Google Street a Slice of Dystopian Future? 325
An anonymous reader writes "According to a recent CNET article, Google Street View 'is just wrong'. The short piece which makes up part of a larger feature about 'technology that's just wrong' goes on to explain that Google Street View is like a scene from George Orwell's terrifying dystopian vision of 1984 and that it could ultimately change our behaviour because we'll never know when we're being watched. 'Google? Aren't they the friendly folk who help me find Web sites, cheat at pub quizzes, and look at porn? Yes, but since 2006 they're also photographing the streets of selected world cities and posting the results online for all to see. It was Jeremy Bentham who developed the idea of the Panopticon, a system of prison design whereby everybody could be seen from one central point, with the upshot being that prisoners learnt to modulate their behaviour — because they never knew if they were being watched. And that doesn't sound like much fun, does it?'"
Bizarre and hysterical rant (Score:4, Insightful)
God only knows we are living in dystopian times, with our society under attack from left, right, and corporate interests which don't fit into any pat category..
But Google street view is hardly a "live view" where neighbors snoop upon each other. It's just a one-time snapshot of a spot. If you happen to be bonking someone on the street just at that moment, and don't want your face (or whatever) on camera, tough. Do it indoors..
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Re:Bizarre and hysterical rant (Score:5, Funny)
Citation Needed
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But if your windows are open, people are free to look in. I love the jump from Cat on window sill to 'knowing what I am reading'.
Logical fallacy for the WIN!
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If my curtains are open and I see someone I have the option of closing them or calling the cops. I can expect privacy in my own home. With the Google van driving by unknown to me how do I close my curtains?
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How about closing your curtains when you want to be private and not closing them when you don't? What's so hard about that? Your privacy is completely under your control.
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And that actually plays into the article. We feel we must ALWAYS keep our curtains drawn or that we're being watched and if that the curtains are drawn that something naughty or wrong is taking place behind them.
What takes place is my home is my business, windows open or not. You should not be looking in unless you want other looking in your home as well. If we've reached that point then it's too late and google is the least of our
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People also have the right to be able to walk down any dark alley in the world and not get mugged. However, we can't reasonably expect this.
If you want a reasonable expectation of privacy, shut your blinds.
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I don't see why we can't expect that. Just because society at large has come to accept dark alley muggings as a part of life doesn't mean it's right or should be tolerated the way it is. Perhaps if it were cracked down on more, or dark alleys were, well, not quite such dark alleys (a little light goes a long way), then perhaps we can all reasonably expect to be safe
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In the same manner you would if you don't see someone? If your enacting of 'privacy' is reactive, its your own fault. If I leave my fly down and someone sees my X-men underwear and then I zip up my fly, I don't see how that is more or less a violation of privacy than if I don't notice someone seeing the
Re:Bizarre and hysterical rant (Score:5, Funny)
Please disseminate this knowledge across my campus.
I live in a dorm that has two wings - one for the men, one for the women, and a common lounge/entrance/exit in the middle connecting them. Makes sense, right?
The dorm is U-shaped, (Men-> |_| <-Women from the Google satellite view) and the women never seem to close their shades.
Not that I mind, of course, but it's bad if I forget to close my blinds when friends or parents visit. The view can be interesting at certain times...
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Re:Bizarre and hysterical rant (Score:5, Insightful)
2. If you sunbathe in public then see point 1 as well.
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If you sunbathe in your neighbourhood there is the chance that 20 people see it, once Google goes around there is the chance that 2000000000 people see it. So the risk of embarrassment increases dramatically, people will stop sunbathing. That is a real effect.
What is so difficult about getting this?
Re:Bizarre and hysterical rant (Score:4, Insightful)
It is about calculating risks. The _possibility_ of constant surveillance changes the situation.
And
And
I don't say it is all that bad and the end of the world, but it strikes me how such development is just accepted with binary logic: So you don't like people see you doing something, don't do it. But that is exactly the panoptic effect.
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Re:Bizarre and hysterical rant (Score:5, Insightful)
I often wonder about what will become of all of this. Typically, when somebody starts dicsussing the "Big Brother sees all" dystopian future, somebody else retorts with the classic "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" rhetoric. Since it seems clear that, ultimately, we're going to end up in this position no matter what we do, I wonder which part will change... will we all end up in fear, or will we all end up with nothing to hide?
It seems to me that there are a lot of things that all of us do which, although we may not be afraid of an execution or a prison term if we get caught, we would at the very least be embarrassed about if exposed. A lot of our social mores and most "morality"-based laws tend to persist because the chances of getting caught are so slim. Perhaps society will, unexpectedly, end up changing for the better overall if everything is out in the open - if everybody gets caught doing everything, we might suddenly end up getting a lot more reasonable about what we care about catching each other doing.
Obviously, that's not going to work for you and me - we're too used to things the way they are. But since it looks like our grandchildren's generation isn't going to understand the very meaning of the word "privacy", I can only hope that the end result is a world where you don't really need any.
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Well, you make it sound like there's anything you or I or anybody else can do about it. I don't think there is, not any more. I'm not saying I'm OK with it, I just wonder what the privacyless future is going to look like - if it's going to be as bad as most people think or maybe a little less bad.
Re:Bizarre and hysterical rant (Score:5, Funny)
I'm watching you right now.
JESUS! Will you put a shirt on that back?
Re:Bizarre and hysterical rant (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm watching you right now.
Click [youtube.com]
Re:Bizarre and hysterical rant (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, Google Street View has a "report" option that lets users report obscene happenings or persons faces that don't want to be on the site.
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I don't think it's meant to be taken seriously. I mean, "a giant audio-visual shark"? And look at the picture. Made me laugh and I (very peripherally) have worked on Street View. Other entries in the competition: teledildonics, films on phones and guitar hero.
Slashdot needs to lighten up, oh, and maybe RTFA from time to time :)
Dystopian future? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Dystopian" is relative. Compared to my youth, yes. Compared to my Grandpa's youth and all times before, no.
Since mankind's past is dystopian, why shouldn't the future be?
But wait - we already live a utopian future, at least most of us in an industrial country. We have pleasures and gadgets and things kings of old couldn't even dream of! 100kph surface travel, flight, far fewer deadly diseases, refrigeration, television, telephones, you name it.
We don't burn p
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Yet another panic-y article from no-clue crowd (Score:5, Insightful)
-Em
Re:Yet another panic-y article from no-clue crowd (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Yet another panic-y article from no-clue crowd (Score:5, Informative)
Honestly anyone that is at all interested in privacy have been screaming and yelling for over a decade now. suddenly some guy that has had his head in the sand realizes that things have changed and screams the sky is falling is newsworthy?
Even in the USA, you are on camera way more than you think. Police cars record 24/7 now. stores, malls, parking lots, street corners.. Cameras are everywhere watching you.
Re:Yet another panic-y article from no-clue crowd (Score:4, Funny)
But it's for your protection! If the government doesn't know when you're eating, watching T.V., or masturbating, how can they protect you?
Re:Yet another panic-y article from no-clue crowd (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't surveillance, it's people abusing information gained through surveillance. The solution is to make sure that there are checks on those people tasked with watching security footage to make sure they're not using any of that information in an inappropriate fashion. And the simplest, fastest, cheapest way to do that is to install a surveillance camera in the office of the people who watch surveillance footage.
Re:Yet another panic-y article from no-clue crowd (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yet another panic-y article from no-clue crowd (Score:5, Insightful)
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Thank you! I have looked up my house using Google maps and I can still see my in-laws Camper and Truck sitting in my driveway. They sold both several years ago. So unless Google has bought some satellites and has started doing real time of selected cities, I don't think we need to worry quite yet. I would be more worried about cities networked with cameras (like London) where the powers-that-be can follow you around the city. I don't think those cameras are hooked up to Google (yet)instead of a van goi
Re:Yet another panic-y article from no-clue crowd (Score:5, Informative)
True, but it only takes one picture to embarrass somebody, to catch a crime in progress, or to simply show an individual in a location where they're rather it not be known they are. Many people are already aware that Street View captured the results of more than one [jalopnik.com] automobile accidents [google.com]. How would you like to be immortalized [google.com] for riding your bike down the street, unaware that Google just snapped a picture of you showing your jeans riding down your backside?
Security cameras like those in ATM's have very limited visibility & range, and most people know they are there. The contents of those tapes also aren't generally available to the public. They most likely would need a court order to obtain. How would you like it if the whole world could simply go to Google and see a photograph of you walking into a motel with a prostitute, leaving a strip club, getting mugged on the side of the street, or caught in the act of accidentally hitting somebody in a crosswalk with your car? It's that kind of publicity that most people are concerned about.
Given that Google, MSN, etc. are doing this I bet it's just a matter of time before police start mounting cameras on their patrol cars as a means to identify illegal behavior that the officers in the car might miss. How would you like to get a ticket in the mail a week after a police car driving by takes a photo of you jaywalking? That's the sort of thing this could eventually lead to, and that's not what most people want.
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True, but it only takes one picture to embarrass somebody, to catch a crime in progress, or to simply show an individual in a location where they're rather it not be known they are. Many people are already aware that Street View captured the results of more than one automobile accidents . How would you like to be immortalized for riding your bike down the street, unaware that Google just snapped a picture of you showing your jeans riding down your backside?
Yes and it takes one web form [google.com] to get that one picture removed, unlike millions of pictures snapped by tourists each year that have lots of extra people in the shot that may live forever and you will not even know they have the picture of you online. Evil, evil tourists.
-Em
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1) there's a "report" feature in Street View where you can ask to have images removed. Not a big deal.
2) they're photos of public places. if you don't want something you do in public to be seen, best not to do it in public to begin with. i think folks having *more* (than those in the immediate surroundings) people see their public mishaps is a small price to pay for the convenience everyone gets of being able to take a virtual tour of any city.
3) there are already countless intersections with cameras s
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Who decides if an image should be removed or not? Who gets to make the request? How can any individual expect to know that Google has a picture of them sunbathing that they'd rather not have made publicly to the entire world, that may show up on sites like www.streetviewfun.com for voyeurs to get a kick out of?
2) they're photos of public places.
And some of those photos show the interior of private houses,
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Not at all. As I said before, most law-enforcement cameras can only be accessed by law enforcement officials. The general public can't just go to a well-known website and pull up any given red-light camera to see what's going on in that intersection. With Street View anybody on the entire planet from you and me to anybody in the CIA to the leaders of Korea, Iraq, etc. could simply go to google.c
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Chicago already does this. They have vans with cameras on top that record the lice
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Overall this is a good thing, though. People need to be a little worried about online privacy so that they can get up in arms about something that crosses the line. B
It could be worse (Score:4, Funny)
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-Em
Ok for now (Score:4, Interesting)
A: They do it from a perfectly public location that many people will pass daily.
B: It is not a surprise, they aren't using spy technology it is a giant google van.
C: No laws are broken, why gang up on google about it, bring it to the house and see what happens (i can't imagine taking pictures outdoors being made illegal).
Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
It looks [photo.net] like the pendulum [npr.org] is swinging [aclu.org] that way...
That's fine if... (Score:2)
Basically it settles who watches the watchers - anybody if they have nothing better to do.
No fair if a Privileged Few get to opt out and we don't.
But it's so static... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why aren't people more optimistic? This is a sort of poor telepresence: you can get a small part of the experience of traveling to some cities without actually going there.
Black domes on the ceilings of convenience stores (Score:2)
The effectiveness is probably going to drop significantly when the watched know they outnumber the watchers to such a degree that there's no way to track them all even if they're in view. Whether or not this is useful in a prison would really depend on the cost of implementing this centralized mass-surveillance over adding guards(who would also be on hand to stop what's being seen a
Big difference (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, google just doesn't feel like "big brother." Nor does it seem to be going in that direction.
Careful there.. (Score:2)
A true big brother wouldn't seem obtrusive to most people. Orwell's hero was the exception to the rule.
I do agree with you, since it is a snap shot of a moment in time(redundant, I know) and can't be used for monitoring, and correcting behavior's. PLUS it's done very infrequently, to infrequently to have the effect that mention in the write up.
Fear and power dichotomy (Score:4, Insightful)
Furthermore, at least google has its images of public space open for people to view at all times. If you wanted to look through a government owned public camera do you know where to go, who to ask? Can you even get permission to observe those feeds? There is always a bigger bogeyman lurking around each corner, so at least meet him on your own terms instead of waiting for him to come at you when you least expect it.
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I propose you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I agree though that it is unacceptable for a system to be in place that sacrifices privacy for security be it false or not.
TFA is rather myopic (Score:5, Insightful)
It is, however, unusual for a Tech publication to attempt to use fearmongering as a tool to bring attention to technology that their writers don't fully understand.
I can only hope that this piece was not meant to reflect that attitude of all of the writers over at cnet - it's certainly not flattering.
- Avron
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No need to RTFA (Score:4, Informative)
It would be nice if the authors had explained why they thought they had a right to privacy when in public, or whether they believed that Google was taking pictures inside people's houses. But I guess a fear mongering rant was what they were in the mood for instead.
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But some of the Street View images CAN in fact see inside houses and other buildings. You'll find just a few examples here [streetviewfun.com]. So what do you do about these peoples right to privacy now? Tell them to keep their doors closed and curtains drawn? Just imagine as the technology used to get these pictures improves. You'll prob
Not google's fault (Score:3, Insightful)
People don't modulate their behavior (Score:2)
I think the closest thing to this prison is reality tv. The cast is constantly surrounded by film crews and cameras. And one of the common threads in post-show interviews is that the "actors" forget about the cameras. They admit, that at first, they are very conscious of them, and moderate the
Not worried about it at all. (Score:3, Funny)
You can move it now (Score:3, Informative)
You can of course use the same feature to hide it, if you are so inclined.
Have you ever... (Score:2, Insightful)
Google isn't exactly realtime (Score:3, Informative)
My apartment is visible on Google Street View, which I found a bit unsettling because the street it's off isn't really a street. But Google drove down it and took pictures. It was on Google Maps, after all. Thankfully my blinds were down that day so you can't see inside, but you can see the outside.
On the other hand, that's one instant of time a good year or so ago. It's not constantly updating. It's not like there are cameras inside my apartment constantly watching me. It's not exactly dystopian, just somewhat unsettling.
Now if it were constantly updating, allowing people to follow my car around, then I would be worried. Otherwise I don't really care.
On the other hand, for the most part, Google Street View is mostly useless. It doesn't really offer any information that you can't get from the satellite view. I frequently go over unknown routes using Google Maps (or Google Earth - same diff) but I have never really found street view to be that useful. There are probably some [google.com] exceptions [google.com], though.
(The second one is actually worse than it appears on street view, since it used to be a rotary, and they haven't made a complete circuit. Go ahead, try and guess which lane is which from the satellite image.)
Yell about gov't, not Google (Score:2)
Google doesn't care what you do, and they don't have a real time view of it. Your local government may, and this is what we should be fighting against. 1984 and The Right to Read are old hat.
Good AND bad consequences (Score:2)
1) Bad behavior will stop, because people won't want to be seen/recorded doing bad things.
2) Good behavior will stop, because people won't want to be seen/recorded doing those things, because a significant number of people think it's bad anyway.
3) Some bad behavior will be reconsidered/redefined as good, because people will realize that everyone does it and it's harmless anyway.
4) Some bad behavior will be encouraged, because enough people want to see it that it w
TOTALLY different than "big brother". (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't you think you would change your mind, maybe just a little bit, if all the surveillance cameras in the UK had a website that allowed you to view everyone, just like the "watchers" ?
My problem is, and always has been, that certain people think they are "higher above" others. That's why you get the classic public "surveillance", where a select few watchers have access to all of the cameras, and no one else.
But what if everyone had access to it? I would be totally for that. It would even the playing field. Not that there's any game to play, but at least we have access to the same technology the big-brother "watchers" had, and that makes me feel like I'm not so much under a microscope, but part of a community.
Google Street Views is NOT the one to attack. Google is doing everything the right way - they're giving us ALL access to information. Isn't that what we want??
Fear Mongering as an artform (Score:2)
In any case, Orwellian? jeez... Ive found the street level view exceedingly helpfull looking for Real Estate, finding certain stores (from memory) and tons of other things youd be quite thrown off to think would be helpful... Does a single shot of a public tree
Missed the bus (Score:2)
I'm torn about Google street view. It isn't like it is filling a valid need (although neither was google earth, but that was cool). I don't have a burning desire to see what the storefront to X restaurant looks like. I should expect that the restaurant will be at the address listed. I cou
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The best thing is that I get my, direction impaired friends to use it, and the don't seem to get lost as often.
Oh no! Online for everybody to see!?! (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, and open the borders, and photographers should have rights to take pictures of copyrighted works displayed in public.
Kind of late (Score:2)
This is sort of a last-year issue.
Last year, I was living in an area of Silicon Valley that was covered by Google's van. There's good coverage of my house. Really good coverage. You can see both cars in the driveway and read the license plates. You can, just barely, see me in profile through a window.
I don't really mind.
Did anyone actually read the rest of the article? (Score:2)
The 1960's era horror picture of a screaming teen?? Rating things on a scale of "David Bowie" to "David Blane"? Claiming the internal combustion engine is "just wrong" because it runs on tiny explosions? The article is tongue in cheek. The author is poking fun at unreasonable fears on the one hand, and on the other poking fun at technologies that get on his nerves (Twitter et. al.) by calling them offensive to human sensibility and threats to the earth.
This isn't even an article... (Score:2)
Inevitability (Score:2)
As much as this dystopian future bothers me, and as much as I fear the use of this information in the wrong hands, I'm beginning to realize that it is inevitable. You probably have a camera in your pocket right now (cell phone) in addition to a real camera you may have, and a webcam that is built in to your laptop. That's three cameras per person in an industrialized city. The government has its eyes too. Private businesses also put up cameras to deter/catch theft.
There are just too many cameras. The
Don't worry it's not the end of the world. (Score:2, Insightful)
What a load. (Score:4, Insightful)
There are two enormous differences between Google Street View and Big Brother:
1) Google takes pictures for street view every now and then. It's by no means real-time. If someone looks up my address and sees me out mowing my lawn, the only thing they know is that sometime in the past year, I mowed my lawn.
2) Google takes pictures only in public places. Guess what, everyone can see you there anyway, and in many cities you're probably already on an actually live video feed. You're not being watched any more than you already were!
Are there really no better conspiracy theories to post today? Come on.
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Except under normal circumstances, everyone can't see you. When you are "public view", only the people in the near vicinity can see you, and that's the expectation that you have. In a lot of situations you would certainly behave differently if you had the expectation that EVERYONE, from your mother to the police could see you.
Orwell and the modern state (Score:3, Insightful)
A Pointless Rant (Score:5, Interesting)
(1) The local city government monitoring your car at every intersection and every stretch of road, and mailing you a ticket every time you exceed the speed limit by 5 mph or fail to beat the red light by 0.01 seconds. Go drive around the Phoenix suburbs and you'll see your future. You can pick up half a dozen robo-tickets just driving to the local mall and back.
(2) Every local business and every neighbor on your street recording you every time you go out for a stroll or take your dog for a walk.
(3) Your own spouse/parents/children/significant other putting you under 24/7 surveillance without your knowledge "for your own good".
The "Death of Privacy" scenario is inevitable, thanks to Moore's Law. And it won't be Google or the federal government doing most of the watching - it will be your family members, or the people in your neighborhood, or the folks running the local business nearby, or the city councilperson you voted for, because every one of them will rationalize that no one is really being hurt, and because the technology will make it so easy to do that they won't be able to resist the temptation. You won't be able to stop this trend any more than the RIAA and MPAA can stop unauthorized digital distribution of music and movies.
Re:A Pointless Rant (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in Old Town Scottsdale (a phoenix suburb with lots of shops and bars and stuff that you can actually *WALK* to) so i do a lot of walking around intersections and stuff. All of the intersections have those red light cameras on them, and there is almost ALWAYS a photo radar van parked somewhere around old town.
When people see these things, they stop paying attention to anything that is going on around them EXCEPT for the van/camera/light.
What is more dangerous?
Somebody running a red light by a half a second or so, or somebody stomping down on their Huge lifted escalade (uhg..) to try and speed up and make it through the yellow light without getting a ticket.
Tempe (another suburb, home to ASU) is even WORSE. They recently installed stationary cameras on Rural(scottsdale rd) just north of University. Anybody from this area knows that this is one of the busiest areas in tempe (traffic wise). It is the main route into and out of ASU.
Well, when you're in thick traffic, driving 50mph, and suddenly the person who is just in town visiting sees the camera and slams on the brakes all the way down to 20mph without any warning (except brakelights) it causes accidents.
Lots of them.
When did we get to vote on this matter?
And who the hell voted FOR it?
Um... (Score:2)
Society works because everyone wants/tries to control everyone else's behavior. Behavior that we don't like, we label as childish, stupid, anti-social, or criminal.
I don't care anymore that we are building God or at least Omnius. God is supposed to observe and control everything. We are far from building God. Omnius was limited to watching
Reasonable Expectation of Privacy? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm going to take a wild guess here: Some folks have never lived in a small town.
Bentham's Panopticon (Score:2, Informative)
who's watching? (Score:2)
Yet 10000+ nuclear weapons isn't dystopian? (Score:2)
But hey, lets worry about Google Streets.
Just one more camera on the street (Score:2)
Or maybe I'm just paranoid?
Anyway, One more camera won't really hurt that much.
Obligatory Reynolds (Score:2)
Ironically, found using Google.
Since no one seems to have read the Wikilink.. (Score:2)
If you want to be paranoid (Score:2)
I used it in a class. (Score:5, Interesting)
At this point the class (a mass lecture of 150) got quiet...
"Oh, and look in his window! See that lamp? The guy who lived upstairs from me used to own that, and he gave to the guy who lives there. I remember that - it's a nice lamp and it was a great day. We all sat around drinking beer. Oh - just like the guy down on the corner over there."
We zoom down the street to the corner.
"Yeah - I recognise him - lousy stupid drunk. Really bad attitude. Never liked him."
"So that was fun, wasn't it kids? Dropping in on their lives, looking into their homes? Nice. so, now let's open up a new tab and I'll type in http://www.opentopia.com/hiddencam.php [opentopia.com] and look here - links to CCTs we can look through. Excellent. Click on this one, and look - we get CONTROLS- we can move and zoom the camera. Looks like we're in some university, similar to this one, but it looks like a very different time zone. Hhhhm... Let's zoom in on those kids over there. Look - one of them is picking his nose. Pig..."
The class got REALLY QUIET...
"And now, let's type in a some search criteria, like "inurl: view/index.shtml?videos=one" and look - an entire list of open cameras. Let's look at this one. Cool. People working in a call centre in Argentina. WORK YOU LOSERS! WORK!!! WORK HARDER!!! MAKE ME RICH!!! Hahaha! funny isn't it?"
No one laughed. People were squirming as we went from one private scene to another.
"OK - so today we're going to watch portions of some hollywood entertainment fodder. It's called "The Truman Show"."
They watched it with new eyes. They were guilty. They had sinned. We had gone from "isn't this interesting" to the "global panopticon" with a visceral sense of what surveillance really is as we watched people work, scratch themselves, goof off, pick their noses, BE HUMAN BEINGS.
RESIST THE SURVEILLANCE STATE. TAKE YOUR SPACE BACK FROM THE GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE INDUSTRY.
It's not that Google Street is evil, it's not that a CCT in an airport is evil. It's not that a CCT in a parking lot is evil. But in aggregate, it is evil, and Google is not helping.
RS
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I'd say that rather than the panopticon, the situation is evolving into a true global village, with the complete loss of anonymity that used to go along with living in a village.
Obligatory link to Brin's Transparent Society (Score:4, Interesting)
Will Technology Force us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?
by David Brin, Ph.D.
This is a tale of two cities. Cities of the near future, say ten or twenty years from now.
Barring something unforeseen, you are apt to live in one of these two places. Your only choice may be which.
At first sight, this pair of municipalities look pretty much alike. Both contain dazzling technological marvels, especially in the realm of electronic media. Both suffer familiar urban quandaries of frustration and decay. If some progress is being made at solving human problems, it is happening gradually. Perhaps some kids seem better educated. The air may be marginally cleaner. People still worry about over-population, the environment, and the next international crisis.
None of these features are of interest to us right now, for we have noticed something about both of these 21st century cities that is radically different. A trait that marks them distinct from any metropolis of the late nineteen-nineties.
Street crime has nearly vanished from both towns. But that is only a symptom, a result.
The real change peers down from every lamp post, every roof-top and street sign.
Tiny cameras, panning left and right, surveying traffic and pedestrians, observing everything in open view.
Have we entered an Orwellian nightmare? Have the burghers of both towns banished muggings at the cost of creating a Stalinist dystopia?
Consider City Number One. In this place, all the myriad cameras report their urban scenes straight to Police Central, where security officers use sophisticated image-processors to scan for infractions against the public order -- or perhaps against an established way of thought. Citizens walk the streets aware that any word or deed may be noted by agents of some mysterious bureau.
Now let's skip across space and time.
At first sight, things seem quite similar in City Number Two. Again, there are ubiquitous cameras, perched on every vantage point. Only here we soon find a crucial difference. These devices do not report to the secret police. Rather, each and every citizen of this metropolis can lift his or her wristwatch/TV and call up images from any camera in town.
Here a late-evening stroller checks to make sure no one lurks beyond the corner she is about to turn.
Over there a tardy young man dials to see if his dinner date still waits for him by a city fountain.
A block away, an anxious parent scans the area and finds which way her child wandered off.
Over by the mall, a teenage shoplifter is taken into custody gingerly, with minute attention to ritual and rights, because the arresting officer knows the entire process is being scrutinized by untold numbers who watch intently, lest her neutral professionalism lapse.
In City Two, such micro cameras are banned from some indoor places... but not Police Headquarters! There, any citizen may tune in on bookings, arraignments, and especially the camera control room itself, making sure that the agents on duty look out for violent crime, and only crime.
Despite their initial similarity, these are very different cities, disparate ways of life, representing completely opposite relationships between citizens and their civic guardians. The reader may find both situations somewhat chilling. Both futures may seem undesirable. But can there be any doubt which city we'd rather live in, if these two make up our only choice?
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