In Soviet US, Comcast Watches YOU

cayenne8 sends us to Newteevee.com for a blog posting reporting from the Digital Living Room conference earlier this week. Gerard Kunkel, Comcast's senior VP of user experience, stated that the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into its devices so it can know who's in your living room. Cameras in the set-top boxes, while apparently not using facial recognition software, can still somehow figure out who is in the room, and customize user preferences for cable (favorite channels, etc.). While this sounds 'handy,' it also sounds a bit like the TV sets in 1984. I am sure, of course, that Comcast wouldn't tap into this for any reason, nor let the authorities tap into this to watch inside your home in real time without a warrant or anything."

Ah well ...

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

This is one privacy issue that a little electrical tape can cure easily.

Re:Ah well ...

[AragornSonOfArathorn (454526)]

not really. If you cover up the lens, the cable box goes "Your papers, please." Then you'll have to type your SSN or passport number in with the remote before you can watch TV.

Re:Ah well ...

[wizardforce (1005805)]

blockquote>If you cover up the lens, the cable box goes "Your papers, please." Then you'll have to type your SSN or passport number in with the remote before you can watch TV. then you know what I do? I unplug the fscker, cancel my service [not that I'd deal with comcast in the first place] and go post on slashdot or something. it really isn't that important to watch TV, so why give them any power over you? I mean really why do people put up with this? It's almost as if people are too lazy to defend their privacy and too eager to whine about their problems or something.

Re:Ah well ...

[Original Replica (908688)]

I mean really why do people put up with this? It's almost as if people are too lazy to defend their privacy and too eager to whine about their problems or something.

In a way, whining about this in a widely read forum like Slashdot, is defending our privacy. Public awareness is the first step towards stopping things like this. Now the American public has an almost zero attention span, so awareness has to be loud and alarmist to even register on the social consciousness. To add to that problem, the evening news is alarmist about everything because it gains ratings, but further buries any real problems from getting the attention they need in order to be resolved.

Re:Ah well ...

[Original Replica (908688)]

First, no it isn't. It's whining.

OK, how would you suggest raising public awareness about this? I only heard about it because it was posted here in Slashdot.

Slashdot isn't really that big, and the audience is very self-selecting for certain points of view.

Says user number 1,243,248. If Slashdot were a city that population would make it the ninth largest city in the US, between San Diego and Dallas. Yes audience is self selecting, this is a site mostly made of nerds with a libertarian bent. There is, at least, an effort to stay informed and back up statements with facts.

Re:Ah well ...

[Omestes (471991)]

Face it, Slashdot is a SMALL community.

Not to commit /. boosterism, but what, then, is a large community? A million people is a lot of people, a whole lot of people. Before the internet got large (since what, 95?) I doubt we ever would have considered >1m to be small.

Besides it isn't about /. being an action network, its about, to use distasteful political speak, conscious raising. If you have a million or so concerned individuals, these individuals have friends, participate in other forums, etc... thus a local fervor on /. can spread wildly to other areas, since 1m people is pretty good for critical momentum. What local group in meatspace do you belong where you have the potential to be heard by this number of people, especially in a conversational format? Look at the Digg brouhaha last May 1, for an example. Also with such a large userbase, and such a huge amount of content, /. is over represented on places like Google (where we are often #1 in the news section lately), which do, potentially, have a wider reach.

I also wouldn't say that we're that limited in the ideologies of the user-base. I'd say we skew towards mid-high income brackets, and towards the more libertarian techies, but thats not to say that they are a large majority. Look how many left-right, socialism-libertarianism debates plague YRO daily. We even have a share of Christian fundies resident. And while American's are the majority, we definitely have a LARGE share of folk from other countries/cultures to balance things out.

We represent a large array of international basement dwellers, in other words.

Re:Ah well ...

[Chandon Seldon (43083)]

I mean really why do people put up with this? It's almost as if people are too lazy to defend their privacy and too eager to whine about their problems or something.

There are a whole group of people who "defend their privacy" in cases like this simply by avoiding such products and services. These people have no social impact *at all*, because they don't say anything - which means everyone else thinks that "no one cares".

What that means is simple: Yes, you should actively defend your privacy by avoiding intrusive services. But you also need to whine about it on the internet to let others know that someone cares.

Re:Ah well ...

[sm62704 (957197)]

then you know what I do? I unplug the fscker, cancel my service [not that I'd deal with comcast in the first place] and go post on slashdot or something. it really isn't that important to watch TV

I know this is going to come as a shock to you non-geezers, but you can watch TV without cable! There's satellite TV (several providers IINM) and good old trusty rabbit ears (my rabbit ears are amplified and deliver a very good picture) or roof antenna.

When I was a kid we only had three channels, and that was in the St Louis Metro area! I'm in dinky little Springfield IL now, and I can pick up nine channels.

Yeah, I could get dozens of channels with cable but so what? When I had cable I didn't watch very many anyway. If there's a program on cable I want to watch I'll go to a bar (I'm usually in one anyway). I used to like The Discovery Channel before they started sucking. Instead of "The Andromeda Galaxy: little known secrets" now there's "Painting race cars: little known secrets". They have ESPN on and there's... championship POKER??? Pool? WTF is next, twiddly winks?

At least when I was a kid there was Ernie Kovacs and Red Skelton. You young whippersnappers don't know what you're missing.

If they impliment this I'm going to have to make another article alomg the lines of Good Riddance to Bad Tech [kuro5hin.org] about bad tech we SHOULD get rid of... maybe add it to Dog-Slow Technologies [slashdot.org] and rename the sucker.

-mcgrew

Re:Ah well ...

[sm62704 (957197)]

If you cover up the lens, the cable box goes "Your papers, please." Then you'll have to type your SSN or passport number in with the remote before you can watch TV.

Shamelessle and blatantly stolen from A Child's Garden of Grass: A Pre-Legalization Comedy (1971)

"Your paperss, pleass!"
"Uh, but I only got a pipe, man."
"Zen you'll haff to come vith ME!"

But seriously (boo! he's serious!), is there ANY evil the corporations won't stoop to? Time to take all those lame stale lawyer jokes and rework them to Capitalist jokes. Even you athiests have to agree with what the bible says about the love of money.

Re:They knew who I was.

[aurispector (530273)]

Heh. It's hard to believe someone thought this was a good idea. After the recent warrentless wiretap fiasco, it's brutally obvious that this would be abused by some government agency somewhere. Fascists exist in every society.

Re:They knew who I was.

[The One and Only (691315)]

Indeed: Italy [wikipedia.org] still elects avowed fascists to high government office far more often than the United States.

Re:They knew who I was.

[rudeboy1 (516023)]

It's probably bad that the first thing I thought of was, "damn... no more watching porn in the living room"... ...or watching TV without pants ...or making out on the couch ...or building bombs on the coffee table

Re:They knew who I was.

[anup_at_mac (821069)]

I was almost there with you till you said

making out on the couch

. Yeah right !!... oh wait, did you mean with an inflatable doll or something?

Re:They knew who I was.

[iminplaya (723125)]

On the contrary. I would proudly wave my pole to the camera, make 'em envious, and I would love to see their reaction after I...uh...well, you know. It would be a new form of target practice. Go for distance... and accuracy.

Re:They knew who I was.

[sYkSh0n3 (722238)]

I use to build bombs on the coffee table, except that damn wobbly leg. Table shifted, things rolled, my house became short one living room. :(

But really, what kind of sane person would put a camera they didn't have control of in their living room? I don't even like having my webcam pointed at me when i'm not using it.

What really annoys me about this, is I can see people getting it and BEING EXCITED that it can see them in front of the tv and pick out what they want. It goes back to that "i have nothing to hide, so why should I care" philosophy. I have nothing to hide either, but I sure as hell care.

Re:

[Diss Champ (934796)]

Until the duct tape becomes illegal in some future legislation that is the love child of DMCA & PATRIOT.

Re:Ah well ...

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

No, they can't make that illegal because they've already told to lay in plenty of duct tape in case of a chemical attack.

Re:Ah well ...

[pla (258480)]

they can't make that illegal because they've already told to lay in plenty of duct tape in case of a chemical attack.

"Make the most of Indian hemp seed and sow it everywhere!" - George Washington

Re:Ah well ...

[More_Cowbell (957742)]

Uh, mods... this may be funny too, but someone please mark it insightful...

Many seem to be unaware that it was once illegal not to grow hemp in these here united states.

Re:Ah well ...

[uniquename72 (1169497)]

I guess then you stick a picture of an empty room in front of it.

Naaah...goatse.

Re:Ah well ...

[by Anonymous Coward]

You do realize this is intended to "customize user preferences", right?

Re:Ah well ...

[Deadstick (535032)]

Except when your favorite program is on. Then you give it a picture of the crowd at the Super Bowl.

rj

Re:

[darjen (879890)]

My fix is already in place: a cheapo Radio Shack HDTV antenna.

Re:Ah well ...

[Naughty Bob (1004174)]

This is one privacy issue that a little electrical tape can cure easily.

Using the electrical tape will be classed as theft, as you are preventing the business from optimizing, and thus maximizing the revenue derived from, the advertising. Puts me, albeit tenuously, in mind of a quote I saw recently-

In the 1980s capitalism triumphed over communism. In the 1990s it triumphed over democracy.

Re:

[btaratoot (937576)]

I would just put my cardboard cutouts of Pamela Anderson and Boba Fett in the living room. :)

Re:Ah well ...

[MasaMuneCyrus (779918)]

I predict if this comes to pass, child pornography will be brought up in defensed of warrantlessly spying on people using this technology.

MORE electrical tape

[wsanders (114993)]

After all don't we all have tape over the flashing 88:88's already?

Kunkel Replies

[Stanistani (808333)]

From the Fine Article's Comment page:
- - - - - - - - - -
Chris,

Your article on "Comcast Cameras to Start Watching You" portrayed some assumptions that require correction and clarification. I want to be clear that in no way are we exploring any camera devices that would monitor customer behavior.

To gather information for your article on Comcast's exploration of cameras you picked up on my conversation with another conference attendee. The other attendee and I were deep in a conversation discussing a variety of input devices offered by a variety of vendors that Comcast is reviewing.

The camera-based gesture recognition device is in no way designed to - or capable of - monitoring your living room. These technologies are designed to allow simple navigation on a television set just as the Wii remote uses a camera to manage its much heralded gesture-based interactivity.

We are constantly exploring new technologies that better serve our customers. The goal is simple - a better user experience that allows the consumer to get ever increasing value out of their Comcast products.

As with any new technology, we carefully consider the consumer benefits. In fact, we do an enormous amount of consumer testing in advance of making a product decision such as this. I'm confident that a new technology like gesture-based navigation will be fully explored with consumers to understand the product's feature benefits - and of course, the value to the consumer.

Sincerely,
Gerard Kunkel
- - - - - - - - - -

I despise Comcast, but thought the fellow should at least be allowed to defend himself.

How ticked off he must be - those meddling journalist types!

Ceiling Comcast watches you masturbate

[LuminaireX (949185)]

Note to self: no more sex in the living room.

Opportunity to screw with their minds

[StefanJ (88986)]

No, no, no! Keep on spanking the monkey, but for the sake of the camera do it while surrounded by:

Roll 1d8:

1) Stuffed animals
2) Feminine hygiene products
3) Jars of Bovril
4) Jars of Marmite
5) Old computer hardware
6) Cassette tapes of ABBA albums
7) Duct tape
8) Any two of the above

With any luck, the Demographic Analysis software will either give up or -- unless 1960s SF shows have taught me wrong -- spew reams of paper tape, shout "DOES NOT COMPUTE!" in a tinny voice, and catch on fire.

1984

[mikeabbott420 (744514)]

A 'bit' like 1984? Who in the hell would go for this? Americans seem to have managed to convince their politicians and corporations that they have no interest in freedom at all.

Re:1984

[George Beech (870844)]

Politicians and corporations seem to have managed to convince Americans that they have no interest in freedom at all

fixed it for ya

Re:1984

[coaxial (28297)]

A 'bit' like 1984?

Actually this more reminds of Max Headroom.

Who in the hell would go for this?

The vast majority of people.

Americans seem to have managed to convince their politicians and corporations that they have no interest in freedom at all

Because a majority Americans apparently don't.

Oh and this is perfectly okay since it's a corporation and not a government because companies are beholden to a small number of hyper wealthy share holders as opposed to the populous. And companies never do anything wrong! Why would they? I mean look at the housing market. Rolling along! Look at the energy markets where it was finally let loose of the yoke of government regulation! Enron! Worldcom! Bear Stearns! These are pillars of industry. Truly, we should simply have more faith in the wisdom of our betters.

Interesting

[TheMeuge (645043)]

This would be useful for determining who's on the end of the cable line, using bittorrent. The FBI can then go ahead and break their doors in, during an early-morning no-knock raid.

They can then go ahead and develop technology to determine who's watching the commercials and who isn't... and then apply a flat per-minute fee for not watching advertisements.

Alternatively, they can charge a per-viewer fee for pay-per-view events. After all, if you crap 20 people around your HDTV to watch a $40 boxing event, isn't it logical that you should pay extra for every extra person who's watching it?

Heck, there's all kinds of useful things a company could do with this information.

Ha ha April Fool's... oh wait

[oliphaunt (124016)]

I had to check today's date 3 times because I was sure this was an April Fool's story.

At last, per-person DRM

[Animats (122034)]

The RIAA and the MPAA will love this. At last, content can be licensed to the individual, not the device. "Pay per viewer", at last.

And you can't cover the camera; if it can't see you to identify your biometrics, your licenses won't validate.

Picture this

[Reason58 (775044)]

The ultimate reality show: watching yourself watch yourself.

I don't like this

[jollyreaper (513215)]

It used to be my only complaint about all the sex on TV was falling off, now I've got to worry about an audience. Maybe I can charge them for it, like selling power back to the electric company?

It's the Santa Box

[GlL (618007)]

It sees you when you're sleeping, it knows when you're awake, it knows if you've been bad or good, so be good or get blackmailed.

Does anything sound like a bad idea to these idiots? I can just see the board room discussion...

CEO: I'm thinking anal probes.
CLO: I don't think we're quite there yet, remember you have to work up to this stuff gradually.
CTO: We already know everything about their web surfing, let's expand on that.
CEO: What do you mean?
CTO: Let's build cameras into the converter boxes, this way we can watch them.

But in Soviet Russia...

[192939495969798999 (58312)]

Yes, but In Soviet Russia, YOU watch ... i mean Comcast watches... wait, what?

Reply from Comcast

[d3ac0n (715594)]

For those that didn't RTFA ike I did, AND scan down throught the comments section, Gerard Kunkel, the Comcast rep interviewed in the article, actually posted a reply to the article in the comments section of the website. Here are his comments:

Chris,

Your article on "Comcast Cameras to Start Watching You" portrayed some assumptions that require correction and clarification. I want to be clear that in no way are we exploring any camera devices that would monitor customer behavior.

To gather information for your article on Comcast's exploration of cameras you picked up on my conversation with another conference attendee. The other attendee and I were deep in a conversation discussing a variety of input devices offered by a variety of vendors that Comcast is reviewing.

The camera-based gesture recognition device is in no way designed to - or capable of - monitoring your living room. These technologies are designed to allow simple navigation on a television set just as the Wii remote uses a camera to manage its much heralded gesture-based interactivity.

We are constantly exploring new technologies that better serve our customers. The goal is simple - a better user experience that allows the consumer to get ever increasing value out of their Comcast products.

As with any new technology, we carefully consider the consumer benefits. In fact, we do an enormous amount of consumer testing in advance of making a product decision such as this. I'm confident that a new technology like gesture-based navigation will be fully explored with consumers to understand the product's feature benefits - and of course, the value to the consumer.

Sincerely,
Gerard Kunkel

Hopefully that clarifies things a bit.

I'm still glad I have TW cable in my area.

It will get forced on us

[VampireByte (447578)]

There will be a "think of the children" campaign. People will protest children seeing adult material and someone will argue that "the technology already exists" to solve this problem. These cameras will detect that children are in the room and block inappropriate material. A law will be passed requiring the camera-in-box technology. There you go... it's in people's homes.

Re:It will get forced on us

[Zymergy (803632)]

Well.... that is until someone's underage teenage son and his underage girlfriend decide to shed all their clothes and have brazen sex in front of the cable box... The legal details of that scenario would be very interesting...
-What does legally happen when some adult's Comacast 1984-style bidirectional TV box "inadvertently" observes illegal underage nudity and sex. I am sure if this data was in any way streamed over their network there would be numerous state and federal laws violated (or if it were retained in any way), not to mention grounds for a very hefty lawsuit.
It would make for some interesting legal reading in any case.

Re:It will get forced on us

[Monchanger (637670)]

I wonder how the box itself would respond to observing sex. Would it find them some pr0n, advertise condoms and morning-after pills, or perhaps turn the volume way up? Could one program it to switch to an abstinence-preaching Christian network to get them to stop?

Re:It will get forced on us

[dosymedia (1247898)]

Won't *someone* think of the cable box?!!

Re:Nope.

[Otter (3800)]

Exactly. Who would possibly want this -- do I want the channel changing when my wife walks in the room and in front of the couch?

If they simply must market such a technology, at least put a biometric device on the remote. That would have to work better than some mysterious body shape recognition, give them the same marketing information and I can still watch Sanford and Son reruns in my underwear.

Already there?

[symbolset (646467)]

What makes you think the camera is not already there? Have you disassembled your cable box?

Food for thought. Your cable box could have a camera already. If you have cable internet you know it has enough bandwidth for monitoring you.

Re:Already there?

[Lumpy (12016)]

Yes it's NOT there. I have been inside many of the cable boxes. And the "camera" they are talking about is a 32X32 FLIR camera. that way it can detect bodies.

it's a VP that really knows very little about what he is talking about opening his mouth to the public. it's more of a detector than a camera. We were talking about it at Comcast over 5 years ago when I was a part of that focus group. I cant believe they are still chasing that idea. It does not make the demographic data any more valuable than it already is.

Re:Already there?

[by Anonymous Coward]

They're over there right next to your couch. You really do need to clean up that mess in the hall, and you probably want to ask your wife why the UPS guy's clipboard is on the counter. They made so much noise it was hard for me to listen in on the neighbor's phone conversations.

Re:So that's what

[BradleyUffner (103496)]

My box has a firewire port on the back. I plugged it into my laptop once and it was detected as a video for windows device. After digging around for some drivers i was actually able to watch the video coming off the box directly on the laptop. In doing some research for this it looks like all set top boxes made after a specific date are required to have this built in by the FCC.

It would have been even better though if it acted as a tv tuner card that you could use to change channels on the box from the computer.