iSpy vs. gSpy
January 7, 2013
(Credit: Hustvedt/Wikimedia Commons)
We are all being watched, whether we like it or not.
It is a battle between you and the government — like Mad Magazine’s Spy vs. Spy comic, but it’s gSpy vs. iSpy, Andy Kessler, author of Eat People, writes in The Wall Street Journal.
There are thousands of toll booths at bridges and turnpikes across America recording your license plate. There are 4,214 red-light cameras and 761 speed-trap cameras around the country. Add 494,151 cell towers and 400,000 ATMs that record video of your transactions.
Popular Mechanics magazine estimates that there are some 30 million commercial surveillance cameras in the U.S. logging billions of hours of video a week.
We are watching back. I know the precise number of red-light cameras because a website (poi-factory.com) crowdsources their locations and updates them daily for download to GPS devices. And 30 million surveillance cameras are a pittance compared with the 327 million cellphones in use across America, almost all of them with video cameras built in.
But gSpy is going further. Already a third of large U.S. police forces equip patrol cars with automatic license plate-readers that can check 1,000 plates per hour looking for scofflaws. U.S. Border Patrol already uses iris-recognition technology, with facial-recognition in the works, if not already deployed.
How long until police identify 1,000 faces per hour walking around the streets of New York?
H/T: Stuart Silverstone
Comments (28)
by Cybernettr
On a couple of occasions I have driven through Illinois. The toll roads there are set up in such a way that those with an electronic pass go straight through while those without must take a poorly marked exit to get to the tollbooth.
Perhaps I’m just dumb but I find it extremely easy to overlook these exits and skip right by the tollbooth. There are no “rumble strips” on the road or anything else to inform you that a tollbooth is coming up.
I have received a letter in the mail with a fine and a nice picture of my licence plate because I have unknowingly passed a tollbooth. As a result, I not only avoid tollroads in Illinois, I avoid Illinois as much as possible. Goodbye tourist dollars!
The fact is that with red-light cameras and speed-trap cameras there are an unbelievable number of ways for the government to commit highway robbery, and driving is already expensive enough. It’s just another way of screwing the average man.
That’s just the beginning, of course. I see no limit to the number of ways this technology can be horribly abused.
by Bri
People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people. Whether we like it or not, we need government. We’ve got a good one, it just requires active participation by all the people to make it work right.
by Mr.X
You just have to push these 583993 buttons in the right order to make it start.This washing-machine is good, but it takes an experienced housewife to use it.
In other words: Government is good, the people are bad?
“Governments should be afraid of their people.”
Give 1billion $ to us islamists, we belong to your people!
Ok, there you go.
by Mr.X
* it should have been “in the right sequence”…
Reading this article and the apologists in the comments my mind was filled with too much ‘law&order’…
by klaatu
Most of the “the gumment is out to get me” crowd are
the same ppl whose right wing political party embodies the worst
of government. “Government doesn’t work”..elect us & we’ll
prove it. Austerity while out of power & 1, 2, 3 or more wars
when back in power to hide raiding the Pentagon budget.
The Heritage Foundation has been getting us ready since
the 1980′s for a time when WMD can be made cheaply in
a basement or lab. These are the very ones who are now
yelling the loudest about losing our “freedoms & liberties”
to entertain their Tea Party low information voting base.
by Christopher
Goggle glass type technology will quickly leap from taking a frame every 10 seconds to constant flawless audio and video feeds. We will have ‘life logs’, where everything we see and hear is recorded, in the very near future if we choose. Soon after that the technology will be small enough at the consumer level to basically be hidden. No one will ever know whether you have recording contact lenses in, so they will have to assume that you do.
This has some definite problems for privacy advocates. When a crime happens, can they subpeona everyone’s private logs who was in the area and reconstruct the crime? But it will also mean the watchers are constantly watched. TSA thugs and the like, abusive cops, etc. They will all be being recorded at all times as well. They may try to make it illegal with wiretapping laws, but it is ultimately unenforceable.
The authorities will have to know that their every action is likely to be being streamed to the cloud, and abuses will be out in the open for all to see.
Strange days coming.
by luke
(all my opinions, of course…)
At some point we will not be able to forensically distinguish between fake video and real video. It will be as easy as writing
trace (‘hello world’);
to render a ‘video’ of John Doe committing crime xyz.
What we can generate digitally with our imaginations and tools will far surpass all that we can capture in real-time viewers.
;0)
Cheers.
by klaatu
“Strange Days” are here & have been here way b4 the movie
by that name directed by Katherine Bigalow(?) & written by
James Cameron. She did the Zero Dark Thirty OBL movie.
I HATE TO USE CAPS BUT THE RIGHT WING WHO ARE YELLING
ABOUT “FREEDOMS & LIBERTIES ARE THE SAME ONES WHO
HAVE BEEN PREPARING US FOR A TIME WHEN WMD CAN
BE MADE CHEAPLY BY ONLY A FEW IN A LAB. They’ve
been doing it for thirty years & trying to argue both
sides of the argument…isn’t that so typical.
by tim the realist
People used to be afraid of the gov implanting tracking chips in them. Most people have volunteered to simply carry one in their pocket (cell phone). It has the added benefit of recording all of your communications!
by GatorALLin
…Yeah, how ironic that it is us that is recording everything…. and doing it for free. Makes you wonder if people may start to wear helmet like devices that hide their face from being videoed in the future?
by Editor
… or metamaterial cloaking devices that hide (or modify) identities…. It’s going to be a weird panopticon vs. sousveillance world out there….
by Gorden Russell
“How long until police identify 1,000 faces per hour walking around the streets of New York?”
I certainly hope the Gendarmes of Paris start wearing Google Glasses for this. Those Algerians in the McDonald’s there wont dare to assault the Cyborg Police.
by GatorALLin
Every time I see one of the cop shows where they get a guy for driving past a toll booth, or a big intersection with cameras, I am always surprised by how low quality the video actually is. Yeah it shows a guy in the car, but you can’t always confirm who that person is (ok we cross referenced the cell tower, so we can prove you were in this grid, but otherwise the quality of the camera is poor). For cops to auto read the license plate….looking for outstanding warrants, or traffic tickets, etc… seems like a smart idea as I hear that over 65% of all major criminals are caught through incidental traffic stops (bad tail light, etc). I guess I expect cameras now to be on ever overpass and every major intersection.
by Derek
David Brin’s “Transparent Society” is an in-depth discussion of the disappearance of privacy…and why that could turn out to be a good thing. I highly recommend the read.
by Gorden Russell
I’ve been a fan of Brin’s since he first appeared back in Asimov’s SF back in the early ’80s, but I don’t see how this will help poor people like me. Even when the crack addicts have the nerve to rob me while I’m watching them, the police do nothing. They make it sound like it’s your fault for having possessions to tempt them to steal from you. When I saw on the news that a junkie did the same thing in a rich neighborhood, he got over 20 years for his crimes. The police just don’t answer the complaints of poor people.
by klaatu
David Brin, the author behind “Diaspora” the first singularity SF I ever read. It’s as if this thread is being seeded with little breadcrumbs
…that’s like thilly, isn’t it? Tho paranoid of me:-(
by DrDubious
The Government = The Corporation
People = Inventory
gSpy/cSpy = Inventory management
When the economy is fully automated, the Inventory will be liquidated.
by Vivekan
There should be a demonstrable amount of solved victim crimes by a specified time, because the potential for abuse is staggering, especially with editing technology.
by Ron Abate
I see these video systems as a good way to discourage crime and catch criminals.
by Mr.X
@Ron: You can see them anyway you want.That doesn’t make it right.
by MinorityMandate
What makes them right? Or wrong? Is public space not public? Or do we have a right to grant or withhold, as in many non-technical cultures, permission to record personal images anywhere at any time?
by Mr.X
@Minority:
Who is them?
Ron said he sees these video systems as a good way to discourage crime AND catch criminals.
And I think it is not a good way to discourage crime.England (yeah, I singled that part out) and the USA have higher crime rates than most other ‘civilized’ countries, and these two are the biggest surveillance states on earth, monitoring everything you can think of (ok, almost everything).Of course, at least Europe is catching up (concerning surveillance, not crimes), it seems.
Speaking about “non-technical cultures”: Are you trying to paint people who’d like to have some privacy as primitive?By the way: Many tribal societies have (had) LESS privacy than our modern societies.And I don’t know any ‘non-technical cultures’, this being a difference in degree and not quality.
I noticed some people here claim we already have no privacy anymore, since most of us use the internet and give -through this usage- more or less of our personal information away.
To me this is akin to running around naked because normally people can see my face, and therefore concluding “there’s nothing to hide” anymore.
“What makes them right? Or wrong? Is public space not public? ”
Another thing: You make a very simplistic mistake here,trapped in words as you are.Public space is per definition public, but you didn’t say anything else by this.
What does public mean?Could you define public for me?Who is the public? What is public space, and why should it have any bearing on my right to privacy?
A provocative example to think about: If the space belongs to the public, and the representives of this abstract entity have the right to ‘document’ whatever happens there… these records would therefore belong to the representatives, right?People can sell their own possessions!?
What if they would start to sell pictures (or vids) of your wife/girlfriend’s bosom to porn sites (I decided to make it less provocative)?After all, she had no privacy anyway.Why not upload that hilarious vid of you falling over to youtube?
The difference between public space and your private space (in which you may lord over others, I don’t know your laws) is that I practically have no choice wether to enter the former or not, if I wish to live a normal life.
If something is mine, or belongs to a collective, is everything therein contained, mine/its too?If you fly with an airplane, do you belong to its owner?
Why don’t ‘we’ proclaim ‘public air’ and tax it?
Of course, in the end it is a matter of the law, but something being legal doesn’t make it right.What makes someone right?It is matter of your ‘value system’, what you are trying to optimize for and what how far “you can see” in order to do so.
This gets problematic if some groups want to force others to make concessions, e.g the fearful or the exhibitionists who always dreamed to “be on cam” trying to effectively (because we must enter “public space”) film everyone.
by Mr.X
“We are all being watched, whether we like it or not.”
So much freedom!I envy you guys…
by T'Ail Chou
Big Brother is watching you! And you let him/them/it!
by Mr.X
“…Andy Kessler, author of Eat People, writes in The Wall Street Journal.”
Why am I not surprised…
by Bri
The first time I drove my van through the NY Midtown tunnel, after 911 they pulled me over to check me out. Everytime I go through now they don’t stop me to inspect. They know who I am. Until I show up on an FBI watch list they won’t stop me again. Everyone going into or out of NYC is recorded, whether you use planes trains or automobiles. Soon those red light cameras will record traffic activity by license plate numbers.
by Rob
Actually gSPY has a leg up. Your cell phone is basically a monitor the likes of which Soviet Russia never dreamed. From GPS to apps, it’s one giant mass of unsecured personal information that is only one subpoena away from the government’s hands. Consider where cell companies get their monopoly. The government. Do you think they’ll take your side or dutifully hand over your information when requested?
by TomZarek
Not long.