on 24th and Grand! Send help!
*sigh* I hate this country
In Ireland of old, possibly still today, one of the great insults was to be called an "informer". This derived from the old rule under the English where informants were very real and the information they passed on to authorities was a very central element of British rule over the country. When discovered, actual informers could face very serious repercussions from the local population, and there was really no worse sin, particularly in the days before independence. Even during the Troubles in the north well into the 90's, informers, and even suspected informers faced summary execution at the hands of the IRA.
While the English have long gone in the Republic, the taboo lingers on in a fashion. As in most former colonies, people tend to report crimes less, and respect for those that do is not very forthcoming.
Looking on the bright side, perhaps after they have been subjected to this system, the British may finally get an idea of why the government (or anyone else), knowing too much is actually a bad thing. Recent developments in their country suggests that they haven't yet grasped this, but may actually be capable of doing so. Americans on the other hand... .
May the Maths Be with you!
They'll outlaw street theater... It's too disruptive.
I think this has theoretical implications for how game theory scales - this is the scaled up version of the prisoner's dilemma, and I believe it has a different outcome for the players.
meh
Big Brother is You!
Anonymous will NEVER try to abuse this. Nuh-uh. Won't happen.
*facepalm to unconsciousness*
"What do you think will happen with a system like this in the hands of Anonymous or some group like them."
Lulz?
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I think this is plain stupid ... who is going to watch hours and hours of people passing by the camera ? I don't know much about UK, but I don't think is really that boring a place that people will spend hours watching low quality video of other people going down the street ...
1. Register for the CCTV monitoring biggest sex shop in Edinburgh
2. ???
3. Profit!
or: ... for 1000 pounds sterling a month, you get the same crime reported 5000 times, then you need to employ 300 secretaries to sort through the reports
would be nice to put the feed from one camera as background on the desktop ... watching trees (the same trees) all day is no fun ...
Ok, before this gets out of hand let's look some community-verified facts and definitions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwellian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell
This seems like a system that could be pretty easily overloaded by false positives. Why wouldn't someone write a script or setup a botnet to identify everyone (or random people) as potential criminals that need to be investigated.
That would be a great way for the real criminals, including terrorists, to overload law enforcement with wild goose-chases.
Of course it would never get to the point of overloading law enforcement because there would be so many false positives coming in that law enforcement would realize that the system is unreliable and therefore useless.
Jamming the system is or will be made illegal, thus the crime would actually happen.
You mean until certain groups are filmed taking unemployment money straight to the liquor store ... or to prostitutes.
Or until it is shown that certain "cultural enrichers" attack women just because. Or that they gang up on anyone with a different posse/religion/color/... or attack anything looking remotely gay in public parks ... Or a nice conversation between 2 of these guys on how to prevent anyone from hiring them, so as to continue to receive benefits.
In other words, these camera images are sure to make a total mockery of the prevailing ideology, whether it is about poverty causing crime, who exactly opresses who, how women's rights really function in other cultures, or how peaceful other cultures really are, or ... you name it. This will not be pretty. Confronting people with an ideotic (I mean idealized) view of the world never is.
Videos exposing prevailing dogma for the idiocy that those dogmas are will never be allowed to be publicized. People will scream bloody murder, not over the obvious truth, but over people exposing truth.
Go back to whining about the "war on Christmas". When Christians or conservatives start getting beaten to death for mentioning their views in public, then you may have a point. Having somebody say "Happy Holidays" to you doesn't make you the next Matthew Shepard.
Here in Florida we took our dog out on the beach once and within 20 minutes a local police officer had showed up after receiving "numerous complaints from residents". Basically, the shore is bordered with miles of condos with bored elders who have nothing better to do with their time than call the PD when they see something they don't like.
My dad has been an officer here for almost 30 years and once worked a homicide case where a guy was killed on this same section of the beach ... and nobody reported a dead body in the sand until the next day. As my dad used to say, "if only the guy had a dog with him when he died."
Actually I imagine the first Prime Minister that gets caught coming and going from his girlfriend's house on CCTV will be in favor of cancelling this program. They were all quite upset when that paper uncovered their improper expenses last year (more upset at the reporting than the actual impropriety), so I could easily see a scandal of that sort getting this whole thing cancelled.
I hope you get modded up. I think it is an important distinction. But the privacy-at-all cost people on here may want to suppress your post because it doesn't agree with their freaking out.
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Oh yeah. Let's just ignore the entire reporting on others policies in 1984. Instead of the Boy/Girl Scouts there were the Spies. Remember that? There's even mention of one guy being proud of his son for turning him in for a minor infraction.
Ok, you've convinced me. George Orwell was a bad man. Therefore I will take his warnings as a thing to instead be sought.
Big Brother is Good.
Being constantly monitored is freedom.
I was really confused there for a moment, but your ad hominem really did the trick. Thanks!
Are you seriously stating that losing privacy is no oppressive element?
It is, but having recorded what you do in public is no "losing privacy". You can't lose what you don't have, and walking in public you are, well, in public.
As stated all public CCTV cameras (at least those paid for by the public) should be viewable at all times by the public as well. They can catch bad cops just as well as bad citizens you know.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'll have to remember that quote next time someone complains they couldn't get the job because they're black?
Yes you will. You will also have to remember the rest of the context of that statement too. Although it seems like you probably won't since you couldn't even do it when the context was staring you in the face.
But, if it makes you feel better to make strawmen by selective quoting, then by all means go ahead, its a free country.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
From the perspective of a terrorist, this would be a great boon to the cause.
They would instantly know where the cops are not...or even worse, when you start considering remotely activated bombs, where they ARE.
This has got to be a joke. Too stupid of an idea to be anything but a joke.
If there's a scandal, the Prime Minister is removed by his party and a new one brought in. The new one does not remove the system because that would just be a concession that he was going to behave similarly. What would happen (and it doesn't need to be anyone as dramatic as a Prime Minister) is that exceptions will be made for a vaguely defined class of people (which basically translates as people with power) that you are prevented from spying on by law and by technological measures.
The only reason parliament would ban this sort of thing would be if there is sufficient public disgust voiced to make it clear that it harms their electoral achievements and benefits their rivals.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
You do not know what we do!
* takes out note pad *
(lol)
Which is great because it gives us an opportunity to express our displeasure to businesses that participate. It's hard to withhold your taxes from the government (they beat you up), but you avoid paying money to businesses that you don't like and tell them why. THIS is our avenue of attack if we don't like this system.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
You're just adorably simple minded.
Perhaps could help further a gay pogrom, Iraq-style:
http://nymag.com/news/features/59695/
...you will get good laughs on youtube! Can't loose.
I just want to say this is my favorite Slashdot post in some time....
So instead of Big Brother watching, it's gonna be Little Brother & Sister.
At least it will keep them off the streets.
No, I realize you were stating that it's good for it to be spread around "more equally."
I would just argue that I'm not sure I agree with that. If discrimination itself is bad, then I shouldn't like any of it, whether it's the prevalent (read: the minority gets discriminated against) kind or the non-prevalent kind (read: the majority gets discriminated against).
God, if only you were as smart as you think you are.
This is what happens when a complete dunderhead takes a freshman philosophy course. You know what they say about a little bit of knowledge..
Thanks for adding something of value to the conversation. Incidently this is what happens when you give a keyboard to a child.
So it's about as Orwellian as horsedrawn chariots are Chryslerical.
Chryslerical - I love it!
If I had a mod point...
(Yada diddle-iddle-iddle vadda-viddy-viddy vumm)
allows 'super snooper' players to plug into the nation's CCTV cameras
It's has nothing to do with the government's massive CCTV network. It is a private venture where store owners can rent cameras for £20 a week per camera.
Unexpect the expected!
I hope you get modded up. I think it is an important distinction. But the privacy-at-all cost people on here may want to suppress your post because it doesn't agree with their freaking out.
I didn't want to say it, but you took the words out of my mouth. Truth is, no matter how many books we've read or how many movies we've seen we're never going to be able to foresee a scenario at such a large scale. There are just too many factors in play. What people do know is their fear, and their fear will unfortunately play on many of their decisions in life causing irrational behaviour.
Maybe we will have a surveyed society, and maybe it will turn out ok, I know I don't suffer from hubris, thus I cannot tell either way. I can speculate, but I will never throw myself to the ground screaming "my god can you not see what awaits ahead!?", such as many here do. Fundamentally we humans are curious creatures, and we will always try to snoop on our neighbours, but there's a difference between invading privacy and monitoring public domain. I agree the thought of Orwells world is frightening, but he was no god, and his books are not prophecies. They are merely the product of a curious human playing with the thought of what could be. I believe that if a government becomes the way that Orwell describes in 1984, then there's a good chance the effects will also be as described. However this is not the only outcome of a surveyed society. We are already surveyed, just at different levels. That cell phone you carry: it is used to track your location to prove your guilt or innocence. Those keycards you use: same thing. Internet: need I continue? And apart from this there's already a series of cameras on public locations.
Every person should have the right to privacy, that is given. My property is not public domain, thus I should have all the rights to decide if I want a camera in my house, or even aimed at my property, or not. However the streets are not mine, they are ours. And fundamentally it is a choice we make. If you truly feel that you want to fight something, then do it. The further you take it, the more people will listen to you. Ultimately it's up to you. If you believe that politics is all corrupted business then fine, but it doesn't mean that there's no room for honest opinions -- look at all the pirate parties merging around the world. There's a swedish pirate in the european parliament, who's actually one of 14 members in charge of developing the new telecom package! That is change my friends. Or you could just waste your time speculating, in fear, about what horrors the future may hold you.
I am the lawn!
Fixed!
And yes, I've read 1984 but just in case anyone doubts, this can/did happen in real life also.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
4Chan was my first thought too ...
And you just know some geek will figure out a way of following somebody (if not themselves) around using all the webcams and putting the video up on Youtube. Maybe they will use Google maps and some 3D mathematics to work out how all the camera projection spaces intersect.
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But we *can* afford prizes up to £1,000 for public citizens that are effectively doing police work ? This world is getting way too weird for me... Or perhaps im just getting old :)
£1,000 won't buy you a single police officer for a year.
This is extremely cost effective.
Agreeing with jofny, and it's a shame I can't mod you up over 5. If only 1 for each poncey "community officer" I see walking up the main road in my village every Wednesday.
Eyeing my coop shopping bad up are ya? Just to make it look like your worth something? Fuckin thought police in hi-vis vests.
This is actually for private sector only, not every camera in England. That would be against the data protection act.
If this site had access to public cameras, it would actually be illegal to sign up to.
As a bonus, you could report all of their crimes yourself and rake in the dough!
-- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
In Soviet England, Big Brother is you!
You see the fundamental concept of the Orwellian idea is to have one instance impose on your privacy
But that's too expensive, so the British government has chosen the next best thing.
Groups of angry zealots could easily coordinate by phone, possibly with one or more persons actually following a mark around.
/b/ . That style of stalking is always driven by self-righteousness and is done in a secret, Kafka-esque manner because the people who gang up have no spines individually. Being able to hide behind a camera only makes it worse. It is tacitly tolerated by U.S. law enforcement, but I have a bad feeling that this kind of crap may be the future of the idiocracy.
It's all too easy to get people riled up against a common enemy - as an example, my (conservative) hometown newspaper recently tried to convince everybody, via editorial, that the enemy were fellow Californians who were collecting unemployment checks, in a county with a 24.7% unemployment rate in a state with a unemployment rate which is 12+% and rising!
The target audience are, of course, people who still believe that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are keeping America safe from terror...but what can you do when you live in a whole city full of them and you choose to be an atheist communist homosexual?
Alternately, what about a large group of laid-off factory workers who have nothing else to do all day? It would allow them an opportunity to displace their anger upon other citizens and not on the government which caused the loss of their jobs in the first place.
Community-based "policing" is always a bad idea. It's mob rule! Neighborhood watch groups, community church groups, "not-in-my-neighborhood"-ers, will all get together and find somebody to harass. Humans are but animals, and this is the pack mentality at work. The funny thing is that these are the same hypocrites who would publicly condemn the actions of 4chan's
If my memory serves me correctly, in the late 1970's there was a Science Fiction short story published in one of the Nebula Award anthologies wherein video cameras and remote weapons were tied to a crime-fighting game system operated for the purpose of winning points towards the release of the prisoners who operated the triggers.
One of the key motivations for playing the game was gaining the return of the prisoner's body once enough points were earned, since their disembodied brains were actually plugged into the neighborhood crime-fighting network.
This line of thought suggests that "INTERNET EYES" hasn't gone far enough yet - and they might consider leasing Predator UAVs to fly cover in British airspace.
Can anyone reply with the title and author of this short story?
Thank you!
DarkStarZumaBeachSurfinApocalypseWow
I would have much prefered if they had deployed and used this technology not against their own citizenry but instead for far better purposes, like in The Spiders (background and first chapters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spiders_(comic)). The future is much cooler when being used for good, not stupid.
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You could have these people called "police" patrol areas. And if there is a crime they would already be there!
... they made 1984 a reality game.
I do have mod points, but unfortunately I can't find the +1 Pwned modifier. :)
If discrimination itself is bad, then I shouldn't like any of it,
Never said you should LIKE any of it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I referred to "moralists" because typically, people seem to get accused of being "moralists" for having morals like ... homosexuality is immoral. Most homosexuals are not accused of excessive morality. That's not the word usually used to describe them.
That's not the word used to describe most living people, so it's hardly surprising. That said, I've known quite a few rather moral homosexuals (one was also a Christian - not that it matters, just another orthogonal scale), so I'm not sure what your point was, anyway.
A very similar thing is in place in Russia (and, I believe, most ex-USSR countries, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear it about the entire Eastern Bloc). Because of decades of oppression against the population by the authorities, informants - inevitably working for Cheka/NKVD/KGB - were seen in an overly negative light, and so would be anything associated with them, like "ratting out" to authorities. The time has passed, but the perception still persists.
You did get *who* big brother was in the end?
"Big Brother" was not some guy or dictator, "Big Brother is watching you" was about the PEOPLE spying on itself!
If you have a system where some government agency is formed from the people (like the Stasi) or if you create an atmosphere of fear and make people spy on each other and to report "bad behaviour" seems to become a quite minor difference.
But to be honest... this is nothing but web 2.0... no one said only Wikipedia can "benefit" from a group effort, we see that the government also can get to use a group to "improve" reaching a certain goal for cheap, cheap cash (that such a system will get used for spying on your neighbours and your love interest does not even have to be mentioned in a place like this).
big difference. The citizens in 1984 were never allowed to view surveillance, so they were never on an equal scale as the government. And fundamentally this is what frightens people, that someone with an upper hand controlls you. When that upper hand is given to everyone the concept isn't the same, and you taking things out of context doesn't make it so.
I'm sorry, but I have no fear of the government having access to that sort of information about me, since I generally aren't committing crimes, and they have no reason to be watching me. Especially since they have millions of other people they could be watching, many of whom are known past offenders.
But, with a system where anyone can sign in basically to view cameras, then anyone you actually know, who is in your personal, or business life, who wants to know a bit more about you, could have the ability to watch you, and make decisions based on what they see (think getting fired cause they watched you leave a bar late at night.) Since they aren't watching over millions of people and having to be selective, these people choose who they want to watch, and since if they know the person, it stands to reason they know at least one location that person frequents, and they could find a camera near there, to case, and then hop cameras to follow you all day and night if they were so inclined.
Thats the first danger of this system. The second, is that they are encouraging people to be snitches. To rat out their fellow man, to hand them over the government so they can 'reform' them. That is the Orwellian part of it. Its also a major part of the societal changes that occurred as Germany slid into Nazi Germany.
That scares me.
From the article: "Whoever has a CCTV camera, be it the police, local authorities or business or home owners can sign up to have their cameras watched. We hope to include police cameras very soon."
So, camera owners *can* sign up... Internet Eyes *hope* to have police cameras. Good luck with that... I really doubt the police will allow them to stream their feeds live.
They will probably only end up with 50 cameras and people will quickly loose interest in the game.
Well done on paragraphing. Now, if you could just fully-justify your text, we'd be most appreciative.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
By "people," you apparently mean Christians, capitalists/conservatives, heterosexuals, and moralists. I guess atheists, communists, homosexuals, etc., are all peace-loving hate-hating people that have an inherent aversion to stalking or harassing or any sort of "bad behavior,"
It's not about "bad behavior". Christians, conservatives, and moralists have a long history of committing harassment, stalking, and blackmail against minority groups in order to make the minority behavior conform to their views. Atheists and homosexuals have virtually no history of using harassment, stalking, or blackmail to change Christians into atheists or heterosexuals into homosexuals.
whereas others - like Christians and conservatives - only profess to believe in "higher authority," God,
Believing in a "higher authority" is offensive and immoral. But as long as you as you keep it private and to yourself, that's your business. But you don't "only profess", you try to impose your offensive and immoral beliefs on others, and that's where you cross the line.
But they probably deal with that after the incident. if so, then if someone is watching it in real time, they can put it on youtube and a hundred other sites the UK police can't reach before the cameras "malfunction".
Random unrelated thought to what I was saying, but I wonder what copyright issues there will be with this game?
The citizens in 1984 did view the surveillance. Winston himself was part of perpetuating the system he hated and which oppressed him - this was more or les the entire point.
Same thing today, the guy manning a CCTV system (or who just one a prize through this scheme) will also be watched on his way home.
There does not have to be an evil group of 12 men in a smoke-filled room on the 13th floor in order for you to be oppressed (this is the erroneous thinking which leads to conspiracy theories). The system can be oppressive, and this one is. Or rather, it is a way to make the invasion of privacy (a clear oppression and one which paves the way for a lot of future oppression) more efficient - or at least that is the idea.
I also think it is more like 1984, exactly because it distributes the oppression-task to the larger citizen-ship, like it was in the novel... When the first participant of this game/scheme is sentenced as an accessory for not calling the cops, this is made even clearer.
IAIFARSIJDPOOTV - I Am In Fact A Reality Star; I Just Don't Play One On TV
I referred to "moralists" because typically, people seem to get accused of being "moralists" for having morals like ... homosexuality is immoral
You're confusing moralism and morality. When people say that Christians are moralists, they are being accused of attempting to impose their private morals on others; it does not imply approval of Christian morality. In fact, many people object to Christian moralism because they find aspects of Christian morality and its ethical foundations offensive.
By "people," you apparently mean...
Why the f... are you assuming you know who he meant by "people"? The previous poster specifically said:
...or whomever else they just don't like.
That does not exclude the oppressed group you seem to feel you belong to - it includes it!
He mentioned the ones who have routinely, systematically, historically and presently, been harrassed most obviously. I presume for clarity. I have no clue why you presume it was to target any specific pair of oppressor-oppressed.
IAIFARSIJDPOOTV - I Am In Fact A Reality Star; I Just Don't Play One On TV
I don't see anything particularly wrong with this. Given that this information is ALREADY known to the government, you already do not have any of the privacy lost from other people viewing said cameras.
If there is any problem, it would still be with the existence of cameras to begin with, not with the public disclosure of said cameras.
Well, other than there would be more knowledge of where said cameras are, which could tip off potential criminals.
But even if you can view the camera feeds it's "the authorities" that decides if they want to do something with it or not. It's not like they are going to allow you access to their register of suspects, or give you a report on successful arrests coming from your data.
The last few years its become obvious that the UK is using Orwell's 1983 as a play book for converting the nation. Where will this stop? How much more of this shit will the citizens of the great empire take. Problem I guess is that the general population of the entire nation is becoming even dumber then certain US states are well known for. They are the perfect sheeple with nothing more on their mind then the tele, sex, drugs and Paris Hilton. I've seen documentaries of british youth, girls aged 13-14 years old, that had no other interest in the world then being the hottest or coolest in school (translates to being school matrasses ...) and getting boobjobs or babies at their age.
Sheesh
And for a good reasons. While there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, the atheists are only as moral as they choose to be. Having no fear of a deity, they don't answer to anyone other than themselves. And the government. But the government can only enforce laws. Things immoral, but legal are more likely to seem acceptable to atheists than to religious people.
This is not to say, that a religious man is not going to screw you. Just that he is less likely to...
Having grown up in the USSR, I am an atheist myself. But, other things being equal, I prefer to deal with religious folk.
No, Communists are the worst of the worst. By far. Anyone identifying himself as such deserves prompt hanging on a lamp-post.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
EPIC! Lulz
Facts : Data Protection Act is likely to squash this, as one of the commenters points out. Doesn't matter if the cameras are private or public, either, the operator's obligations under the DPA are the same. Opinions : It's bad enough being constantly surveilled by the police every time I go into town, without having the images distributed to an army of perverts and right-wing nutters. Surveillance cameras should only be used on people of whom the police have a genuine, particular suspicion that they intend to commit crimes - their use in any other case constitutes a false accusation against anyone who comes into shot. This evil scheme would simply increase the number of false accusations a hundredfold.
...to the Hitler Youth.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
From the article: "He said the team had seen a wave of support and denied that liberties were being affected. 'There are more than four million cameras in the UK so everybody is on camera already, it is just that no one is watching the cameras.'"
WTF! How about liberties are already affected?
What's next? Put cams in your home to have your children watched? I bet these people would do it without a blink of an eye.
"People will band together and participate in government-sanctioned stalking of atheists, commies, homosexuals, or whomever else they just don't like."
More like anyone even slightly to the 'right' of the coming Obamaaaaa..!-esque (uuugh I'm cummin'!), multi-culti soft-totalitarian state the U.K. has been working towards.
The main problem with crime in Britain (according to many different sources, see articles and book by Theodore Darlymple for example) is not that the crime gets unnoticed and unreported to the police. It's that for various complex reasons (system of rewards and incentives, compassion for criminals, social justice, criminals' human rights, ...) the police and justice system fail enforce the law strictly enough. The system concentrates more and more on easy targets and its will to search and punish the perpetrators of serious crimes is weakening.
No amount of cameras and watchers will help prevent crime because they aren't backed by real threat of force.
This is "Stasi 2.0".
Please, please. Keep detailed records of the interfering scumbags who sign up to work on this.
The chance of a revolution is small, but in that case I want to shoot these motherfuckers.
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
You missed out the bit where they are unable to find an actual criminal, so they shoot someone BROWN instead.
FTFY.
It is Orwellian as he envisaged the ubiquitous use of video cameras for surveillance purposes and its abuse by a totalitarian government. Previous governments never had the ability to concentrate the power of such pervasive surveillance into the hands of so few.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
No, it's just that western governments prefer Christians, capitalists/conservatives, heterosexuals, and moralists.
What bias? He picked examples that historically were the targets of government scrutiny/persecution even in democratic countries, like the UK (e.g., Alan Turing). He clearly wasn't restricted to those examples, as the phrase "or whomever else they just don't like" should have made clear, as should have the specific reference to the Stasi in East Germany's communist regime.
Anybody who thinks it can't happen in a democratic society such as the UK is wrong, because historically there were plenty of groups that were persecuted in the past in ways that we would now regard as abhorrent -- like the ones he listed. Democratic countries are not immune from this, unfortunately. If the UK were a communist regime, then he could have used Christians and capitalists as examples. The choice of examples relevant to the country in question isn't indicative of bias, it's indicative of historical precedent.
Your focus on the choice of targets is missing the point entirely: The kind of power being handed to the people with access to these cameras is dangerous. Period. The ideology of the regime and the target of their scrutiny is irrelevant.
"The citizens in 1984 were never allowed to view surveillance, so they were never on an equal scale as the government."
Then again citizens in 1984 were hired by the govt to view surveillance, that's how citizens become part of the government. The main difference here is that it's called a game instead of a job.
http://interneteyes.co.uk/faq.php
Will this cost me any money?
Internet Eyes allocates 3 alerts per user per month. If you exceed that limit within that month you can purchase more at £1 each using your PayPal details.
Freedom is hard fought for and easily lost. Those that try and take rights and freedoms away try and do so under the radar. For instance who would have thought that RIPA would be used to spy on half a million uk citizens a year. Most uk citizens I speak to don't know about the eborders scheme, where everyone is catalogued each time they enter or leave the country (with up to 2.5 billion journeys stored at any one time).
The vast amount of information being gathered, as you say via your phone, cards, internet, etc, is worrying. You merge this into one coherent database and you have no privacy left. I would hardly call a slip towards totalitarianism an irrational fear, especially when it is being legislation into existence in front of people's eyes. Many laid down their lives to earn the freedoms we take for granted today, and it would be disrespectful to give them away for temporary convenience.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Coastguard?
Once the griefers and gold farmers get involved, you're all proper-fucked.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
I know that in the UK it is now illegal to photograph police officers going about their duties, this probably applies to government officials also. This was touted as an "anti-terrorism" measure of course, but it suggests to me that they didn't like the idea of peaceful protestors recording brutal police tactics, for example.
Thankfully video cameras didn't exist in the 1600s or the 1950s, so the Salem Witch Trials and the whole McCarthy circus never happened!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Freedom is hard fought for and easily lost. Those that try and take rights and freedoms away try and do so under the radar. For instance who would have thought that RIPA would be used to spy on half a million uk citizens a year [itpro.co.uk]. Most uk citizens I speak to don't know about the eborders scheme [bbc.co.uk], where everyone is catalogued each time they enter or leave the country (with up to 2.5 billion journeys stored at any one time).
That's given. However the underlying problem with this picture is not the surveillance, it's the motives of the government. The UK is one of many countries in the world, and whatever the UK does doesn't reflect humanity. I disagree with a lot of the Brittish way of doing things, but in the end I don't live in the UK thus it's not my problem to deal with. I'm not saying though that ultimately we all benefit from a surveyed society -- I'm saying that I don't know if we do. What we do know without speculating is that we already live in a surveyed society and that we are already using this technology to survey eachother. I agree thought that I don't have the information about cell phone locations, but perhaps one day I will.
The vast amount of information being gathered, as you say via your phone, cards, internet, etc, is worrying. You merge this into one coherent database and you have no privacy left.
Now you see you can call me a pedantic fool or a semantic wizard or whatever, but that right there is not true. Even with this information I still have some privacy. There are things I have done that nobody knows, but me. The same goes for you. The same goes for all of us. If you don't understand that you are merely oversimplifying the concept then there's no use in continuing this as I already know this will be the focus point of the discussion no matter what we say. If we come to the point where we have absolutely no privacy, and right now we're far from it, I would be the first one to call for a revolution. But privacy is a relative term, and I don't feel like my privacy is invaded, not yet at least.
Still once again your mistake, just like any other frightened person here, is that you assume that the totalitarian state is inevitable. Why is it inevitable? Because George Orwell wrote a book about it? Because the UK government has tricked its citizens? This not evidence, this is speculation. Don't let your fear come in the way of your rationalisation.
Many laid down their lives to earn the freedoms we take for granted today, and it would be disrespectful to give them away for temporary convenience.
Now you see that's just flag waving, patriotic, nonsensical rhetorics. I don't fall for that kind of nonsense, that's the kind of bullshit that justifies war. It truly pains me to see that you repeat that like a brainwashed parrot.
I am the lawn!
The citizens in 1984 did view the surveillance. Winston himself was part of perpetuating the system he hated and which oppressed him - this was more or les the entire point.
Allow me to rephrase because this is only a misunderstanding. All citizens were not allowed to view the surveillance. This makes all the difference in the world. I'm sorry if I left my sentence open for interpretation.
I am the lawn!
I agree - the idea that people would use this to actually watch for crime is mad, because the probability of seeing one and winning money is still going to be very small.
Think about it - if someone said you get £1000 for seeing a crime in real life, would anyone spend all day looking out their window? Of course not. I suppose you could monitor a few screens at once, but that still wouldn't make it likely. This scheme might rope in a few dumb hopefuls, but they'd soon get bored after a few days of seeing no crime at all.
I share your fears about what it will actually be used for. And what about people putting up clips of those things on YouTube?
Of course you might be able to use this to monitor the police, but if so, expect them to implement controls on that asap.
Indeed - given how outraged they get in the UK if you simply snap a photo in person of a police officer or police van, I can't help wondering if they might at least oppose this scheme.
Don't forget that camera images are often grainy, poor resolution, poorly lit, from the wrong angle etc. Even if a potential crime is caught on camera, often the camera footage is useless anyway.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I wish my biggest worry was a dog turd on the street. Something you can easily overcome by dodging it, shortening your step, leaping, or simply by stepping on it (it's not the end of the world).
i am not being facetious, it's just that things that ruin my day are usually of fucked up nature...i am just saying that if THIS is what will ruin your day, then you have it pretty good. Thank god there's people like you that take the time to take action and scream at the offender. What I do wish is that people stopped screaming at stupid shit and started screaming about things that are more important...like, fuck...there's a war going on...scream to end that first, we'll worry about the dog shit when people stop dying for stupid reasons.
Because you feel that your were unfairly vilified by someone painting your demographics with a broad brush and you were too silly to realize that people are immune to ideologically different ideas while on the internet?
While I don't proscribe to any particular preconception, there may be a point in the concern that you addressed since, in the end, majority/minority relations is a numbers game. Ironically, government often protects the minority from the majority, despite being representative of the people as a whole which is why government typically favors the majority. By giving a majority more capability to directly harass, repress, or otherwise harm a minority, whether it be along the lines of religion, sex, race, favorite sports team, or any other category that people like to divide themselves accordingly, a greater potential exists for these issues to arise.
Of course, this is all speculative; for all I or anyone else knows, pervasive surveillance coupled with open access could bring about the Age of Aquarius with Muslims and Jews hosting singalongs hosted Mexicans and Canadians while all of their dogs and cats cuddle together. And everyone else would get to watch.
That's disgusting.
It's a little bit of technology we call a bag, mollog. If you're the squeamish type, there's also these things called rub-ber gloves.
Isn't that neat?
Don't leave your shit, or any shit you are responsible for, out in the streets. It's unsanitary.
This isn't a government project, it's a private company that has decided to try a new and stupid business model.
Wow, I totally missed that in the article, thanks for clearing that up for me.
Next time, pick it up with your bare hands and smack it right on top of their head, then wipe it on their shirt - I've always wanted to do this, but never found someone deserving enough to do it to. What are they going to do - call the cops? You'll be long gone and the cops won't care, probably just laugh.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Unless the police figure out where the cameras are and "take care of things" before the "incident" occurs or move 10 feet into a camera blind spot.
How long do you think it's going to be before someone puts out a bounty on these cameras? After all, (paintball gun + iPhone + a little spatial reasoning = cash) => (lots of cameras with their lenses covered by paint)
1984,,,,could not say it better
and Scientologists.
In Britain, the police would deny that any officers have broken the law. Then the video footage would go on YouTube, and some newspapers would get the story. The IPCC (Independent Police Complains Commisson) would open an investigation, and the police would deny any wrongdoing again, even when shown the video.
Wow. You've been watching the Robert Dziekaski case, haven't you. I mean I know Canada likes to pretend it doesn't have that many British connections, but the whole deny despite the video thing stands out as one they really should have worked harder to avoid.
Actually it isn't illegal. But you're right that people have had their cameras or phones taken away from them and pictures taken away. Also the police have told people that it is illegal.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Oh and by the way I've worked both at kindergardens and elderly homes when I was younger, and I've had to clean up more shit than you'd even imagine
But you still got a long way to go before you beat Mike Rowe.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
I'd like to see the response from security guards' unions for this. Not only it's without pay, the employee has to actually pay to do his work. That said, most people will report three times and the forget about it.
I know I don't suffer from hubris, thus I cannot tell either way.
How do you know, you haughty bastard?
More than a moment, I'll wager.
You are welcome on my lawn.
But one religion stands out.
It's most basic tenant is (interpreted as) that if you feel sorry for something you have done you will be forgiven.
The troublesome interpretation allows them to continue sinning next week, until they repent again next Sunday morning, backsliding once again by Monday at the latest.
I know all members of this religion don't live this interpretation.
In my experience a clear majority that declare their religiousness loudly and proudly do.
In my experience as an admin I've found that they also have more and _sicker_ porn on their computers.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I wish my biggest worry was a dog turd on the street. Something you can easily overcome by dodging it, shortening your step, leaping, or simply by stepping on it (it's not the end of the world).
i am not being facetious, it's just that things that ruin my day are usually of fucked up nature...i am just saying that if THIS is what will ruin your day, then you have it pretty good. Thank god there's people like you that take the time to take action and scream at the offender. What I do wish is that people stopped screaming at stupid shit and started screaming about things that are more important...like, fuck...there's a war going on...scream to end that first, we'll worry about the dog shit when people stop dying for stupid reasons.
Hahaha what are you 13? By the looks of your arguing and typing skills, dog turd on the street ought to be your biggest worry! That and getting your bike stolen. Fuck off kid, and don't let your teenie weenie head worry too much about the war. Incredible...
What could mitigate these problem is to assign the cameras to the user randomly (i.e. they don't get to choose where they watch) and don't assign cameras near where they are (probably best to guess the users location from their IP address since the user might lie about their location anyway). With these measures in place it will be near impossible to stalk anybody and it makes it unlikely that you'll see anyone you know (you can't blackmail someone if you don't know who they are).
I still don't like the idea of this anyway even if it is implemented as I suggest.
Within a week or so all the cameras would be mapped out. It's not like they're not fixed, and you can't, you know, see what they're looking at. Someone would start a web site and ask people to identify stills from each camera to geotag them. Oops - already been done. Then people will start sharing video feeds. ("Want to know what the traffic's like at the corner of 1st and Main? Click here.")
They won't stay anonymous for long. Look how quickly dog-shit girl was identified. Once you have the location, you start following the person via cam.
Then there's the whole DoS of the cameras issue. It's been done. A lot of cameras have their own web-server.
This is just a bad idea on top of another bad idea.
So is this a bad idea? The usually arguments are that CCTV cameras reduce privacy and when state controlled gives more power to the state (Schneier says this is the case even if the CCTV data is generally available).
However in this case, the state isn't holding the data. It's being acquired from private sources. It doesn't appear to be aggregated. It doesn't seem like you could using it for stalking. Is there a problem here?
And you're just wonderfully adept at doublethink.
Simple minded is saying, "there's a difference, therefore an analogy is completely wrong."
I weep when the citizens of two of the freest nations ever to exist defend a surveillance scheme as offensive as this
More than a moment, I'll wager.
Or much less, rather.
This reminds of me of a cut level from Half-Life 2, Manhack Arcarde: http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Manhack_Arcade
Biased anecdotal evidence skipped
And just how would you know that? What does "as an admin" have to do with it? Do you have the right to look into other people's files as an admin? Actually, legally, you might be able to justify it, but morally you can't. That they are porn may be deducible from the filenames and types, which you are allowed to examine to determine, whether they are work related, need to be backed-up, etc.
But to make a reliable determination, that the porn of the religious people is "sicker" than that of atheists, you had to look inside a statistically significant number of files belonging to a statistically significant number of different people.
If you have actually done that "as an admin" you sure have broken moral norms and, likely, laws... More likely, you simply misrepresented your "experience as an admin" here to make your rhetoric more exciting... Shame either way.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Everyone. If the original feeds are public record, the access records should be as well.
Last post!
Citizens? Don't you think it's more economic to have sweatshops in third world countries with hundreds or thousands of people paid 2 dollars a day each for snooping on the British public? You'd never even break even spotting crimes at 1000 pounds a pop. You'd have to watch for months, so it would be better to just get a job. But employing an army of wage slaves in a third world country, you might even make the big pounds.
...
by the way, there are actually a lot of applications already that allow you to use camera's like this. not just for your computer, there's an ipod touch app that lets you look all over the world and control the camera too.