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Scotland Yard Chief: Put CCTV In Every Home To Help Solve Crimes
schwit1 writes Homeowners should consider fitting CCTV to trap burglars, the country's most senior police officer declared yesterday. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said police forces needed more crime scene footage to match against their 12 million images of suspects and offenders. And he called on families and businesses to install cameras at eye level – to exploit advances in facial recognition technology.
Then again, Orwell did write that tyranny in UK would come in the guise of nationalism and security
... and about. They are cheap webcams from Wally World, tethered to Windows XP machines that think they are embedded ATM machines.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I'm certain he'll lead the way and will soon post details of the system he installed in his own home and other relatives.
...if that.
Henry Kissinger and the "New World Order" will catch us up soon. Ugh.
You first asshole...
Adding thousands of the things has made almost no difference go crime rates in London
I'm sure they'd be even better at their jobs if the citizens would just let them in on a live feed of said CCTV cameras. This is of course just a stop-gap measure until everyone can be fitted with crime-detecting locator chips.
Repeat after me: Orwell's 1984 is *not* an instruction manual!
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Slashdot continues the inevitable slide into obscurity.
The article is about home-owners installing CCTV appropriately, not installing *in* the home
Apparently Sir Bernard had not read the novel by fellow Brit George Orwell. Sad, just sad...
Why not just make cameras a compulsory part of every TV, and then ensure that the TV can never be switched off?
Recycle PCs and build a wireless community network www.hillsborough.org.nz
You show me your feed and I'll show you mine.
Trade your privacy for safety! We need facial recognition data on everyone to stop crooks! Add a microphone! Add more cameras! "Sir, you are not allowed to film the police or public officials. Everything the governmet does is classified. Here is a citation for not having your government camera installed in your home properly"
Goddamn I'd fucking hate to be a Brit. Fucking lot of anti-privacy datamining pro-government babysitting lot you all are.
Cameras pointed at the doors, at eye level, uploading any images to gmail.
And if it's something like a Raspberry Pi, the average criminal won't even recognize it.
You'd only need the camera pointing inward if you were a business.
..your bus is leaving! 1984 wasn't intended as a manual.
Escpecially in the bathroom.
Folks -- this British politicians are out of some bad-taste nightmare.
This is the same Scotland Yard that couldn't prosecute MPs with a briefcase full of evidence of pedophile sex abuse, right?
Hell, I don't even has a rocker to be off of!
Police department will lead the way. Lets see what happens in the police stations. Then all the police offices homes.
Do these guys even listen to the words that come out of their pie holes when they open them? Or do they just have some mental disorder that causes them to just spew out a constant stream of consciousness? Or are they just some unread cronies of some MP? In any event, they might want to run their ideas by some better-educated underling before opening their trap in front of the press. You know, someone who can go, "Wot, like 1984? Bloody 'ell that's a terrible idea!" (For some reason my idea of a "better educated underling" is John Oliver doing a Charles Dickens parody.)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The entire article was about putting the camera you have in the proper position to get a face shot, which they can match to mug shots. They get too many videos of the top of the head, and that doesn't solve the crime. He was not asking that everyone provide a live feed from their house.
This privacy-impaired fear-based system of control is being resisted in Scotland, and probably in other parts of the UK.
If anything, this will speed up the dissolution of the UK into separate countries (all with the same Queen). Just ask Canada or Australia.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
>Homeowners should consider fitting CCTV to trap burglars, the country's most senior police officer declared yesterday.
Now, from an article from six days ago...
> Theft, burglary and shoplifting have "virtually been decriminalised" because the offences are not treated as a priority by police or the courts [...]
> When a burglary occurs, a bike is stolen or a phone is taken, many victims will report the theft to the police, but often it is solely as a way of getting a crime number to give to their insurance company. There is too often a resignation that nothing can be done [...]
So, really, this is just some government level snooping under the guise of a bullshit "burglary" excuse.
I have a relatively cheap all in one low cost 8 camera standalone DVR system. Mine are only analog 960H (close to D1 but wide) but they are better than nothing, I think I paid $400. I installed it about 2 years ago and it just purrs along with no problems recording 24x7 and sending motion tripped jpg snapshots to a directory on my home FTP server. I browse those snapshot pics on occasion and if something looks interesting, I pull up the video stream and watch it.
The quality is not great but the one near my sidewalk and front door are close enough to easily make out a face.
I've gone back to view things like accidents on the road next to my house, my dogs got into it with a skunk and I reviewed the footage to see where and exactly what happened, same with a opposum and a racoon. Watched a racoon go under my deck so I set some traps, watched some trees fall in my front yard during a storm. Why would you NOT want to record the area around your own house? You can get really expensive HD and use a PC or a dedicated NVR if you want a PTZ or HD for long distances but those cheap standalones really are that, cheap and standalone. Set it up and walk away from it. Mine is in the top of a closet with nothing more than a cat 5 plugged inot it. I never have to touch it or mess with it, it just runs and records.
I fully expect that this story will result in the usual hypocritical slashdot bleating about how UK = Airstrip One, but i can't really find much to get outraged about here. Someone in tbe police recommends that people install their own indoor CCTV in case they get burgled and gives some advice on optimum placement. That's it. I did not see any references to any kind of mandated or centrally connected monitoring system invading your personal space.
How much will the homeowner be paid? I'd allow it for ($minWage)*50/month
I suddenly have this vision of intruders suing the homeowners and winning for having their "privacy violated."
Rather, he seems to be suggesting a system which records data to flash and which can then be uploaded to the police database in the event of a break-in.
The civil liberties issues in such systems is somewhat different than the classic Orwellian scenario people are assuming. What are your expectations of privacy when you are visiting someone else's home? Is he obligated to tell you about his cameras?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Next he will want that eye-level camera aimed at the shower or worse, motorized and controllable by the police.
Here is an idea, use CCTV to monitor streets, alleys and other neighborhood access points. If there is a crime the Cops own the system there would be no need to request permission, subpoena footage, or to validate a unknown source.
If they implemented this wide spread with over lapping neighborhood cameras, they can track exactly how they got to scene of the crime, where they went, and where they are now.
the biggest crimes happen in the police department and wherever "power" happens like City Hall, etc..
Put THOSE places full of CCTVs FIRST, since I'm PAYING for that anyways.
I'll bet we can reduce far more crimes that way.
Show me it works with YOU first.
Assholes.
Mostly random stuff.
1984 was intended as a critique of totalitarianism, not as an instruction manual.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
We'll look back on the halcyon days of video cameras run by the government in every room (wait, wasn't that in 1984?) once they break out the personal surveillance suppository with GPS tracking and sexual position verifier, so you don't engage in any state-prohibited hanky panky!
I have come across many stories on the Internet where homeowners have done exactly as this man suggests and found the local police unwilling or unable to pursue the crime based on the evidence provided. In some situations the evidence extends far beyond pictures, such as successfully tracking a stolen cell phone to the home of the thief.
It's an interesting idea and could certainly be very helpful in the case of major crimes, but I think Commissioner Howe seriously overestimates how effectively facial recognition works as well as the interest his police force has in solving petty burglaries.
That's like saying detonate nuclear weapons all across the planet to destroy all harmful viruses. The side effects of installing security cameras in everyone's home are much worse than the problem you're trying to solve.
So, what if you hire a babysitter and he sexually abuses your kid(s), which gets recorded in turn by the CCTV camera in your house?
You first.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I just deployed an Insteon hub along with one of their cameras yesterday. The starter kit is around $100 and includes the hub and two dimmer outlets. The camera (0.3MP) was another $50 and includes pan/tilt along with a set of IR LEDs around the housing. Setup is straightforward, but the web and smartphone interfaces are bare bones. The camera may be connected via RJ45 or a WiFi connection.
I've got it set to not allow remote connections, but you can control things remotely via port-forwarding on your home router, or at Insteon's website. I didn't spend too much time with it last night, but the system can alert based on image or noise detection.
Next steps are to install some door sensors ($35) and a couple of dimmer switches ($45).
http://www.insteon.com/
is wrong with the comments section. We installed cameras around the house and ran the cables through the attic to the DVR in our closet. Houses in the neighborhood have been broken into and a car was stolen two doors down. We hope that having the cameras will deter crime and if they don't, we'll at least have footage. Our neighbor has a camera and it was very useful in catching some kids that burned down a bush in front of our house.
What the fuck is up with the kneejerk reaction to an article that is just suggesting that you try to get the bad guy's faces rather than the top of their heads? That sounds like good advice.
As the burglars break into the home camera systems (which they will) they will be able to pick what house to break into or not. "oh, look... a nice new stereo system". "Lets put this house on the list tonight to hit and dont forget to grab the CCTV system recorder too." Or even better yet, one more way for the GOV to get into your house and see what your doing. Some people, including SIRS should learn to never speak and only be seen. Much, much work needs to go into planning a CCTV system installation including the security of the install.
My patented woolen head garments will defeat your evil surviellence technology Opteron ....
Ma-Ma-Max Headroom here from Network 23. You don't have to be from 20 minutes into the future to realize that this is a great idea. Imagine, my shiny, chiseled visage adorning every TV set, 24 hours a day-day. Add to that the fact the I can see my adoring public as well, M-Magic!
Yep, this can only be good for your old pal Max.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Somebody believed the headline!
Nowhere does the article say put cameras inside homes.
You want Kafka, not Orwell.
The problem with what he's suggesting isn't the cameras; it's the development of the biometric database based on any kind of casual contact with the police. The reason that's a problem is that we really don't know how unique our biometric id is.
Take fingerprints. Folk science claims that everyone's fingerprint is unique; in fact we use the word "fingerprint" for cryptographic hashes of data which are vanishingly unlikely to be duplicated. And using traditional police methods, we can for practical purposes act as if they are. But if you start amassing a vast collection of fingerprints of people you have nothing particular in common (as we did after 9/11), it turns out that some people do in fact share fingerprints with identical characteristics. In the 2004 Madrid bombings, an attorney named Brandon Mayfield was identified as a suspect because his fingerprint was a close match one found a bag of detonators at the crime scene. That, and the fact that he was a Muslim convert, was enough for the FBI to be confident enough to arrest him, and leak his name and the potential charges against him to the media. It turns out that one of Mayfield's fingerprints was nearly identical to that of a known terrorist Algerian. The ability to match some biometric to a sufficiently large database greatly increases the probability of a false positive match.
In the ordinary course of investigation there's a kind of implicit Bayesian process which gives us greater confidence in a fingerprint match than a fingerprint dragnet of everyone in the world would. We check the fingerprint of suspects who we have other reasons to think are involved in a crime, or who have in the past been arrested and convicted of a crime. This narrows down the pool of potential matchees from "everyone in the world" to "people who we have some shred of reason to think might be involved", and that's a much smaller pool.
So what are the chances that there are people walking around out there with the same facial recognition biometric id as you? Very likely higher than casual testing would suggest. And what if the system tags you as a match? Does that prejudice the rest of your chances with the justice system?
It's even possible that there are people out there who look enough like you to fool a family member. My brother once saw a man in a Philly restaurant who was a dead ringer for our father, who'd died surrounded by his family ten years earlier. It was creepy.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If you pay for it, sure, I'll install it.
Oh, also, it will be blackboxed and no internet connection either.
The government gets you to install a CCTV to help "you" solve crimes....then they will pass a law mandating that the government have 24/7 access to the footage, or just hack it and get the information "for your own safety". One who give up liberty, in the name of security, deserves NEITHER!
"Check this out, comrade, it's like I have my own exercise instructor!", announced Winston to his comrade Syme, as he turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely. "You can dim it, so It saves electricity when you're asleep!"
The instructress had called them to attention again. "And now let's see which of us can touch our toes!' she said enthusiastically. 'Right over from the hips, please, comrades. ONE-two! ONE-two!..."
"Oh I hate this one, he whispered to Syme. "It sends shooting pains all the way from my heels to my buttocks and often ends by bringing on another coughing fit."
"But have you installed the Newspeak translator app?", asked Syme. "It's so cool, you just speak English to it and it translates what you say into proper Newspeak!"
"Oh, that sounds awesome!" said Winston. "Can I download it from the Ministry of Plenty's app store?"
"Ha ha, no!" replied Syme. "It comes preinstalled as part of the operating system! You couldn't uninstall it even if you wanted to."
"Wow!" exclaimed Winston. You mean I have it already, then? So I don't need to waste time looking for it."
"You work at the Ministry of Truth, Winston!" laughed Syme. "I would expect you to know these things already." He paused for a moment, then asked, "Did you see the prisoners hanged yesterday?"
"I was working," said Winston indifferently. "I shall download it and watch it later, I suppose."
"A very inadequate substitute," said Syme. His mocking eyes roved over Winston's face. "I know you," the eyes seemed to say, "I see through you. I know very well why you didn't watch the live stream of those prisoners hanged."
"Smith!" screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. "6079 Smith W.! Yes, YOU! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You're not trying. Lower, please! THAT'S better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole squad, and watch me."
A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston's body. His face remained completely inscrutable. Never show dismay! Never show resentment! A single flicker of the eyes could give you away. He stood watching while the instructress raised her arms above her head and--one could not say gracefully, but with remarkable neatness and efficiency--bent over and tucked the first joint of her fingers under her toes.
"THERE, comrades! THAT'S how I want to see you doing it. Watch me again. I'm thirty-nine and I've had four children. Now look." She bent over again. "You see MY knees aren't bent. You can all do it if you want to,' she added as she straightened herself up. "Anyone under forty-five is perfectly capable of touching his toes. We don't all have the privilege of fighting in the front line, but at least we can all keep fit. Remember our boys on the Malabar front! And the sailors in the Floating Fortresses! Just think what THEY have to put up with. Now try again. That's better, comrade, that's MUCH better," she added encouragingly as Winston, with a violent lunge, succeeded in touching his toes with knees unbent, for the first time in several years.
"I'm impressed, Winston," said Syme. "If you'd told me you could touch your toes before you got this thing, I would have said that's such bullocks." He then silently nodded at the screen. "You think she really has four kids? She looks kind of hot for 39."
"I heard that!" screamed the instructress. "I'm flagging your numbers and adding you both to the Ministry of Love's follow list!"
Here in the US, violent crime has been falling for quite some time, and total crime as well. While every burglary is upsetting, and unfortunately few are prosecuted, is Britain so worried about it as to consider something that a lot of people would consider rather a damper on their daily lives? (A lot of people would be very self conscious doing ordinary dressing and sex with a camera in the room, even if they've taken measures to keep the data from getting out until a crime occurs.)
I know that Americans are quite paranoid about crime. A great many people would tell you that the crime rates are going up, even though they're going down. Is that what's going on in the UK? Or is there actually some rash of crime that's making them this worried? Or is this simply some top cop blue-skying about what he wishes he had, without regard to how that would affect people?
Answer: Because the government dragged their feet 2-3 decades.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Police: "Install CCTV in your home!"
Police (off mic): "Contact those phone hackers at the Daily Mail. We have some work for them..."
SCORPION STARE
I'll put up cameras to watch the police.
Sounds a lot better to me.
You certainly didn't listen to his words that's for sure.
If you had read what he said in the article, he's talking about when installing CCTV aimed at eye level so it captures facial features rather than having them in positions where you couldn't identify a burglar. He's not telling everyone to get CCTV, he's telling people who are going to use CCTV to make sure you're not wasting your money by capturing just the top of someone's head as they rob you.
Wear a mask.
So the cops can pick them up, book them, and immediately let them back out so they can come and kill me once they find out it was my camera that caught them. Don't think so.
For some reason the telescreen in the living-room was in an unusual position. Instead of being placed, as was normal, in the end wall, where it could command the whole room, it was in the longer wall, opposite the window. To one side of it there was a shallow alcove in which Winston was now sitting, and which, when the flats were built, had probably been intended to hold bookshelves. By sitting in the alcove, and keeping well back, Winston was able to remain outside the range of the telescreen, so far as sight went. He could be heard, of course, but so long as he stayed in his present position he could not be seen.
means more home invasion and burglary. Make guns legal to be owned by citizens and that crime rate will drop.
And the reaction to it.
Let's recap, shall we? There's a police spokes person who makes a suggestion to how to sensibly mount CCTV cams to actually provide usable footage of perpetrators. That's the core story here. But, well, let's face it, that's no story. So the story gets blown up to make it a story of an overzealous 1984-esque police state proponent that wants to put CCTVs in all our homes.
So far, still no story. Let's imagine this was 1990. People would immediately go "fuck what? No, can't be, lemme see that article" and debunk it. But it ain't 1990, it's 2015.
And now the scary part. Namely that people DO believe it and go for the knee-jerk reaction. Not because they're more stupid than they were in 1990, but because such a story is no longer a "fuck no, can't be" story. It's a story that could be. A story that we do consider not out of lalaland with a police goon gone nuts who will reach for an early retirement because else he gets fired. Out of a cannon, possibly. No, we have grown used to actually hearing such shit being said, with nobody instantly requiring the retirement or firing of someone even considering thinking about possibly making such a suggestion.
We've come a long way. It took a while for this frog to boil, but I guess we're coming close to being well done.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
To match against their 12 million images of suspects and offenders? So they've filtered out all the innocent people then? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/tech...
I am a short person... about one meter and change.
This eye level thing seems like a great idea.
The world can then see all that I can see.... if
these cameras at my eye level are common.
And mine near the bottom of the stairs is now complying with the
request of the Yard..
Things are looking up for sure.... ;)
will be on the satellite in 4D 24x7, with a round-up channel streaming the "best of bastards" on a loop.
sauce for the goose...
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
So here's my story. My next-door neighbor is in prison, and is renting his house out to ex-con buddies so he can pay the property tax. This is not good for the neighborhood. Anyway, last year our house got robbed. Lost a Macbook and a bunch of other pawnable electronics. In response, I bought a couple of wireless webcams, and set them up to detect motion and stream images to a fileserver which was hidden way in the back of the TV cabinet. Behind the old Gamecube, I figured nobody's gonna dig that deep.
Six months later, my house got broken into again. TV was stolen, an iPad, and the downstairs security camera. The thief stole the camera, but he didn't find the fileserver, which had some entertaining shots of him poking around the living room, spotting the camera, and rushing to unplug it. I printed off the frame that showed his face most clearly and gave it to the cops. The next day, the "Find My iPad" feature activated, pinpointing the iPad in my neighbor's house. I called the cops, they didn't really understand the tech and showed up three hours later and didn't find anything. But they did pass the security cam picture around the station, one of them recognized the guy (low-tech facial recognition), they hauled him in, and he had the iPad on him. He confessed to robbing our house twice, plus a half-dozen other houses around town. And he told the cops about the upstairs window high above the back stairs that we didn't notice was unlocked.
So to those of you who say that in-home surveillance won't work because criminals are too stupid to show their faces, you're underestimating just how stupid criminals can be when heroin withdrawal is making their decisions for them. And to those of you who say that this is one step from Big Brother, the big difference is that it's *my* security camera, I can choose what to show the cops. And yes, I erase the images periodically just in case someone seizes or steals the file server.
I don't think Sherlock would approve - it would make things too easy.
I installed an IP Webcam in my mothers family home which is in the remote Scottish Hebrides.
A local "entrepreneur" with "links" had been damaging boundary walls to try and get a through road to land he wanted to develop on.
I set the camera up, inside the house looking out over our property, for security and as a deterrent.
We had the police come round and demand that it be removed.
We refused and luckily their timing was unfortunate for them as my uncle was present in the house when they turned up.
He happened to be a court judge who, after identifying his profession, ended their demands with "Officer, I don't think so...".
Some time later someone, in the night, painted the window in front of the camera.
We also had a council notice served on us for re-errecting our wall.
Apparently we needed planning to repair it even though the wall had been there for a few hundred years.
That too got chucked out of court.
I've seen and experienced too much of corruption at government level to trust a single thing that comes out that claims to be in our interests.
Orwell was right and, sadly, will be proven so.
"I've got nothing to hide" is sticking your head in the sand.
"Security" is only being used to subvert us for the benefit of the hierarchy.
Only if we can have an electroshock device with electrodes surgically implanted in his brain hooked up to a publically accessible web portal. Then I'd agree.
How can you recognise a face that is obscured with a hoodie or balaclava?
> I'm British. I swear to god we're not all like this.
And I believe you. And I feel with you (just a couple of countries further). Just because your "leaders" are the shrillest voices in this cacophony there's no reason for the others to become complacent.
My question: how can democracy become so sour? Is that the cheap press? Are we all just such a bunch of idiots?
Oh wait. Already done. http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
I'm pretty sure this is just because the Police are going to face big cuts to their budget following the election in a couple of months. Getting the citizens to do the dirty work saves money.
"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different." ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jnr.
Just. fucking. No.
Are these illegal in the UK yet?
I'm asking this seriously as we're thinking about going over there this summer. This is absolutely ridiculous, especially when it appears on the same page that Parliament says that TOR can't be blocked.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Cameras ?
A couple of nice big dogs are a far better bet. Cameras prevent nothing. Dogs will prevent any unwanted intrusions.
You are over-reaching somewhat. The people here who are complaining are doing so because they didn't want to read the article. That's it. They like their 5 minutes of outrage getting all upset with the world. They need it. It's like coffee. If there is a headline claiming a story claiming someone they don't like is saying something they don't like, they will roundly accept it as true and complain. Complain, complain, complain, complain. They won't actually do anything, but the furious mashing of keys might make you believe they will, but their righteous streak will dry up long before they have to actually make any changes or do anything.
Of course the police putting in cameras in everyone's houses is far-fetched. It's illegal under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights ("Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence"), prohibitively expensive, and entirely toxic to anyone's career who gets too close.
But whatever - spin people doing what people have done for aeons into some condemnation of society. So original. I'm surprised you didn't trot out the "instruction manual" line - that would have fit right in.
Camera should encrypt using a public key, the corresponding private key should be held OFFLINE by the householder.
The camera should have a backup battery, and stream by WiFi to a logging server located elsewhere in the house, or maybe to more than one logging server.
The logging server should also have a backup battery, and should be silent in operation. And hard to find. Hidden, disguised, unlikly to be stolen - maybe it should look like a child's grubby toy or something.
When something 'interesting' happens, whether a burglary, or a visit by over-enthusiastic police etc. the video can be decrypted be the householder, and only by the householder. If there is a second logging server, the first can auto expire video after a short interval (short enough that, by the time the householder has been forced to reveal the decrypt key, the interesting video has been expired and securely deleted) and the existence of a 2nd logging server can be plausibly denied if necessary.
Well, this is a starting point for thinking about CCTV in the home...
Big Brother is here gentlemen. He's alive and well, Orwell is rolling in his grave.
I agree to put CCTV in my home AFTER Scotland Yard is CLOSED;
Casteism