Real-LIfe Distributed-Snooping Web Game To Launch In Britain 419
corerunner writes "A new internet game is about to be launched which allows 'super snooper' players to plug into the nation's CCTV cameras and report on members of the public committing crimes. The 'Internet Eyes' service involves players scouring thousands of CCTV cameras installed in shops, businesses and town centres across Britain looking for law-breakers. Players who help catch the most criminals each month will win cash prizes up to £1,000."
So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Demand to see them (Score:5, Insightful)
Open surveillance (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone is going to be snooping, it's only fair to have everyone snooping. The only oppressive element of CCTV is the idea that only a select few people get to snoop and thereby gain some sort of advantage over everyone else. If everyone gets access, you still lose privacy but at least no one gains power.
false positives? (Score:3, Insightful)
What goes to the person who reports the most false positives?
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It is simply turning the people against each other to distract them from their discontent with their government.
The whole rat on your neighbor thing (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I wanna try! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Demand to see them (Score:3, Insightful)
Presumably it's only a matter of time before someone reverse-engineers the back-end to do exactly that. It's not like our government has a great record on data security.
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Any ideas what happens to reports on cops committing crimes?
I'd say they disappear down the memory hole, but users will be able to capture the video they are using locally, and repost on YouTube for fun and profit.
Ergo, this program will be shut down within weeks as it reveals cops committing crimes. Either that, or the feeds will be scrubbed of all police presence "for the protection of our hardworking constables on the street" prior to distributing them.
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but people aren't stupid (okay - not in all ways). It will be pretty obvious to most people participating that they're not going to win against the strange obsessive person who has no job and no life and racks up 100 crimes a week. So cash prizes aren't going to be much of a motivation for playing this. Which means most people playing it will be doing so for other motivations.
Let's face it - the primary use of such a system would be lonely males jacking off over live feeds of unsuspecting young girls. In fact, if we want to oppose this system (and we do because we don't like living in a combined police state and mob-rule society), pointing out its wonderful desirability to peadophiles is probably the best approach to take for most.
Of course there will be those with other motivations also. Those with a particular hate-agenda will love this.
Obligatory cop-out (Score:4, Insightful)
"You have nothing to fear if you are doing nothing wrong" Yeah right... ...First they came for the communists, and I did not speak outâ"because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak outâ"because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak outâ"because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak outâ"because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for meâ"and there was no one left to speak out for me...
Suspicion Breeds Loyalty... (Score:2, Insightful)
This idea is wrong on so many levels. I hate Hitler analogies because they tend to be polar opposite examples of the argument they attempting to counter, but this one seems to fit.
The BBC did a documentary a few years back "Nazis: A Warning From History' http://www.amazon.com/Nazis-Warning-History-Samuel-West/dp/B00097DY66/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1255030547&sr=1-1 [amazon.com] that touched on this very subject. Granted, the UK isn't the Third Reich and I'm pulling a very specific instance from that documentary, so please understand that I'm not suggesting a one-size-fits-all with regards to that regime's policy, but an accounting of state-sanctioned surveillance by civilians.
In that doc, there's a segment that reveals that the Gestapo actually didn't have very many official staffers out in the field and relied heavily on "neighborhood watch" participants to implicate other citizens in activities that fit a broadstroke definition of 'suspicious behavior'. Years later, a woman was confronted about a statement she had submitted to the Gestapo about a woman neighbor that she had reported for suspicious behavior; the 'suspicious' woman was detained by the Gestapo and never heard from again. The original documents were presented to her, showing her signature and her statements which were read back to her. She remembered the woman mentioned in the statements, recognized her handwriting and signature, but disavowed that she wrote or submitted the statement.
The documentary example is the far end of the spectrum for state-sanctioned civilian surveillance. Given that people will recieve rewards for their efforts and the program is marketed as a game, it adds more fuel to the fire that people will misuse it. Once implicated in such a program, a person's name or guilt can never be expunged.
All we need to finish off the program is a Norsefire logo http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ab/Norsefire-logo.png [wikimedia.org] and a picture of the High Chancellor Adam Sutler http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8d/250px-Sutler2.jpg [wikimedia.org].
Re:And we thought it was bad in the US (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder who's snooping on the snoopers?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? ["Who watches the watchmen?"]
Re:No. RTFA. (Score:4, Insightful)
You're assuming the surveillance camera network and the 'snooper' game server components won't get pwn3d.
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, no, no, that's too American. You don't have enough bureaucracy or scapegoating.
In Britain, the police would deny that any officers have broken the law. Then the video footage would go on YouTube, and some newspapers would get the story. The IPCC (Independent Police Complains Commisson) would open an investigation, and the police would deny any wrongdoing again, even when shown the video.
Some time later, the IPCC will say there's a systematic problem and the blame lies with the police managers. A junior police officer will be sacked, and the manager will be promoted.
Later, another police officer will claim he should have been promoted instead, and claim he was discriminated against. After an investigation into police prejudice, he will eventually get the job, with his predecessor getting a large pay-off.
This all costs lots of money, so four police officers will be replaced with part-time community support officers. They don't know what they're doing, so they'll arrest someone for photographing a train -- hopefully captured on CCTV.
Re:Demand to see them (Score:5, Insightful)
You can request footage of yourself from private cameras using data protection laws.
Anyway, no need to worry for two reasons:
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Blackmail, casing future robberies, cyber-stalking (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the CCTV cameras have proven to be very ineffective in deterring crime.
The MOST effective has been cops patrolling - either walking the beat, on bikes, horse, or patrol car.
This is going to increase crime:
This is just taking a bad idea and making it worse.
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think he was using typical US-centric boogeymen. If it was Cultural Revolution China your list would be the one to consider.
I think the interesting bias here is that his original comment didn't say anything about "moralists", but you added them in to the hit list. I guess that means communists, homosexuals, and atheists are immoralists in your Book?
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:5, Insightful)
In 1984, citizens were encouraged to spy on each other and report possible dissidents to the authorities. So yes, this is very Orwellian.
RTFN
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree.
But I don't think we're going back. The best solution is to "watch the watchers", so anyone can go back and see who was viewing any particular cam at any particular time.
Re:Open surveillance (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you seriously stating that losing privacy is no oppressive element? It's actually a world where everybody can oppress everybody else, because he knows something about that person, that was meant to be private.
Privacy and even lies are an essential part of our society. Without them, social life as we know it, breaks down and becomes impossible. So much do we know on the scientific side.
Re:And we thought it was bad in the US (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:3, Insightful)
You clearly have no idea what kind of people are going to be watching this like a hawk.
Old home bound busybodies with nothing to do focusing particularly on calling the cops on the hippie degenerates and their maryjawana cigarettes and their long hair commie music while keeping a stern eye on any 'Negros' and the darned hooligans in their communities.
People with lives and more sensible moral character will be out doing better things than watching CCTV cameras and tattling on their peers, while major crimes with victims will likely already be reported, minor crimes are really all this has the potential to unearth.
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:5, Insightful)
In 1984, citizens were encouraged to spy on each other and report possible dissidents to the authorities. So yes, this is very Orwellian.
RTFN
I did read the novel, but there's a big difference. The citizens in 1984 were never allowed to view surveillance, so they were never on an equal scale as the government. And fundamentally this is what frightens people, that someone with an upper hand controlls you. When that upper hand is given to everyone the concept isn't the same, and you taking things out of context doesn't make it so.
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:3, Insightful)
or: ... for 1000 pounds sterling a month, you get the same crime reported 5000 times, then you need to employ 300 secretaries to sort through the reports
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Obligatory cop-out (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There are... (Score:2, Insightful)
See Whoopi Goldberg on The View [youtube.com] discussing Roman Polanski. Apparently, according to her, in Europe, 13-14 year olds are seen as fair game for drugging and sex. That's one wonderful "view" there from Hollywood...
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all too easy to get people riled up against a common enemy - as an example, my (conservative) hometown newspaper recently tried to convince everybody, via editorial, that the enemy were fellow Californians who were collecting unemployment checks, in a county with a 24.7% unemployment rate in a state with a unemployment rate which is 12+% and rising!
The target audience are, of course, people who still believe that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are keeping America safe from terror...but what can you do when you live in a whole city full of them and you choose to be an atheist communist homosexual?
Alternately, what about a large group of laid-off factory workers who have nothing else to do all day? It would allow them an opportunity to displace their anger upon other citizens and not on the government which caused the loss of their jobs in the first place.
Community-based "policing" is always a bad idea. It's mob rule! Neighborhood watch groups, community church groups, "not-in-my-neighborhood"-ers, will all get together and find somebody to harass. Humans are but animals, and this is the pack mentality at work. The funny thing is that these are the same hypocrites who would publicly condemn the actions of 4chan's
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:3, Insightful)
You did get *who* big brother was in the end?
"Big Brother" was not some guy or dictator, "Big Brother is watching you" was about the PEOPLE spying on itself!
If you have a system where some government agency is formed from the people (like the Stasi) or if you create an atmosphere of fear and make people spy on each other and to report "bad behaviour" seems to become a quite minor difference.
But to be honest... this is nothing but web 2.0... no one said only Wikipedia can "benefit" from a group effort, we see that the government also can get to use a group to "improve" reaching a certain goal for cheap, cheap cash (that such a system will get used for spying on your neighbours and your love interest does not even have to be mentioned in a place like this).
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:3, Insightful)
By "people," you apparently mean Christians, capitalists/conservatives, heterosexuals, and moralists. I guess atheists, communists, homosexuals, etc., are all peace-loving hate-hating people that have an inherent aversion to stalking or harassing or any sort of "bad behavior,"
It's not about "bad behavior". Christians, conservatives, and moralists have a long history of committing harassment, stalking, and blackmail against minority groups in order to make the minority behavior conform to their views. Atheists and homosexuals have virtually no history of using harassment, stalking, or blackmail to change Christians into atheists or heterosexuals into homosexuals.
whereas others - like Christians and conservatives - only profess to believe in "higher authority," God,
Believing in a "higher authority" is offensive and immoral. But as long as you as you keep it private and to yourself, that's your business. But you don't "only profess", you try to impose your offensive and immoral beliefs on others, and that's where you cross the line.
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:4, Insightful)
The citizens in 1984 did view the surveillance. Winston himself was part of perpetuating the system he hated and which oppressed him - this was more or les the entire point.
Same thing today, the guy manning a CCTV system (or who just one a prize through this scheme) will also be watched on his way home.
There does not have to be an evil group of 12 men in a smoke-filled room on the 13th floor in order for you to be oppressed (this is the erroneous thinking which leads to conspiracy theories). The system can be oppressive, and this one is. Or rather, it is a way to make the invasion of privacy (a clear oppression and one which paves the way for a lot of future oppression) more efficient - or at least that is the idea.
I also think it is more like 1984, exactly because it distributes the oppression-task to the larger citizen-ship, like it was in the novel... When the first participant of this game/scheme is sentenced as an accessory for not calling the cops, this is made even clearer.
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:1, Insightful)
EPIC! Lulz
Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Freedom is hard fought for and easily lost. Those that try and take rights and freedoms away try and do so under the radar. For instance who would have thought that RIPA would be used to spy on half a million uk citizens a year [itpro.co.uk]. Most uk citizens I speak to don't know about the eborders scheme [bbc.co.uk], where everyone is catalogued each time they enter or leave the country (with up to 2.5 billion journeys stored at any one time).
The vast amount of information being gathered, as you say via your phone, cards, internet, etc, is worrying. You merge this into one coherent database and you have no privacy left. I would hardly call a slip towards totalitarianism an irrational fear, especially when it is being legislation into existence in front of people's eyes. Many laid down their lives to earn the freedoms we take for granted today, and it would be disrespectful to give them away for temporary convenience.
Phillip.
Re:The Transparent Society (David Brin) (Score:3, Insightful)