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San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

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201–210 of 292 posts

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#201
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like having the ability to speak openly about my feelings towards the government without being put on a watchlist regardless of where I am. The government != moral authority. It's very possible to do things the government wouldn't like without doing something that would be considered "amoral".

Is a right to privacy expected in public? Regardless, the fact that there is a street light next to my house, almost over my property, which is most definitely not public, is very concerning.

Yes, people expect privacy when moving through their day in public, even though they may not expect it in an particular location. If they didn't expect that, stalking wouldn't be a concern.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#202
ctOS from Watch_DOGS at its infancy... Should be fun soon!

I liked one scenario they had for self-driving car crashes and the dilemma who should be killed in the event of an unavoidable accident. Car quickly retrieved the social score of each probable victim from a ctOS database and optimized crash setup to do the lowest harm to subjects with highest social score. No more car occupant vs external person nor owner vs manufacturer legal responsibility dilemma. Sounds really prophetic. Can't wait to see it in action! /s

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the problems with money in politics. As money becomes more important in winning elections, politicians' interests align more with the "moneyed interests" rather than the voters or even the public. The house of representatives should serve as a bulwark against "moneyed interests", but even they are being targeted and bought by money. What good is democracy if a small group of people buy all the politici…

There's currently a "small donor boom" on the Democratic side (possibly Republicans too, I'm unsure). Super PACs etc are fading in importance, in this cycle at least.

Yeah, they say that every election cycle. Remember Ron Paul? Bernie Sanders? Remember the "small donors" for Obama? Nobody remembered them and neither did Obama. Super PACs are growing. Not sure where you got the idea that they are fading. Super PACs are only a few years old and they have tons of room to grow.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#204

Maybe this will be viewed as too anti-social, but has anyone considered doing laser based attacks on these? Lasers seem to be able to damage camera sensors fairly easily and permanently and as they operate in the visible light range should be hard to block. Could make a system like this prohibitively expensive to operate.

Wouldn't spray paint be a lot easier?

It would, but I'm guessing they have a very cheap, ~$1 lens filter or glass sheet on those things.

Permanently damaging the camera sensor isn't so cheap or easy to replace. And as many lasers operate in the visible light spectrum you can't block it without worsening the image quality substantially.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#205
post #81
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there video camera and microphones installed city-wide on streetlights or not?

No, there aren’t. This is a few hundred cameras and it’s mostly downtown. San Diego is the eighth largest city in the US and this is a tiny fraction of the city. Evaluate it on the merits, but be clear about what’s really going on.

This is factually incorrect. There are currently over 3000 cameras live on this system, with the goal to increase to over 4000.

You can see them all here: https://cityiqmapsd.herokuapp.com/

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#206
post #2

How does anyone who lives in San Diego get to see the live camera and data feeds? Surely a city in the US didn't create a public surveillance network that takes the information and makes it private.

I'm bummed that of all places on the internet, no one on HN has pointed out that the answer to your question is the city has an API you can query to obtain the public data collected by the sensors.

Not the videos though.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#207
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...

SD Reader was, in my opinion, more honest and willing to do municipal reporting requiring attention to detail than the Scripps/Tronc-owned UT, which was often a vehicle for whatever local real-estate magnates wanted to be in print.

The Union-Tribune is owned by Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong now, along with the Los Angeles Times. The reporting has been a little better lately, at least in the Times.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#208
post #54
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of defeatism isn't helpful. Surveillance technology doesn't sprout up from nothingness; it's built on a culture and a political/economic environment which can be changed.

This isn't defeatism. I just think there is a wave coming that's really hard to stop and I don't see anything in the current political structure that's willing to stop it.

People need to band together and vandalize and destroy these things, basically the only way currently.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#209
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ‘builders’ are better described as ‘profiteers’. The panopticon is being requested and purchased by municipalities, which are predominantly governed by those from the baby boomer generation. Start-up 101. Build what the Users want.

Young blindly build Facebook like apps, old build a CCTV network. Everything feels scary, try walking around at 2 a.m. and not feeling it. People are tired of it. I don't think that all the surveillance will work. You always find the most amount of sketchy people around police stations. The cameras will make things worse. Good people will flee to other neighborhoods, were they are not being watched. Fundamentally, wh…

> Fundamentally, why aren't things safe?

My guess..a lack to tight-knit communities, very large cities with millions of strangers, increased cultural/ethnic/religious diversity within a community, increased portrayal of political/racial/gender conflict in our 24x7 media, etc...these things might lead to a sense of less social cohesion and distrust of out-groups in general...add to this multicultural "mixing pot" (at least in the U.S.) an increased surveillance state and militarized police force and your "society" will seem very "unsafe"

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#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 police with a court available as an override? Just spitballing. Everything has a negative unintended consequence.

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