Damnit, your friends are WAY more interesting than mine. Many of my Facebook posts are emo people posting song lyrics, or my cousin saying I LOOOVE THIS! I'm sure he's going to end up gay despite being part of a devout Christian family. Oh yeah and my Christian friends always saying how amazing god is gets old pretty fast too since I stopped believing in such things:p Just a shame that I actually still like some of the updates these people do. A smart politics/religion filter would be amazing.
I just click the little X in the corner of their useless status update. This hides everything they say/do without them feeling virtually offended. Win!
So? The real story there is not about CCTV, it's about Police abuse of power. It happened to me the other day that an officer was trying to tell me not to do something, when he couldn't actually tell me what law I was breaking. The fact he didn't like it and he had a uniform and a Police car seemed to him to be enough reason to try and tell me what to do.
Stories like this don't mean we should stop making use of technology, they show that we should place better safeguards against abuse of power, and educate people better on how to protect themselves against Police etc. I usually just cave in even if I feel I'm in the right, because the Police are used to getting their own way and I don't know if they'd start getting physical/arrest me for insulting them etc.
When I think of cameras, I don't even think of government placed ones, the ones you see most around here are privately owned. I don't see why you're mixing the data protection act stuff about personal info in with something that is inherently public.
Public place is public. If you sit around on the bench at a train station all day, you're not going to get arrested for watching people. The only places you're going to get arrested are doing something weird like watching a school, or peeping into people's homes (though really it can be argued that if they want privacy they should close their curtains - if they're doing anything inappropriate they're really meant to do this in case someone outside happens to see them).
But most console controllers are the same size, albeit maybe twice as thick? I don't think it's so simple as it being small rather than simply the ergonomics of the layout and hand positioning. I played my PS3 for 13 hours straight when Uncharted 2 came out, and the controller was still as comfortable as it ever is.
Think I only said conspiracy theory to the original poster. I made such a big deal of it, because I looked through the article several times trying to find where you figured the the "only 10 crimes solved" thing from, but couldn't find it. I don't generally read news outside of slashdot because I'm sick of hearing of murders, rape, corrupt politicians, etc..
Cops around here actually have cameras mounted on them too.
I guess I've just grown up with cameras around so I don't think about it. It's fun when people point them out but it doesn't change the way I act, because I rarely plan to do anything illegal in the first place.
It just makes you want to steal things doesn't it?:)
Indeed. Most of the engineers have access to a printer that's located in a room full of paper, spare IT equipment etc. This manager wanted to restrict access to only managers in case people stole things, and her example was some mice lying out on a shelf, which cost £5 each. We're paying our engineers £40k a year and she was worried about £5 mice and buying cheaper coffee for the coffee machines.
I hate that attitude, being so ready to make work a living hell for people, for the sake of saving a couple of pennies.
Again I agree about saving money where it clearly is providing no real benefit though. I just get so frustrated at the groupthink here sometimes and can't help arguing for the sake of it, even when I know I'm going to get flamed to hell.
Exactly. That sentiment could agree with my own point just as much as yours. In reality being on camera isn't going to have any negative consequences for you, as long as you haven't been breaking the law, but if you have been a victim of crime then it can help to have footage. It certainly doesn't always help, but it can.
The figures I was referring to were in the telegraph article yes, but you hadn't posted that one up before, which is why I was asking where the "TWO MILLION POUNDS to solve ONE CRIME" stuff was coming from.
I appreciate attempts to educate me, I know I'm ignorant on many topics, but saying "I'll get out the crayons" when you hadn't actually linked all the articles you were getting your figures from felt very insulting to me.
The thing about those is that they don't affect the whole population, so it's easier to slip them in as long as the majority agrees. And in fact if the majority of the population agrees then the government should be going along with that, even if it's seen as wrong by other nations..
Why not just mod someone up for implying that there are good reasons for something when the only good reason is that everyone likes overreacting and complaining about stuff? There are no good reasons for not being "observed" when you are in public. If you are bothered about being observed by people, wear a gigantic cardboard box over yourself, or simply don't go outside.
Probably because the person being stalked won't be getting creeped out as you say. I thought some guy was following me one night, I legged it as soon as I got round a corner. As long as someone's just looking and not touching, I don't think it should be an issue.
Of course I do. When you're riding a tricycle it helps to be in a well lit area.
What's wrong with socks made of plastic? I like it when my clothes don't shrink in the drier.
My point was that if you're out in public, anyone could be watching. Everyone in an office building could be looking at you. You could be walking through a live news broadcast, literally on a TV show stage.
That's per year. It's simple mathematics. Says in the article there are 10,000 cameras, It also says that 1 in 1000 crimes are solved by CCTV per year.
One thing I think should be clarified: are all those cameras government funded ones? I think this may be talking about all the cameras in the UK, including privately owned ones. It's difficult to tell exactly how well these are working as a preventive measure too, seeing as we'd have to get rid of all the cameras to find that out.
Thanks, that post wasn't quite so condescending, and I do pretty much agree with you. I definitely agree about trust, I hated it when one of our managers clearly didn't trust anyone in the building, made me consider leaving the company. Thankfully we got rid of her first. Trusting the general public is in my mind a slightly different matter to trusting a bunch of well educated engineers, but I agree that people are more likely to behave well if you treat them like adults rather than kids.
Yes CCTV sucks. Our live stream at work is okay, but the actual recordings are done at a really low resolution. It's next to useless. I could probably build a better system myself pretty cheaply.
Okay, I'm not sure if I can be bothered talking to you if that's the attitude you're going to have. Why bother to provide references at all if you were only going to link half of them and then speak about data from the missing link as if it was in the article you linked to? To then be so condescending about me asking where your figures are coming from is downright.. well I can't quite figure out what it is right now, somewhere between being immature, arrogant, and an arsehole, but you're it.
I've never really had problems using the touch pad on my netbook, or playing around on my phone, so I don't think that's it. I think if they had a proper mini joystick (PS dual shock style, maybe a little smaller), and a thumb operated touchpad on the other side, it could be rather comfortable to use. I hate the nub on the original PSP though, and the positioning of the D-pad on my original DS was pretty painful for me too.. not ergonomic at all.
I wouldn't be surprised if the footage really was lost. Never assign malice to that which can be explained by stupidity and all that. With the experience I've had with our own CCTV system, which is shit, I can really believe them when they say they got nothing useful. With modern tech though, HD cameras and massive hard drives, we should be able to do a lot better than the crap that we've been trying to use for the last however many years. The company I work for isn't willing to pay to improve the system though, so it will stay shit until they actually end up losing something more expensive than a reel of copper wiring..
Where in that article does it say they only solved 10 crimes? It's saying crime has dropped by around 20% in each area. I'm happy with things like putting in better lighting rather than cameras if it's shown to better cut crime levels (though both is ideal because then you still have a record of the remaining 80% of crimes still happening in the streets).
My main issue with people's arguments here is not about the effectiveness of CCTV anyway, it's frustration at the attitude that they shouldn't be filmed while out in public. I think it's a great thing to be doing, especially considering for example some of the abuses of Police power going on that we're only able to see now with the popularity of YouTube. The more people are aware that they are accountable, the better behaved they are. Then again a lot of crimes will be committed by druggies who are completely fried so it would be nice to cut down on the influx of drugs too. Education might help these people, and trust is good within reason, but I wouldn't trust your average druggy further than I can throw my car.
There is a difference between "public" and "tv show stage".
There's really not. Public place is public. Should we also ban e-mail and all other forms of modern communications tech except between people who are near each other?
Considering this is a government project, the equivalent cost for personal use would be more like £1 per year for all of your log files. Especially in a business environment you're going to want logging enabled because so many other people are relying on things working properly and being fixed quickly. Likewise for a government project, £200 million over 10 years is hardly anything, and if it helps to keep crime rates down or put more criminals behind bars when they're stupid enough to start something, it's a bargain.
Personally I'm not really worried about being mugged seeing as I'm a 6'1" young adult male, but I'm happy for my taxes to go towards increasing the safety of higher risk groups.
It's not about fear, it's about taking reasonable measures. You're already in public so it's fine to be recorded, it makes sense to record. You're more likely to be assaulted by someone you don't know in public, and cameras are better than nothing for identifying those people. If we had a proper network of public cameras you could establish who went into who's house and came out in a bag, or didn't come out at all, etc anyway.
Obviously most people don't want other people watching them having showers and/or sex at home, it is a private place, and I can understand that, though to be honest I don't care too much about my privacy as long as I don't get ads thrown in my face all the time.
I simply find arguments against cameras in public places ludicrous. Public place is public.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah I think I lost a friend or too when I made my post along the lines of "80% authentic pork tongue? YES PLEASE!"
Damnit, your friends are WAY more interesting than mine. Many of my Facebook posts are emo people posting song lyrics, or my cousin saying I LOOOVE THIS! I'm sure he's going to end up gay despite being part of a devout Christian family. Oh yeah and my Christian friends always saying how amazing god is gets old pretty fast too since I stopped believing in such things :p Just a shame that I actually still like some of the updates these people do. A smart politics/religion filter would be amazing.
I just click the little X in the corner of their useless status update. This hides everything they say/do without them feeling virtually offended. Win!
So? The real story there is not about CCTV, it's about Police abuse of power. It happened to me the other day that an officer was trying to tell me not to do something, when he couldn't actually tell me what law I was breaking. The fact he didn't like it and he had a uniform and a Police car seemed to him to be enough reason to try and tell me what to do.
Stories like this don't mean we should stop making use of technology, they show that we should place better safeguards against abuse of power, and educate people better on how to protect themselves against Police etc. I usually just cave in even if I feel I'm in the right, because the Police are used to getting their own way and I don't know if they'd start getting physical/arrest me for insulting them etc.
When I think of cameras, I don't even think of government placed ones, the ones you see most around here are privately owned. I don't see why you're mixing the data protection act stuff about personal info in with something that is inherently public.
Public place is public. If you sit around on the bench at a train station all day, you're not going to get arrested for watching people. The only places you're going to get arrested are doing something weird like watching a school, or peeping into people's homes (though really it can be argued that if they want privacy they should close their curtains - if they're doing anything inappropriate they're really meant to do this in case someone outside happens to see them).
But most console controllers are the same size, albeit maybe twice as thick? I don't think it's so simple as it being small rather than simply the ergonomics of the layout and hand positioning. I played my PS3 for 13 hours straight when Uncharted 2 came out, and the controller was still as comfortable as it ever is.
!
Think I only said conspiracy theory to the original poster. I made such a big deal of it, because I looked through the article several times trying to find where you figured the the "only 10 crimes solved" thing from, but couldn't find it. I don't generally read news outside of slashdot because I'm sick of hearing of murders, rape, corrupt politicians, etc..
Most CCTV cameras forget in a few weeks.
Cops around here actually have cameras mounted on them too.
I guess I've just grown up with cameras around so I don't think about it. It's fun when people point them out but it doesn't change the way I act, because I rarely plan to do anything illegal in the first place.
It just makes you want to steal things doesn't it? :)
Indeed. Most of the engineers have access to a printer that's located in a room full of paper, spare IT equipment etc. This manager wanted to restrict access to only managers in case people stole things, and her example was some mice lying out on a shelf, which cost £5 each. We're paying our engineers £40k a year and she was worried about £5 mice and buying cheaper coffee for the coffee machines.
I hate that attitude, being so ready to make work a living hell for people, for the sake of saving a couple of pennies.
Again I agree about saving money where it clearly is providing no real benefit though. I just get so frustrated at the groupthink here sometimes and can't help arguing for the sake of it, even when I know I'm going to get flamed to hell.
Exactly. That sentiment could agree with my own point just as much as yours. In reality being on camera isn't going to have any negative consequences for you, as long as you haven't been breaking the law, but if you have been a victim of crime then it can help to have footage. It certainly doesn't always help, but it can.
The figures I was referring to were in the telegraph article yes, but you hadn't posted that one up before, which is why I was asking where the "TWO MILLION POUNDS to solve ONE CRIME" stuff was coming from.
I appreciate attempts to educate me, I know I'm ignorant on many topics, but saying "I'll get out the crayons" when you hadn't actually linked all the articles you were getting your figures from felt very insulting to me.
The thing about those is that they don't affect the whole population, so it's easier to slip them in as long as the majority agrees. And in fact if the majority of the population agrees then the government should be going along with that, even if it's seen as wrong by other nations..
Why not just mod someone up for implying that there are good reasons for something when the only good reason is that everyone likes overreacting and complaining about stuff? There are no good reasons for not being "observed" when you are in public. If you are bothered about being observed by people, wear a gigantic cardboard box over yourself, or simply don't go outside.
Probably because the person being stalked won't be getting creeped out as you say. I thought some guy was following me one night, I legged it as soon as I got round a corner. As long as someone's just looking and not touching, I don't think it should be an issue.
Of course I do. When you're riding a tricycle it helps to be in a well lit area.
What's wrong with socks made of plastic? I like it when my clothes don't shrink in the drier.
My point was that if you're out in public, anyone could be watching. Everyone in an office building could be looking at you. You could be walking through a live news broadcast, literally on a TV show stage.
That's per year. It's simple mathematics. Says in the article there are 10,000 cameras, It also says that 1 in 1000 crimes are solved by CCTV per year.
One thing I think should be clarified: are all those cameras government funded ones? I think this may be talking about all the cameras in the UK, including privately owned ones. It's difficult to tell exactly how well these are working as a preventive measure too, seeing as we'd have to get rid of all the cameras to find that out.
Thanks, that post wasn't quite so condescending, and I do pretty much agree with you. I definitely agree about trust, I hated it when one of our managers clearly didn't trust anyone in the building, made me consider leaving the company. Thankfully we got rid of her first. Trusting the general public is in my mind a slightly different matter to trusting a bunch of well educated engineers, but I agree that people are more likely to behave well if you treat them like adults rather than kids.
Yes CCTV sucks. Our live stream at work is okay, but the actual recordings are done at a really low resolution. It's next to useless. I could probably build a better system myself pretty cheaply.
I'll get out the crayons and explain this to you.
Okay, I'm not sure if I can be bothered talking to you if that's the attitude you're going to have. Why bother to provide references at all if you were only going to link half of them and then speak about data from the missing link as if it was in the article you linked to? To then be so condescending about me asking where your figures are coming from is downright .. well I can't quite figure out what it is right now, somewhere between being immature, arrogant, and an arsehole, but you're it.
I've never really had problems using the touch pad on my netbook, or playing around on my phone, so I don't think that's it. I think if they had a proper mini joystick (PS dual shock style, maybe a little smaller), and a thumb operated touchpad on the other side, it could be rather comfortable to use. I hate the nub on the original PSP though, and the positioning of the D-pad on my original DS was pretty painful for me too.. not ergonomic at all.
I wouldn't be surprised if the footage really was lost. Never assign malice to that which can be explained by stupidity and all that. With the experience I've had with our own CCTV system, which is shit, I can really believe them when they say they got nothing useful. With modern tech though, HD cameras and massive hard drives, we should be able to do a lot better than the crap that we've been trying to use for the last however many years. The company I work for isn't willing to pay to improve the system though, so it will stay shit until they actually end up losing something more expensive than a reel of copper wiring..
Thanks for trying to help, but I don't get this figure you keep throwing around:
Look at the first link. It's costing TWO MILLION POUNDS to solve ONE CRIME.
As I mentioned elsewhere, I don't see that in the article, and I hope nobody else believes what you are saying without checking up your facts too.
Where in that article does it say they only solved 10 crimes? It's saying crime has dropped by around 20% in each area. I'm happy with things like putting in better lighting rather than cameras if it's shown to better cut crime levels (though both is ideal because then you still have a record of the remaining 80% of crimes still happening in the streets).
My main issue with people's arguments here is not about the effectiveness of CCTV anyway, it's frustration at the attitude that they shouldn't be filmed while out in public. I think it's a great thing to be doing, especially considering for example some of the abuses of Police power going on that we're only able to see now with the popularity of YouTube. The more people are aware that they are accountable, the better behaved they are. Then again a lot of crimes will be committed by druggies who are completely fried so it would be nice to cut down on the influx of drugs too. Education might help these people, and trust is good within reason, but I wouldn't trust your average druggy further than I can throw my car.
There is a difference between "public" and "tv show stage".
There's really not. Public place is public. Should we also ban e-mail and all other forms of modern communications tech except between people who are near each other?
Considering this is a government project, the equivalent cost for personal use would be more like £1 per year for all of your log files. Especially in a business environment you're going to want logging enabled because so many other people are relying on things working properly and being fixed quickly. Likewise for a government project, £200 million over 10 years is hardly anything, and if it helps to keep crime rates down or put more criminals behind bars when they're stupid enough to start something, it's a bargain.
Personally I'm not really worried about being mugged seeing as I'm a 6'1" young adult male, but I'm happy for my taxes to go towards increasing the safety of higher risk groups.
It's not about fear, it's about taking reasonable measures. You're already in public so it's fine to be recorded, it makes sense to record. You're more likely to be assaulted by someone you don't know in public, and cameras are better than nothing for identifying those people. If we had a proper network of public cameras you could establish who went into who's house and came out in a bag, or didn't come out at all, etc anyway.
Obviously most people don't want other people watching them having showers and/or sex at home, it is a private place, and I can understand that, though to be honest I don't care too much about my privacy as long as I don't get ads thrown in my face all the time.
I simply find arguments against cameras in public places ludicrous. Public place is public.