Hackers Rebel Against Spy Cams 390
Wired is running an article looking at the little ways in which Austrian technology users are striking back against surveillance. From the article: "Members of the organization worked out a way to intercept the camera images with an inexpensive, 1-GHz satellite receiver. The signal could then be descrambled using hardware designed to enhance copy-protected video as it's transferred from DVD to VHS tape. The Quintessenz activists then began figuring out how to blind the cameras with balloons, lasers and infrared devices. And, just for fun, the group created an anonymous surveillance system that uses face-recognition software to place a black stripe over the eyes of people whose images are recorded."
Good going. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Well, At Least... (Score:5, Insightful)
It was the security system that the Austrian people probably spent a few hundred thousand tax dollar-equivalents on.
Re:Well, At Least... (Score:4, Insightful)
The cameras they are protesting is police surveillance cameras, hidden in a public place to monitor the activities of "suspects". They are locating the general area with signal monitors, then tapping into the picture to get an exact fix. So it is significant.
Now comes the moral question. These cameras seem to be the legal equivalent of a "police stakeout" without the suspicious looking van. Disseminating information on how to locate them is roughly equivalent to spray painting "surveillance van" on all the police vehicles, putting black bars on the faces is perhaps more equivalent to standing infront of the van to block their view. Which brings up the moral questions, and doesn't seem to be useful in accomplishing the hackers claimed goals:
A simple media campaign would be far more effective.
Black stripe (Score:4, Interesting)
How effective is it in preventing recognition?
Or is the reason less obvious than that?
Re:Black stripe (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Black stripe (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Black stripe (Score:5, Funny)
Surely you mean a blue, cap-wearing smiley with text rotating around it? [randomdialogue.net]
Re:Black stripe (Score:2)
Bravo.
Re:Black stripe (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Black stripe (Score:3, Funny)
We got caught when security found one guy opening the door with his coffee mug too many times. He had glued the stuff to the buttom of the cup and just carried it around all day like the manager on office space.
Re:Black stripe (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Black stripe (Score:2, Funny)
That's why no one recognizes Superman as Clark Kent. He takes his glasses off!
Veils (Score:5, Funny)
Then only those who wear veils will be criminals.
Then only those who wear veils will be criminals. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
modesty (Score:2)
Re:modesty (Score:4, Funny)
What the bloody hell was I thinking?
Re:Veils (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Veils (Score:4, Funny)
Excellent! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Excellent! (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank you for your cooperation.
NSA
Re:Excellent! (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know why people think politicians are such great guys. All they do is tell you what you want to hear; they don't understand you. Most of them are tremendously wealthy people, multi-multi-millionaires, who don't have a clue about what it's like to earn a real living or live a life outside of country clubs and fund raisers. How many people like that do you come into contact with on a daily basis? They are supposed to be civil servants, put in place to do the business of the country, pushing paper around, shaking hands, protecting the citizenry. Nothing special. We are supposed to define this country, not them. Instead we've made them demigods, leaders of our culture, and turned this country into not only a business, but a moneymaking machine. Stupid.
And now people like this dope want to give them absolute power. Even more stupid.
Um...where, exactly? (Score:5, Insightful)
BERLIN -- When the Austrian government passed a law this year allowing police to install closed-circuit surveillance cameras in public spaces without a court order, the Austrian civil liberties group Quintessenz vowed to watch the watchers.
Okay, so how is this about "Berlin technology users"? Or am I missing something?
Re:Um...where, exactly? (Score:2)
Yep, you are missing something. The editor who poasted the story is Zonk. Enough said.
F.Y.I.
You can block editors from showing up on your homepage by de-selecting them in your preferences.
Re:Um...where, exactly? (Score:2)
Better?
Re:Um...where, exactly? (Score:2)
Laughing Man (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laughing_Man_(an
RTFA? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:RTFA? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:RTFA? (Score:3, Funny)
Besides, Germans and Austrians are all the same anyway, right? I mean, both of those countries are outside the United States, and thus populated by 'foreigners'.
Austrian speakers at CCC Conference in Berlin (Score:3, Informative)
Turn the tables (Score:5, Funny)
Put those up on the web and away you go. Might actually get something changed then.
Re:Turn the tables (Score:4, Interesting)
Semi related story - after 911, I had to go to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (patent appeals court) to get a brochure of pictures of the judges for a partner at a big law firm. They made me get a signed letter of request on firm letterhead before giving it to me - for security reasons. Silly - they're public servants after all, we have a right to know who we're paying.
Living in a surveillance society (Score:5, Informative)
I think surveillance, even when used with the best of intentions, will interfere with people's lives. The authorities will investigate anyone that does anything different. Yet doing things different is what life is all about. When used with less noble intentions, surveillance could lead to a much more troubling society as the East Berlin residents. described in the article may well remember.
Re:Living in a surveillance society (Score:2)
Re:Living in a surveillance society (Score:3, Interesting)
I hadn't used it in a while and had forgotten about it until now but now google responds to the query [google.com] with this:
We're sorry...
We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, you m
Re:Living in a surveillance society (Score:2)
Somehow I wonder if there's a different reason why this particular query is "forbidden..."
Reference: RFC 2616 Section 10 [w3.org]
Re:Living in a surveillance society (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a Good Thing (tm)...
Re:Living in a surveillance society (Score:5, Interesting)
i tried the url in the original post, and it gave an error, as discussed... i then cleaned up the url, resulting in this google query [google.com], which is working just fine for me.
hth? ;o)
Re:Living in a surveillance society (Score:2, Interesting)
You'll enjoy being able to be who you are in a society where there isn't widespread survalence, but if you were attacked you might say to yourself, "Where were the cops when I needed them?"
The survalence will give you the confidence to go into places you would ordinarily be too scared of going. Now, you may be as tough as old boots, a ninja, Batman, or whatever, but not everybody is. Remember to be compass
Who decides? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who decides? (Score:3, Insightful)
(You've got some interesting points, but if you want to be taken seriously, take your words seriously, okay?)
Re:Who decides? (Score:3, Insightful)
Vigilantes aren't dangerous in this case (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who decides? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who decides? (Score:2)
That means change. Because the authors did nto have any way under the current government to make any changes ( they were denied representation in parliment) they felt their actions were acceptable.
Now, after they created a form of governemnt that allows us to make those changes in a peaceful way, there should be no need to perform such actions.
Re:Who decides? (Score:3, Interesting)
That's true, if the government doesn't change in such a way as to preclude that. For example, using gerrymandering, huge campaign funds, and excessive election rules to effectively give most incumbents lifetime positions of office, and forming powerful political parties (with powerful corporate allies) to create a ruling class that's capable of ignoring and
Re:Who decides? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the rest of your comment, I assume you're talking of the US system.
I can assure you that for anyone not born, raised and indoctrinated in the USA your system seems neither particularily democratic, nor fair in the sligthest. Infact it's pretty close to the least fair imaginable system that can still claim to be "democratic"
I'll give a few examples. There's literally dozens, but Slashdot ain't the rigth venue for a deeper discussion.
One: If the citizens of say Florida vote (invented numbers) 40% Democrat, 35% Republican, 15% Green, 10% Others, how is it "fair" that the people of Florida then send 27 members of the Electoral College from the Democratic party ? Fair would be to divide the members as the votes are divided. Giving someone with 40% of the votes 100% of the influence is not my idea of "fair".
Two: If you live in the state above, and are aware of the aproximate likely distribution, how can you vote anything except Democrat/Republican and not have your vote wasted ? The real question, for many of the voters is not "Which party do you prefer?" but instead: "Which of the two large ones do you dislike the least?"
Third: If you live in a state where it's very very obvious that say the Republicans will win, then you are indeed free to vote for whomever you prefer, since your vote doesn't matter anyway!
Basically *all* election-systems are more "fair" than the ones you use. Furthermore, your current system favours the two parties currently in power. And the only ones who can (peacefully) change your system are those two parties.
Thus you've got the fox guarding the henhouse: The only two parties with a fair chance of changing the election-system are the only two parties with no interest whatsoever in doing so, since it'd lead to less influence for themselves.
Re:Who decides? (Score:3, Interesting)
What if we don't?
Re:Who decides? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just 2 things:
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
(Who watches the watchers ?) [farid-hajji.net]
and ...
... so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those
who wish to tyrranize(sic) will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent,
a
Re:Who decides? (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's as it should be. That's still not a valid reason to rob us of our civil rights, be them rights enshrined in the Constitution or rights that were not articulated in the Constitution because at the time of the founding of the U.S. there was no concievable threat to them (i.e. the right to not be tracked without a warrant, etc.).
The world's a dangerous place. I am sure if nothing had been done post-911 and there had been a few more attacks, the chance of falling prey to a terrorist act would still be far lower than that of being in a car accident.
I'm not saying we should do nothing, but I think that alot of what we are doing has more detriments for us than benefits - their saying it is being done in our benefit doesn't placate me.
But I also know that the government does this every time there is a crisis of some kind - goes way back to the Sedition Act of 1798 - so I hold out some hope for us.
Re:Who decides? (Score:3, Interesting)
Assuming you were serious:
Even taking only the single sentence you quoted, bereft of context, the grandparent still doesn't take the position you ascribe. Far from claiming that "there is no terrorist threat" the GP specifically acknowledges that a "chance of falling prey to a terrorist act" would still
How to block face rec (Score:4, Insightful)
Want to know why intersection cameras are everywhere?
If you are going to track someone you need to aquire them first, probably near where they live, then it's easy to follow them from there because they can only go a few ways from there.
Now you know why the cameras are in places where there's hardly any traffic, like near homes way out in the boonies.
The way to get these taken out is to track or let the politicians know that they can be tracked this way, they hate it when we the people can track their bad habits even though they love being able to track ours.
Re:How to block face rec (Score:2)
God, I'm getting misanthropic and cynical. SOmebody kill me...
Re:How to block face rec (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe because that's where people run red lights?
Use the Aliens method. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Use the Aliens method. (Score:3, Insightful)
Austrians, not Germans (Score:2)
War on terror anyone (Score:3, Informative)
Even the Dutch, once known as hacker-friendly, politically progressive Europeans, are now fearful and demanding more cameras on their streets.
Whilst recording and monitoring activities in parts deemed dangerous, not easy to patrol, prone to mugging/thefts/incidents may be worthwhile, recording public spaces is similar to littering the motorway with speed cameras...
Huge difference with speed cameras (Score:2, Insightful)
You can easily avoid being recorded by a speed camera. Don't speed. I know, it is a difficult trick to figure out.
Whenever you try a serious conversation about surveillance cameras an idiot like you bring up speed cameras and instantly show that only criminals are afraid of cameras. Nice way to cloud the issue.
Re:Huge difference with speed cameras (Score:2)
Actually I'd say it's a pretty good example. There are few things more arbitrarily illegal than "speeding" and ineffective as speed cameras.
Re:Huge difference with speed cameras (Score:2)
What's not? Some bonehead decides that 45 mph is the max speed for a straight stretch of road 10 miles long through empty land between 2 highways.
Where'd that number come from?
Re:Huge difference with speed cameras (Score:3, Insightful)
Some random person walks out onto a road, licks his finger and sticks it in the air then says "the speed limit for this bit of road is X km/h. That's how arbitrary choosing speed limits typically is.
Now, there *are* scientific methods of choosing speed limits, but they're typically only applied so the posted limit is set a bit lower, so as to maximise revenue intake.
This is before we even get to the simple fact that driving X+Y km/h is not inherently dangerous
Re:War on terror anyone (Score:2)
Hackers? Don't you mean "Bombers"?
shutting the barn doorHow about following the evidence and identifying suspects?
Re:War on terror anyone (Score:2)
it's not really similar at all. The road cameras are usually for safety rather than surveillance. And you need to be licensed and follow strict laws if you want the privilege to drive. Walking down the street only requires legs, and doesn't put you in control of a lethal chunk of metal. The cameras on the roads have been used to enforce safety rules (unlike the ones on the street), and I haven't heard anything about them bein
But its not shutting the barn door ..... (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sure you meant bombers, not hackers, but anyway. So you think its shutting the barn door after the event. That certainly was not the case for the second set of (failed) bombing attempts a few weeks late
Coming soon to your country: (Score:3)
People....this can be a good thing..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead of fighting a lossing battle to stop this technology we need to ensure that it will be available to everyone and that the information will be open to the public. Put cameras on the streets, in the police stations and in government buildings. I don't mind being watched as long as I can watch everyone else. Living in a fishbowl can be a wonderful thing. Imagine a world where everyone is equipped with their own personal cameras and recording devices... with so many eyes spreading their light everywhere the world might become a more peaceful and civilized place.
Re:People....this can be a good thing..... (Score:2)
"The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor" - or I suppose we all do now with reality TV.
And the images will be extraordinarily rendered! Law enforcement needs to be put firmly under the control of the state and information retrieval needs to be covered by the rule of law - but there are still those that will blow minor events out of
Obligitory Anime Reference (Score:2, Funny)
I want my blue and white laughing man logo with "I thought what I'd do was pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes" spinning around.
Platonic Chain is here! (Score:2)
It sounds a lot closer to "Platonic Chain" - a near future series where teenage hackers (not crackers really, someone else cracked the system) are using various hacks to get varied information from security cameras that are open to the net.
One weird hack was to identify someone nearby, find out their phone ringtone then download it. The character would then walk next to the person then ring their own phone so she would have a conversation
Nothing hacks a camera (Score:5, Interesting)
Cheap. Effective. If the people really decide they've had enough of surveilence that's what will happen in urban areas too. It's why you don't see cameras in rural France or Spain, people just pop them and no society can afford to keep replacing a thousand dollar camera when a one dollar bullet will fix the problem.
Re:Nothing hacks a camera (Score:4, Interesting)
I am fascinated by the British phenomenon of Gatsos [wikipedia.org] which are well hidden cameras that take pictures of speeding cars.
These are of course justified by officials as needed for public safety, but are in reality revenue generation devices. There is a modern-day Robin Hood character in Britain named Captain Gatso who along with his merry-men have destroyed [p]hundreds of Gatsos.
This page [speedcam.co.uk] displays some of their handiwork.
Two points. . . (Score:4, Interesting)
2. On the Light side. . , taxation is THE common denominator; it is the common woe and injustice felt across all racial and political/idealogical boundaries. Even Pro-Life and Abortionists both hate paying taxes to a corrupt government. This is one major spot where the mighty will begin to topple. --The growth of healthy community is where the elite begin to lose control.
Without interference, people can quite easily build and maintain healthy community. I've witnessed it. Politics and divisive issues, media and the highly manipulative/manipulated economic forces are primarily designed and maintained to keep people disconnected. --To keep them in tightly controlled boxes so that they don't do exactly what the elite fear; come together to communicate rather than yell at each other, to solve problems and grow in body, mind and spirit. This kind of growth leads to real freedom, and real freedom leads to the elite loses their slave nation and status as the 'popular kids'. (Hm. It occurs to me that the elite really are like the popular kids in high school; they like the artificial environment where they 'rule', and they want to maintain it. It has always amused me how most popular kids are really upset when they graduate to discover their artificial power status dropped to zero and having to work on themselves in real ways like everybody else. --Usually several steps behind the curve because of the wasted years riding egotism bourn on their parent's money rather than working to actually improve themselves and learn skills beyond fashion sense and one-upmanship through gossip.)
Anyway. . . taxes are the one area where the elite will simply not be able to let up, and it is the one area which hurts unilaterally across the board, and where people from all the different boxes can truly come together to form real community.
Re-read the story about the British group destroying surveillance cameras [guardian.co.uk]. Their motives are not privacy related. They are destroying traffic cameras because they believe them to be an unfair form of taxation.
"The more you tighten your grip, they more systems slip through your fingers. .
-FL
sousveillance & shootback (Score:3, Interesting)
Steve Mann [wearcam.org] [1] has a lot of intelligent things to say on surveillance [idtrail.org] [2], sousveillance [sousveillance.org] [3] and the intersection of technology & privacy. The earliest I can find is in a 1995 paper [wearcam.org] [4]. In an article predating the Austrians, Mann advocates shooting back [wearcam.org] (with your own camera) [5].
More links can be found here [del.icio.us]. [6]
Reference
[0] Steve Mann, 'definition from Sousveillance as an alternative balance':
http://wearcam.org/sousveillance.htm [wearcam.org]
[Accessed Tuesday, 3 January 2006]
[1] Steve Mann, 'Cyberman':
http://wearcam.org/steve.html [wearcam.org]
[Accessed Tuesday, 3 January 2006]
[2] Steve Mann, 'Identity Trail - Stream 3 - technologies that identify, anonymize and authenticate':
http://idtrail.org/content/view/47/43/ [idtrail.org]
[Accessed Tuesday, 3 January 2006]
[3] Steve Mann, 'Sousveillance: A Gathering of the Tribes':
http://sousveillance.org/tribesissue/ [sousveillance.org]
[Accessed Tuesday, 3 January 2006]
[4] Steve Mann, 'PRIVACY ISSUES OF WEARABLE CAMERAS VERSUS SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS, Feb. 24, 1995':
http://wearcam.org/netcam_privacy_issues.html [wearcam.org]
[Accessed Tuesday, 3 January 2006]
[5] Steve Mann, 'Shooting back article & pictures':
http://wearcam.org/shootingback.html [wearcam.org]
[Accessed Tuesday, 3 January 2006]
[6] Delicious 'my delicious links on steve.mann':
http://del.icio.us/goon/steve.mann [del.icio.us]
[Accessed Tuesday, 3 January 2006]
Try renewing your U.S. driver's liscense (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally I just wanted to update my liscense so I can rent a car when I come back home (I live overseas most of the year) and get a local driver's liscense to rent a car here. It is not impossible but obviously the country takes it much more seriously to be able to track people's movements than actually entering the country per se. As far as I can see every U.S. driver now has to supply these various documents each time he or she wishes to renew a driver's liscense.
It was not so clear to me how well this in fact would catch a terrorist especially one who was planning a suicide attack, and only hope it is just one of the more visible ways they are trying to make the country safe and not in fact the key to the whole strategy.
Re:Ha! I'd dare them to pull that crap here! (Score:2, Informative)
If you had read it, you'd learn that the cameras are not in Britain. Even the article submitter failed to use basic reading comprehension, since the article is about a conference hosted by the Chaos Computing Club in Berlin, where they describe the actions taken by a Austrian civil liberties group against recent legislation that enable police to install cameras in public
Re:Ha! I'd dare them to pull that crap here! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ha! I'd dare them to pull that crap here! (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, it's either reading comprehension, or lack of geography knowledge.
Re:Ha! I'd dare them to pull that crap here! (Score:2, Insightful)
"... the article is about a conference hosted by the Chaos Computing Club in Berlin, where they describe the actions taken by a Austrian civil liberties group against recent legislation that enable police to install cameras in public places."
i.e. Austrian civil liberties group members are in a conference in Berlin, Germany, describing what actions they have taken to fight legislation that they see as infringing their rights in their homeland, Austria.
Lemme guess, you didn't read the article either
Re:Ha! I'd dare them to pull that crap here! (Score:2)
I agreed with you, and said, either the submitter lacked reading comprehension skills or he lacked knowledge in geography, and thought Berlin was part of Austria.
Re:Ha! I'd dare them to pull that crap here! (Score:2, Funny)
and to quote the grandparent: But since the 1972 olympics security failure, and neo-nazi activities,
Notice that "and"? Your parent poster did not say, "which were," he said "and". He was making a (short) list of things that would tend to make Germany a not-so-friendly-to-terrorists type of place. It wasn't a statement about those that did the kidnapping... you freak :-)
Re:Ha! I'd dare them to pull that crap here! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Big Deal (Score:3, Insightful)
EYES are one thing. Cameras that record, and software that analyzes are quite another! This combination allows authorities to do all sorts of things that EYES alone cannot, allowing for a much greater potential that this information can be abused.
I suggest you dial your paranoia up a notch. You seem to have entirely too much faith in the system.
Re:Big Deal-What is public? (Score:2)
That doesn't mean it's either legal or ethical. It's illegal to stalk people, for example. Yes, much of this stuff could be done without digital technology. But it was never considered a good thing back then, either.
Exactly why should humans go around spying on each other?
Re:Big Deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it is a 'big deal'. Just as with all these vehicle tracking plans...it logs everywhere you go, everything you do, everyone you talk to. And by inference or assumption, what you are doing.
Logged on someones server, forever.
5 years from now, J. Random Asshat, whom you just pissed off by beating him out of a promotion, can, for the price of a case or two of beer, ask his idiot cop buddy for your log. Have fun explaining to your (future) wife that, "No dear, I did NOT have sex with that hooker. I was only asking her for directions."
Everywhere you go, everything you do, everyone you talk to. Forever .
Re:Big Deal (Score:5, Informative)
Firstly, the amount of storage space you're talking about for keeping all this stuff forever is huge. Hundreds of thousands of cameras (if not millions), all filming 24/7 - I can't be bothered to do the maths, but if you assume no audio, grey-scale and a crappy resolution (but still high enough to identify "everyone you talk to" and "everything you do") you're talking about hundreds of megabytes per camera per day, if not gigabytes.
Secondly, those cameras are fixed. They're not following you around, you move from camera to camera. In order to produce a file on any one person, you'd have to check through the logs of every single camera they passed and extract the relevant clip(s). To do that for any non-trivial period of time would be a very time-consuming process; image processing software isn't good enough (yet?) to do it automatically. You'd be sat trawling through hours of footage. I wouldn't do it for a "couple of cases of beer".
Finally, I've worked with the (UK) police on a couple of information storage and retrieval type projects (I can't say any more than that - I'm under NDA and besides, it's classified). I can assure you that they take their legal responsibilities extremely seriously, especially when it comes to controlling and monitoring access to the data and application we were working on. Around three-quarters of the development effort revolved around protective monitoring of the application - everything anyone does with it is logged, and those logs are searchable. Misuse of the application is a criminal offence, and will be prosecuted.
Now, that said I'm not saying that you're not right to be concerned about this sort of all-pervasive monitoring of the general population; you should be concerned. I'm also not saying that one day, we won't find ourselves in the situation you describe. I don't think we're very close to it now, though, and certainly not only 5 years away.
Vehicle tracking, on the other hand, is a different matter. The licence plate is a very easily processed (nominally) unique id. Given sufficient resources it would be a relatively simple matter to build up a log of all vehicle movements, at least to the detail of what camera was passed at what time in what direction (and at what speed). That I think we should be worried about now.
Re:Big Deal (Score:3, Informative)
Secondly, it doesn't matter that the cameras are fixed. So long as they're networked and have
Re:Big Deal (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't doubt it. Their commitment to the law is laudable. However, there is precedent [epic.org] to suggest that law enforcement powers expand continually over time but never contract. As the law enumerates more and more things that the police are allowed to do, I'm sure they will follow those laws seriously as well.
What concerns me is:
Indexing (Score:3, Interesting)
Since
Re:Big Deal-Absentee Citizens. (Score:2)
The technology is not good or bad. It can be used for good or bad things. Does anyone on Slashdot think that technology is a universally good thing? Not sure where you get that idea, because bad technology gets regularly dissed on Slashdot.
Re:Big Deal (Score:5, Insightful)
VonSkippy, I'm afraid we have to decline your application for health insurance. We've monitored your travel habits via public cameras and determined that you spend too much time at your local pub. Furthermore, the records from your grocery-rewards cards indicate you purchase foods that are too high in fats and cholestorol.
VonSkippy, I'm afraid we can't offer you a job. From your the records of the license plate tracking system, we see that you spend a significant amount of time at the republican headquarters. Clearly your political activities are not in alignment with those of this corporation.
VonSkippy, I'm afraid we must deny your application for a home mortgage. From tracking your cellphone travel, we see that you are often speed to work because you are late and are likely to lose your job or die in a traffic accident. We cannot assume that risk.
Get the idea? All public information - all things that the casual observer could see. Do you really want it aggregated so it can be used against you?
Re:Big Deal (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Big Deal (Score:2, Interesting)
You may reply that "they will only raise rates, not lower them." This may be true initially. But I presume that in the long run, the average insurance rate will even out (competition, etc. One of its only benefits). So, overall, some people will pay more, and other people will pay less. Importantly, people will pay more fairly - those that take more health risks pay more, th
Re:Big Deal (Score:2)
Hazem, Due to records and video of you buying and installing energy efficient applicances, windows, and other materials, we'd like to offer you a discount on your utilities bill.
Hazem, due to your heroics of saving that girl from being ran over, which was thankfully caught on video, we'd like to offer you the key to city!
Get the idea? All public information - all things that the casual observ
Re:Big Deal (Score:3, Interesting)
My employer's hold over me begins and ends with the time I'm scheduled. What I do on my own time should be no concern of theirs.
Nephilium
Re:Big Deal (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's okay to take pictures of people who run red lights with automatic cameras, then it's okay to keep those cameras on at all time, then it's okay to install new cameras all over, then it's okay to track people and flag them for investigation if they deviate from normal patterns, then it's okay to preemptively arrest them if they display patterns normal to people about to commit a crime... are you ready for the knock on the door at two in the morning, announcing the men who say you need to be detained based on information only they can have access to? You might think this is overly paranoid, nothing like this could actually happen. You might also be a fool.
Something else: this information is obviously insecure. If you're okay with the government knowing all this, are you okay with the local criminal organization(s) knowing all of this? Do you think it's actually possible to perfectly secure any data?
(by the way, whoever modded parent flamebait is a jerk)
Cross index ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, you know every house that has a new, valuable TV that also doesn't have anyone at home right now.
Cross index that with any sales of dog food to account for canine issues
The same with jewelry.
Grand theft auto? Even easier.
Re:Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (Score:3, Funny)
Re:article exposes the zero-sum game (Score:3, Insightful)
Never happen. And if it did, the first lawsuit by the guy whose wife used the cameras to track his indiscretions would shut it down. And if a pedophile ever used one to track a kid back to their house... OMG.