h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Look, I know its distinctly creepy and could potentiolly be abused, but is all this surveillance really a bad thing. People harp on about privacy, but that's just to cover people's insecurities. The surveillance can help prevent all sorts of regrettable incidences. The best solution I can see to the problem of governments abusing surveillance is to put the same ( or similar ) technology in the hands of the media. On a more positive view of a hyper-surveillance society, check out Aurther C. Clarke's The Lght of Other Days.
Oh, and enemy of the state, how come clouds never get in the way of your satellite cameras?

I am probably being naive, but I can't see what the problem is if you've got nothing to hide.

I don't care if video cameras see me crossing a street here, leaving a tube station there, or a satellite can say when I was where and whom I was talking to on my mobile by signals sent out, or because I paid for something with my credit card.

At no time have I ever done anything I shouldn't be, or at least for which there wasn't a rational explanation, and quite honestly, I find it almost comforting to think that my whereabouts could be traced, for example, if something happened to me.

And anyway, if everybody was continually tracked, then half the world's population would have to be employed to check up on the other half, and, as that's hardly feasible, I am assuming that my little bit of data will go unnoticed in the enormous amount of data that is being collected on every single individual. Who's going to look through it all? The chances that they find anything among all that lot are negligible.

That's what the computers are for. Face recognition coupled with CCTV, some voice recognition coupled with your phone(And your cell phone already works as a tracking device) and they will always know where you are and what you are doing. If the goverment acts nice, nothing wrong with that. If they start abusing that power, what are you going to do if they already know everything you say and do? Imagine a military coup happening. How do you expect to over throw the dictator? You can't use phones or e-mail, If you use an ATM they know where you are, and if you walk down the street they will also see you. Good luck.

I would certainly not put up with living in a country with CCTV in the streets.

I'm not yet paranoid enough to work out how they could abuse the power of knowing that I just spent £100 on a pair of shoes or that I was in WH Smith at lunchtime today! Are "the powers that be" really that interested in my life?

I would gladly carry an ID card, and even give a sample of my DNA, if it helped in any way to apprehend violent (or even just nuisance) criminals.

Charlie

The point is that with the vast amount of new data, government agencies can end up peicing together a little plot that you're a terrorist, because they're used to having to pick up on tiny bits of data, not the massive amounts they'll now get. Like I said though, arange for the media to have access to similar technology, and hopefully the terrorist and the technology abusing politicaians will get caught.

Yes, the government could abuse the power that new technology provides, but then again, they could not. I could get hit crossing the street on the way home, too, but I probably won't. Frankly, I think the advantages are worth the risk.

Realistically, for every new advancement, for every good thing that comes along, there will always be someone out there abusing it. God knows I hope it's not the government, but I'd be naïve to think that *no one* is. The fact that something can be used to nefarious ends doesn't necessarily make the thing itself bad, though. I, personally, am all for it.

On the other hand, if I should come to believe that the potential dangers outweigh the potential good, I reserve the right to change my mind.

>>>The fact that something can be used to nefarious ends doesn't necessarily make the thing itself bad, though. I, personally, am all for it. <<<<

So am I - money, for example, springs to mind!!!!

"if I should come to believe that the potential dangers outweigh the potential good, I reserve the right to change my mind"

The thing is that once you allow such powers to be in place do you think a government will let go of them? Will changing your mind do anything then?



Ste

I whole-heartedly agree with you, Ste. We allowed employers to Bank our salaries, being told that everything would be easier.But easier for whom?; The Banks, Employers and Govt. Now we live in a society where we often hear, "We don't accept cash". Our well-earned wages are sitting in banks accrueing intrest for companies and The Inland Revenue. And, we can no longer say to our employers, "I'd prefer to be paid in cash". Why?? Because it suit's the Govt., banks and companies to hold our salaries in their own accounts. And we gave them that right.
How many people have their own savings at home, or safe-deposit box, where they have access whenever and don't have to pay the I.R. taxes on the intrest of their worked-for savings??
This is a simple account of us handing over our rights to the Govt, for the benefit of the Govt.

I live in a country with CCTV in the streets.

It's wonderful. It means I can safely draw money out of the ATM without having to worry about the yoofs hanging about across the street.

And the boys that kidnapped Jamie Bulger were seen on CCTV leading him away...

You're adult, male and able-bodied Xan - so you can't see the advantages it has for the old and weak (or very young and weak).

I never saw CCTV saving Jamie Bulger's life even though he was clearly seen on camera. Cameras inside ATMs I can understand though.

An awful lot of people do have the option of receiving their wages in cash WebWise.

You are lucky to have a salary large enuf to have to be banked.

*Sidles up hopefully, fluttering eyelashes.*

What's the use of having cameras inside ATMs Ste?

Because they are a very vulerable spot. I tolerate them because of this, they make sense. Every street in every city covered and linked to facial recognition software is just plain wrong.

I still hold that there are ways to safeguard against thesee problem. If we can watch the government as well as they can watch us, then abusing the technology becomes very difficult.

Sure Tefkat, there are people who, work for small businesses, who have that option Yet, undoubtedly, the majority of working Britain no longer have the option of receiving "Cash-in-Hand".
I only attempted to illustrate that we, the People, do have a voice re. what we accept as necessary or within acceptable boundaries, and what we feel this country can do without. I'm a safety-conscious type, so willingly agree to cctv in City Centres, but not in the changing rooms of High St. stores! Let's face it, who would benefit from looking at my rear-end??

As for the sidling & fluttering eye-lashes...

There are good sides to most technologies, but imagine the down side,

You are self employed, working installing equipment for the government. suddenly you find that your security pass has been revoked, but they won't tell you why. because you don't have a valid security pass, you are suddenly black-balled from lots of government work, so your business ends up in trouble. your phone is beig tapped, your mail intercepted by the security services, and you are generally being spied upon every day. Add to this that as your business fails, it puts added strain on your marriage, so eventually your wife leaves.

sounds like paranoid science fiction, doesn't it. unfortunately, it actually happened. and when after a ten year legal fight he managed to find out what the cause of all this was, it turned out that he had the same name as a vicar who was prominent in CND, who was acting completely legally.

That was all he had done wrong, shared the same names as a vicar who happened to quite legally speak against nuclear weapons.

And they could not tell the difference between two people with the same name. now multiple this up so that they are doing the same level of spying on every individual in the uk (60,000,000) and the scope for making a real pig's ear of it goes up massively.

If you then add in the current success of the british government in implimenting computer systems (2 major aircraft control systems that won't talk to each other, a new improved passport system which means that if you only have three months notice that you are going abroad, you have no chance at getting a passport, and numerous other similar disasters) and it is hard to have confidence in the privacy of your medical records, and lots of other personal info which they are talking about including on these cards.

How many of you would be happy with your boss or someone selling you food being able to access the fact that you got regular contraceptives for a few years, or that you had had an abortion.

It is a basic rule of designing databases that you should enter information once only. And there is nothing wrong with everyone who actually need to have information having access to it. but it is also a major strand of database design to make sure that people who don't actually need it can't get at it.

And that is before you add in the multiple copy update problem, which is still a research level problem. so is the parallel update problem, and a number of other problems with managing this data which would immediately become critical.

The simplest way to manage the data is to not collect it. A lot of current legislation (worldwide) is the functional equivelant of parliament making up a rule that the tide won't come in on thursdays, but will come in for times on friday instead.

if they ignore the technology, they end up making stupid, obtrusive and basically pointless law.

a simple example of this is the extra information they want the airline industry to collect from every passenger this summer. The companies already collect it for internal use, so all they should need to do is bundle it up into an archive and allow the police to get it if it is required.

What has actually happened is that it is going to be extracted by asking you a lot of questions at the check-in gate, so it takes you twice as long to check in, causing massive delays. all these forms will then have to be sent to the security services, who will not have the manpower to examine them all, and even if they did would not have the computer systems to organise all of this data properly so that it is all correctly stored.

this is why a lot of people don't like a lot of these proposals. add to that bogus claims of effetiveness, like id cards not being compulsory, but they will stop terrorists (who won't carry real ones anyway) and it all stinks to high heaven.

the potential for abuse is just too great.

Excellent post xyroth.

oh and by the way I forgot to reply to the point about wages paid directly into the bank account.

This is usually a good think, as you don't get the wages snatch security problem for campanies with more than a few employees.

it has the side effect of being cheaper as well (both for the bank and for the business). The only downside is the stupidity of atm machines not giving anything smaller than £10.

The camera's in atm's are for security purposes. if you claim to have a fraudulent entry on your bill, they can go to the camera film, look at who made the withdrawl, and if it wasn't you, prove it.

Ste: If ATMs had cameras in them the thugs would just wait till you'd walked 2 feet down the road before attacking you, out of range of the camera.

No WebWise - not the people who work for small businesses, the people who work for low wages - which do actually constitute a fairly large proportion of the workforce (many of whom don't have bank accounts anyway).
Actually, even if you work for the Civil Service you have the option of being paid in cash if you don't have a bank account. I think you'll prolly find it's an infringement of civil liberties or summat not to give someone the option.

They don't want to see your rear end. They want to make sure you're not stealing.
But you have the option not to shop in the stores that put CCTV in their changing rooms. They'd soon change their policy if it was losing them customers. (Do any stores REALLY do that? )

And surely CCTV's a lot more necessary in sparsely populated areas than in city centres, which are full of witnesses?

(WebWise, are you blushing? We-e-ell, in that case... )