GE, Intel, and AT&T Are Putting Cameras and Sensors All Over San Diego (fortune.com)

An anonymous reader shares a Fortune report: General Electric will put cameras, microphones, and sensors on 3,200 street lights in San Diego this year, marking the first large-scale use of "smart city" tools GE says can help monitor traffic and pinpoint crime, but raising potential privacy concerns. Based on technology from GE's Current division, Intel and AT&T, the system will use sensing nodes on light poles to locate gunshots, estimate crowd sizes, check vehicle speeds and other tasks, GE and the city said on Wednesday. The city will provide the data to entrepreneurs and students to develop applications. Companies expect a growing market for such systems as cities seek better data to plan and run their operations. San Diego is a test of "Internet of things" technology that GE Current provides for commercial buildings and industrial sites.

Comments

Not entirely sure

[arth1]

and other tasks

That's the worry.

Re:Not entirely sure

[geekmux]

and other tasks

That's the worry.

It's the worry for the very small fraction of intelligent people who already know how will be abused.

For the other 99% of society who doesn't give a shit about privacy anymore, they don't care about the abuse, including the cost of implementing or maintaining this for little or no real value.

This isn't about traffic or crime. This is about Control.

Re:Not entirely sure

[Dutch Gun]

Also, have they solved the rampant security issues with IoT shit yet? If not, WTF? Thanks for adding to the botnet problem, San Diego. Can't wait to hear about how your entire IoT net has been hacked, and is now under the control of some unknown third party.

Re:Not entirely sure

[SomePoorSchmuck]

To be honest, if I'm looking at all the people who use the Chrome browser, who use Windows 10, who use smartphones, and who all have opted into this control and surveillance, I think that putting cameras in places with rampant crime and abuse is a good way to stop it. However, if you only put cameras to the places of the city where crime is most present, it will just simply move. Therefore its a good idea to place cameras into every part of the city. If this is only done in cities where crime is very present, then its a good move!

Also, these cameras can't be turned off by police officials as easily as body cameras can, so I think its more likely to see better proof for police brutality and to pick out the bad apples.

Obviously, you need to watch out that these data don't get into wrong hands and maybe get used for extortion.

Your naivete is saddening. You seem to feel that somehow THIS system of control, unlike all other systems of control, will magically not be abused just because there is a way to "watch out that [it doesn't] get into the wrong hands" and "If this [new system of control] is only done in [narrowly defined situations with no mission creep] then its [sic] a good move!"

Why are you willfully choosing to believe something which has never been reality before, is going to be reality THIS time?
1) This level of pervasive panopticon data WILL get into the wrong hands. It WILL be abused. Absolute 100% certainty.
2) This new system of control will NOT be kept to very narrowly defined scope. There WILL be mission creep. In 30 years it WILL be a pervasive all-seeing eye where every second of your life is tracked and collated by a government/corporate crony hegemony. Absolute 100% certainty.

Seriously. Look at history and wake up. Childhood is at an end. Cages are reassuring and freedom is scary, but come out here and be an adult in the ugly reality-land.

Re:Not entirely sure

[lgw]

However, if you only put cameras to the places of the city where crime is most present, it will just simply move. Therefore its a good idea to place cameras into every part of the city.

Studies of crime in places where cameras are as close to "everywhere" as is practical, such as prisons, Navy ships, and London, show that criminals know where the blinds spots are. A heatmap of crime looks exactly like you'd expect: you can tell where the cameras are from it.

Re:Not entirely sure

[rtb61]

" I think that putting cameras in places with rampant crime", WOW, they are going to put cameras in corporate boardrooms whose claimed value is beyond a billion dollars, that's fantastic because of course that is where crime is by far the most rampant and not the petty crime of the streets. No the crimes are corruption of democracy, treason, wars for profit, bad medicines, tainted food, completely corrupted fourth estate, mass fraud of every description, I mean really horrendous crimes that cost of the lives of misery and cause the suffering of billions.

Cops are getting body cams when are the far more corrupt politicians going to get body cams, their decisions often resulting in far more suffering and how they came about that decision being of extreme importance to the voting public.

Here is betting there will be no public cameras watching where by far the bulk of crimes are actually being committed.

Re:Person of Interest

[txsable]

All we need now is for someone to build a computer system to analyze all the data, and call it The Machine

Probably end up being more like Samaritan...

Re:its in public

[Shane_Optima]

it's in public. u don't have any expectation of privacy

Historically true, but if we're headed for a world where everything we do and everything we say in public (at least outside and within the city limits) is on file for all time on a server somewhere that's been pre-analyzed and indexed using using facial recognition and voice recognition... we might want to consider revising that rule of thumb a bit.

Re:Pretty cool

[SomePoorSchmuck]

Thing is, there needs to be sensible privacy legislation in place *before* these systems roll out. Otherwise, the potential for abuse is insane. Kettling on steroids, to name just one. Microphones on every lamp post, whoa...

More unjustified naivete.
Let's not pretend we don't know how things work, as if there weren't mountains of human history demonstrating what will happen.

There is no amount of legislation which will remove the "potential for abuse". Legislation doesn't magically make the data go away. If the data is collected, it has a gravity of its own, and just like a new planet that gravity will over time pull the other parts of legal system out of their current orbit and result in something different. Information is power. You can't create a giant bank account of Information and expect it to never be stolen, embezzled, compromised, distorted, or used for political gain.

IF the data is there, it WILL be abused. Absolute 100% certainty.

Re:Add it to the list

[sconeu]

San Diego is heavily Republican, you idiot.

Re: Face masks anyone?

[negRo_slim]

They brought back the nudity apparently.

http://news.sky.com/story/hefn...