The Path of Least Surveillance 28
prostoalex writes: "Business Week draws attention to the growth of monitoring and surveillance systems in modern society. Only in Manhattan, as article claims, there are at least 10,000 cameras. Londoners, at the same time, are caught on tape 300 times per day. Is it a necessary measure of pre-caution, or, as Marge Simpson put it, "as long as everybody is videotaping everyone else, justice will be done"?"
Public Vs Private (Score:1)
not that im saying i do things worth video taping at home but.....
yea the outside should be monitored but stay the hell off of my property
This is a hot topic in British Columbia too (Score:2, Interesting)
There's an interesting read on a Canadian Government website [privcom.gc.ca] (clipped from a local Vancouver newspaper).
On a related topic, at a fireworks event in Vancouver a couple of weeks ago, I noticed a police helicopter overhead at a couple hundred feet, buzzing back and forth around the crowds as everyone was leaving to go home. Despite the obvious police surveillance, there were still some violent attacks in the crowds, as reported by the news the following day.
Watching the watchers (Score:2)
For the "I have nothing to hide yadda-yadda..." people, I just can't see why anyone would like (or, at least, wouldn't mind) to be monitored so much, even if it's a public place. It sure doesn't make me feel safe. I find government and businesses tracking me far more scary than a potential mugger on the street. To each his own, I guess.
Call me paranoid, but I often travel through town on smaller roads that I know don't have those damned "traffic" cams pointed at the intersections. I know there are probably plenty of less conspicuous cameras out there that catch me (and it will only get worse), but I exercise as much dilligance as I can without going totally crazy.
Re:Watching the watchers (Score:2)
And the primary purpose of survelliance is to deter theft. If a potential theif sees the cameras in the story, and even better yet, a live screen showing what the cameras see, then he much less likely to commit the crime. For some reason, WalMart believes printing large bold red signs that say "Shoplifting is a Crime" in the restrooms has a similar effect.
So I guess it's Occam's Razor. Which is the simpler explanation? That the cameras are there to invade your privacy? Or are they they to deter theft?
Re:Watching the watchers (Score:2)
Re:Watching the watchers (Score:2, Interesting)
I think there should be some activist group out there that runs around with Max Headroom-style cameras (recording timestamp, position, heading) recording (and even broadcasting live) the watchers (police, security guards, owners and execs of the companies who monitor people). I doubt these people would like a bunch of strangers watching their movements.
I would go one further and say that all surveillance footage of a public place to be made available to any member of the public. Especially with law enforcemnt, I'd like to see the footage played live on a public access channel so everyone can see how much time the local PD spends following attractive women with their "must have for public safety" cameras.
The people give the power to govern to the government, we should at least get to watch what they really watch.
Stay public, no problem (Score:3, Interesting)
As long as the cameras aren't positioned in a way that they can spy on people in their homes or other private places, it's no big deal. When they put a camera on the lightpole outside my bedroom window, I'll complain. But until then I'd say they do more good than harm.
Re:Stay public, no problem (Score:1)
Huh? (Score:2)
With the monitoring of movements, phone calls, purchases, you can determine what your beliefs are (to a great extent) and then if they feel your beliefs should be adjusted, you can be put into an internment camp, or declared a comunist.
Re:Stay public, no problem (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't see the difference between a cop on every streetcorner and a camera on every streetcorner (except that the camera can't shoot anyone...not yet anyway).
A cop on a streetcorner can't record and store indefinitely everything he sees.
As long as the cameras aren't positioned in a way that they can spy on people in their homes or other private places, it's no big deal. When they put a camera on the lightpole outside my bedroom window, I'll complain. But until then I'd say they do more good than harm.
I do have a camera on a lightpole outside my windows. I can't tell if it can see inside and I'm not real happy about it.
Surveillance Morality (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone (a private citizen, a corporation, or a government agency) should be allowed to surveil public places. If I want to wear a bodycam walking all over the public parts of town, it's my business. Same goes for security cams watching streets/sidewalks near a business, and the same goes for government run cams. After all, you have no expectation of privacy in public anyways.
Publication/Sale/Transferrance of camera footage shot by these cameras should be forbidden without the permission of everyone in every frame. If you can't track them all down, and get their consent, you can't publish it raw. You can get away with it by blurring out any unknowns or non-consenters with a good blurring algorithm (I highly suspect some current forms of blurring seen on police tv programs can be undone by averaging the errors over time, but it's just a suspicion). I think this should include celebrities, contrary to current legal opinion.
Of course, in the case of the government, we really can't them from doing what they want with the images. Luckily on a broad scale they probably couldn't track us all, simply too much data. However, they could easily actively track for a "top 100 list" of people that they want to find and/or track. What I'd like to see is that any active wide-area face/person tracking (e.g. watching for a list of specific terrorists' faces on all cams in Manhattan for period of time) should require some sort of warrant or court order that relies on some evidence or at least reasonable suspicion - and no, "Ashcroft says so" doesn't meet that requirement for me.
Re:Surveillance Morality (Score:2)
Luckily on a broad scale they probably couldn't track us all, simply too much data.
Ah, yes. Freedom through obscurity. We're not as lucky as you think, however. Technology currently exists not only to automatically do facial recognition via camera, but to do probability analysis on your mannerisms and notify police that you look suspicious.
Your Rights _ONLINE_ ?? (Score:1)
Re:Your Rights _ONLINE_ ?? (Score:2)
What if the cameras are here [slashdot.org]? If they're there IRL, they've got to be online, too.
Eye of God / Voice of God (Score:4, Interesting)
But I was pondering this kind of stuff just a few days ago when I learned that all 48 stores that are owned by my employers company will have their cameras linked together by the internet. So supposedly the owner could punch in a number, and see whatever is happening in that store at a time.
What concerned me was how centralized this system seemed. It was one thing when each store kept their own security tapes which were rotated every few days, which was largely controlled by our local manager. It was another when people I don't even know can spy in on me anytime they want.
So I really don't know what to think of this. It almost seems like something they have every right to do. But who is preventing them from outsourcing the monitoring job to another company? Next thing you know, all workers in the State are being monitiored by the same people.
Just as long as they don't install a speaker system as well.
I can imagine suddenly hearing what sounds like the Voice of God bellowing "You are sitting on the counter." I look around. "Get off the counter and get back to work."
Re:M$ Office spending? (Score:1)
Based on the numbers being pushed by the SPA, about four hundred dollars is actually spent buying the one legit copy of Office each year, the other 314,572,768 machinces on the planet are running pirated warez.
1-800-388-PIR8 - don't copy that floppy.
Marge's Quote (Score:1)
Marge: You know, the courts might not work any more, but as long as
everybody is videotaping everyone else, justice will be done.
Re:Marge's Quote (Score:1)
This is the pithiest way to say this I have seen! What a great quote!
David Brin has a book out, _The Transparent Society_, that is an in-depth discussion of the issues of privacy and surveillance in modern society. The book expands on Marge's point and speaks to all the issues so far brought up in this discussion, and quite a few you haven't thought of yet.
Among other things, some salient points I gleaned from the book are:
The cameras are coming, there's no stopping them. They will be in the hands of the Government (at every level), but also in the hands of private citizens. They are getting smaller (therefore easier to hide) and more capable all the time.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, as Marge notes in the quote. This can have the effect of protecting us from each other, as well as from police abuses. Think of Rodney King. Think of the young black teen who was slammed into a car hood by police, and was captured on camera. Think of the young girl who was assaulted (on camera) by police during a protest on the Golden Gate Bridge, and who turned out to be 12 years old. Enough of these incidents being publicized will of necessity force authorities to moderate their behavior.
Surveillance by the Gov't (in any form) is not that terrible if citizens have the right of oversight into what is captured on these cameras. Fortunately, we do have that right through court orders and subpoenas.
It's a really good and thoughtful book, and I recommend you all check it out.
Re:Marge's Quote (Score:1)
That's where Brin's idea breaks down. It doesn't force any such moderation of behavior. If it did, we wouldn't have hand any of the other incidents you mention, post-Rodney King.
So long as the majority is all-too-willing to see the rights of the minority trampled, a "transparent society" is no protection to the minority.
interesting the delay in this... (Score:1)
NYC Surveillance Camera Project (Score:1)
here [mediaeater.com].
I seem to remember a project to find the path through the city with the least cameras... Wasn't that NYC? I'm pretty sure it was at slashdot, but I can't find it.
Camera's run by civilians is a good thing. (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a reprint of this [slashdot.org] post I made, with an update.
A few months back I was having a lan party in my garage. Pretty hot, so the door was closed to about a foot. Halfway through playing the neighbors 16 yro ritilin hyped Add kid (aunt later told me this) kid crawled under the 1 foot gap in the garage.
:P) So I never miss a chance to infuence people into computers. Kid said he played CS so I invited him to play on a station not being used.
I consider myself a computer philanthopist (yeah right, i'm unemployed
Well about 10 rounds later kid turns to me and asks, "Know where to get any dope?" I ask him his age, find out he's 16 and intruct him never to speak of that again in my house in order to maintain neighborhood harmony. After a few more minutes he takes off till about 8.
Now anyone that has ever been to a private lan party knows that after many straight hours of interactive gaming a break of non-interactivity is required. So we were sitting around watching funny pr0n when I looked over and the kid was back! He didn't announce himself or anything, he was just sitting there all quiet (creepy like)
Well, earlier that day I had fried the bios on a friends computer. So I payed him no mind and went back to searching the web for a fix when his mother and aunt came over. They both seemed pretty drunk and started flirting with my friends. I mean heavy flirting, like one of my buddies has japanese kanji characters tattood on his arm, and she was tracing the outline while running her fingers through his hair. These bitches were straight FREAKY DEEKS! No BS here, these middle age broads were down for some young cock!
Well, i'm still staring at my screen trying to not pay attention to whats going on when the kids mom started rubbing up on me. I got pissed (any true get gets pissed when someone breaks their concentration) so I thought I would make a smart ass remark to her..
"HEY TELL YOUR KID TO QUIT HITTIN MY FRIENDS UP FOR DOPE!!"
Everyone started laughing, she went up to her son, said his name in a whiny tone of voice NooooLAAAN and sorta hugged him. He sheepishly grinned and I thought that was that. I had told the kid no askin, and I had let the parent know what happened. I thought I had done my duty as a neighbor and went back to fixing that bios.
She went home, about 5 minutes later the kids stepdad comes out. NOLAN TOQER! COME HERE I WANNA TALK TO YOU! I told the guys to wait there, wasn't a big deal and i'd be back in a minute.
Well, I followed the guy out front, he got 6 inches in my face and started holding a fist, threatening to call the cops on me for delinquency to a minor, and was just being drunk and nasty (I could hella smell it on his breath)
"Hey if you want to come over here to get a point across thats cool, but getting 6 inches in my face isn't, now if you would just take a step back and a breath, maybe we can talk about this rationally" I took a step back while sayin that just in case, he started lurching forward so I started yelling "GET THE FUCK OFF MY PROPERTY!! GET THE FUCK OFF MY PROPERTY!!"
Well, by that time the clan had stood up, and his wife was over there pulling him back across the street apogizing the whole time.
Before people start dissin me, let me explain some known things about this cat.
1. He only bought his house 3 months ago
2. He's pissed every neighbor off by leaving his dog out front all day while he's at work so it wont shit in his backyard (guess where it goes?)
3. He's gotten into fights with 4 neighbors
4. nobody, and I mean nobody in the neighborhood likes this cat.
5. Oh and just today the mailman had to mace his dog, and told me he wont deliver mail to the neighborhood if his dog keeps getting left out.
6. If this guy is worried about his stepson being around dope, he shouldn't go asking his neighbors himself where he can get it.
Well, i'm really not that much of a fighter. I'm 29, pack a day smoker since I was like 10, and I really REALLY am a pencil neck geek. So yeah, basically i'm scared because this house I bought and planned on living in for the next 30 years has some drunken fat surly construction worker living across the street wanting to kick my ass. What to do???
Well, MY GEEK POWERS COMBINED! I set up a video capture card and camera combo. I mounted the camera in an electrical box, and put tinted plexiglass over the front. It now points at my frontyard waiting to catch his dog shitting on my yard, or my neighbors yard. The camera goes into a MS WMS on a win2k server (If someone can point me to something open source i'll use it)
The trusted neighbors all know about the camera and connect to it over our cat5 fence network to watch it. Currently I can store 24 hours of low quality video on the crud equipment I have.
*UPDATE*
Since we've installed the system, we've shown the cops video of this guy letting his dog loose to relieve himself in our yards. As a result his dog is either contained or on leash. Let's hear it for geek inginuity!