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No Pictures, Thanks
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Jan 26, 2005 01:41 PM
from the grandfather-clause dept.
from the grandfather-clause dept.
An anonymous reader writes "HP has received a patent on technology that would allow anyone who didn't want their picture taken to remotely instruct cameras to blur their face. While this is being promoted as a privacy measure, does anyone else see the serious rights issues here? What's to prevent this being used by police to block their images when they're beating or otherwise mistreating people? If this tech can be used to blur faces, it can be quite easily adapted to turn cameras off altogether, with deeply troubling implications. And even without these 'what if' scenarios, isn't there an expectation that, if you're in a public area, you're fair game for being photographed?"
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Great. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Great. (Score:3, Funny)
Police are already experts.... (Score:4, Interesting)
This isn't going to be a problem for police. With a couple of notable exceptions *cough*Rodney*cough*King*cough*, they're already well skilled in hiding their own wrongdoing.
Why, the New South Wales Police (Sydney, Australia) Senior Constable with badge number 66312 simply left the room and removed his official badge and other identifying stuff before he started beating up on me in the old North Sydney Police Station. There were lots of other police in the room at the time, but none of them saw a thing. (Good thing I'd already committed the number to memory huh!)
No, cops won't need to worry about electronic gadgets to blur faces - they'll just turn the other, er, cheek like they've been doing for years!
Parent
Simple.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly! (Score:3, Interesting)
And once the market demand goes down, people will just stop using them.
As simple as that.
Cops? (Score:4, Insightful)
It will have certain applications to certain situations, but implying that criminals can immediately use this to their benefit is just pure speculation.
Another solution (Score:5, Funny)
but... (Score:4, Funny)
Serious rights issues?? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is probably the most useless patent ever filed. It allows HP to attempt to sell a device that no one will buy, because what it does is prevents someone from photographing the owner with a camera, also produced by HP, that no one will buy, because it can be scrambled.
The best part is, the end of the article mentions that HP doesn't plan on a commercial use for the patent, for exactly that reason.
Up next, Smith and Wesson announce a device that will prevent you from being killed by someone using a specific model of gun that they make. Get yours now; you can't afford to be vulnerable to 0.0001% of the guns in the world!
It may be a defensive patent (Score:5, Interesting)
They may hve figured out how to do this, then decided to patent it specifically to prevent its use in the wild.
Parent
Photo Radar (Score:3, Funny)
I have one of these nifty gadgets (Score:5, Funny)
who would by this (Score:5, Insightful)
Something tells me this item is NOT going to be a big seller.
Wait until some big **AA consortium mandates it (Score:5, Insightful)
Who wants a computer will only continue to give you access to your data if you keep paying a monthly subscription fee (and only if you use approved applications and operating systems)?
Who is happy with DVD players that will not play legally purchased discs from other parts of the world and will not allow the owner to skip advertisements?
This is not something being developed in response to consumer demand. It sounds like something that might be included in some future "standard" mandated by the congress (cough cough Fritz Hollings cough cough) for consumer electronic devices. Maybe someday you won't be able to use a phone/PDA/camera/whatever unless it includes DRM technology, a nationally registered ID number, a biometric login to limit use to approved users, and perhaps a GPS transmitter trackable by the government. "Legacy" devices would be around for a while, but at some point they would no longer work with the phone system. Of course, tampering with any of these functions would constitute a felony under some "Digital Millenium National Security Patriot Anti-Terrorism Motherhood and Apple Pie Act".
(OK, so I'm stretching it, but many of these things are possible, and all of them will be possible soon).
Parent
Evidence (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Evidence (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Evidence (Score:3, Informative)
Canon and Nikon now have DVKs, data verification kits, which tag photos with checksums and signatures. You can prove that this image was taken by that camera and wasn't modified between the camera and the file you now have.
These days tho', digital images are really no easier to modify than film. You can do a high quality negscan, do what you want in Photoshop, then write the image back out onto fi
Oh, for fuck's sake (Score:3)
Please, sir, are you fucking serious?
Dude... (Score:3, Insightful)
Laughing Man (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Laughing Man (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
an important issue (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:an important issue (Score:5, Insightful)
The argument exists between her and the owner of the mini-mall. Still, it sounds like you were trying to use your camera as a form of intimidation. Would you have been happy if your picture was taken and shown to people as "watch out for this jerk, he abuses the disabled"? No?
Parent
Re:an important issue (Score:5, Insightful)
"...I took a photo of a stranger's car because I believed she was abusing the disabled placard system..."
OT: I'm curious, had you been tailing this person and become familiar with their physical abilities? Or, did you witness someone park in a blue space, get out of their car, and appear to walk into the mall with no obvious problems?
I ask because a member of my family has a neurological disease that makes it difficult to walk due to poor balance and/or difficult to walk a long distance. Their doctor ordered them to use the blue spaces and not over-excert themselves as this can further aggravate the condition. It's a completely legitimate and doctor prescribed use of the blue space.
Because this person is very self-conscious of the condition, they have learned to mask its effects -most of the time. This results in the situation where they park in the blue space and *appear* to be walking into the mall just fine. They have ever received the "what are doing parking in that space asshole?" looks in the past. If that stranger were to start photographing *me* I sure would be pissed to.
This is not a hyper-sensitive insesitive clod post, I'm just honestly curious about differnet forms of parking space vigilantism. Do you often photograph people you don't believe should be using the blue spaces?
This is not a flame! I'm curious because I also perform a little parking space vigilantism. When someone parks in a space so crooked they make the space next to them virtually unusable, I'll squeeze my car in so they have to climb into their car from the other side. I drive an old beater, what are they gonna do? Key my hood? So what. Besides, they know they suck.
Parent
A little mixed already (Score:5, Informative)
Not really - If you're distinct enough to recognize, you can be photographed by anyone, but those photos can't be distributed for profit without your consent for the most part. For instance, no one can snap a picture of you and use that in an ad or commercial without your consent, but a journalist can publish photos of you in a newspaper. I'm not sure about how the law works around it, but I know that it can get pretty complicated if you sell digital photos because you need stacks of waiver forms.
So buy an old camera (Score:5, Insightful)
I also don't see how HP would market this. Any hint that this technology is in a camera would destroy its sales (pros wouldn't touch it and reviews would herd the unwashed masses away). Certainly it could not stop the paparazzi or stalkers (both of which would circumvent as described above), so what's the value in owning the technology? Stopping 20% of tourist snaps? Certainly no one's going to want to add this to disposables (ups the cost), so even there you miss most of the audience.
Nope, this is less of a rights issue and more of a matter of filing for a patent because that's the only potential value you could extract from a technology.
Slashdot headline is a troll (Score:5, Insightful)
An HP representative said the company had no current plans to commercialize the technology, which would require widespread adoption by camera makers and possibly government mandates to be financially practical.
The AC is on crack when he says it can be quite easily adapted to turn cameras off altogether, with deeply troubling implications. It isn't some magic EMP device, the camera is under no obligation to obey. And there is no way it would be retrofitted to the millions of existing cameras anyway.
Big Brother left the building. In fact, he was never here.
Idiots should NOT have ideas (Score:5, Funny)
This is one of those ideas with no thought behind it, its based on the assumption that like good little boys and girls we are all going to accept technology lock down - they haven't even figured out how they are going to persuade other companies to stick this in their cameras?! or is this going to be mandatory by law soon? well i've got news for any legislator who thinks for a fucking second they are going to dictate what i can do to my property in my own home. To me it seems like this idea was thought up not by a business minded person (who in their right mind would try and cripple only their companies products for no reason!?) but by a complete and total idiot, in fact i would like that idiot to come and explain themselves, slashdot?
Think bigger... (Score:5, Interesting)
The patent may be broad enough to cover the larger concept of obscuring/degrading/modifying digital data when captured via certain types of devices.
Public behavior (Score:3, Insightful)
And even without these 'what if' scenarios, isn't there an expectation that, if you're in a public area, you're fair game for being photographed?
Sure, I guess. But uh, even though while I'm in public I must expect that I'm fair game for being farted on, I still don't like it. Just because you're "fair game" doesn't mean you have to enjoy it. I'm fair game for being shit on by a pigeon too, but if someone made an anti-pigeon-shitting device that allowed me not to get splattered by bird feces, I'd take it and run away gleefully laughing.
Just because you CAN take pictures of everything doesn't mean you should. Some of us want to be able to walk around outdoors without the concern of being in someone's photo gallery because they have a camera phone and too much time. I don't see why that's so bad.
Chicken little poster... (Score:5, Insightful)
While this is being promoted as a privacy measure, does anyone else see the serious rights issues here?
No, I'm stupid. Howabout you tell me?
What's to prevent this being used by police to block their images when they're beating or otherwise mistreating people?
Ah. Yes. This is the old "What if the bad guy could use it against us!" Silly me, I should have guessed.
Every technology can be used equally by anyone with any motive. The minivan is great for soccer moms, but what if the MAN uses them to transport innocent victims of the justice system or *GASP* spy on people?!?
Yes, the patent covers a technology which couldn't possibly work right now except under some exceptionally limited circumstances. Think of taking a picture of a crowd. What technology could possibly pick the one person out of the crowd that has this device and blank out only their face without user intervention and fits in a large camera, nevermind a cellphone? None. This is a useless IP grab.
But let's assume it's possible. Well, then either you use cameras that don't have this feature, you disable the feature on cameras you use, and otherwise you shouldn't care because it's not your *$#!@ camera or picture.
Worried about this technology being mandated by congress? It's unlikely given that anything done in public is public. They'd have to take away a ton of civil rights before they even got close to being able to prevent public pictures in public places.
No, Chicken little, the sky is not falling. It's not even overcast. There is little in this topic that's worth discussing to any degree as any intelligent person can work through all the scenarios and satisfy themselves of the limited utility of this patent.
-Adam
Film? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is just nonsense.
Re:What a stupid question.... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:What a stupid question.... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:What a stupid question.... (Score:4, Interesting)
So the police who are ignoring the laws about mistreating and beating the shit out of innocent people are going to suddenly obey the law when it comes to not obscuring their faces and badge numbers when they do it?
LK
Parent
Re:What a stupid question.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Because expanded police powers increase the threat of the development of a police state. We need to keep a leash on the police. They are a useful tool for keeping peace in society, as long as they are OUR tool.
If you increased police powers significantly, you would run the risk of those powers being abused.
Parent
Re:What a stupid question.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, those liberal-conservative labels are for blinkered sheeple.
Expansion of police powers increases the danger of a police state forming. It does not guarantee it. I was merely indicating to the original poster, why we need to concern ourselves with restriction of police power even if it results in some reduction in police efficiency. High police efficiency, for example, existed in the Third Reich - didn't help their citizenry much, it just enabled criminals and gangsters in the police forces to exploit them more easily.
Police efficiency is not an end in itself, in my opinion.
Parent
Re:What a stupid question.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What a stupid question.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Because cops who abuse their authority are the bad guys (i.e., they are breaking the law).
The reason we need to keep an eye on the cops is due to their ability to use the legal system to cover up their crimes.
A cop-killer is more important to the a community because that individual has shown that no amount of legal authority will stop them from committing a crime. A cop "who is a killer" is more important to the public because they operate under the color of authority and can therefore act with impunity.
Parent
Re:What a stupid question.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because crime isn't actually as bad as you'd think from watching TV.
In reality, most of us live in an age of incredibly low crime rates, even those of us who live in cities in America. I've never even seen a gun, and the one time I was within a mile of an actual violent crime, there were so many cop cars (and bikes and helicopters) after the guy it was like a scene from The Blues Brothers.
Sure, there are exceptions; maybe you live in Gary, Indiana or inner city DC. But for most of us, the chances of being beaten up or having our stuff stolen by law enforcement are much greater than the chances of the same happening because of a violent criminal.
Someone in your apartment block deals drugs? Guess it's time for a drug forfeiture sweep. Doesn't matter if you're found innocent, you can kiss your worldly possessions goodbye.
Selling video signal clarifiers or bootleg arcade game emulators? You could be the next person to be raided by the Department of Homeland Security. (No, I'm not kidding [go.com].)
Sharing lots of files? Thanks to Bill Clinton, copyright violation in sufficient quantities is now a felony, and you could find the feds kicking down your door.
Political protester? It's now routine for protesters (whatever the cause) to be illegally mass-arrested [indymedia.org] in advance to get them off the streets, mistreated in jail, and then freed without charge once the event being protested is over. That's if you're lucky; if you're unlucky, the cops engineer a riot and wade in with the tear gas and batons. If you're really unlucky, they discover that you once sent a pair of boots to a Chechen rebel [cageprisoners.com] or contributed to an Islamic charity, and you suddenly disappear to jail indefinitely, or to Guantanamo Bay to be tortured.
I don't lie awake at night worrying that my next-door neighbors might steal my stuff; even if they did, I have insurance, and it's just stuff. I do sometimes worry that I might get arrested or "disappeared" by the US authorities.
Parent
Re:glad you liked it (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:does it blur the (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Sword cuts both ways (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So don't use a camera that honors this... (Score:3, Insightful)
"What if the cameras can't see someone?!?!?!" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:camera side (Score:3, Funny)
Re:anti-law inforcement (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Camera shutter SFX can't be turned off (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Obvious Solution. (Score:3, Funny)