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A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

coveillance.org

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Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#291

Post by bombcar »

neutronicus wrote: post #166
nostromo wrote: post #72

I think this is just the new normal. My car was stolen in Seattle and it was found with the person driving it when he was pulled over by police. In the car he had paperwork with his name on it, a weapon, and his work uniform in the trunk with a name badge (he was a security guard - lol) along with a neighborhood witness. Despite a mountain of evidence, the prosecutors declined to press charges because without direct…

My wife was on a murder jury in Baltimore that convicted on the strength of video evidence. She was surprised at just how much of it there was.

The amount of resources brought to bear on a murder is way above what will be brought for a stolen car.

For those they likely won’t even have a cop call the local businesses.

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#292

Post by bombcar »

bonoboTP wrote: post #227
lovich wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems that the selection process optimizes for either liars or dumb people who are easiest to emotionally manipulate. It does. Having expert knowledge is a deal breaker too. I actually want to serve on a jury but because I am unwilling to lie to a judge I’ve been bounced everytime when I am asked if I would believe the police testimony and I reply with “that would depend on if they were a Brady cop”

I once saw the livestream of jury selection in a big trial and read up on the whole thing and it seemed like such an obviously weak point of the whole process. The whole language around the concepts that underpin it seem totally ignorant of human psychology and pretend that humans are great at self reflection, won't hide their motivations etc. Like asking whether you're able to put aside X and Y from influencing your…

The jury system works because there’s 12 and people are generally honest.

In many cases as the defendant you can opt for a bench (judge) trial. Jury’s usually a better gamble overall.

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#293

Post by bombcar »

Gigachad wrote: post #245
gdudeman wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone trying to figure out how to build a society where no one wants to be a criminal, I highly recommend When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment by Mark Kleiman. There are evidence-backed ways of reducing criminality. One counterintuitive way of reducing crime is to increase the likelihood of being caught, to have small-but-increasing consequences for committing crimes, and to increas…

An intuitive way to understand it is imagining that there was a system where if you stole something, you 100% of the time got hit with a charge to your account of the item value + $10. No one would steal again even if the penalty for getting caught was relatively nothing. Because the feedback loop is so short and guaranteed. No ones life would be ruined over a dumb choice and yet they would change their behavior very…

You have to deal with the judgement-proof somehow.

There’s effectively two sets of laws - one for those with something to lose (fines, etc) and one for those with nothing to lose.

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#294

Post by bombcar »

hamdingers wrote: post #122
goda90 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if instead of trying to figure out how to catch criminals, we focus on building a society where no one wants to be a criminal? Can we find solutions to what causes crime, like desperation, greed, fear, failure to understand and have compassion for other people, etc?

A leading cause of premature death in the US is car crashes. Car crashes are in almost all cases caused or exacerbated by operator negligence. That negligence is not caused by desperation/greed/fear/lack of empathy, but by a confidence that one won't get caught or punished. I can't imagine a better way to deal with this problem than with cameras that can detect these behaviors and issue citations impartially and cons…

We have the technology - the government could automatically ticket you a dollar per mile per hour over the speed limit if we wanted it to.

And if nobody sped except in emergencies fatalities would likely be way down (and speed limits would be adjusted up where sane).

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#295

Post by bombcar »

djeastm wrote: post #91
trbleclef wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's that quote about essential Liberty and temporary Safety again...

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin But as we all know in context Franklin was talking about the Penn family wanting to literally purchase temporary safety from native American raids privately (rather than being taxed) and weakening the ability of the PA General Assembly to govern. I'm guessing he'd probably be pro privac…

My understanding of Franklin is that if he were alive today he’d probably spend most of his time on Onlyfans.

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#296

Post by bombcar »

Permit wrote: post #223
reaperducer wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably. I don't follow it. All I know is that a high-profile person's mom got kidnapped and in spite of all the billions of dollars spent on surveillance technology in this country, she's vanished into thin air.

Doesn’t that mean we have an insufficient number of cameras?

Or an insufficient number of AirTags installed in Grandma.

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#297

Post by bombcar »

mips_avatar wrote: post #55

Still somehow was "impossible" for the Seattle police to recover security camera footage of my bike being stolen under the light rail station security camera.

You made the common error of being common, and not related to the mayor or others in positions of power.

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#298

Post by bombcar »

marssaxman wrote: post #149

I walked around downtown Seattle twenty-five years ago helping my ex-wife make a survey like this, cataloging & photographing surveillance devices for a project she was working on. I wonder whatever came of it. Even then, it was difficult to get very far without passing through the view of some security camera or other.

What’s amazing is that you only see the cameras they want you to see (the whole deterrent thing is such they sell empty cameras).

Actual buildings that care about security in a “government paranoia” way have many more cameras you won’t be able to easily find from the street.

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#299

Post by bombcar »

metalrain wrote: post #150

Isn't any camera with low enough angle good for license plate reading with additional software?

You can have license plate readers at home if you want (years ago I confirmed that everything existed to measure the speed of cars driving past my house using common cameras, image recognition, and software). I never actually put it together and maybe should try with AI now.

The missing link is the easy database to pull it all up in a moments notice as opposed to subpoenaing footage all over the city and digging through it.

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#300

Post by bombcar »

tpolm wrote: post #15

If the survelliance tech is so great, why post amber alert messages with the license plate numbers all over all highways to help find the car?

The Amber Alert system is much older than promiscuous cameras.

99% of the time it’s a custodial dispute, but that’s orthogonal.

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