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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
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.
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)
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
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"
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.
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.
> "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"
Which makes sense - it's not a high-priority crime like a murder, and it would take quite a lot of effort to track the thief down, if in fact that would even be possible, with little evidence to go on. Which is precisely *why* this is a good idea - I could be being optimistic, but it seems to me like police would be much happier going after someone if you said "I have strong video evidence that a person who looks exactly like this just broke into my house and stole a tv; you can see his face and that he's walking out of my house carrying the tv", yes?
You ever try to report a petty crime to the police when you've essentially solved the case for them, including the name of the offender with video and photo proof? Yeah.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
He did read it but he missed the part where it was supposed to be a cautionary tale and not an instruction manual.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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.
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
In a country where Law Enforcement can jail you for not handing over encryption keys on demand, I don't know how comfortable I would be on having any recorded footage that could also be subject to the same line of thinking in the future.
Eg: Hand over your CCTV footage to prove you were home last night or we put you in jail.
Not to sound TOO tin-foil hat here, but I tend to view anything that Law Enforcement says these days with a bit of apprehension / suspicion.
Regardless of how well it sounds at the time.
Just remember this the next time you see a post claiming that we should be doing things the way they do in Europe.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
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.
Samsung will take care of THAT little technicality.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"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!"
The UK never really wanted to be part of Europe. It even tried swimming away, but quickly got tired after just some kilometers away from the continent.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
SCORPION STARE
I'll put up cameras to watch the police.
Yeah, look at us with people suggesting we do something. It's practically Orwellian... I'm sure that totally outweighs anything worthwhile they do in an entire continent.
Sounds a lot better to me.
You ever try to report a petty crime to the police when you've essentially solved the case for them, including the name of the offender with video and photo proof? Yeah.
My car was stolen, taken on a joyride and dumped. Six weeks later I was required to appear in court as a material witness.
And whether I solved the crime was a matter of some debate. The only reason they could ID the thieves was because of a dash cam I'd installed. Cops found the car with the camera still inside it. I reported the theft to the cops who found the car later that day with the dash cam still inside. I was only asked two questions, 1) Did I own the car, 2) Did I install the dash cam. The two miscreants were convicted of theft and a long string of traffic charges. Despite one of them being 17, it was enough to have him tried as an adult (although he got a suspended sentence, his mate was sent to one of Her Majesties finest lodges for a few years).
The car was insured, insurance paid out but if they didn't have the evidence (footage from my dash cam), the thieves would never have been found, let alone punished.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
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 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.