Thinking About the SnitchCam 383
Saint Aardvark writes "From Dan's Data comes a fascinating look at the consequences of tiny, wireless video cameras: "Right now, it's hard to prove that (for instance) riot police really beat the crap out of innocent people at a demonstration....Live streaming video from multiple cameras operated by lots of people at the same time, though, will be a different matter. Even without cryptographic jiggery-pokery, it'll be practically impossible to get away with even minor editing-room spin doctoring, if thousands of people around the world have the original footage on their hard drives." "
Vote! (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously though, this does raise an important point, however, the real issue is not "is there evidence available", rather it is: "can we get access to the evidence?". There are lots of instances where the facts exist, it is just obtaining access and recent efforts as part of and independent of the revised Patriot Act will make it even harder for the general public to 1) have access to evidentiary information 2) remain anonymous when contributing evidentiary information and 3) avoid prosecution for retaining evidentiary information that might be "determined" sensitive.
Remember to VOTE!
Re:Vote! (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, last I checked the PATRIOT act is fairly limited in the other two regards you mentioned, especially for information stored or disseminated outside of US territorial borders.
Re:Vote! (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you missed all the news stories about servers being confiscated? Even those in countries other than the U.S.?
Also, last I checked the PATRIOT act is fairly limited in the other two regards you mentioned, especially for information stored or disseminated outside of US territorial borders.
Read it again......and weep. Then vote!
Re:Vote! (Score:4, Insightful)
Conspiratorial overtones aside... I mean, really, I gotta see this mythical Ashcroft League of Priapatetic Darkness (or whatever it may be called by the moveon.org crowd these days) bust into a server room in West Armpit, China and run off with the results of some guy's DV recordings before the public sees it...
Hint: It is literally impossible to stop information once it gets online and out to the public proper.
The German government tried the censorship route in 1996 over a shitty little online rag called Radikal, and they couldn't stop Germans from seeing it (or even slow 'em down by much), even back when the 'net was damned tiny compared to what it is today.
The Chinese, which do have a totalitarian government right now, can't even stop their own population from proxying and satelliting their way out beyond official governmental firewalls and seeing whatever they want. This is in spite of a government which does have (and exercises on an alarming basis) the power of life or death, freedom or imprisonment, over their citizenry.
Hell, there's a damned hard fight in keeping the frickin' child porners to a minimum, and there's no nation on Earth that endorses that stuff. What makes you think that the US gov't is any more efficient in stopping information that half the planet's leadership couldn't give a dried dog's turd about.
The PATRIOT Act is limited to US territory and any foreign country which agrees by treaty to help enforce it. The list of signatory nations ain't all that damned long.
So, please, lay off the wolf-crying. Gad.
Re:Vote! (Score:2)
The other problem, of course, is the perception that this new technology might stifle the age-old and traditionally effective policework of the beat cop.
If these snitch-cams became wide-spread, it's highly possible that cops would be less inclined to billy-club the malcontents who deserve a good billy-clubbing. History does not record the fo
Re:Vote! (Score:3, Insightful)
History does not record the forward leaps and bounds civilized society has made, nor the precipices from which it has been pulled, by the judiciously well-placed but otherwise private administration of a veteran law-officer's wooden stick.
For instance, consider the fine officers of Selma, AL [africanaonline.com] and Seattle, WA [seattleweekly.com].
Re:Vote! (Score:5, Insightful)
I seriously wish the seattle police woulda done even more. I cheered them when I read the paper the next day. Even though the article tried to make it out as something bad.
Well they did go apeshit on a bunch of mostly peaceful protesters instead of arresting the violent ones like they did the previous time. I was in Seattle when it was happening. I wonder how many of the violent protestors were planted by the cops - it seems to be increasingly common.
Re:Vote! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not more common at all, there's just been a bit of a gap since they last had to do it. The police (and other agencies) used to regularly plant provocateurs in the demonstrations against the Great Military Adventure in Vietnam 35 years ago.
Re:Vote! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Vote! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Vote! (Score:5, Insightful)
For who? John Kerry voted for the Patriot act, as did every other senator save one. George Bush didn't veto it. This is just another issue where there's no difference between the candidates. The same plan for Iraq. No mention of the War on Drugs. Same gun control policy (Guns for hunters, not for militias). The differences in their health care plans will just shuffle a little money around amongst the richer folks.
John Kerry focuses on outsourcing when that is a miniscule percentage of jobs lost. John Kerry focuses on getting drugs from Canada, without asking why drugs here cost so much. It's all misdirection. George Bush is left as an exercize for the reader.
Power to the People! Transparency is needed most! (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, but the Rightwingers will whine about military secrets being exposed, etc. Kiss my ass! They are just using that for cover. They have been doing it for decades, carrying water for the rich and powerful and the big corporations, supporting dictators overseas in order to keep the 3rd world peasantry from having Leftist governments. Starting wars to feed the profit margins of the military industrial complex and other parasite megacorporations.
Bring on the mini cameras and shove up their asses. I wanna see EVERYTHING!
Re:Vote! (Score:3, Informative)
The cryptographic jiggery-pokery in question would be a camera which digitally signed its output. It could use a key built in on a tamper-proof chip.
It wouldn't be impossible to fool such cameras, for example you could use rear projection on a screen in front of the camera to make up a faked image. But it would be more difficult.
As an example see this academic paper on the "trustworth camera", http://www.tsi.enst.fr/~maitre/tatouage/icip96/1 [tsi.enst.fr]
Re:Or DON'T VOTE! (Score:4, Insightful)
This AC is spot on. Voting just lends legitimacy to an illegitimate system. If we had 100% turn out, that just gives the "winner" the opportunity to say "The people have spoken"
Just government rests on the consent of the governed. It's about time we withdrew that consent. Given that 50% of the population fails to vote in any election, I'd say we already have.
Re:Or DON'T VOTE! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's horseshit. The vast majority of those that don't vote do so because they are too damned lazy to either a.) get their asses to the polls or b.) educate themselves enough on the issues to be able to make an informed decision. Only a small fraction of those who abstain from voting do so based on some ill-conceived moral perogative to not "lend legitimacy to an illegitimate system."
Re:Or DON'T VOTE! (Score:3, Insightful)
What about the fact that a single vote can never change a national election? I vote out of civic duty, and to legitmize all the time I spend watching the news. But I'm under no illusion that my one vote could ever be the tie-breaker in a national election. I don't even believe it's possible to
Re:Or DON'T VOTE! (Score:3, Interesting)
If the boss tells you you have to stay until 6:00, you can't vote.
This happens a LOT.
Generally the people affected are unsalaried and in the service industry or low on the white collar totem. The boss can take 3 hours off to cast his ballot, but the phones still need to be answered, and the floor s
Lamest excuse EVER (Score:5, Insightful)
Register as a permanent absentee voter - you vote on your time, you mail the vote in (or drop it off at the county) and you avoid last-minute crap like people reregistering you in a different precinct.
If voting ain't a personal priority, that's your deal. But if you don't vote, then it's not, "because I had to work late," it's because you're a lazy bastard. Own it.
Re:Or DON'T VOTE! (Score:3, Interesting)
You're begging the question. There are no issues that matter in the election, as I noted in this post Therefore, it's not surprising that people are lazy about elections. Their apathy is a direct result of the impotence of our democracy. I agree that very few people think of it [slashdot.org]
Vote or be damned (Score:5, Insightful)
Not voting means elections are decided by people who are not you. If everyone insightful enough to perceive flaws in the electoral system doesn't vote, you get a government elected by the dumbest, most apathetic, least observant, and most single-minded.
If you don't like the system--and sure, there's plenty not to like--then agitate to change it. There are many sensible ways to do this. Abdicating your right to be heard isn't one of them.
Torn (Score:5, Insightful)
Can someone reason me out of this conundrum? Is there a way to have my cake and eat it too?
-Jesse
Re:Torn (Score:3, Informative)
Personally, I support freedom of information, but I also support the freedom to prevent any information from being created in the first place.
Re:Torn (Score:5, Interesting)
Work out a real time recording/encryption system so only you or the people with your key can watch the recording. Let me know when you are done with it, I want to buy one.
Re:Torn (Score:2)
There is nothing humorous about this movie, rather it is a chilling look at a world that I hope never comes. Something along the lines of "Trust no one, suspect everyone".
The good part is that if everyone has a camera, the sheer volume of video footage will render all but the most talented videographers and well-connected unwatched. Just like the myriad blogs are today.
Besides, aren't some cities and municipalities bragging tha
Re:Torn (Score:4, Interesting)
However, I haven't heard of an instance where these cameras have been used to prevent/solve a crime. Maybe they are and it isn't being publicized, but I doubt it.
As for the privacy aspect, when your in a public place isn't it assumed that specifically that isn't a private place and you can be videotaped without your permission?
Also, the author talks about how in the future they'll be cameras that'll send the footage off over some wireless network. I suspect that riot police will start deploying jammers as standard practice on the premise that they're preventing rioters from calling in support, etc. Check out DARPA's wolfpack devices.
Re:Torn (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Torn (Score:3, Interesting)
There ought to be some law that you have to place signs that identify where cameras are located in public places if you're going to make it legal to put them there.
Re:Torn (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, the problem is with eating your cake and having it, too.
More seriously, my personal, non-legally-binding view is there has to be a clear, legal separation between areas with an expectation of privacy and areas considered "public." If a cop or a stranger can legally observe you from somewhere, then it doesn't matter if you replace a human with a camera.
Within a person's home, you have the legal right to tape what you want but strangers do not and the police need a warrant. If you tape a cop beating you up and you show it, that is fine, if cops secretly tape you without a warrant they should be punished.
Finally, a uniformed cop on duty in a public area (i.e. not in a restroom or in his own home) should have no expectation of privacy, since the uniform itself is a public display of his authority. By wearing it he consents to observation by the general public, so if he drags a motorist out of a car and starts pounding on him there should be no assumption that he won't see his sorry a** on the local news.
Re:Torn (Score:4, Insightful)
Long answer: Your privacy is an illusion, and everything worth knowing about you can be discovered, using a continuum of methods from bribery to torture. At this time, the most effective methods on this continuum are available to relatively few people, creating a class of people with the privilege of obtaining obscure information, such as how often and if you purchase razor blades. The solution, suggested by myself and many others, is to make all information as readily available to the public as possible, the idea being that the best decisions are informed decisions.
However, most human societies are built with the assumption of at least some privacy. The removal of this will make everything go crazy for a while (for a hypothetical "ultimate disclosure" scenario, read The Light of Other Days [google.com], by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter), due to unpleasant secrets being forced into the public arena and the populace being unable to stab others in the back, but on the whole, I think it's a positive change, as long as its universal.
Your question might be rephrased as, "Is there a way to find out everything about everyone else without them finding out anything about me?" The answer is no.
Re:Torn (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Torn (Score:4, Insightful)
A: Everyone.
The privacy apocalypse is only meaningful if pervasive surveilance is one-sided. If it's publically (and trivially) accessible, then the resulting balance of blackmail should cut down on the pernicious effects.
Didn't they call these people "tattletales"... (Score:2, Funny)
And weren't they beat up regularly?
Big Brothers (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Big Brothers (Score:2)
It often hard to prove the Cops are innocent (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It often hard to prove the Cops are innocent (Score:2)
Re:It often hard to prove the Cops are innocent (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect like most American children, I learned early on in grade school that one of the pivotal moments leading up to the Revolution was the Boston Massacre - the firing upon and murder of the innocent civilian by the evil redcoats. I even remember the illustration of soldiers firing into a crowd from a distance.
It's sad but not surprising how those text books never mention that most of the officers were acquitted of all charges by an American court; only two were found guilty of actually firing. Furthermore, they were defended by John Adams (George Washington's vice president, and the second President) who summarized his case thusly:
I will enlarge no more on the evidence, but submit it to you.-Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence: nor is the law less stable than the fact; if an assault was made to endanger their lives, the law is clear, they had a right to kill in their own defence; if it was not so severe as to endanger their lives, yet if they were assaulted at all, struck and abused by blows of any sort, by snow-balls, oyster-shells, cinders, clubs, or sticks of any kind; this was a provocation, for which the law reduces the offence of killing, down to manslaughter, in consideration of those passions in our nature, which cannot be eradicated. To your candour and justice I submit the prisoners and their cause.
Bizarre tangent: the two officers found guilty of manslaughter were spared their lives by invoking "the benefit of clergy," a plea that shifted their punishment from imprisonment to the branding of their thumbs.
Wehw! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wehw! (Score:5, Funny)
I read SnatchCam too. But only for the articles...
I swear!
Re:Wehw! (Score:2)
Naah... didn't X10 go bankrupt a while back?
Yah, that will be the primary use... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Yah, that will be the primary use... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yah, that will be the primary use... (Score:2)
Ewwww gross!
Oh wait grainy upskirts.... Nevermind
Re:Yah, that will be the primary use... (Score:3, Informative)
Honestly guys, it was a joke. I guess I should have included a smiley or something.
Well, here's a belated one:
All better now?
This is just some guys idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
requested correction. (Score:4, Interesting)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is just some guys idea. A lot of people have ideas... what makes this one great enough that, say, Sony would start making the cameras he is suggestions?
Some people even think about their ideas, amazing isn't it?
The cameras are being made already. They are already part of cell phones and anyone with gumption can combine a PDA with wifi and a camera. That's not the point.
The point is imagining what people will do with those cameras and the possible social good that will come from them. As long as new restrictions are not made on publishing photographs of public places, these cameras will give the public an unprecedented new witness of public events.
The same technology in government hands, however, needs to be restricted. Real harm can come from unrestricted domestic spying. The trick it to not pay people to do the spying while still allowing prosecutors reasonable access to publically recorded material for criminal investigation.
In short, it is possible for these new cameras to be used in a way that does us all lots of good. The credibility of witnesses can be enhanced without creating a police state, where the state has all of the "evidence" and the ability to harass political opponents. Recent events, such as Mary Landrie's hysterical smut cam attacks and the whole UK police cam infrastructure make me worry about the actual uses. Noise produced by people like FortKnox serves the interest of those who would do all the wrong things.
Credit Cards (Score:5, Insightful)
Then last week, while walking through town at college I saw a swarm of police around an ATM machine with one of them holding those little camera strip things they put on ATM machines to look nicely inconspicuous while recording stuff.. Yeah they can be easily abused and it happens a lot, costs millions, but so can everything in the wrong hands, n they're cool
Re:Credit Cards (Score:4, Interesting)
These particular naughty people used a card reader as well, so they could copy the info off the magnetic stripe on the card as well.
As Marge Simpson said... (Score:2)
it will do shit-all (Score:5, Insightful)
-Leigh
Re:it will do shit-all (Score:5, Interesting)
I might have been there (Quebec City), and have a similar tape. I especially love how riot police beat up mainstream journalists *first*, and then go after other people.
I asked one of the cameramen that had been hit in the head with a baton how often this happened, and why this was done... He told me that it was very frequent. The cameraman being hit wasn't newsworthy. But once hit, the cameraman would have to retreat, leaving the police unattended by mainstream media to do as they wished.
It's funny how things get misreported, even when the reporters themselves are getting injured before protestors cause trouble/damage.
Then again, I have seen the odd protestor break windows for kicks in Montreal. In particular, people who don't seem to be interested in the protest at all, but who enjoy the havoc created.
Re:it will do shit-all (Score:5, Interesting)
They're called agents provocateurs [wikipedia.org], and they're why it's important to record before and after the turd hits the fan. They can often be seen being brought into or out of the protest by police vans or others known to be opposed to the goal of the protest.
Re:it will do shit-all (Score:5, Informative)
Honestly, the people I saw causing trouble seemed to just be bored.
Literally people who were walking down the street and decided to take advantage of the chaos to break things.
They really didn't seem to need any motivation for causing trouble other than opportunity.
I know that this is highly stereotypical, but most of the people who caused trouble were young punks. Literally kids dressed in punk outfits. People who live off the street. I have known lots of peaceful, respectable punks, but the majority of the people that I have seen causing trouble at protests have also been punks.
The police provoke in a much less subtle way. They throw tear-gas into peacefully assembled crowds. They bring in riot police and advance on the crowd, beating them back. They have no need for 'agents provocateurs', because they don't get in trouble for openly provoking unrest.
Re:it will do shit-all (Score:2)
Spoken like a true separatist. Let's hear some shooting in the streets already, Che. Or shut the fuck up. I prefer the latter.
Marge Simpson said it best (Score:2, Redundant)
disadvantages (Score:3, Informative)
as long as this isn't used in private places, such as a doctor's office, or the local changeroom, i don't think this is a bad idea at all.
Re:disadvantages (Score:2)
So, these cameras filming the public are okay.
But These [slashdot.org] cameras are not ? How is a guy supposed to keep up ?
Re:disadvantages (Score:3, Interesting)
My poin
Re:disadvantages (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually a better, far more realistic scenario...
Say you (or your sister) were a pregnant college girl walking in to get an abortion, and the local "right-to-life" [armyofgod.com]thugs decided to video tape you and use that to identify and/or harass you.
Oh, you agree with the right-to-life thugs? Well what if the abortion clinic uses the same cameras to video tape and identify you and sends some pro-choice thugs over to firebomb your favorite church. Or gives the video to the police to "investigate" you.
Any technology is likely to be misused by people wanting to discredit, harass, or abuse their enemies.
But... (Score:3, Interesting)
Would that make this technology less valuable?
Rodney King (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Rodney King (Score:3, Interesting)
There should be hesitation.
Re:Rodney King (Score:3, Insightful)
The man was on the ground, surrounded by at least 4 cops, and was being kicked and hit with batons. I don't care what he did or said before that point. Really no I dont. He was on the ground and they continiued to hit him. They did not even try to cuff him or otherwise restrain him until they were done getting their jollies off.
Now if the tape showed him be hit to the ground with batons and immediatly one of the police jumped on top of him and restrained him and all othe
Re:Rodney King (Score:4, Interesting)
The initial pull-over shows King resisting officers commands to lie still, getting up repetedly amd then being hit by Taser fire several times before a baton ever touches him.
The man should not have been able to physically rise after being "zapped." Among law enforcement circles, this is a very bad sign - the subject is likely either on PCP or another adrenal elevator that has reduced his capacity for pain and neuromuscular response to the point that, as a large man, he may be extremely dangerous and incoherent.
Post-tape:
Since his drunk driving arrest that night, Mr. King has been convicted several times on seperate, subsequent occasions for drunk driving, disorderly conduct, assault and battery, being under the influence of PCP.
Yeah - the 30 seconds of videotape we all saw was brutal, but there's a lot more going on in this world than what you understand by watching an edited version of an event on a televison.
How Americans avoid jury duty, fail to vote in an election, and complain about their fate or that of someone else from the comfort of their armchair is beyond me.
Check out Susan Sontag's _On_Photography_
http://www.susansontag.com/onphotography.htm [susansontag.com]
... how amazing and awful ... (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was in London a couple years ago, I knew that I was on-camera everywhere I went and I felt safer. Part of that was because I knew that policemen were watching. I think that if I knew that the people watching and analyzing my behavior were just people with an axe of one type or another to grind, or goody-two-shoes types that want to force their morals on everyone, I'd feel less safe rather than more safe.
Curiouser and curiouser, and doubleplusbad, methinks.
OH MAN.. I could have used one of those in HS (Score:2, Funny)
*drool*
Re:OH MAN.. I could have used one of those in HS (Score:2)
Don't you mean grade school?
Re:OH MAN.. I could have used one of those in HS (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, I was joking about the fact that you SOUND like a pedophile. You know, most of us don't look to date high school girls once we are out of high school. Don't worry, I'll have a talk with my friend Mr. Ashcroft about you tonight. He is very tolerant and understanding.
Verifiability (Score:5, Insightful)
What's needed is the ability to take pictures or video, have it transmitted wirelessly to a trusted third party who can attest as to content and time stamp. (I've pondered this sort of system in vehicles, so that a driver could record a "Driving While Black" type incident, and be able to provide evidence to his attorney that would be more likely to stand up in a civil suit.)
Such a system would also require cameras that provide tamper-resistant digital signatures for each frame. This wouldn't make doctoring impossible, but should quiet some of the objections to this sort of evidence.
Re:Verifiability (Score:2, Informative)
Finish reading the post if you're not going to RTFA:
"it'll be practically impossible to get away with even minor editing-room spin doctoring, if thousands of people around the world have the original footage on their hard drives."
Re:Verifiability (Score:5, Funny)
More theories? (Score:2, Funny)
Yay to technology making the world a better place.
Well, I do "editing" on my vBlog (video blog) (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, I have been playing with a vBlog (video blog) here: m3blog.com [m3blog.com], and my original idea was to quickly post unedited video quickly.
However, I quickly found out that is was more fun to do a little editing, as people weren't watching my raw posts, they quickly grew bored! And it wasn't very hard to do little quick edits, especially time-shifting, to make events seem like they took place before or after other a certain point.
Effective? (Score:3, Interesting)
Public opinion is what matters. Try to get your 'point of view' on National TV. Medias are controlled, or at least aren't close to be 100% objective; they show you what they WANT to show you. In this case, Evil Anarchists rioting against the World Economy Globalization.
It Doesn't Matter (Score:3, Interesting)
Or, better yet, look at what happened in Waco. No evidence of illegal activity by the Dividians. No evidence of drug manufacturing. No evidence of child molestation. Ignored evidence of the initial shots being fired by the ATF. Yet our government was able to falsely justify the torture and death of innocent civilians. Few people seemed to notice.
Look at all the video evidence you like. Big Brother will tell you what to see.
I shall tell you this... when you see it live (Score:4, Insightful)
Just think of those footages you saw last time about children dying of hunger. Can you remember what did you do? Opened a new can of Coke?
Just a Random.idea
"Original footage". (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"Original footage". (Score:2)
Consequences? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Open" systems are easier to legitimize (Score:5, Insightful)
If everyone had some way to monitor exactly what these cameras saw, exactly how the lights were timed, etc. it would be dissected in public enough to prevent these sorts of scams. The same goes for "safety" cameras in public. If you saw exactly how much of an invasion of privacy a given camera amounted to, you would bet there would be fewer of them, and those that are allowed would better meet the specified purpose (instead of "once it's there, nobody will notice we're not looking just at what we said we were").
Hello, transparency (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead, he says that we shoud remove privacy from everyone, and let the public see what others are doing - basically, have everyone watch everyone else. The point of that is supposedly that it would keep corruption down and stop the rich and powerful from abusing their power.
Now, I don't say that I agree with Brin, but I just thought the idea of people going around broadcasting live video of everyone to keep the cops in check sounded like somthing Brin would like.
I doubt that the protest idea would work, though. People don't care about brutality if they think that the police are acting in their interest and there is even a chance of violence from the protesters. Remember how all the violence from the police at the WTO protesets was justified by a dozen 'anachists' defacing a Nike store? Or how much of America feels that it's "better safe than sorry" regarding Guantanamo and Abu Gharib?
Watching the watchers only matters when the public gives a damn that the watchers are brutal.
Re:Hello, transparency (Score:3, Insightful)
Brin's a smart guy. He starts with the premise that these technological tools are going to exist, are going to be cheap, and will be easy to use. It's hard to say he's wrong on these points. His thesis then, is it healthier in a society to restrict their use to government only, or to let everyone use them. Again, he's a smart guy and if your gut tells you that their use should
See "The Miami Model" (Score:5, Interesting)
Science Fiction (Score:2)
But I can't come up with a name... I think Linda Nagata's Limit of Vision had something like this, but I'm fairly sure the protagonist (or maybe it was everybody) had a camera build in to her glasses. Maybe N
What is good for the goose... (Score:2, Interesting)
Wrong solution to the problem. (Score:2)
Instead of military conscription, civilians would be conscripted by the police, where they could watch from inside. When sufficiently "infiltrated" with civilians, the police would be very hard-pressed to rape civil liberties.
Some 45 years ago, France was on the verge of civil war; there were several coup attemps, most were foiled when the conscripted troops refused to march against the civil powers.
Imagine this... (Score:3, Interesting)
Then again, just like the photo-radar, people could just say, "Yeah, that's my car... but that's not me driving it!" Uh, sure...
Another thought, who is going to wade through the millions of hours of snitched data? Police departments don't have enough manpower as it is.
nyc protests last year/beatings on film (Score:3, Informative)
Alibi Archive (Score:3, Interesting)
While the novel isn't all that great, this idea is extremely interesting. For anyone who has ever been falsely accused of anything (like, say, any man who has ever had a close relationship with any woman
More seriously, an ex-girlfriend of mine was a volunteer at a women's shelter, and used to complain that too many cases came down to "he-said/she-said", so I suggested the shelter start using compact, cheap, voice-activated digital recorders to lend to women who were in abusive relationships but who couldn't get anyone to listen to them. So far as I know, this plan has been adopted, although the current state of my relationship with that particular woman precludes my knowing any of the details...
Speaking as somebody who has done this (Score:5, Interesting)
At the time, we discouraged the use of video cameras for collecting evidence of police behaviour because of the problems with interpretation of footage. We preferred for each monitor instead to take written notes (recorded on the day with a dicataphone) at regular intervals (once every 10mins or so) since a report that nothing was happening was often as valuable as a report that all hell was breaking loose. The police usually said they were reacting to provocation before taking the decision to modify people's skulls, and any evidence to the contrary was valuable.
While the former issue might be solved by the "network effect" described, the latter issue is not unless those with cameras record everything, or at least sample the situation at regular intervals.
In short, even if you still have some form of organisation operating the cameras, you're in for a FAR heavier invasion of privacy burden: compare a written note saying "14:55 - Nothing happening" to 10 seconds of footage showing people, their faces, their placards, their expressions... and nothing happening.
Re:Speaking as somebody who has done this (Score:3, Interesting)
One of Indymedia's best traits is that they report on events that would otherwise be forgotten. In 2002, Ottawa police raided a squat by activists protesting lack of affordable housing in the city. I and several others took photos of police methods. The evidence is damning.
http://www.goofalicious.com/squat/squat-assault-9 - detail-a.jp [goofalicious.com]
New item in the Riot Police Catalog: the /. effect (Score:3, Insightful)
And they'll do it time and time again without Timothy getting any wiser. Who notices dupes any more?
This wouldn't be too hard to do (in all seriousness), would it? Just flood the wireless frequencies with noise before calling in the Riot Squad... You can build that kind of gear from spare parts at Radio Shack and mount it in back of a van.
Here's an idea. (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't want your protest to end in an orgy of violence? Regulate it yourself.
There have been many peaceful protests with any number of people, where the cops need do nothing but sip coffee and watch.
And there are protests where you see people getting off of busses with backpacks full of masonry, balaclavas at the ready. Where during interviews, they say things like 'We'll be completely peaceful as we block off all roads within a ten block radius and hurl insults at passers by. If the cops want to MAKE it a fight though, we're ready.'
Nobody wants to be a riot cop. So you get the newbies and the burnouts. They don't get adequate training. They know that a mob can turn ugly. They know they're under watch, and that the hindsight brigade will come down on them like a ton of bricks. They know that taking proactive action to keep things under control will land them on the news; they know that letting things happen will result in a full riot.
And they know that the TV news will never show the rocks, the insults, and the provocations. They'll just show the cops wading in and busting heads.
Why not make the cops wear cameras? (Score:4, Interesting)
The theory goes, if they cover or turn off the camera and someone makes an allegation, the cops look guilty already and the accusation gets heard, instead of the coppers all giving the same story.
Science Fiction, Science fact (Score:3, Interesting)
Secrets of any sort become a thing of the past causing all sorts of world changing effects from the total remaining of governments and corporations to the end of modesty.
Later in the book they learn to pilot the wormholes back through time. If anyone hears about a camera that can do this, please let me know as I would like to find out who took my wallet last year.
Cheaper and ubiquitous could help trouble spots (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a great idea for the rich nations of the world, but the real trouble spots, typically, don't have such affluence.
The idea I've been pondering for a while is something that is cheap and easily distributable so that people in the places where bad stuff happens can put them in their windows and make the results available to journalists when something goes down. These could be distributed for free by NGO's, like freedom organizations, so that most trouble spots would be blanketed.
The hardware I have in mind is something really cheap, rugged and self-contined, with a walkman form factor and, perhaps, endless loop DAT tape storage and a solar power source. Journalists could knock on doors the day after an event (or dig through the rubble) and copy these tapes for later perusal. The data would ideally be encrypted, to help with authenticity and make it difficult to view in the field. Some cheap equipment actually does see outside of human visible range, so these might actually be useful at night time too. This sort of form factor might make the devices cheap enough to make it practical to distribute them to thousands of homes in each world trouble spot.
I suspect that even though people in trouble areas might be suspicious of these things, that most of them would realized the advantages of having them and be willing to participate. Since the devices are automatic and easy to hide, the danger to the operator is minimal. Also, the collection process makes them pretty much useless for military use, so there's no real danger of "bad guys" collecting the tapes for use against "good guys". The only real practical use would be reporting of abuses or setting the story straight. Regardless of which side you're on, having more info is generally a better thing for the innocent victims of any conflict.
Imagine what things might be like if there was one of these in every tenth house in Baghdad or the West Bank...
Well, If "Past is Prologue" maybe not... (Score:3, Interesting)
Consider the laws that limit our abilities to protect ourselves,
even from telephone abuse, using an audio recorder...
Getting the runaround from a government department?
You need the other party's permission before you can
record them while on the phone together.
I would expect to see similar "privacy" laws enacted
that could limit use of video devices, like those
suggested here.
Re:This is a great idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
That's usually the case.
Re:Digital footage is getting too easy to edit (Score:3, Interesting)
I can think of a way to prevent it. We've got public-key encryption hardware, and it's going to get cheaper. Suppose you have a video format that's got a slot in every frame for a cryptographic signature of that frame, and the video hardware itself is cryptographically signing the video as it records it. The private key for each camera is burned into a secured chip in the camera, and the public key is in the documentation along with the serial number and suchlike.
You can still make faked video, but you can
Re:A two-edged sword - lieing slurs (Score:3, Interesting)
I WAS IN THE STREETS IN CHICAGO IN 1968. *IF* there were any things thrown at the cop, it was they were isolated incidents, and quite possibly by agents provocateurs.
I can personally tell you about the cops attacking with no warning, and the first time I'd ever seen two-and-a-half foot riot batons. I have a picture etched in my memory of one pig (not to be confused with the regular Chicago cops) swinging it at someone's head as they were falling to the ground, not 10 yards fro