A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief • Hacker News Board

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#131

Post by romaniv » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 3:20 PM UTC

ciaranm wrote: post #78

dumb-saint wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it extremely creepy to visit the UK because of all the cameras, sometimes actively pointed at me. It is one thing to not expect privacy in the public space, in the sense that others can see you. It is another to be actively targeted by a gigantic network of cameras connected to who knows what -- in an age where automatic face recognition is becoming trivial. I would like to ask people who make the "you have no…

I agree with the parent r.e. safety concerns though. It's a cheap, easy way to provide a relatively sure record of truth for public spaces. It helps prosecute people who enact violent or other crimes, and reduces the number of those in the first place. Do you disagree with that, or value being invisible in public higher?

Meta-study: http://www.popcenter.org/Responses/video_surveillance/PDFs/W...

TLDR: The value and effects of CCTV cameras are very much context-dependent. Also, nearly half of the research in this are was deemed too unreliable by the authors.

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#132

Post by crispyambulance » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 3:27 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #130

crispyambulance wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because by the time "law" enters into the picture, the driver will have been booted by Uber, the thief will have been released from jail and already started on his next stack of credit cards and being driven by another Uber driver.

There is still no law that mandates you must be an accomplice to a criminal or that you cannot boot passengers out. Reading Uber driver stories, it seems kicking out passengers isn't too uncommon. Yeah, it's a hit, but most of them said you need to contact Uber immediately to explain the situation (with mixed results). Personally, I'd rather do that than drive a criminal around to commit crimes (including defrauding…

An accomplice is somebody who participates knowingly in a criminal activity. Minding one's business and not making baseless assumptions about whether an uncanny stack of credit cards implies a crook doesn't rise anywhere near being "an accomplice".

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#133

Post by Jtsummers » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 3:33 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #97

barsonme wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be totally down to remove speed limits in some places (I drive cross-state every weekend, so I'd love it :-) but, in my opinion, speed limits can be useful in certain areas. Off the top of my head: - Residential areas (like actual suburbs or cities) would benefit from speed limits. I'm a bit of a libertarian, but I'd prefer we have intentionally slow things down in highly populated areas, particularly where there…

I also think that speeding laws are good. However I think it would be better if we designed our streets so that drivers don't drive at dangerous speeds. Have frequent speed bumps, narrow lanes, cobblestones, etc on residential streets.

This can have the unintended side-effect of reducing access for emergency vehicles. I lived in a neighborhood once with a traffic circle at the entrance, initially with a tree and shrubbery. That was gone within a year after the ambulances had driven over/through the shrubs a few times. The traffic circle remained, but the physical barrier became, essentially, a 15mph speed bump.

Narrow lanes, frequent speed bumps have to be considered carefully. With regard to speed bumps, they need to be the gradual sort (where you can actually pass over them at 15-25mph depending on the slope) rather than the ones that effectively force a stop (a curb in the road). Narrow lanes only work if streetside parking is illegal. And so on.

Otherwise, I entirely agree with your point. Design roads so that certain speeds are unattainable, then speed limits barely matter anymore.

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#134

Post by DanBC » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 3:35 PM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #81

dumb-saint wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it extremely creepy to visit the UK because of all the cameras, sometimes actively pointed at me. It is one thing to not expect privacy in the public space, in the sense that others can see you. It is another to be actively targeted by a gigantic network of cameras connected to who knows what -- in an age where automatic face recognition is becoming trivial. I would like to ask people who make the "you have no…

Regarding automatic face recognition: I believe most US/European citizens, at least those who travel on airplanes, are in the facial recognition corpus of the intelligence services by now. What they do (I'm guessing) is use the cameras at passport checkpoints in airports. There they get many thousands of frames of your face from various angles, and due to the strict ordering in the queue they can match all those to y…

The US overtly explicitly gather the photographs and fingerprints of visitors

https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/general/border-bio...

> Select travel procedures and biometrics to learn more about the Department of Homeland Security’s program at U.S. ports-of-entry, which verifies the identity of the traveler using the electronic fingerprint data and digital photographs.

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#135

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 3:45 PM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #122

dumb-saint wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not really? I don't look for cameras and I legit don't see them pretty much anywhere. I know they're in all the tube stations, but it doesn't make me wary? Are you saying or are you asking? > I'm sure cameras mean you're less likely to do things which are not allowed - but guess what, I actually would rather have less vandalism, less assault, etc etc. Yes, and you are also less likely to do things that are allowed,…

> A strawman is when you attack a claim that was not actually made by your opponent. ... > I can show them to you, but you will probably just say that I am exaggerating and that this is a different situation. ?

Which is precisely what proceeded to happen: "I don't believe any of your suggestions are true in a way that don't apply to public spaces in general. I wouldn't do "thing x" in case the wrong people saw, but that includes the possibility of a friend of my boss seeing me making out with his wife so I'm not going to do that where I might be seen."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13220139

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#136

Post by knz » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 3:54 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #134

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding automatic face recognition: I believe most US/European citizens, at least those who travel on airplanes, are in the facial recognition corpus of the intelligence services by now. What they do (I'm guessing) is use the cameras at passport checkpoints in airports. There they get many thousands of frames of your face from various angles, and due to the strict ordering in the queue they can match all those to y…

The US overtly explicitly gather the photographs and fingerprints of visitors https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/general/border-bio... > Select travel procedures and biometrics to learn more about the Department of Homeland Security’s program at U.S. ports-of-entry, which verifies the identity of the traveler using the electronic fingerprint data and digital photographs.

Visitors and Permanent Residents.

I would love to know the rationale of greater scrutiny of PR's - I suspect it would be quite hard for someone to forge a "green card" (it has a lot of obvious security features built in) and it needs to match your passport anyway. It's not a big deal but it always stuck me as a waste of time.

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#137

Post by sjg007 » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 3:54 PM UTC

rebuilder wrote: post #116

dumb-saint wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it extremely creepy to visit the UK because of all the cameras, sometimes actively pointed at me. It is one thing to not expect privacy in the public space, in the sense that others can see you. It is another to be actively targeted by a gigantic network of cameras connected to who knows what -- in an age where automatic face recognition is becoming trivial. I would like to ask people who make the "you have no…

Here's a terrific-terrible idea: let's create an open network of surveillance cameras with facial recognition. Permanent logs, free access to all, an easy search function, plot all events on a map with timestamps. Should kick up a storm.

You could probably take geo located timestamp Facebook / instagram / snapchat and get a similar result.

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#138

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 4:05 PM UTC

willvarfar wrote: post #56

morgante wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely share your views. If I'm in public, I by definition should not expect privacy.

But perhaps not everything in the public space viewshed is public? Are police allowed to stand on the street and look over your fence, or through your windows? Are police allowed to leave a camera outside your house so they don't have to stand there while they look over your fence or through your windows? This is particularly pertinent because the FBI happen to believe that everything that can be seen from public spa…

What the FBI (executive) believes is legal and what the courts (judicial) believe is legal will occasionally differ.

Also, if you were to stand on a public right-of-way and photograph an FBI building, you would quickly find that the FBI's beliefs about photography are a bit more nuanced, and a lot more hypocritical.

Usually, the courts take into account the typical movements of actual people when determining the expectation of privacy. If you put up an 8-ft privacy fence around your backyard, and an aerial camera can still see into it from unrestricted public airspace, that doesn't really matter, because you have made the gesture of enclosing a private space. The fence is a request for the public to honor your desire for privacy. Genuine privacy is what you get when the government builds a classified facility. Fences, restricted airspace, guards with guns, and locked windowless rooms. No private person can afford that, so we pretend that a fig leaf is as good as a tuxedo.

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#139

Post by byuu » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 4:07 PM UTC

I once had a bank card fall out of my pocket at a movie theater. My mistake, should've put it in the wallet but was in a hurrry.

Most likely someone on the cleaning crew stole it. Same pattern, tiny fast food purchases followed by lots of several hundred dollar purchases. My bank (Huntington), did not catch it at all. They drained the entire checking account.

They mostly went to Meijer, three times spending over $300 each time, all on the same night. And every time, they paid with credit and no cashier there asked for ID. (Yeah, I didn't have a lot of money back then, this was around 2008? or so, I believe.)

Filed a police report, went to the bank. Took about two weeks to get the money back, barely made rent that month as a result. A detective called me one time, asked me to call him back. I called him back probably five times leaving messages for him, he was never there, and he never called me again. I never heard anything more on it.

They can easily catch these guys if they want to, they just apparently don't give a shit, as there's nothing really in it for them. Better to go after revenue-generating pursuits like civil forfeiture, I guess. Maybe they just have too many cases, but by not resolving them, all that does is embolden thieves to keep doing this shit because they know they'll get away with it.

Moral of the story: keep separate checking and savings accounts, don't ever carry around cards that can ring up more than you're comfortable losing. Nowadays I keep less than $1,000 in my checking account (which isn't as much for me anymore), the rest in savings. If I want to make a big purchase, I'll bring my credit card along with me that one time only. I wanted to do a debit-only card to require a PIN#, but those are far too restrictive. Way too many places are credit only (fast food, restaurants, parking lot ticket machines, etc.)

Also, wallet chains. They look tacky as hell, but they've saved me more than once. If you wear khakis, they're essential.

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#140

Post by 13of40 » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 4:14 PM UTC

dumb-saint wrote: post #118

rebuilder wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a terrific-terrible idea: let's create an open network of surveillance cameras with facial recognition. Permanent logs, free access to all, an easy search function, plot all events on a map with timestamps. Should kick up a storm.

That is a great idea, but it will not work. People will say that only the government and big corporations can be trusted with that data, because of reasons.

I think it's a terrible idea. If I decide to call in sick and go lamp shopping, there's a vast difference between the FBI or Google being able to track me, with some effort, and my boss being able to idly hit a web page and see where I am. At the end of the day most of us are hiding trivial, below-the-radar infidelities, not dragging dismembered bodies around in suitcases or plotting revolutions.