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BART killing exposes security gap – many train cameras are decoys

sfgate.com

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Re: BART killing exposes security gap – many train cameras are decoys

#41

Post by JupiterMoon »

DanBC wrote: post #6
JoblessWonder wrote: post #5

Same principal we had for cameras in our school buses. Only some of them actually had cameras in them but we were scared of all of them. If the goal is to deter low-level crime like vandalism, I would think they probably worked, at least temporarily. Although part of me can't imagine thinking someone is watching 4 cameras on every car on every train at all times.

In england you know they're really cameras because the feed displays on a screen and it flicks through all of them. (I'll take some photos tomorrow.)

It doesn't mean that they are actually recording though.

Re: BART killing exposes security gap – many train cameras are decoys

#42

Post by yabun »

csn wrote: post #39
Terr_ wrote: post #26

Another problem with "dummy cameras" for PUBLIC institutions is that they are basically lying to the taxpayer about what level of security is being funded and provided. What would you say about a municipality where half the circulating police-cars were secretly fakes "to deter crime", and which would not respond to any emergency? P.S.: I think as time goes people will be less-accepting of fake-cameras, because they'l…

The way I see it, dummy cameras and real ones have exactly the same pre-crime effect: they both create a sense of security and add to the observed risk associated with committing a crime. With dummies you get really low cost (practically no maintenance) but lose the benefits if and when a crime actually happens. Still net positive, I think. Like common locks, cameras only really prevent opportunistic crime. And for p…

Only if people don't know about the dummies, things tend toward zero sum with awareness of the situation.

Re: BART killing exposes security gap – many train cameras are decoys

#43

Post by some-guy »

iolothebard wrote: post #19
jheriko wrote: post #17

many cameras /everywhere/ are 'decoys' although often through lack of maintenance and being broken rather than intentionally. as much as they are being a security hole, they are also a cheap deterrent. i'd rather we have them than not. most criminals are smart enough to not want to be seen... despite the misconception that many criminals are stupid, desperate or somehow abnormal people who do not behave like 'the res…

Here's the photos. Just because a few weren't working (or real) doesn't mean they have no footage: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Photos-released-of-suspec...

That wasn't taken from a train camera however.

I ride BART every day and have always wondered if the train cameras are even in use most of the time. I suspected not, and this news story confirms my suspicion.

Re: BART killing exposes security gap – many train cameras are decoys

#44

Post by malandrew »

spike021 wrote: post #37
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an actual thing: "ghost units" - empty police cars placed around to stop people from speeding. http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20130730/ARTICLES/13073995...

The sad thing is I've seen plenty of patrol cars _with_ actual officers in them seemingly not taking breaks per se, but still ignoring blatant traffic law-breaking happening all around them.

Like the corner of Van Ness at Market Street where, during rush hour, a car goes straight through a red light about once every 5 to 10 minutes. I used to cross that intersection everyday and there was typically an officer standing on the southwest corner. I twice told the officer standing there about how frequently cars blow through that intersection and they both admitted it was a problem but had a "nothing we can do about it" attitude. I was flabbergasted. Some pedestrian is going to die there one day.

Re: BART killing exposes security gap – many train cameras are decoys

#45

Post by lowmagnet »

sveiss wrote: post #9
lowmagnet wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dummy cameras feel like 'Security Theater' to me.

But unlike, say, extensive airport screening procedures, it's fairly easy to test if dummy CCTV cameras have an impact on crime rates. I don't know if such a study has been done, but if it works and impacts the intended endpoints, it isn't really theatre.

I agree with you that there may be a placebo effect.

Perhaps I could call them part of the "set" on which the theater conducts its act.

Re: BART killing exposes security gap – many train cameras are decoys

#46

Post by jcrawfordor »

I've always suspected this. It's very unlikely that video would cross cars, there are already enough pins on the couplers and I believe this would invoke FRA requirements on the engineering.

I'm not sure when the cameras were installed, but the solid-state DVRs usually used on vehicles probably weren't available yet, given the age of the BART rolling stock. Tape-loop recorders would have been very high maintenance.

My suspicion is that some or all BART cars actually are equipped with tape-loop recorders, and what they call 'dummy cameras' are simply recorders which are broken or without tape because of lack of maintenance. The replacement tapes are also getting hard to obtain.

There are several good commercial options for vehicle surveillance now (Safety Vision being a prominent one), but across BART's ~650 cars this would easily turn into a several million dollar project. Let's just keep holding out for the new rolling stock...

Re: BART killing exposes security gap – many train cameras are decoys

#47

Post by lowmagnet »

archgoon wrote: post #38
lowmagnet wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dummy cameras feel like 'Security Theater' to me.

No, 'Security Theater' is for when you perform a bunch of actions to make people 'feel' safer without actually making them safer. We accuse airport security screening of being security theater because it is unlikely to be effective against a targeted attack, the very failure mode that the policies were instituted to prevent. In this case, however, the intended targets are presumably crimes of opportunity, not exhaust…

Putting up a dummy camera sure seems like one action taken to make people feel safer to me. It isn't the whole theater, just part of it.

Public transportation of the terrestrial variety has very little theater, and very little security anyway. Even the cameras that do work probably exist for the playback, not for the live "surveillance". I just don't think they're watching closely enough.

Re: BART killing exposes security gap – many train cameras are decoys

#48

Post by lowmagnet »

sliverstorm wrote: post #35
lowmagnet wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dummy cameras feel like 'Security Theater' to me.

More panopticon, maybe?

I assume in a panopticon the guards watch the prisoners. I don't think I can assume that about a dummy camera.

Re: BART killing exposes security gap – many train cameras are decoys

#49

Post by lowmagnet »

ramy_d wrote: post #7
lowmagnet wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dummy cameras feel like 'Security Theater' to me.

I wouldn't quite say that. Dummy cameras give petty criminals a risk they hedge their actions against. Security theater would be telling people they can feel safe from personal injury because of said cameras. Someone else put it succinctly: Surveillance is not Security.

You don't have to tell someone that something exists for their safety for it to qualify as theater. I agree that criminals hedge a petty crime vs. getting caught. I now think of this as a sub-type of theater, one that both fakes security and deters incidents via placebo in equal fashion.

You've changed my mind.

Re: BART killing exposes security gap – many train cameras are decoys

#50

Post by CodeWriter23 »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #30
Terr_ wrote: post #26

Another problem with "dummy cameras" for PUBLIC institutions is that they are basically lying to the taxpayer about what level of security is being funded and provided. What would you say about a municipality where half the circulating police-cars were secretly fakes "to deter crime", and which would not respond to any emergency? P.S.: I think as time goes people will be less-accepting of fake-cameras, because they'l…

This is an actual thing: "ghost units" - empty police cars placed around to stop people from speeding. http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20130730/ARTICLES/13073995...

I have seen LAPD park decoys in the lot around big box stores, presumably to deter shoplifting.
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