The answer is: The universe came into existence by a similar process to that by which any creator might be postulated to have come into existence, with the intermediate step eliminated.
Wish I had mod points..... and I hadn't already posted in this discussion.
You're dead right. A hundred or so years ago, stupid people did not live very long. Since the middle of the last century, we've been focussing on safety. Cars have seat belts, ABS brakes and air bags, so stupid people end up surviving road accidents. Machine tools have guards and interlocks, so stupid people don't go chopping off their limbs.
We have interfered with natural selection, allowing unfit people to survive. As a direct consequence of this, human stupidity will increase.
If you can have evolution, you don't need a creator. In fact, if you accept the existence of a creator, then you raise the question: how did the creator get here? Then you end up with an argument which is not so much circular, but a spiral, moving further and further away from sensible with each turn.
If you reject the existence of a creator, then you still have the problem of where a ready-created universe came from; but compared to the mess of creators creating creators to create a universe, it's still easier to answer.
Ants do not have complex societies. Ant society is very simple. It might appear complex -- if you haven't thought about it for a few minutes.
Ants do not have the intelligence needed to develop art or culture. They do not even have the intelligence to rebel against their "society". An ant is just running a fairly simple program with a few modes: follow where another ant is going, let the other ants know you have discovered something interesting, eat, &c.
Art and culture most probably have risen as a side effect of some other need in humans.
Bullet points and indentation are..... used by common people, not some set of rarely-used features
I think you'll find common people use spaces to indent everything, and manually insert the bullet characters.
Also, most people in most countries of the world use A4 paper which is 210x297, not US letter paper which is 216x279 {that aspect ratio does not make sense!}
What were you using for the underlying storage layer, and have you tried using a different storage engine and/or a different interface to the same storage engine to "check by substitution"?
I'm willing to bet that the number of people who actually recompiled their kernel on Mac OS X can be counted on the fingers of, say, two hands
You mean there were 1023 or fewer?
Seriously, though, it ought to be possible to take a fork off the last "open" version. It looks as though APSL2 gives permission to distribute even things Apple would rather you didn't.
There is already a process for integrating device drivers into Linux. It's called "releasing your drivers under the GPL". Then they can be incorporated into the main kernel source tree for the benefit of every Linux user, not just users of a particular distribution. It is not rocket science.
SUSE already use a kernel that is patched to christ, so there's not much chance of anything compiled against a SUSE kernel working with a normal kernel from kernel.org such as Debian / Gentoo / Slackware / Ubuntu users will be using. And binary drivers are a massive step backward.
I'm not at all sure this is a good thing. It don't see how it can be anything but divisive. If SUSE users end up becoming dependent upon SUSE for access to proprietary, binary-only drivers, then that absolutely violates the spirit of Free Software.
Outside the USA, US patents don't actually matter. Any country could decide that living things are beyond the scope of patentability. Thereafter, they would owe precisely $0.00 in licencing fees.
Then if they've got such a law, maybe they ought to start enforcing it?
And while you're at it, how about fixing your legal system so that lawyers are not allowed to receive any payment until a verdict has been delivered and accepted? That way, it wouldn't be possible for a rich respondent to run a poor plaintiff with a sound case out of money just by stalling. Neither side's lawyer would be allowed to collect until the case was won, which would provide a serious disincentive against stalling.
All you need now is a new law, allowing patents to be annulled early if they are being misused. Physical property can be confiscated if it is misused, and proponents of the term "intellectual property" like to think that ideas can be owned like physical property, so why the hell not?
If the "write" bit isn't set on a file, you can't delete it either. Deleting a file is considered to be "writing" it. The same bit controls both functions. Dewleting a file is also considered as a write to the directory in which it lives, so that needs "write" and "execute" permissions too.
No. Your "Average Joe User", confronted with that scenario, will simply throw away his old, broken computer, go out and buy a new one, and then start filling that up with crap. And when that is thoroughly full of crap too, and slowing down and going to the wrong web site and crashing and files are going missing..... rinse and repeat. Because going wrong is just something that computers do.
Mind you, smart skip-divers probably will benefit from this.
There is a simple reason why microkernels do not work in practice: the abstraction layer is in the wrong place.
<simplification>A hardware driver doing output has to take raw bytes from a process, which is treating the device as though it were an ideal device; and pass them, usually together with a lot more information, to the actual device. A driver doing input has to supply instructions to and read raw data from the device, distil down the data and output it as though it came from an ideal device.</simplification>
In general, the data pathway between the driver and the process {which we'll call the software-side} is less heavily used than the data pathway between the driver and the device {which we'll call the hardware-side}.
<simplification>In a conventional monolithic kernel {classic BSD}, a hybrid kernel {Windows NT} or a modular kernel {Linux or Netware}, device drivers exist entirely in kernel space. The device driver process communicates with the userland process which wants to talk to the device and with the device itself. All the required munging is done within the kernel process.
In a microkernel architecture, device drivers exist mainly in user space {though there is necessarily a kernel component, since userland processes are not allowed to talk to devices directly}. The device driver process communicates with the ordinary userland process which wants to talk to the device, and a much simpler kernel space process which just puts raw data and commands, fed to it by the user space driver, on the appropriate bus.</simplification>
Ignore for a moment the fact that under a microkernel, some process pretending to be a user space device driver could effectively access hardware almost directly, as though it were a kernel space process. What's more relevant is that in a microkernel architecture, the heavily-used hardware-side path crosses the boundary between user space and kernel space.
And it gets worse.
<simplification>In a modular kernel, a device driver module has to be loaded the first time some process wants to talk to the device. {Anyone remember the way Betamax VCRs used to leave the tape in the cassette till the first time the user pressed PLAY? Forget the analogy then} which obviously takes some time. The software-side communications channel is established, which takes some time. Then communication takes place. The driver stays loaded until the user wants it removed. Then the communication channel is filled in and the memory used by the module is freed, which obviously takes some time.
In a microkernel architecture, a user space device driver has to be loaded every time some process wants to talk to the device. The software and hardware side communications channels have to be established, which take some time. Then communication begins in earnest. When that particular process has finished with the device, both channels are filled, and the memory used by the driver is freed; which takes time. Between this hardware access and the next, another process may have taken over the space freed up by the driver, which means that reloading the user space driver will take time.</simplification>
It makes good practical sense to put fences in the place where the smallest amount of data passes through them, because the overheads involved in talking over a fence do add up. That, however, may not necessarily be the most "beautiful" arrangement, if your idea of beauty is to keep as little as possible on one side the fence. It also makes sense for device drivers which are going to be used several times to stay in memory, not be continuously loaded and unloaded. {Admittedly, that's really a memory management issue, but no known memory manager can predict the future.}
Ultimately it's just a question of high heels vs. hiking boots.
The details of how to interact at a very low level with a piece of equipment that I own are not proprietary secrets, but form a part of the operating instructions for the device. Even if you do consider them to be secrets, the very fact that I own such a device is enough to make me privy to those secrets.
Exactly so! My assertion is that it's not economically feasible to make electronically different graphics chips. They are all potentially capable of being £350 display cards. Something {most probably reversible} is done to the ones used in £50 cards to keep them from doing everything the £350 cards can do.
The point is, they can still make a profit by selling cards for £50.
We are supposed to be living in the Age of Plenty. The First Industrial Revolution -- born here in the Valley I call Home! -- promised this. There should be laws acting directly or indirectly against the imposition of such Artificial Scarcity.
Oh, please. Just because there's a computer on the card does not mean it can't be cloned. It's technically harder to do so than with the old magstripe cards, but all the information you need is out there. If the legitimate manufacturers can make them, other people can make something else which does the same thing.
It wouldn't even matter if the "clone card" which is used in the "real" Chip+PIN machine actually has to be attached by an umbilical cord to a laptop or desktop computer, or for that matter even an enormous mainframe -- it's all done out of sight of the cardholder, and the card issuing bank don't know any different. The tests performed by the machine are known and the results can be faked. The sequence proceeds as follows:
The cardholder inserts their card into the fake Chip+PIN machine
The fake Chip+PIN machine reads the entire contents of the card
The fake Chip+PIN sends the card a valid challenge and discards the response
The cardholder enters their PIN into the fake Chip+PIN machine
The fake Chip+PIN machine records the PIN just entered alongside the card contents
The card program is run on an emulator which is plugged into the card port of the real Chip+PIN machine
The real Chip+PIN machine sends the emulator a valid challenge
The emulator responds to the challenge exactly as the real smartcard would have done, but asks for more money than the customer thought they were authorising
The card issuing bank settles up with the merchant at the end of the billing cycle.
As long as the gap between steps 5 and 6 is short and the emulator is accurate and fast, nobody need notice anything amiss {up to five minutes is within the tolerance of most people's watches}. The real card received an authentic-looking challenge, so it will be ready for the next one. There's no good reason why a fake C+P machine should not include a wireless link to the back room where all the bad stuff is happening, for near-real-time operation. Or even just perform a simple old-fashioned MITM attack, amending the amount in transit. Just because it's electronic does not make it secure.
I don't think it's unreasonable to force companies to disclose what is in their hardware. Pharmaceutical companies have to declare the active ingredients and the amount per dose in their drugs. Breweries have to state the alcohol content of their beer. Tobacco companies have to declare the amount of tar and nicotine in each fag. Food manufacturers have to give a list of ingredients in descending order and a breakdown of fat / protein / sugar / starch -- and that's almost enough information to recover the recipe {assume that the majority of the recipe is in the first three or four ingredients, and construct a set of simultaneous equations relating the quantities of each ingredient to the nutrition figures}.
Back in the days, every electronic appliance you bought came with a schematic diagram -- either in the instruction manual, or on the inside of the bottom cover. As likely as not, this would be labelled with the expected voltages at various test points. This misguided behaviour by the likes of nVidia is a recent phenomenon.
But you're right, I do have the right to discover what is inside a graphics card I own. It's called "reasonable force" -- as little force as possible but as much as is necessary to accomplish a rightful aim. Hopefully, if enough people assert their right to conduct reasonable force reverse engineering, and co-ordinate their efforts appropriately, we can develop fully Open Source drivers for nVidia graphics cards.
I still support mandatory full disclosure. Well, not mandatory -- you would have a choice, tell everyone exactly how to use your hardware or don't sell it. Anyone who doesn't believe in full disclosure has something to hide.
Specifications should be disclosed anyway. If you buy a piece of hardware, with your own money, which you earned by your own efforts by hand or by brain, then that hardware belongs to you. And that means that you are privy to any secret it embodies {like those specs you need to write a driver}. This is a Common Law Property Right.
If the authorities would just enforce this existing law, we could all be happy. But nVidia and ATI have both been lying through their teeth about their specifications, and hiding behind bogus "intellectual property" laws {as pointed out above, the owner of a graphics card has the right to know this information. What they don't want to reveal is how you could turn a 50-pound graphics card into a 300-pound graphics card with a quick software change. And, of course, that would open up the market to competition. It's called "busting a cartel" and it's regarded as a good thing by consumers.
Ah, but you see, there's such a thing as the law of diminishing returns. Install enough cameras in well-off areas and crime will be displaced to less-well-off areas. When all the poor people are committing crimes against one another rather than against the rich people, the crime problem is solved as far as the rich people are concerned. And since the ones with the money are the ones with the power, that's enough for them. Poor neighbourhoods will just become clearly defined no-go areas, where criminal gangs prey on the law-abiding citizens unlucky enough not to be able to afford to move out.
For the amount it would cost to equip a city with CCTV coverage, the authorities could afford enough extra front-line officers to make a real difference to crime figures. But all they are concerned about is image. PCs {in the "police constable" sense} aren't high-tech enough for them, and furthermore would constitute a roundabout admission of failure -- since they could have been deployed a long time ago, before CCTV technology reached the state it has today, and still had more effect than any fancy camera wizardry.
Now, perhaps I've got this all wrong and it isn't a huge conspiracy against the working class; but when there are so many bad decisions, you have to wonder whether or not it just might be deliberate.
..... this would mean you have a problem with CCTV in private places, not CCTV in public places. So why not campaign against CCTV in private places and leave the reasonable CCTV in public places alone?
First off, CCTV cameras in public places are not reasonable. They do nothing to prevent crime. Just as much crime happens; it just happens out of sight of the cameras. Camera-protected areas tend to be central shopping areas and the more affluent suburbs. Less well-off areas become worse off as a result.
Also, just because one does not have control over who is in the streets as one has with one's own home does not mean one should be subject to monitoring and recording there. In a democracy, the majority of the population are law-abiding citizens by definition, and law-abiding citizens should not be subject to unnecessary surveillance
Perhaps because CCTV in private places as a government policy isn't even on the drawing board so there's nothing to object to?
How do you know? Tony Blair would be spunking his pants at the thought of being able to peep into any ordinary Joe's living room any time of the day or night.
That's it -- anonymity. That's what I was looking for. There's a world of difference between knowing that something happened and knowing who did it.
And yes, "Who's watching the watchers" is the important question. And funnily enough, the watchers often aren't comfortable with the idea of being watched themselves.....
Perhaps privacy isn't quite the word, but historically one has generally been able to determine whether or not one is being observed {and possibly even do something about the observer}, even out in public. You used to be reasonably confident that you could, say, take a wander out in the woods unobserved {though the truly paranoid might prod the undergrowth with a stick to make sure}. Then they chopped down the woods and built shopping centres, then they installed CCTV cameras in the shopping centres.
Anyway, once people are accustomed to being watched while "out", it's only a matter of time before they start watching people while they are "in". First of all, it will be stairways and communal areas in blocks of flats. Then it will be the homes of people suspected of offences. Then it will be the homes of people considered likely to commit offences. Then it will be everybody's home just in case anyone commits an offence.
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The answer is: The universe came into existence by a similar process to that by which any creator might be postulated to have come into existence, with the intermediate step eliminated.
Wish I had mod points ..... and I hadn't already posted in this discussion.
You're dead right. A hundred or so years ago, stupid people did not live very long. Since the middle of the last century, we've been focussing on safety. Cars have seat belts, ABS brakes and air bags, so stupid people end up surviving road accidents. Machine tools have guards and interlocks, so stupid people don't go chopping off their limbs.
We have interfered with natural selection, allowing unfit people to survive. As a direct consequence of this, human stupidity will increase.
If you can have evolution, you don't need a creator. In fact, if you accept the existence of a creator, then you raise the question: how did the creator get here? Then you end up with an argument which is not so much circular, but a spiral, moving further and further away from sensible with each turn.
If you reject the existence of a creator, then you still have the problem of where a ready-created universe came from; but compared to the mess of creators creating creators to create a universe, it's still easier to answer.
Ants do not have complex societies. Ant society is very simple. It might appear complex -- if you haven't thought about it for a few minutes.
Ants do not have the intelligence needed to develop art or culture. They do not even have the intelligence to rebel against their "society". An ant is just running a fairly simple program with a few modes: follow where another ant is going, let the other ants know you have discovered something interesting, eat, &c.
Art and culture most probably have risen as a side effect of some other need in humans.
Also, most people in most countries of the world use A4 paper which is 210x297, not US letter paper which is 216x279 {that aspect ratio does not make sense!}
What were you using for the underlying storage layer, and have you tried using a different storage engine and/or a different interface to the same storage engine to "check by substitution"?
Seriously, though, it ought to be possible to take a fork off the last "open" version. It looks as though APSL2 gives permission to distribute even things Apple would rather you didn't.
There is already a process for integrating device drivers into Linux. It's called "releasing your drivers under the GPL". Then they can be incorporated into the main kernel source tree for the benefit of every Linux user, not just users of a particular distribution. It is not rocket science.
SUSE already use a kernel that is patched to christ, so there's not much chance of anything compiled against a SUSE kernel working with a normal kernel from kernel.org such as Debian / Gentoo / Slackware / Ubuntu users will be using. And binary drivers are a massive step backward.
I'm not at all sure this is a good thing. It don't see how it can be anything but divisive. If SUSE users end up becoming dependent upon SUSE for access to proprietary, binary-only drivers, then that absolutely violates the spirit of Free Software.
Outside the USA, US patents don't actually matter. Any country could decide that living things are beyond the scope of patentability. Thereafter, they would owe precisely $0.00 in licencing fees.
Then if they've got such a law, maybe they ought to start enforcing it?
And while you're at it, how about fixing your legal system so that lawyers are not allowed to receive any payment until a verdict has been delivered and accepted? That way, it wouldn't be possible for a rich respondent to run a poor plaintiff with a sound case out of money just by stalling. Neither side's lawyer would be allowed to collect until the case was won, which would provide a serious disincentive against stalling.
All you need now is a new law, allowing patents to be annulled early if they are being misused. Physical property can be confiscated if it is misused, and proponents of the term "intellectual property" like to think that ideas can be owned like physical property, so why the hell not?
If the "write" bit isn't set on a file, you can't delete it either. Deleting a file is considered to be "writing" it. The same bit controls both functions. Dewleting a file is also considered as a write to the directory in which it lives, so that needs "write" and "execute" permissions too.
It does; but most Linux users have seen a real naked body.
No. Your "Average Joe User", confronted with that scenario, will simply throw away his old, broken computer, go out and buy a new one, and then start filling that up with crap. And when that is thoroughly full of crap too, and slowing down and going to the wrong web site and crashing and files are going missing ..... rinse and repeat. Because going wrong is just something that computers do.
Mind you, smart skip-divers probably will benefit from this.
There is a simple reason why microkernels do not work in practice: the abstraction layer is in the wrong place.
<simplification>A hardware driver doing output has to take raw bytes from a process, which is treating the device as though it were an ideal device; and pass them, usually together with a lot more information, to the actual device. A driver doing input has to supply instructions to and read raw data from the device, distil down the data and output it as though it came from an ideal device.</simplification>
In general, the data pathway between the driver and the process {which we'll call the software-side} is less heavily used than the data pathway between the driver and the device {which we'll call the hardware-side}.
<simplification>In a conventional monolithic kernel {classic BSD}, a hybrid kernel {Windows NT} or a modular kernel {Linux or Netware}, device drivers exist entirely in kernel space. The device driver process communicates with the userland process which wants to talk to the device and with the device itself. All the required munging is done within the kernel process. In a microkernel architecture, device drivers exist mainly in user space {though there is necessarily a kernel component, since userland processes are not allowed to talk to devices directly}. The device driver process communicates with the ordinary userland process which wants to talk to the device, and a much simpler kernel space process which just puts raw data and commands, fed to it by the user space driver, on the appropriate bus.</simplification>
Ignore for a moment the fact that under a microkernel, some process pretending to be a user space device driver could effectively access hardware almost directly, as though it were a kernel space process. What's more relevant is that in a microkernel architecture, the heavily-used hardware-side path crosses the boundary between user space and kernel space.
And it gets worse.
<simplification>In a modular kernel, a device driver module has to be loaded the first time some process wants to talk to the device. {Anyone remember the way Betamax VCRs used to leave the tape in the cassette till the first time the user pressed PLAY? Forget the analogy then} which obviously takes some time. The software-side communications channel is established, which takes some time. Then communication takes place. The driver stays loaded until the user wants it removed. Then the communication channel is filled in and the memory used by the module is freed, which obviously takes some time.
In a microkernel architecture, a user space device driver has to be loaded every time some process wants to talk to the device. The software and hardware side communications channels have to be established, which take some time. Then communication begins in earnest. When that particular process has finished with the device, both channels are filled, and the memory used by the driver is freed; which takes time. Between this hardware access and the next, another process may have taken over the space freed up by the driver, which means that reloading the user space driver will take time.</simplification>
It makes good practical sense to put fences in the place where the smallest amount of data passes through them, because the overheads involved in talking over a fence do add up. That, however, may not necessarily be the most "beautiful" arrangement, if your idea of beauty is to keep as little as possible on one side the fence. It also makes sense for device drivers which are going to be used several times to stay in memory, not be continuously loaded and unloaded. {Admittedly, that's really a memory management issue, but no known memory manager can predict the future.}
Ultimately it's just a question of high heels vs. hiking boots.
The details of how to interact at a very low level with a piece of equipment that I own are not proprietary secrets, but form a part of the operating instructions for the device. Even if you do consider them to be secrets, the very fact that I own such a device is enough to make me privy to those secrets.
Exactly so! My assertion is that it's not economically feasible to make electronically different graphics chips. They are all potentially capable of being £350 display cards. Something {most probably reversible} is done to the ones used in £50 cards to keep them from doing everything the £350 cards can do.
The point is, they can still make a profit by selling cards for £50.
We are supposed to be living in the Age of Plenty. The First Industrial Revolution -- born here in the Valley I call Home! -- promised this. There should be laws acting directly or indirectly against the imposition of such Artificial Scarcity.
It wouldn't even matter if the "clone card" which is used in the "real" Chip+PIN machine actually has to be attached by an umbilical cord to a laptop or desktop computer, or for that matter even an enormous mainframe -- it's all done out of sight of the cardholder, and the card issuing bank don't know any different. The tests performed by the machine are known and the results can be faked. The sequence proceeds as follows: As long as the gap between steps 5 and 6 is short and the emulator is accurate and fast, nobody need notice anything amiss {up to five minutes is within the tolerance of most people's watches}. The real card received an authentic-looking challenge, so it will be ready for the next one. There's no good reason why a fake C+P machine should not include a wireless link to the back room where all the bad stuff is happening, for near-real-time operation. Or even just perform a simple old-fashioned MITM attack, amending the amount in transit. Just because it's electronic does not make it secure.
I don't think it's unreasonable to force companies to disclose what is in their hardware. Pharmaceutical companies have to declare the active ingredients and the amount per dose in their drugs. Breweries have to state the alcohol content of their beer. Tobacco companies have to declare the amount of tar and nicotine in each fag. Food manufacturers have to give a list of ingredients in descending order and a breakdown of fat / protein / sugar / starch -- and that's almost enough information to recover the recipe {assume that the majority of the recipe is in the first three or four ingredients, and construct a set of simultaneous equations relating the quantities of each ingredient to the nutrition figures}.
Back in the days, every electronic appliance you bought came with a schematic diagram -- either in the instruction manual, or on the inside of the bottom cover. As likely as not, this would be labelled with the expected voltages at various test points. This misguided behaviour by the likes of nVidia is a recent phenomenon.
But you're right, I do have the right to discover what is inside a graphics card I own. It's called "reasonable force" -- as little force as possible but as much as is necessary to accomplish a rightful aim. Hopefully, if enough people assert their right to conduct reasonable force reverse engineering, and co-ordinate their efforts appropriately, we can develop fully Open Source drivers for nVidia graphics cards.
I still support mandatory full disclosure. Well, not mandatory -- you would have a choice, tell everyone exactly how to use your hardware or don't sell it. Anyone who doesn't believe in full disclosure has something to hide.
Specifications should be disclosed anyway. If you buy a piece of hardware, with your own money, which you earned by your own efforts by hand or by brain, then that hardware belongs to you. And that means that you are privy to any secret it embodies {like those specs you need to write a driver}. This is a Common Law Property Right.
If the authorities would just enforce this existing law, we could all be happy. But nVidia and ATI have both been lying through their teeth about their specifications, and hiding behind bogus "intellectual property" laws {as pointed out above, the owner of a graphics card has the right to know this information. What they don't want to reveal is how you could turn a 50-pound graphics card into a 300-pound graphics card with a quick software change. And, of course, that would open up the market to competition. It's called "busting a cartel" and it's regarded as a good thing by consumers.
Ah, but you see, there's such a thing as the law of diminishing returns. Install enough cameras in well-off areas and crime will be displaced to less-well-off areas. When all the poor people are committing crimes against one another rather than against the rich people, the crime problem is solved as far as the rich people are concerned. And since the ones with the money are the ones with the power, that's enough for them. Poor neighbourhoods will just become clearly defined no-go areas, where criminal gangs prey on the law-abiding citizens unlucky enough not to be able to afford to move out.
For the amount it would cost to equip a city with CCTV coverage, the authorities could afford enough extra front-line officers to make a real difference to crime figures. But all they are concerned about is image. PCs {in the "police constable" sense} aren't high-tech enough for them, and furthermore would constitute a roundabout admission of failure -- since they could have been deployed a long time ago, before CCTV technology reached the state it has today, and still had more effect than any fancy camera wizardry.
Now, perhaps I've got this all wrong and it isn't a huge conspiracy against the working class; but when there are so many bad decisions, you have to wonder whether or not it just might be deliberate.
Also, just because one does not have control over who is in the streets as one has with one's own home does not mean one should be subject to monitoring and recording there. In a democracy, the majority of the population are law-abiding citizens by definition, and law-abiding citizens should not be subject to unnecessary surveillance How do you know? Tony Blair would be spunking his pants at the thought of being able to peep into any ordinary Joe's living room any time of the day or night.
That's it -- anonymity. That's what I was looking for. There's a world of difference between knowing that something happened and knowing who did it.
.....
And yes, "Who's watching the watchers" is the important question. And funnily enough, the watchers often aren't comfortable with the idea of being watched themselves
Anyway, once people are accustomed to being watched while "out", it's only a matter of time before they start watching people while they are "in". First of all, it will be stairways and communal areas in blocks of flats. Then it will be the homes of people suspected of offences. Then it will be the homes of people considered likely to commit offences. Then it will be everybody's home just in case anyone commits an offence.