I know privacy is already dead, but at least you needed a human being to determine your behavior. As with any technology, there are both negative and positive aspects. Then again, an automated system tends toward false positives for safety. Done properly, such a system would be a good “stay alert” feature for manned stations, alerting guards about potential people of interest, but done badly could bring us automated harassment systems around buildings that target people who loiter.
The technology, which IBM is calling S3, features a host of software applications that work together to provide real-time analysis of images capture on video cameras. IBM says the S3 system can be programmed to spot suspicious behavior, such as prolonged lingering at an airport security fence. It could also nab an employee who’s spending too much time in the lunchroom. S3 offers a range of additional surveillance capabilities, including license plate recognition, face recognition and badge reading. It’s also designed to analyze data captured from physical sensors, such as electronic bomb and chemical sniffers.
IBM is bundling S3 with security offerings from its Global Technology Services unit. The services include security and threat assessments, surveillance architecture design and security system integration. The company also plans to make the technology available through its Retail Loss Prevention product.
Loss prevention? How would the system determine the difference between a loiterer and an indecisive shopper?
I know privacy is already dead,
No Alex.
Privacy isn’t dead. It’s just being murdered by 300 million Americans who refuse to admit that government derives its power from the consent of the people, and as people they have the power to alter or abolish a corrupt government.
The real debate on privacy hasn’t even started yet and already we are all just throwing up our hands and admitting defeat. We are the worst American citizens in the history of American citizens and we should all be ashamed of ourselves.
Exactly what shade of brown skin sets off the alarm?
C’mon folks, what can anyone expect from sheep ?!? Boogah ! Boogah ! They’re coming to get you !! Quick ! Hide behind me ! I’ll protect you !! Don’t look at how I get elected, look and understand why I had to get elected in this manner…yupper..always made sense to me… As someone who continually rubs elbows with the blue collars, I will never succumb to apathy. Gotta go..I’m late to the voting booth.
Vandalism of surveillance video cameras is on the rise in London. And although I do not normally advocate destruction of public property, in this case I say, take em out! What the hell we, paid for them anyway.
Civil Disobedience!
Bush plot to… uhhh…. uhh…. help me out liberals. What’s Bush trying to do with this one?
5,
Nothing.
In an ironic way, I feel like what’s really happening is that the tendency to criminalize certain minorities is merely becoming a more mainstream phenomenon. People who find occasion to smoke a jay now and again, race their car in street drags on the weekends or find they need to drive somewhere after a couple of beers tend to understand fairly well that it doesn’t take a great deal to find one’s self the center of attention in a private inquisition as the result of circumstances that would be considered irrelevant to anyone willing to exercise an ounce of personal judgment.
In the same breath, this is a positive development; I doubt that anyone’s suspicion that the MS Customer Experience Improvement Program knew where they hid their porn stash ever made anyone swear off smut, but it might eventually compel them to consider that we have a cultural obsession with rooting out the evildoers and a history of spending as much if not more time hassling Joe Sixpack as we do thwarting Dr. Darkly Arch and his Satanic Sanrio Army.
Maybe if the collective middle class starts spending a little quality time in our modern and efficient correctional facilities over nuisance charges and letting their lawn get half an inch over HA regs, people will finally learn to be a little more discerning about assuming equivalence between everyone convicted of a crime of some sort.
Given that we’ve have the largest population of incarcerated felons of any country in the world (including China), maybe if we throw in part of the lower middle class as fresh meat we’ll see some results.
I’m amused at rights-indignant people who get so bent out of shape over government surveillance cameras watching over public streets, when there’s nothing to prevent an individual from sticking a camera out their window to do the same thing to help out the cops.
RBG
8. Give em an inch…Bahhhh!
LOL!!!!! #2… its probably the same shade that make the cop-trigger-finger contract
#6 – Stop your right-wing spinning. Just because Limbaugh told you it was nothing doesn’t mean it was nothing.
Even as police and other government entities increase their own video surveillance of private citizens, they lobby for and sometimes vigorously enforce laws that make it illegal for private citizens to videotape police as they perform their jobs in public places. Police don’t seem terribly fond of photographic evidence when it can be used against them. I’m reminded of one incident in particular, where a man was arrested for snapping a photo with his camera phone on the street where he lives:
http://www.nbc10.com/news/9574663/detail.html
I think this trend grew out of the famous Rodney King beating by L.A. police. Without this type of irrefutable evidence, few people stand half a chance of convincing either judge or jury that police ever act improperly.
As with most people, I have mixed feelings about video surveillance, and I’m certainly aware how useful it can be to catch dangerous criminals, but video surveillance should be a two-way street between the public and private sectors.
1. Lay down and take it, or fight back. Some on this thread are awake, others in denial. I cant believe that intelleigent people like RGB ( yes, thats a compliment), cannot see the handwriting on the wall. Its not just about survellance cameras and you know it. Look at the big picture, it is frightening.
I think IBM’s collaboration with the Nazis in the Holocaust is fully documented. Systematic genocide on that scale needed new technology and IBM was more than happy to provide it to the Nazis.
http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
Invasion of privacy, on the scale the conservatives envision, needs new technology which, of course, corporate America will gladly provide for a hefty fee.
In my country, I met a rep who said he was from a major American software firm (Let’s just call it “Macrosoft”) who told me he was consulting with the nation’s phone company to implement their automated eavesdropping software. He was a conservative so, naturally, he saw no moral problem in this.
Of course, a small role of “Macrosoft’s” technology will be to look for terrorism and a larger percentage for crimes. But the “Macrosoft” software and consulting will mostly be used to suppress democracy, religious freedom, free speech and womens rights.
I hope “Raul Allen” likes his big ‘ole yacht. We’re paying for it dearly over here.
13. You’re right, it is pretty frightening, but how do you hold back the tide? Isn’t it something when technology can make standing laws and rights simply irrelevant, say, like the internet has?
Can there be much doubt that camera and sound gear will soon be miniaturized to the size of an aspirin and only cost a couple of dollars?
… I-n t-h-e y-e-a-r t-w-o t-h-o-u-s-a-n-d…
Someday soon your glasses, watch, ring or earring – even the fabric of your clothes – will record *every* moment of your life and *everything* around you. In some places, this will even become the law like the Swiss who are legally obligated to own firearms for national security purposes.
I would say presently this kind of gear should be allowed to operate wherever a watching human could be placed. But someday these dot-sized devices will reside virtually everywhere, even in toilet bowls, watching everything. Like those who dearly wish free speech and porn could be stopped on the internet, there won’t be a thing anyone will be able to do about it. And Big Brother will just be a very tiny part of it all.
… I-n t-h-e y-e-a-r t-w-o t-h-o-u-s-a-a-a-a-a-n-d!…
And people will quaintly remember when folks got upset about street cameras. Now go enjoy your election.
RBG
RGB- I am hoping some of the more electronically creative among us will devise a way to disarm or disable these devices, I for one will be glad to carry one and electronic jam or disable as many as possible. In the meantime I will not take a national ID card, chip or whatever insane device they have in store for us. I am digging the cave as we speak.