Tag Archives: surveillance

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The price of revenge – pranking speed cameras

UK-style GATSO traffic speed cameraYet again, the street finds its own use for things – even the things installed by The Man to make the street safe. Students in Maryland in the US have hit upon the idea of making up fake license plates for their cars which match those of someone on whom they wish to exact a bit of revenge, and then driving past the automatic speed cameras in the area at high speeds. End result? The unsuspecting victim is automatically sent a ticket for speeding, even though they didn’t do it. [via SlashDot]

Of course, we Brits have our own version of the same system, but over here people clone the plates of similar vehicles for the purpose of avoiding their own fines; they’re not so bothered about who ends up paying them, so long as it’s not them.

Remember, folks: state-owned automated surveillance systems. If you’ve done nothing wrong, then you’re perfectly safe.

Well, mostly. [image by 91RS]

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New UK smart CCTV cameras detect ‘precrimes’

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"one nation under cctv" by BanksyLiving in a small city like mine, it’s not often one gets to feel that one is at the cutting edge of an emerging future society.

So how lucky for myself and the other residents of the over-stretched city of Portsmouth that we are the first town in the UK to be under the observation of Phildickian ‘smart’ CCTV cameras that are programmed to flag up an alert when they observe ‘suspicious behaviour’ that might indicate a crime is about to be committed.

You know, those sure-fire indicators of criminality… such as standing still for a while, or stopping to talk to someone. I would like to take this opportunity to praise the glorious leadership of Airstrip One for going to such efforts to ensure that any and all double-plus-ungood actions can be eradicated before they even have a chance to occur!

If anyone needs me, I’ll be typing a letter to the German Embassy requesting political asylum. [image by JapanBlack]

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Stephen Fry on the power of words and CCTV

Stephen Fry’s latest blessay on words and their use is splendid, and it also includes a point relevant to the emerging Panopticon:

CCTV is such a bland, clumsy, rhythmically null and phonically forgettable word, if you can call it a word, that the swipe lacks real punch.

If one believed in conspiracy theories, you could almost call it genius that there is no more powerful word for the complex and frightening system of electronic surveillance that we lump into that weedy bundle of initials.

For if CCTV was called … I don’t know …. something like SCUNT (Surveillance Camera Universal NeTwork, or whatever) then the acronyms might have passed into our language and its simple denotation would have taken on all the dark connotations which would allow “One nation under scunt” to have much more impact as a resistance slogan than “One nation under CCTV”. “Damn, I was scunted as I walked home,” “they’ve just erected a series of scunts in the street outside,” “Britain is the most scunted country in the world” …

I for one will immediately adopt this usage (and the equally compelling “SS” or “Surveillance System” Fry goes on to suggest).

It’s a profound point: meaning matters, but so do the shape and nature of the words themselves.

[image from squacco on flickr]

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Ministers agree “in principle” to spy on all communications in Britain

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Nasty, evil, Orwellian news in The Sunday Times:

Ministers are considering spending up to £12 billion on a database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain.

GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre, has already been given up to £1 billion to finance the first stage of the project.

Hundreds of clandestine probes will be installed to monitor customers live on two of the country’s biggest internet and mobile phone providers – thought to be BT and Vodafone.

…

The Home Office stressed no formal decision had been taken but sources said officials had made clear that ministers had agreed “in principle” to the programme.

This is such a horrifyingly bad idea I don’t know where to begin.

The question, to quote Elliot Carver, is why? Why does the government think this will make the world a better and safer place? Don’t they understand that terrorism isn’t about killing people with bombs, it’s about spreading the fear of people being killed with bombs.

Fegh.

[image from qwghlm on flickr]