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WorldWeird: Closer and Closer to Big Brother Every Day

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  1.  (6924.1)
    Just saw a blip about this on CNN:

    Georgia Tech is striving to use existing security-and-other cameras with Google Earth-type tech to create a streaming video map of the world that you can use to watch anything that's happening anywhere, anytime. I for one can't believe that the nonsense in that Will Smith movie Enemy of the State is actually coming true.
    • CommentAuthorOddcult
    • CommentTimeOct 1st 2009
     (6924.2)
    Yeah, but you've still got to make people care.

    Everyone seems to think that these days the UK is some kind of hideously over-watched big brother state, but no one's actually watching the cameras, so they get ignored. They're a replacement for the police, not a tool of the police.
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      CommentAuthorrickiep00h
    • CommentTimeOct 1st 2009
     (6924.3)
    If you're outside, you're fair game. If you never want to be tracked, stay inside your home at all times, keep the curtains drawn, and don't interact with anyone. Because the second you do, somebody knows you did something. Surprise! Your actions are no longer known only to you!
  4.  (6924.4)
    Eh. I'm not a conspiracy nut, I just thought it's interesting that someone was actually trying to do it, and (probably) make it available to every rickiep00h in the world.
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      CommentAuthorgroundxero
    • CommentTimeOct 1st 2009
     (6924.5)
    @Oddcult

    Everyone seems to think that these days the UK is some kind of hideously over-watched big brother state, but no one's actually watching the cameras, so they get ignored. They're a replacement for the police, not a tool of the police.


    One crime solved for every 1,000 CCTV cameras, senior officer claims

    The article above corroborates what you've said, although I think the CCTV cameras take on more importance when you consider this study:

    Poster Of Eyes Makes People More Honest

    Basically, regardless of if you are actually being watched or not, people tend to alter their habits if they perceive they are being watched. This goes back to Orwell's 1984:

    The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it. There was... no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork.... You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."

    - George Orwell, 1984
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      CommentAuthorrickiep00h
    • CommentTimeOct 1st 2009
     (6924.6)
    Eh. I'm not a conspiracy nut, I just thought it's interesting that someone was actually trying to do it, and (probably) make it available to every rickiep00h in the world.
    The thing is that people get all up in arms about being tracked when they're in public. As soon as one person sees you outside, someone knows you're there, so there's no reason to try to keep it some kind of secret. That's all I'm saying. Any random Joe already COULD track every move you make when you're outside, if they wanted to. And they could tell anybody they wanted to.
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      CommentAuthorgroundxero
    • CommentTimeOct 1st 2009
     (6924.7)
    @rickiep00h

    Any random Joe already COULD track every move you make when you're outside, if they wanted to.


    They could but there are laws against it. Most people consider that stalking.
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      CommentAuthorrickiep00h
    • CommentTimeOct 1st 2009
     (6924.8)
    Well yes, but since we're crazy hypothetical land, I'm just saying that it's possible now. Technology just makes it easier.
    • CommentAuthorOddcult
    • CommentTimeOct 1st 2009
     (6924.9)
    @groundxero - that's the thing though. Most people are now assuming they're not being watched by cameras and that even if they were, the response time would be plenty enough to get away, and a simple hood or scarf is enough to negate any way that the cameras can be used to identify you.
    • CommentAuthorPooka
    • CommentTimeOct 2nd 2009
     (6924.10)
    this world is getting more and more stressful by the day...
  11.  (6924.11)
    @Pooka: True, but I think what rickiep00h and Oddcult might be getting at is that it's essentially just another gradual change in technology - people may not like the idea of it now, but they'll adjust, just like we adjusted to the idea of communications taking seconds instead of months, etc. Of course there is something to how all this new tech affects our lives, ADD and stress and so on as well.
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      CommentAuthorgroundxero
    • CommentTimeOct 2nd 2009 edited
     (6924.12)
    @Oddcult

    Alright then. How about when the cameras don't need someone to monitor it? What if the camera is smart enough to pick up on certain behavioural characteristics and in turn alert the police before an actual offense has occured?


    Artificially Intelligent CCTV could prevent crimes before they happen

    A new generation of Minority Report-style security cameras that can detect criminals before they strike could be in operation across Britain within five years, scientists claim.

    By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
    Published: 2:22PM BST 23 Sep 2009

    The CCTV technology identifies suspicious individuals and behaviour and then acts to stamp out crimes before they happen.

    When a crime looks like it is going to occur, the system will verbally warn the perpetrator and then if necessary alert the nearest police officer.

    ISIS, short for Integrated Sensor Information System, is being developed by a team at Queen’s University Belfast at its Centre for Secure Information Technologies.

    It is designed to work with the extensive network of CCTV cameras already installed on buses and trains as well as in stations, airports and on the street


    LINK TO ARTICLE
    • CommentAuthorRenThing
    • CommentTimeOct 2nd 2009
     (6924.13)
    My predictions about this system? The number of tourists getting arrested for taking pictures of buildings to skyrocket.
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      CommentAuthorrickiep00h
    • CommentTimeOct 2nd 2009
     (6924.14)
    Yup. Also, the system in Illinois (Chicago, specifically) has issues simply reading license plates. This is in a supposed state-of-the-art system with human oversight, so I'm guessing AI monitoring is probably a ways off still. Even a badly-functioning version.

    Further predictions: Goth/emo kids, people jamming out to techno on their headphones, and claustrophobic people get warned/arrested for being themselves. (That would be the dark, hooded clothing, the people making sudden movements, and the people moving from seat to seat, as per the article.)
  15.  (6924.15)
    About two months ago, after a rainstorm, I went walking into the center of town to buy myself some gummy bears. I brought my camera, and while walking, I took pictures, as I'm prone to do. I walked through a mostly empty parking lot of a mostly under construction shopping area, taking pictures.

    for this they called the cops


    In less than five minutes, a police officer approached me as I gazed at the candy aisle inside the drug store, and asked if I'd been taking pictures. "yes i was" I told him, my massive camera dangling around my neck. And then he got awkward. "oh, well, somebody called and said someone was taking pictures." But there was nothing to say from there. I showed him that I'd been taking pictures of the clouds and whatnot, and he practically apologised to me for the bother.

    What really irritated me about this is that I was in a PUBLIC PLACE where photographing is entirely allowed, and some paranoid suburbanite thought to report me, meanwhile every commercial building in the area has cameras both inside and outside, recording their every move.

    People aren't interested in cameras until they are reminded that a human might be behind the lens.
  16.  (6924.16)
    @Rachael: no offense, but the police office ACTUALLY SAYING THE WORDS "somebody called and said someone was taking pictures" made me snarf. How could that possibly be construed as a bad thing?! Sorry it happened to you.

    It also reminds me of my time visiting my brother in LA, where the sheer fact that I even had a camera on my shoulder meant people were stopping me in every store and even on the street to tell me no pictures were allowed. LA is the craziest about images without payment up front.
  17.  (6924.17)
    Terrorists like to take pictures of things so they can make plans to blow up those things, therefore taking pictures of things makes you a terrorist suspect.
    •  
      CommentAuthorAdam
    • CommentTimeOct 3rd 2009
     (6924.18)
    Terrorists like to take pictures of things so they can make plans to blow up those things

    You mean, all those photos mom took of us on our family vacation 5 years ago... OH NOES! I'M IN TERRIBLE DANGER!!
  19.  (6924.19)
    Right, so when, for example, Chicago, IL hosts a "take pictures of our trains" contest, and then the CTA security tries to arrest all photographers on the trains because of a security threat, you can see how it all makes sense.

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