Stabilized Cameras for Long-Distance Surveillance 123
DrBlake writes "New York Times has an article about new systems used to stabilize cameras hung from aircraft. Apparently they make it possible to see many details at 500 meters or higher. The systems are interesting in themselves and the article raises interesting concerns about what implications the systems have on privacy."
hmpth (Score:1, Funny)
Privacy is a myth (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Employers, insurers and financial institutions have access to your credit records
2) Employers and financial institutions have or are fighting for access to your medical records (why employ or make a loan to a dying man)
3) Marketing companies are tracking your shopping, spending, web viewing, etc. habits on a daily basis
4) In its fight against terrorism, the federal government is putting in place systems to find out anything about you at anytime (scan the headlines if you don't believe it).
I'm not paranoid. Just realistic and a bit fatalistic. Privacy in modern America is a myth. Watch what you say or do, because others certainly are.
Re:Privacy is a myth (Score:1, Interesting)
It's good to worry about things like this, but let's not all get paranoid that we're being featured on "Enemy of the State" because we're way too damned boring.
Re:Privacy is a myth (Score:3, Insightful)
First, there are huge industries which keep and use all sorts of personal information. Banks use credit history, insurers use health history, and, in something which everyone in the US and most of Europe is familiar with, marketers use purchase history (and anything else they can get their paws on). It's really not accurate to say most people don't care when there are huge numbers of people employed in industries that do care.
Second, and more insidious, is the effect it has on society. When you have to curtail your own actions, for fear of what might happen - despite the fact your actions would be legal - then we've entered into the "Enemy of the State" scenario. How many people write scathing articles about scientology? Or, with reference to this article, have sex in their enclosed back yard? Both are legal, and both could lead to years of harassment.
On to the technical side of this ... I find it damn funny they're talking about removing the vibrations from helicopters to stabilize the picture. Think balloon. Think fixed-wing drone. Heck, I saw a prototype of the latter, with an electric drive, solar cells, and a simple vibration dampened camera (no gyros, no electronic compensation), and around a 30 ft wingspan that gave pictures better than those in the article ... back in 1989.
Then, of course, there's the fact that large parts of urban areas are already covered by cameras. How long will it be before the police request 'access', such that they can track a suspect? I've seen demos where they've tracked people from their apartment to their workdesk. And into the stores and restaurants they hit at lunchtime. These demos were put together after the fact, in part to argue for real-time access for the LE world. Yeah, the eye in the sky is nifty, but hardly earth-breaking with respect to the total lack of privacy we currently exist under.
There's a growing concern about 'Privatization of public space'. This applies to cell phone users, public demonstations, street vendors, and really ought to apply to the LE agencies.
Re:Privacy is a myth (Score:1)
I can't make a guess about tracking of me that I haven't seen evidence of, but in terms of privacy-invading actions that I have been aware of, the most seem to stem from buying a house. Perhaps just because this is a matter of public record, but all the sudden you get a ton of junk mail, financial offers, etc. some of which contain fairly private (so I thought) information. I feel like I've lost more privacy as a result of putting down roots in the community than I ever did as your average netizen.
The worst is all the life insurance promotions that are coincidentally for exactly the amount of my mortgage (I think my mortgage company sold me out on that one). From the mail I get, you'd think that home buying is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. :)
Re:Privacy is a myth (Score:1)
The posting says:
[this] article raises interesting concerns about what implications the systems have on privacy.
Call me crazy, but if there is not a ceiling or a wall between me and a line of site to the outside world, I do not expect that what I'm doing is private, nor do I feel a reasonable expectation for it to be so. Outside is outside, public is public. For the majority of Americans the limiting factor on their privacy is not Society or its institutions, nor Government and its agents: it is how attentive they choose to be to their own privacy. If you sign on the dotted line without reading the small print you've got little cause to complain when your new credit card company sells your information to a telemarketer.
Re:Privacy is a myth (Score:1)
US Military insurrection (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:US Military insurrection (Score:2)
Do not mistake the Constitution for a holy document. It's just the product of an immense hack session, and thus qualifies as a pretty successful hack. The founding hackers recognized that the document would require maintenance in the future, and provided a way to dynamically link new code into the running constitutional kernel.
So, stop all this talk of military coups and start pushing for some new ammendments. As Linus said, "show me the code".
Re:US Military insurrection (Score:1)
I'm not paranoid (Score:3, Funny)
Just in case, you might want to get one of these:
http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html
Re:Privacy is a myth (Score:1)
4) In its fight against terrorism, the federal government is putting in place systems to find out anything about you at anytime (scan the headlines if you don't believe it).
Care to back up this claim?
Re:Privacy is a myth (Score:1)
Re:The Government and privacy (Score:2)
Time to go into the lead-lined tarp, tent, and awning business.
Yes, you too can protect yourselves from the prying eyes (infra-red or otherwise) of high-altitude aircraft and satellite telemetry.
Come visit Crazy Al's House 'O Lead and find out what deals await you!
Re:Anyone got a mirror? (Score:1, Redundant)
By IAN AUSTEN
FLYING in his helicopter, Sgt. Frank Sheer of the Orange County Sheriff's Department in Southern California can be literally miles from the action. But that does not mean that he and his co-pilot do not know what's going on. In fact, Sergeant Sheer says they often have a clearer picture of a crime scene than the officers who are there.
Advertisement
"We'll be tracking a suspect on a hillside from the helicopter," said Sergeant
Sheer, the chief pilot in the Orange County force, "and the deputies climbing up it will be saying to us, `There's nobody here.' We've actually had them step on a guy who pulled up a bush for cover."
It's not just having a bird's-eye view that gives Sergeant Sheer and many other airborne police officers, rescue workers, military personnel, and television news and movie crews almost paranormal vision. Nor is it simply advances in optics and cameras. Ultimately they all rely on complex camera stabilization systems that mix mechanical and electronic technologies to produce steady images, even at high magnification, from inherently unsteady craft like helicopters and boats.
When officers pursued O. J. Simpson along the freeways of Los Angeles eight years ago, a covey of police and television news helicopters tracked him with stabilized cameras hanging at the sides in their distinctive ball-shaped pods. But most helicopter surveillance is not that dramatic. If the Orange County Sheriff's Department needs a car discreetly followed, Sergeant Sheer can keep tabs on it from 3,000 feet up and a considerable distance behind -- a position that would leave most motorists unaware there was a helicopter around, let alone watching them.
New systems built around all-electronic motion-sensing technologies are so stable that only the horizon and haze limit how far away observers can be.
The use of airborne stabilized cameras to create films or follow athletes in action attracts little controversy. Nor does anyone dispute that the systems allow police officers to capture criminals or rescue people. Some privacy advocates, however, are concerned that the recent proliferation of airborne cameras and the growing capabilities of new systems may mean that anyone who steps outside may unknowingly be a target of an aerial eye. Outdoors, there may no longer be any place to hide.
"Because technology affords police what amounts to superhuman vision, that doesn't mean we lose all expectations of privacy," said Barry Steinhardt, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's program on technology and liberty. "There are lots of innocent people who are going to have their privacy invaded -- observed naked in their backyard sunbathing from far away."
There is a long history of efforts to produce steady airborne pictures. But in the early years, the results were for the most part dismal.
Steven Poster, the president of the American Society of Cinematographers, recalls his first attempt at photography from a helicopter, in the late 1960's. "It was an Illinois State Fair, and the stabilization came from a rope tied around me to the helicopter," Mr. Poster recalled. "I quickly realized that this was not a very good system."
While more sophisticated systems existed back then, they did not differ much from Mr. Poster's rope. Known as side mounts, they generally relied on bungee cords and the user's body to isolate the camera.
By the 1980's Mr. Poster was a director of photography for feature films and television advertisements, and he had found an answer to his aerial photography problems with a system made by Wescam, a company now based in Burlington, Ontario.
"It's the best way to stabilize a camera," said Mr. Poster, who has used the system in films like "Stuart Little 2," which is to be released this summer.
The Wescam system used by Mr. Poster's film crews is remarkably similar to the original Wescam developed in the early 1960's by a Canadian subsidiary of Westinghouse as a battlefield surveillance tool for the Canadian military. (Wescam is short for Westinghouse camera.)
Eliminating the vibration from the helicopter was the first step and the easy part. The Wescam ball is attached to a helicopter or airplane through a shock absorber that uses springs and other damping materials. "It is tuned for the natural frequencies of helicopters," said Mark Chamberlain, a mechanical engineer who is president and chief executive of Wescam.
But eliminating the vibration does nothing to limit three other kinds of movement by the camera: pitch (plunging up and down), yaw (rotating around a vertical axis) and roll (the side-to-side rotation that creates a moving horizon).
To deal with these kinds of movements, inventors of the original Wescam turned to large gyroscopes, which create inertia. It is like strapping a large boulder to the camera to stabilize it, yet without all the weight that a boulder would add.
Inside the camera ball are three gyros oriented to offset each of the three types of unwanted motion. Motors attached to the camera mount allow an operator within the helicopter to view images from the camera on a video monitor and point the camera as needed.
The gyro stabilization system proved so steady that it has not significantly changed over the last three decades. But the system has one significant drawback: the gyros require frequent maintenance.
That is not a problem for the movie industry, which rents the camera systems for short periods. (Other companies, including Gyron Systems International, Tyler Camera Systems and Spacecam Systems, also offer stabilized motion picture cameras.) But the need for maintenance made the systems largely impractical for full-time use by police, the military and television stations.
After Mr. Chamberlain led a management buyout in 1987 of the engineering company that had come to control the Wescam technology, he turned its attention to introducing a technology that was more robust.
Instead of providing stability, its three gyros wobble slightly when the rig changes directions. Sensors measure the wobbling and feed the data to microprocessors that in turn use high-speed electric motors to move the camera and offset the unwanted motion.
he second-generation technology -- what Mr. Chamberlain calls a sense- and-react system -- has only about half the stability of the original Wescam, so it cannot be used with lenses with very high magnification. But for the Orange County Sheriff's Department, it is unquestionably an improvement over using hand-held binoculars from a helicopter.
"At 1,500 feet we're not reading license plates, but we can tell if it's a man or a woman on the ground," Sergeant Sheer said.
Advertisement
Like many systems used by police forces, one of the two Wescam systems
owned by Orange County has a night vision camera that creates images by capturing the infrared radiation emitted by warm objects, including people.
But a United States Supreme Court ruling last June has forced the Orange County Sheriff's Department and other police forces to change the way they use those thermal imaging cameras. The court said that the police could not train thermal imaging cameras on private homes without a warrant.
Mr. Steinhardt of the A.C.L.U. said he would like to see legislators, rather than the courts, come up with specific rules for police use of helicopter camera systems. The A.C.L.U. does not oppose the use of cameras "under the rare circumstance that the police might be legitimately in pursuit of a hot suspect," he said.
"But in the end, that's not how it's going to be used," he added. "It's going to be used in ordinary law enforcement, and that's very different."
It is also being used from ever greater distances. Four years ago Wescam introduced a third stabilization system that combines the reliability of cameras like those used by the Orange County Sheriff's Department while offering even greater stability than the original system. It replaces the spinning mechanical gyroscopes with fiber-optic gyros, which use bursts of laser light to calculate movements by the camera system in each direction.
Once measured, the movement is also offset with a new technology known as magnetic torque motors that can apply a force in a specific direction but allow free movement in all other directions.
Not only is the new system much faster, said Steven Tritchew, Wescam's chief technology officer, but it will also provide a steady image with the magnification of "any lens being made." Practically speaking, atmospheric haze and, ultimately, the impossibility of seeing beyond the horizon are the only limits on how far it can see. "We call it the ground-based Hubbell [nytimes.com] -- we can see a long way," Mr. Chamberlain said.
Certainly Lt. Keith Howland, a mission commander and tactical coordinatorbased at the Naval Air Station in Brunswick, Me., noticed a big difference after an old system in his P-3 Orion surveillance airplane was replaced by a turret with Wescam's new technology about a year ago. "You wouldn't even place them in the same universe," he said.
While on patrol, Lieutenant Howland said, he can watch events on the ground "well outside of visible range."
Like many civilian cameras, the Wescam on the P-3 can be aimed by punching in Global Positioning System coordinates. Software allows it to track moving objects on the ground more or less automatically.
While his aircraft's camera system cannot match the broad sweep of surveillance satellites, Lieutenant Howland said that it had many other advantages. "Basically we can be in real time on a target, see things at the moment they happen, and report it," he said. "It's live video versus a picture."
The systems can be costly, with the most advanced models costing as much as $650,000. But Wescam plans gradually to introduce variations on the new technology into all its markets, potentially giving police departments the same farsightedness. (The Raytheon Company [nytimes.com] recently introduced a fiber-optic gyro-stabilization system of its own. FLIR Systems [nytimes.com] of Portland, Ore., is also among the companies that make stabilization systems for police and military use.)
Mr. Chamberlain suggested that the most advanced technology might next go to an even more demanding customer than a police department chasing criminals or a military unit tracking terrorists: the broadcast news industry.
"From a pure image point of view, the military want uninterrupted imagery," he said, "but if it bounces a little bit once in a while or there's a little bit of fuzz on it from interference for a second or two, that's O.K. In the broadcast industry, if it jiggles a little bit or has a bit of fuzz when someone's crossing the finish line, well, you might not get invited back."
Re:Anyone got a mirror? (Score:1)
damn moderators dont know shit
It's redundant because all of that information was in the article. Considering it was the article, that's not too hard to figure out. There is no good reason to copy this article and post it as a comment.
Re:Anyone got a mirror? (Score:1)
That wasn't too hard to understand, was it?
So what? What does that have to do with anything? How does someone asking for it make it any less redundant? Any redundant comment is just a mirror (maybe not word for word) of another comment or something in the story/article itself. If you want a mirror of the article, ask NYT. Otherwise its probably copyright infringment. The information is readily and legally available in the linked article therefor any reposting of that information within the comment section is redundant.
Re:Anyone got a mirror? (Score:1)
http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html
--grifter
Which satellite will this be on? (Score:1, Funny)
Encrypted Conversations (Score:1, Interesting)
Obviously this secure as any attempt to tap into the conversation would break the beam - revealing the attack attempt.
All that seems straightforward, but the ability to stabilise and aim a laser from a helicopter [of all places] was a bit mind-boggling.....
Re:Encrypted Conversations (Score:2)
Of course, you can't tap single photons as simply. You first would have to amplify the incoming photon stream (probably within another laser, like a telecomms EDFA) then split the resultant beam
Re:Encrypted Conversations (Score:2)
The point is that it's a very narrow beam compared to radio, and you can't listen in from any kind of distance.
Re:Encrypted Conversations (Score:1)
Obviously this secure as any attempt to tap into the conversation would break the beam - revealing the attack attempt.
Re:Encrypted Conversations (Score:1)
Re:Encrypted Conversations (Score:1)
Re:Encrypted Conversations (Score:1)
Re:Encrypted Conversations (Score:1, Interesting)
The sound quality wasn't very good, but that is because we use a very simple circuit design. Obviously if we had spent a little more money/time it could have sounded much better.
Search around google and you will find lots of pages describing amateur radio people doing this exact thing (but better than us)
Old hat (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're a privacy zealot, I don't see this as nearly as concerning as tracking through credit card transactions, etc. And honestly, I don't have any problem with my picture being taken when I'm walking around outside. I'm not doing anything illegal, I'm not going anywhere shameful, and if someone wants to spend thousands of dollars on technology to enable them to watch my fat ass stroll from place to place then more power to them. And hey, they might even catch a criminal or two.
Re:Old hat (Score:1)
Re:Old hat (Score:2)
Not something likely to happen as the sort of systems that can do this tend to be used for fairly sensetive uses (read spying) and cost massive amounts of money.
The government often denies they exist so why would they sell the data ? and what data - its images ? they could be of anyone.
I somehow think that no one would use a $650'000 camera to spy on you and your girlfriend - they're to busy hanging out over britney spears house taking videos for that
Re:Old hat (Score:1)
And as for advertisers wanting the tapes, I don't really see that happeneing either, do they ask banks for their tapes? The only people that these tapes would be shared with would be whoever chooses the videos for those "worlds scariest/funniest/stupidest" TV shows. I can't really picture any advertising mogul saying "Hi General, about those tapes with the guy with the fat ass, what kind of shoes was he wearing?"
Re:Old hat (Score:2)
No, stabilized cams have been around for years, but this system is more advanced and clear pictured than earlier.
Re:Old hat (Score:2)
Maybe I'm really shaky, but I have a really hard time using binoculars, as I just can't keep them very steady. (yes, I am a crap shot with a rifle, too)
Re:Old hat (Score:1)
Re:Old hat (Score:2)
Neeto (Score:3, Informative)
That said, I wonder why it never made its way down to police sooner? Cost of maintenance, perhaps?
I do understand where the ACLU is coming from as regards the invasions of privacy. I believed we recently rehashed this over the debate on metal-detector technology in airports that would let clothing be seen through, or other such nonsense. Yet, I'm surprised no one has made that big a deal over Terra Server [terraserver.com]. Going on the resolutions they can get down to, you'd be hard pressed to hide much more than a naked sunbather in your backyard, and it's only a matter of time before satellite imaging will make even that impossible. Why the fuss over one and not the other?
Re:Neeto (Score:2)
Re:Neeto (Score:2)
Satellite tech is already that far. They don't show any higher res on TerraServer because the companies that have the high-res birds make their money by selling those images. And those companies are limited to the resolution they can acquire by the feds. So the technical ability to get much better satellite images is out there, just not publicly available.
Oh puhleese (Score:2)
What a troll.
If you are worried about he FBI, NSA or CIA using an aircraft to spy on you then you are definitely doing something very very bad or very very suspicious.
I have trouble with people reading my email or scanning my HD, but they can use cameras on anything they want for all I care.
I'm not that ugly.
Re:Oh puhleese (Score:1, Funny)
And if.... (Score:2)
Not wanting badly regulated security agencies spying on you is not a case of doing some thing wrong, its a case that these agencies have a history of "bending" or breaking the laws themselves to justify their budget or opinions.
Sad to say that goverment is not of the people, by the people, for the people anymore. "interests" are at work and normal people are refered to as "collatoral damage".
Re:And if.... (Score:2)
Hmm... reminds me of a certain CSS case about how there are bad uses for tech and good uses for the same tech.
Recording and networking is the difference... (Score:2)
One person can use binoculars, a whole organisation can use a networked camera. And record for ever what you have done even if it wasn't at all suspicious.
Re:Oh puhleese (Score:2)
So it's ok for the police to come stand on your front lawn, peek in through your windows, as long as you have nothing to hide? Or are you saying that if the police are peeking through your windows, you obviously are already guilty of something?
So where do you draw the line about how much privacy is "enough"? Why is that reading your e-mail is bad, but watching what you do in you backyard is ok? Is reading the screen of your laptop through the window of your house ok? Where does it stop?
Re:Oh puhleese (Score:2)
That's what they do, they investigate. They don't do that to people who are law-abiding citizens. If they were doing that to everybody then we would have a problem, but they aren't.
They aren't going to go get a high-tech camera just to keep tabs on people either. But they will use them to check on people they think are doing something bad.
Anarchy sux, "pure" democracy sux, that's why we have a Republic.
Re:Oh puhleese (Score:2)
Well, I'm glad you live in a utopian society... unfortunately, the rest of us live in the real world.
If I understand your point, you're saying that invasion of privacy is OK as long as the person being invaded is already guilty - so the presumption of innocence is already tossed out the window. The potential for abuse is what's being argued, not the potential for good.
Saying that we can invade the privacy of anyone, as long as it's not ME, well... that's just short-sighted.
Re:Oh puhleese (Score:1)
I'm more worried about automated survaliance where they log everything you do, if it's suspicius or not.
For example: think about running for some political office in the future being confrontet with a casual phone conversation with a "unpopular" person 10 years before, or with wisiting "unmoral" but legal websites.
Politicians in office have abused inteligicene information agains the opposition before and will do it again.
Re:Oh puhleese (Score:1)
Whose going to watch the camera operators? (Score:1)
Right on. (Score:2, Interesting)
Long range cameras can indeed be an invasion of "My Privacy"(tm). As can telescopes, binoculars, strong reading glasses and eyesight in general.
I believe the government have used all the above to spy on people at some point.
Radar for the Car (Score:2)
Time to hack the old kitchen Microwave oven, and make a do it yourself home made radar.
Best to rig it for a pickup truck, so you have the space to do a phased array on the roof of a shell.
Miniturization is going to be a pain, though.
Side benefit -- smoking police speed trap radars.
Not entirely groundbreaking but.. (Score:5, Informative)
What we are talking about here is a gyroscopic stabilised mount which enables cameras on Police helicopters to get a clearer picture at long range. Some of the uses pointed out here are surveilance of suspects, search parties etc. The camera systems have existed on law enforcement helicopters for about 10 years that i can recall and have been getting more advanced every year - its hardly a violation of your rights in a new form unless of course you are worrying about the cops reading the paper over your shoulder.
At $650,000 US its a bit more than a toy and i dont see it being something used by a peeping tom - it raises a few issues on privacy but the fact is Police around the world have had the ability for years its just been an issue with vibration which is amplified the more you zoom making things like license plates harder to read etc.
Interesting but not a massive breakthrough and not something id lose sleep worrying about - the only people who would need worry would be people who were hiding from the police in the first place and it might even save some lives when used on searches.
PS some cooler uses of gyrostablised systems like this (if you like that sort of thing) can be found in new generation FLIR and Laser targeting systems on military aircraft (think the article mentions it)
Re:Not entirely groundbreaking but.. (Score:1)
Wait until that newspaper gets some pay-per-view tech to protect their rights on the content...
Privacy? (Score:2, Insightful)
Even in your home, the privacy you have is only there because of the walls surrounding you. Your phone could be tapped, there could be lasers pointing at your windows to pick-up sound. There could be infrared cameras looking for heat sources.
Lets not even talk about the isp admins who could be reading your mail...
You don't have any privacy.
wait take a breath (Score:1)
Re:wait take a breath (Score:1)
Zoom Cam (Score:1)
What's the big deal... (Score:1)
"New" technology (Score:2)
Not exactly new. Sure, it's better, more refined. Hell, I saw a Discovery Channel special that featured these cameras several years ago. They're used on the "cop" shows all the time.
Re:"New" technology (Score:2)
Expectation of privacy (Score:1)
Obligatory Simpsons Reference.... (Score:1)
Chief Wiggum: "Continue swimming naked...c'mon...continue!....OK Lou open fire"
More comments (Score:3, Funny)
Sgt Sheer: OK, well lets head back over to that nudist colony with the hot chicks.
---------------
So when are they going to develope a countertechnology: the cloak of invisibility! We have airplanes with low radar profiles, (stealth) so what will it take for low visible / infrared / UV profiles? A kind of flexible mirror suit that reflects the surrounding environment?
Re:More comments (Score:1)
Gary Glitter had one of those in the 80's and look where it got him. Ostracised for being a kiddie fiddler, that's where..
--
Andy
Re:More comments (Score:3, Interesting)
For the record, stealth planes like the B1, the F-117A, and the F-22 have low radar, IR, and sound profiles. It's not of much use to be near invisible on radar if you show up like a torch on IR, or if the guy in the AAA can track where you're going to be by sound. All of the stealth planes disperse their output through large areas, generally directed upwards (I'd guess that the F-22 does the worst job of this, but that's just a WAG). The sound is similarly baffled, with efforts made toward minimizing disruptive air flow and contrails.
If you want a low IR profile, just cover yourself in a heat reflective blanket. They've been on the market for years. If it's warm out then you'll need to figure out some way of dumping heat elsewhere though, or else you'll suffocate in your own reflected heat.
If you want a true camo suit with chameleon like abilities, well, the US Army is researching those. There have been several stories on here about them and powered armor.
Re:More comments (Score:2)
The B-1B does have baffles in the air intakes, so radar doesn't get a return from the compressor blades, but otherwise it just uses 4 standard (for fighters at least) low-bypass, afterburning turbofan engines. If you've ever been near one taking off, it's probably the loudest aircraft you'll ever hear. Also, they didn't make much effort to disperse the exhaust heat: its engines are mounted underneath the aircraft and its exhaust nozzles are similar to most fighters, albeit much larger.
Re:More comments (Score:3, Funny)
You mean like an umbrella, or large hat?
Hot chicks at nudist colony? (Score:1)
Supreme Court positions on airborne surveillance (Score:2)
Here are the results of a Google search for florida riley privacy supreme court [google.com]. Google is your friend.
x10.com (Score:3, Funny)
i swear to god, if i see any new pop-ups for the "BESTSELLING Wireless Color Stabilized Video Camera!"; somebody is going to die...
What do you think they invented this? (Score:1)
Well duh. This wasnt invented so you could take a close up picture of a flower while flying in an airplane. It was invented so we could spy on people. Now the question of who we are going to spy on........
More information (Score:3, Informative)
Wescam page on their camere systems [wescam.com]
The MX 20 is i believe the system they are talking about [wescam.com]- has been widely fitted on naval and coast guard aircraft for a number of years
The company makes systems for space, marine and air and sells to the military and private enterprise. They make some very interesting systems and anyone interested in this sort of stuff or wanting to know just how non new this technology is head over and have a read. There are also sample images to show resolution etc of the systems.
Ignoramus (Score:1)
2000 cameras a day (Score:3, Informative)
Re:2000 cameras a day (Score:2)
It's really nifty - you can click on any camera to see the current conditions, click on digital signs to see what they're displaying, see the current speeds being reported by the radar guns (and click on them too), and so forth.
This is particularly useful for a city with some of the worst traffic in the US.
Why..why ..why! (Score:1)
This line is getting played out on
Privacy? (Score:2, Insightful)
-Almost every school/store/bank/gas station/place of employment has security cameras- there is video footage of you almost anywhere you go
-Every time you do any banking at a branch office or pay for anything electronically (ATM, Credit Card), there is an electronic record of where you were at that time
-Every time you log into the Internet or use any site to purchase/pay a bill etc, there is an electronic record that you (or at least someone with access to your account) was online at that time
-If you attend college, there is an electronic record every time you use your ID to enter your dorm, go to the dining hall, check books out of the library, use the gym, etc.
I know I'm getting dangerously close to paranoia- I'm 99.99% sure that no one is tracking me or has ever attempted to track me. My point is simply that if someone wants to track me (or anyone else for that matter), it would be fairly simple to pinpoint my exact locations throughout the day.
Our society is becoming ever closer to matching the Big Brother/Enemy of the State model. The question: How do democratic nations such as the US defend civil rights while still protecting their citizens from criminals and terrorists?
I find myself being somewhat ambiguous on this issue. I hate the thought of the police or the government being able to observe common citizens- it is clearly dangerous and, in many cases, unconstitutional. However, what's the point of freedom if you can't leave your house without getting mugged or blown up? I'm going to have to do some more thinking about this, but my gut reaction is that I'll take my chances with the terrorists and the murderers rather than being under constant surveillance when I've done nothing wrong.
As far as the specific issue of high-tech police cameras- there are only two of these cameras and they are only in one city. Cameras are nothing new- simply increasing the technology is no more of a violation of privacy (or a police necessity, depending on your opinion) than the previous versions.
You too, can enjoy image stabilization (Score:2)
- Canon IS [canonbinocular.com]
- Zeiss [russianoptics.com]
- Fujinon [fujinon.co.jp]
I can hardly wait for the article about refrigeration. Did you know you can actually chill your perishable foods without buying any ice? Amazing!Police had gyro-stabilized optics in 1960s (Score:1)
FILR (Score:1)
Contact the RIAA! (Score:1)
Oh, sorry, I'm dyslexic today. Never mind.
Slashdotters might be more interested in this... (Score:1)
Trollcam website [wescam.com]
You want airborne image stabilization... (Score:1)
Encryption Ensures Privacy (Score:2, Funny)
That's why it is imperative that security concious users embrace encryption. With a sufficent application of trees, smoke, camoflauge, and other photon encrypting material it is virtually impossible to seperate the subject from the background noise.
Oops... my mistake, it's already patented.