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San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

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Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#211

Post by zaroth »

jdavis703 wrote: post #193
maxxxxx wrote: post #41

It's just a matter of time until we have country-wide full surveillance. It will be the perfect tool for anyone who wants to create a dictatorship. The thought police and the telescreens in 1984 will look primitive and weak in comparison. I think there is no way around it. Add to that drones to keep the population under control and there is huge danger we'll have a pretty bleak future.

It’s up to us to stop this. Me and many others took time off work to tell our transit agency, BART, not to implement a draconian police state, including facial recognition cameras. BART wound up becoming one of the first (if not first) transit agencies in the US to implement a privacy policy instead [0]. Work still remains though, one BART employee told the press they were considering fake gun turrets that would drop…

But that is kinda funny. Probably effective too! Maybe add in a dub from Robocop.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#212

Post by toomanybeersies »

sphinxpy wrote: post #74
stevejb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes exactly this. The "trust us, we are very careful with this ability to spy on you" should be taken with a grain of salt.

Every person in these towns that have this violation of basic rights, should be demanding the takedown immediately but they won't. Again and again the people of this country fall for the "trust us. We are her to help you." lie that our government sells. If they do care, many people are in a state of disagreement and division so much that they won't work together out of spite if it means working with another ideology.…

Serious question, natural rights aside, is this actually a violation of basic rights in a legal sense (laws, constitutions, etc)?

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#213

Post by zaroth »

usrusr wrote: post #57
fbonetti wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just get a headlamp that can be angled down.

Does not change the fact that the light source is very close to the observer, and to make it worse higher than the observer. Both are quite bad for detecting the structure of the ground.

Where would you want the light to fix this? Somewhere else you could wear it on your body? Torso, thigh, ankle?

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#214

Post by toomanybeersies »

Shivetya wrote: post #49
pie_hacker wrote: post #19

I find it frightening that local governments in the U.S. are installing microphones to spy on their citizens in public.

it is more frightening how quickly citizens of most countries willingly give up their privacy and freedoms to their government over the promise of a cookie or promise of keeping other people away from the same cookies. politicians in the West excel at exploiting fear and jealously to obtain more authority, divide and conquer. The US would only end up in dictatorship through court packing or a moral authority faction…

> politicians in the West excel at exploiting fear and jealously to obtain more authority, divide and conquer.

I don't think that's a trait unique to politicians in the West, and in fact I'd say that Western politicians tend to exploit fear and jealousy less than those in the developing world. You've got ethnic cleansing going on in Myanmar, ethnic and religious conflict in Kashmir, and the extrajudicial killings of drug dealers and users in the Phillipines, to name a few instances.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#215

Post by komali2 »

sroussey wrote: post #210

5G and it’s need to remake all the light and utility poles in the city will bring the cameras and microphones. It’s a compelling use case to a government, regardless of privacy implications. Microphones are used in a lot of places to figure out and triangulate the location of a gunshot. Cameras can track cars and people automatically. Not sure what to do about it though. Maybe multisig with community leaders and poli…

>Microphones are used in a lot of places to figure out and triangulate the location of a gunshot.

Apparently, those don't work too well.

Spotshotter works in principle, but police departments are getting as low as 50% false positive rates, and can't really do anything if they do get reports of gunshots anyway - they turn up and the shooter is gone.

https://www.govtech.com/public-safety/After-Too-Many-Shots-M...

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#216

Post by chc »

another_comment wrote: post #175
mark212 wrote: post #21

This blog post is highly misleading and inaccurate. Access to the video is very limited and subject to strict protocols for use in investigations. And the audio recording capacity isn’t live because the City has no use for it. The SD Reader isn’t a very trustworthy source. Here’s the U-T’s extensive piece on the topic: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversatio...

You have it backwards. The Union Tribune is known to shill for the establishment and has been called "not a credible source of information". The San Diego Reader is local, independent and has a good reputation for honesty. Source: I've lived in San Diego for the last 50 years.

The Reader is independent and the UT is corporate-owned, but on the other hand, the Reader is not really much of a news outlet. Its role in the local ecosystem is kind of halfway between PennySaver and Reader's Digest. They're not dishonest, but they're not shelling out for top-notch reporters either.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#217

Post by exabrial »

mark212 wrote: post #21

This blog post is highly misleading and inaccurate. Access to the video is very limited and subject to strict protocols for use in investigations. And the audio recording capacity isn’t live because the City has no use for it. The SD Reader isn’t a very trustworthy source. Here’s the U-T’s extensive piece on the topic: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversatio...

These strict protocols would normally be called warrants.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#218

Post by soheil »

rhokstar wrote: post #10

Since the introduction of cameras used at intersections to penalize stop light violators (made famous by a former mayor who ran a red light while getting a blow job from his mistress), San Diego has always been experimenting with surveillance technology especially thereafter. Those intersection cameras have been minimized from county wide implementation at its height. Being a border city and a major military hub for…

It's not just border cities. I came back from a business trip to Memphis and were shocked to see blue lights blinking on top of street light poles [0] almost everywhere specially in poorer areas, they are cameras recording audio and video 24/7 installed by the city to deter potential crime.

[0] https://www.toledoblade.com/image/2014/06/06/1140x_a10-7_cTC...

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#219

Post by village-idiot »

komali2 wrote: post #215
sroussey wrote: post #210

5G and it’s need to remake all the light and utility poles in the city will bring the cameras and microphones. It’s a compelling use case to a government, regardless of privacy implications. Microphones are used in a lot of places to figure out and triangulate the location of a gunshot. Cameras can track cars and people automatically. Not sure what to do about it though. Maybe multisig with community leaders and poli…

>Microphones are used in a lot of places to figure out and triangulate the location of a gunshot. Apparently, those don't work too well. Spotshotter works in principle, but police departments are getting as low as 50% false positive rates, and can't really do anything if they do get reports of gunshots anyway - they turn up and the shooter is gone. https://www.govtech.com/public-safety/After-Too-Many-Shots-M...

Former Chicago resident here. The spotshotters were a very effective way to determine what neighborhoods you didn’t want to walk through at night.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#220

Post by soup10 »

dontbenebby wrote: post #188
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many Googlers have already left Google on ethical grounds, and many more likely will in the near future. There are multiple organized groups of employees trying to enact change internally, but some who previously did that have already recognized that as futile and left, so presumably more will eventually. Google is already an extremely large company, and I think that many are only just now realizing the problems that…

>I think that Google's available talent pool is shrinking. Many very talented engineers have left, and many new potential engineers would not want to work there. Sure, there are still plenty who do, but I would say their options are narrowing over time. I think you overestimate how skilled you need to be to work at Google. Google has famously put people through enormous hoops to work there, regardless of the complexi…

Maybe true in the very early days but Google has 100K employees now. It's a mixed bag of skilled and mediocre.
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