Startup Wants To Peek Through Your Home's Wired Cameras

alphadogg writes "The little cameras in your home are multiplying. There are the ones you bought, perhaps your SLR or digital camera, but also those that just kind of show up in your current phone, your old phone, your laptop, your game console, and soon your TV and set-top box. Varun Arora, founder of startup GotoCamera in Singapore, wants you to turn them all on and let his company's algorithms analyze what they show, then sell the results as marketing data, in a sort of visual version of what Google and other firms do with search results and free email services."

Comments

Jennicam 2.0?

[dtmos]

Startup wants to peek through the wired cameras in your home, sell the data

Wait, wait. Could we go back and cover the part about why I would want them to do this, again?

Re:Jennicam 2.0?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not what *you* want. It is what advertisers want. You are just the product being sold.

Re:Jennicam 2.0?

[mhajicek]

For 2% off on up to 15 gallons of gas.

Re:Jennicam 2.0?

[Bieeanda]

You missed a step. First they need to come up with some incentive, let's call it a Judas goat, to sign on and let their programs sift through our pictures. This is a little more complicated than web bugs and tracking cookies, since it requires more effort on our part than logging into Facebook or searching through Google.

Re:Jennicam 2.0?

[berashith]

no kidding. do i get a free house or something?

Re:Jennicam 2.0?

[sunderland56]

let's call it a Judas goat

If they gave every user a goat, then they'd certainly come up with some footage to resell.

Re:Jennicam 2.0?

[NEDHead]

Yessir. One free glass house coming up!

Re:Jennicam 2.0?

[HapSlappy_2222]

Yeah. What's in it for me, Mr. Arora? And don't say "Access to ads for products you actually want!" because I'm a grown-up and know how to find things I want*. Besides, I doubt your "targeted ads" are any better than clicking I'm Feeling Lucky and dumping my CC# into the first 16 digit field I find.

I could be persuaded to let you watch me pick my nose at $1000 per frame, though. Otherwise, you and your startup can feck right off, sir.

*Who are we trying to kid, anyway? As a married father of two teenage daughters, I already KNOW what ads would best target ME: late-night Tampax/Midol shops, Rue 21 and Banana Republic clothing stores, and any vendor at the mall selling shit that confuses me. You should pay my kids as if they were on your marketing staff; they already did your research for you, buddy.

Re:Jennicam 2.0?

[HapSlappy_2222]

If only it worked this way:

Dear Sir,

I would like to sign up for your offer of (robotic voice) FREE GOAT. I have been made to understand that FREE GOAT is both adorable and delicious..

Please ship FREE GOAT overnight directly to my doorstep at your earliest convenience, for I have become hungry while typing this sign-up request.

Thank you,

Guy willing to let a FREE GOAT vendor know he likes FREE GOAT for a FREE GOAT.

Re:Jennicam 2.0?

[Barbara, not Barbie]

You missed a step. First they need to come up with some incentive, let's call it a Judas goat, to sign on and let their programs sift through our pictures.

They already have - they've ripped off the government excuse - security. "Turn all your cameras on and be able to monitor everything." And if you do, they "give" you 1 gig of storage. (which they would need anyway to do any video datamining).

And he wants the camera companies in on it - selling the cameras below cost in return for getting a kickback on the revenue stream.

Can someone please take this retarded idea out behind the barn and shoot it?

Startup Wants To Peek Through Your Home's Wired Ca

[mcgrew]

And ponies, too. Good luck with that...

Good Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd trade pictures of myself in my underwear for a "free" console. For an added fee, I'll even put clothes on.

Re:Good Idea

[GodInHell]

Probably about 10 seconds after the first time they recorded and then looked at child porn (i.e. a nude "good" under the age of 18 in most U.S. states). That's a strict liability crime in most states. Also, makes you a registered sex offender.

Re:Good Idea

[KhabaLox]

a printed picture of Goatse

I read that as "a painted picture of Goatse." I thought, "You, Sir, are a connoisseur."

The offering to the user...

[Neil_Brown]

a startup that provides online storage and software for web and Wi-Fi cams

Sadly omitted from the summary (albeit in the article) — the user gets "free" storage in exchange for the analytics.

Far too little to convince me to share such data, though.

Re:The offering to the user...

[ohnocitizen]

After a week of analytics they shifted their business model slightly. "We are now offering users cash money to keep their cameras turned off, in the name of basic decency, animal rights, and several reports recently published by the FDA. When we say our users are sick we being literal in the most precise and correct sense of the word."

Yeah right

[Sean]

Let a company spy on me constantly so it can make a profit by selling information about me? That sounds like a great deal for me. Where do I sign up?

Re:Yeah right

[twotacocombo]

www.facebook.com

Re:Yeah right

[phrostie]

if ever there was a post that deserved a 6, this is it.

Re:GREAT!!

[Anonymous Coward]

They're only conspiracy nutjobs till proven right. Then they are wise.

Re:Editors: This is March 1st, not April 1st

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you give the common individual WAY too much credit. Just look how successful facebook is. :P

Two sentence reponse:

[fallen1]

Fuck you. No.

Pardon me for being crude but - what are these nutjobs thinking? All it takes is someone in the household going "Sure, we'll do that!" and then little 15 year old Suzie walks by the camera on the way from her bathroom to her bedroom and *boom!* the company behind this has just analyzed child porn. Congrats!

I cover up or disconnect all cameras in my home that might be turned on remotely for one simple reason -- it is my private home. Period. The end.

Re:Two sentence reponse:

[QuasiSteve]

[...] and then little 15 year old Suzie walks by the camera on the way from her bathroom to her bedroom and *boom!* the company behind this has just analyzed child porn

Putting aside for a moment that perhaps such households should think for a moment before opting into such plans, I have to ask... ...what, exactly, would be wrong with that scenario?

For one thing, it's not child pornography. The law may perhaps interpret it as such, especially if it ends up being treated as such by the person caught on camera / their legal guardians, but naked people walking in front of a camera does not necessarily pornography make.

For another, my computer could be analyzing child pornography all day long every day of the week. Perhaps it's analyzing it to see if it's known pornography or new pornography. If it's new pornography, perhaps it's trying facial recognition to see if this is of a person whose case has already been handled, or that it may be a new case and should be flagged as such.

But given that the system doesn't know what the material is in the first place, perhaps it's analyzing the picture, sees what looks like a human form, detects that either there's no clothing or the person happens to walk around in a wetsuit that matches their skin color, and either way decides to discard the data.
The analyzing software may be much more interested in that bright rectangular surface called your TV to see what programs you watch.

People are way, way too jumpy about this stuff. Next thing you know an adult can't go to a lake for a swim because there's also kids who like diving into the water and have issues keeping their bikini bottoms on* and you just might see that. Oh noes.

It's different if that's the purpose of going swimming there in the first place, of course. Just as it would be different if one of the goals of this company would be to catch people naked (adults: blackmail, kids: CP market?), or if, as part of its operation, the material would be made available to third parties who in turn might have such motives.

( * apparently, that's a thing? Here, have a plug: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/525823883/swimwear-that-stays-put-made-locally-made-responsi )

Don't get me wrong, I'm not opting into such a program anytime soon.. but the whole "what if it catches X doing Y!?" thing? Not the biggest problem with this by a long shot.

Re:Startup Wants To Peek Through Your Home's Wired

[ColdWetDog]

Ponies and wireless cams?

You pervert.

wow

[squidflakes]

So, if I got this then I could guarantee that all of my spam would be about weight loss, masturbation aids, and (naughty) maid services? I don't see the difference from my current crop of spam.

Late to the party.

[wbr1]

My botnet already does this. Except I don't sell marketing data to advertisers. Visit RealAmatuerTube.ru. /TongueInCheek

No way dude.

[JustAnotherIdiot]

If you want to sell some porn, hire some actors you cheapskates.

"Please accept that you're a commodity..."

[idontgno]

Did he really just say that?

Did he just call me a fungible mass material, like pork bellies and orange juice? Am I going to be traded as futures at the Chicago Board of Trade?

My God. He just called us sheep. No, not even sheep. Less than sheep. Meat. Raw materials. Resources, in the most over-the-top insulting reading of "Human Resources" possible.

Wow. I guess some people have no subtlety. And no shame. And scum like this wants to turn the world into the largest episode of The Prisoner ever.

Let me reiterate. I am not a number. I am a free man.

I must respectfully decline your intriguing offer. I will not be subscribing to your newsletter.

Re:Editors: This is March 1st, not April 1st

[causality]

Can you perfectly control what everyone else says or does with information about you anywhere? This is not a Facebook problem, the solution is to find better friends.

It would normally be difficult to aggregate and analyze all of that information in a single central place. At least without a court order. Facebook is a system designed to do just that, with no court order needed since you agreed to give them permission to the data. To ignore that obvious fact means you are either being dishonest or you're performing mental gymnastics to rationalize away legitimate concerns about Facebook, no doubt to dismiss the foolishness of using it. Otherwise it would be hard to continue doing so, which you fully intend to do.

No, it's not difficult to see what's happening here and it's really transparent. You're just a different kind of fanboy and those pesky facts won't stop you. A Microsoft fanboy has to downplay the whole abuse of monopoly thing. An Apple fanboy has to downplay the disadvantages of walled gardens. You have to downplay the fact that the system is carefully designed to separate users from their privacy. That kind of selective blindness is a step towards psychosis, you know.

Further, I appreciate the way I disagree with you, therefore I must have horrible friends (and by extension be a horrible person myself), but I tire of these little childish stabs that have no place in rational discourse. Facebook's privacy settings, even with friends who use them perfectly, don't stop Facebook and its marketers from analyzing data everyone posts to Facebook. My friends have the decency and self-respect not to betray my trust, but that's no good if I am communicating with them and the medium of communication itself is untrustworthy.

In the case of using Facebook while desiring privacy, that's the situation. Thus, I don't use Facebook and neither do my friends. Isn't that so much easier than trying to perfectly control everybody else? When you don't use a system designed to violate privacy in the first place, suddenly there is no need for that.

This is a problem quite unique to Facebook and systems like Facebook (such as MySpace before it, etc). Trying to generalize it the way you are doing in order to obfuscate that fact is beneath you, or should be.