Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[lordcooper]

I've never quite been able to work out how I feel about CCTV.  Beyond abstract concepts I don't see what negative effect it could possibly have on me, yet my gut instinct is that they're a bit bad.

[SalmonGod]

I've never quite been able to work out how I feel about CCTV.  Beyond abstract concepts I don't see what negative effect it could possibly have on me, yet my gut instinct is that they're a bit bad.

Because the average person does plenty of things that could be nitpicked on, legally or otherwise, but aren't actually bad in context.  Just like almost anyone who uses the internet could be criminally charged for something, just because of the way that area of law is designed.  Constant surveillance does help to catch legitimate crime that deserves to be punished, but it far more often serves to aid over-extension of the law.

And then there's conflicts of interest.  When the human being behind that surveillance has some reason to be especially concerned with your behavior, it gets really bad.  Political/prejudiced persecution through selective enforcement is the worst and most obvious problem, but there are more subtle and pervasive ones.  I'm sure you don't work at 100% full-sprint capacity every single second you're on the clock at your job, right?  Your bosses don't really care, either, so long as they don't notice you slacking off overly much and the work gets done at a reasonable pace, right?  Now imagine your boss actually spends his entire day just standing right next to you watching you work without even blinking the entire time you're on the clock.  The dynamic changes.  His attention is on your every action, and you can no longer relax and behave as a natural human being without worrying about when he's going to choose to get on your case for it.  Electronic surveillance is essentially no different, and that's the reason it naturally makes you uncomfortable.

[Pnx]

Constant recording does not equal constant surveillance, even if there's a security guard manning the monitors, most of the time he's just day dreaming or reading or something, and looks up to make sure nothing obvious seems to be going wrong at the time. Most of the time the footage isn't even reviewed unless there's a break in or something.

In a similar sense if your boss did have cameras in your workplace, would they really have the time to carefully review footage for slacking behaviour? And what's their actual gain to be had from doing this? An intelligent boss would know that people need a bit of slacking time to keep their motivation up. I do know some bosses really are that inane, but honestly how much worse would they be with surveillance equipment?


I have heard of cases of people abusing security cameras and such, but in all honesty cases where they're abused seem very rare as the potential for abuse is less than you'd think (especially when the usage of these records itself is monitored). Meanwhile their actual ability to improve safety in an area and "prevent" crimes from happening (by which I mean cause them to happen somewhere else) is very real and common.

[Nadaka]

Constant recording does not equal constant surveillance, even if there's a security guard manning the monitors, most of the time he's just day dreaming or reading or something, and looks up to make sure nothing obvious seems to be going wrong at the time. Most of the time the footage isn't even reviewed unless there's a break in or something.

In a similar sense if your boss did have cameras in your workplace, would they really have the time to carefully review footage for slacking behaviour? And what's their actual gain to be had from doing this? An intelligent boss would know that people need a bit of slacking time to keep their motivation up. I do know some bosses really are that inane, but honestly how much worse would they be with surveillance equipment?


I have heard of cases of people abusing security cameras and such, but in all honesty cases where they're abused seem very rare as the potential for abuse is less than you'd think (especially when the usage of these records itself is monitored). Meanwhile their actual ability to improve safety in an area and "prevent" crimes from happening (by which I mean cause them to happen somewhere else) is very real and common.

Are you talking about surveillance of the general public? You are assuming that the manpower requirements to monitor virtually everything will prevent virtually every monitoring. That is not the case. A computer can do the initial monitoring and flag suspicious activity, for human oversight, dramatically reducing the amount of manpower required to monitor.

Or are you talking about surveillance of the police as they do their job as a public servant? I am all for it. They need accountability.

[Gukag]

Agreed. To paraphrase, with great power comes great accountability. Sadly there has been a militarization of the police in many areas...they are literally trained to see the people they are supposed to protect as enemies on a battlefield.

[SalmonGod]

Constant recording does not equal constant surveillance, even if there's a security guard manning the monitors, most of the time he's just day dreaming or reading or something, and looks up to make sure nothing obvious seems to be going wrong at the time. Most of the time the footage isn't even reviewed unless there's a break in or something.

This is another issue where selectively comes into serious play.  Boss or security person may be day dreaming most of the time... then a subject of their prejudice or personal dislike steps on screen.  I've dealt with this first-hand in my workplace.

Things weren't nearly so horrible when I first started working there.  Then my manager ran into a personal conflict with someone.  Our team lead told a family member to apply to work with us, and our manager decided not to hire them after an interview.  That employee retaliated by accusing my manager of favoritism in the hiring process, claiming that he hired mostly personal friends onto the shift.  So this brought the majority of our shift under our senior manager's watchful gaze.  We had been the most productive team in the office by far for over a year, when suddenly we all found ourselves getting in trouble for inane crap.  We were expected to account for every single minute of our time on the clock, and that's not an exaggeration.  A couple of us literally received warnings for taking one minute longer on a shipment than she thought we should have.  Every rule in the book was weighed against us full force and we had to be constantly perfect.  We could plainly see that these expectations weren't weighed against others, and didn't really understand.  I found out years later that she decided she didn't like a handful of us purely on the basis of strong personality/culture clash, and actively tried to get us to quit or be fired.  She simply wasn't watching everybody else the way she was watching us.  This went on for a couple years.  It sort of died down, but if any of us give her a reason, she directs her gaze on us and we go through the same thing again for a few months.

Wouldn't have been nearly the same situation without all that surveillance.

Edit:  I should add that police are known to harass people in much the same way.  Besides the obvious issue of profiling, there have also been frequent cases of a civilian filing an abuse claim against an officer and then the department responding by abusing surveillance against that person the same way my senior manager did against me and my co-workers.

[Pnx]

Are you talking about surveillance of the general public? You are assuming that the manpower requirements to monitor virtually everything will prevent virtually every monitoring. That is not the case. A computer can do the initial monitoring and flag suspicious activity, for human oversight, dramatically reducing the amount of manpower required to monitor.

You seem to be expecting a computer to do something that is far beyond what we can actually do with computers at the current time. You can cut down on the amount of manpower you need to monitor a large group of people, but it comes at the cost of making said monitoring more unreliable, and still involves a heck of a lot of work to do. Because of the sea of information we all exist in surveillance is something that can only be used selectively. For good or for ill. When there's a CCTV camera around, you're not being watched, you're being recorded, and if there is one thing that I've learnt from my observations of the world it's that good records are absolutely key if you want to keep any semblance of a functional justice system going.

<snip>

This ties in with the other point I wanted to make. You say it wouldn't have been as bad without the surveillance but would this have prevented hazed?

Same goes for the police abuse, I've definitely known the police to harass people, and I can definitely see how CCTV and the like could be abuse to do so, but without it they seem to be perfectly capable of harassing people. It doesn't seem to make the issue substantially worse. What's more it seems to have the potential to prevent a heck of a lot of abuse. A police officer is fully capable of lying, his dash cam, not so much (you can digitally edit it, but that's nowhere near as easy as some people make it out to be).

[Nadaka]

Are you talking about surveillance of the general public? You are assuming that the manpower requirements to monitor virtually everything will prevent virtually every monitoring. That is not the case. A computer can do the initial monitoring and flag suspicious activity, for human oversight, dramatically reducing the amount of manpower required to monitor.

You seem to be expecting a computer to do something that is far beyond what we can actually do with computers at the current time. You can cut down on the amount of manpower you need to monitor a large group of people, but it comes at the cost of making said monitoring more unreliable, and still involves a heck of a lot of work to do. Because of the sea of information we all exist in surveillance is something that can only be used selectively. For good or for ill. When there's a CCTV camera around, you're not being watched, you're being recorded, and if there is one thing that I've learnt from my observations of the world it's that good records are absolutely key if you want to keep any semblance of a functional justice system going.

<snip>

This ties in with the other point I wanted to make. You say it wouldn't have been as bad without the surveillance but would this have prevented hazed?

Same goes for the police abuse, I've definitely known the police to harass people, and I can definitely see how CCTV and the like could be abuse to do so, but without it they seem to be perfectly capable of harassing people. It doesn't seem to make the issue substantially worse. What's more it seems to have the potential to prevent a heck of a lot of abuse. A police officer is fully capable of lying, his dash cam, not so much (you can digitally edit it, but that's nowhere near as easy as some people make it out to be).

I am aware of what computers are capable of doing right now. And this is one thing they can do. Every phone call in the US is recorded and analyzed in real time and keyword searched in over a dozen different languages. The analysis of video is no less possible, it would started by flagging streams with people, readable license plates or that contain certain audio/speech, license plate numbers would be checked against a database of suspicious persons to be flagged for surveillance. Streams with people might be filtered to streams containing combination of number or ethnicity, or based on gait characteristics. All those would be flagged for monitoring in real time, and one person could monitor a dozen or more of these priority streams. You don't need a perfect panopticon, to violate privacy and other freedoms, you just need one good enough that people have to second guess everything they say and do.

[SalmonGod]

<snip>

This ties in with the other point I wanted to make. You say it wouldn't have been as bad without the surveillance but would this have prevented hazed?

Same goes for the police abuse, I've definitely known the police to harass people, and I can definitely see how CCTV and the like could be abuse to do so, but without it they seem to be perfectly capable of harassing people. It doesn't seem to make the issue substantially worse. What's more it seems to have the potential to prevent a heck of a lot of abuse. A police officer is fully capable of lying, his dash cam, not so much (you can digitally edit it, but that's nowhere near as easy as some people make it out to be).

It makes it the harassment more thorough and easier to carry out.  Sticking with my personal experience example, the work myself and my targeted co-workers were doing was far above office standards.  Without the surveillance, the results of our work and the observations from an occasional stroll would have been all she had to work with.  She wouldn't have been able to construct a legitimate basis for her harassment.  She may not have even developed a personal distaste for us, because she wouldn't have learned nearly so much about us.  We would have simply been workers getting the job done, not young geeks with attitudes and interests completely opposed to hers.  With surveillance, she was able to scrutinize literally every minute of our time with very little effort, and bear down on us with maximum allowable penalty for every minor infraction.

And I have no problem with surveillance being pointed back the other direction.  I think that police being equipped with cameras is great.  Any person who wields disproportionate influence over the lives of others should have all exercise of that influence very closely monitored.  As that article clearly illustrated, what's at stake is frequent physical bullying and intimidation by police when they know they aren't being monitored.  What's at stake with your average person is not anything so important, but people will use those unimportant things anyway to exercise control.

[Pnx]

I am aware of what computers are capable of doing right now. And this is one thing they can do. Every phone call in the US is recorded and analyzed in real time and keyword searched in over a dozen different languages. The analysis of video is no less possible, it would started by flagging streams with people, readable license plates or that contain certain audio/speech, license plate numbers would be checked against a database of suspicious persons to be flagged for surveillance. Streams with people might be filtered to streams containing combination of number or ethnicity, or based on gait characteristics. All those would be flagged for monitoring in real time, and one person could monitor a dozen or more of these priority streams. You don't need a perfect panopticon, to violate privacy and other freedoms, you just need one good enough that people have to second guess everything they say and do.

The whole keyword searching/speech to text thing is terrible. Nobody has ever built a speech to text program that reliably works for people that aren't speaking clearly, and when you throw in all the different dialects and accents out there you start to see a heck of a lot of conversations being recorded as gibberish. Keyword searches are also terrible, even if you did manage to get a clear text transcript of all the phone conversations in the US, then you'll be stuck with thousands of results of people who just happen to be talking about explosives, robbery, terrorism, or whatever. And then maybe one or two who are generally involved in it. You still run into the problem of it being a needle in a haystack. You've just used a method of trying to clear out some of the hay that has cost you a lot of your needles.

It's also worth pointing out that society is already an "imperfect panopticon" without any of this stuff. The world is full of people who can act as potential witnesses to your actions, who could be monitoring you...

It makes it the harassment more thorough and easier to carry out.  Sticking with my personal experience example, the work myself and my targeted co-workers were doing was far above office standards.  Without the surveillance, the results of our work and the observations from an occasional stroll would have been all she had to work with.  She wouldn't have been able to construct a legitimate basis for her harassment.  She may not have even developed a personal distaste for us, because she wouldn't have learned nearly so much about us.  We would have simply been workers getting the job done, not young geeks with attitudes and interests completely opposed to hers.  With surveillance, she was able to scrutinize literally every minute of our time with very little effort, and bear down on us with maximum allowable penalty for every minor infraction.

Isn't it sort of your managers job to know about you and what you're doing during work hours? It seems sort of odd to claim that without technology your manager wouldn't have been able to get to know you and decide she hated you. Plus as I said, if your manager really wanted to make your life hell, I'm pretty damn sure she would have found a way. But I think we've probably hit something of an impasse on this point.

I would however question how useful this surveillance even was for your company. I know a lot of companies do this sort of thing, but I'm honestly not sure how much this sort of thing actually helps productivity.

And I have no problem with surveillance being pointed back the other direction.  I think that police being equipped with cameras is great.  Any person who wields disproportionate influence over the lives of others should have all exercise of that influence very closely monitored.  As that article clearly illustrated, what's at stake is frequent physical bullying and intimidation by police when they know they aren't being monitored.  What's at stake with your average person is not anything so important, but people will use those unimportant things anyway to exercise control.

On this one I'm pretty sure we can agree, but it does seem a bit unfair that the police should be recorded, but everyone else, should not. I'm a pretty strong advocate that if you have public surveillance it should be more of a universal thing that is wielded for or against everyone equally.

[Nadaka]

State of the art speech recognition is much better than you realize, and video analysis is not as difficult compared to that.

[lorb]

And I have no problem with surveillance being pointed back the other direction.  I think that police being equipped with cameras is great.  Any person who wields disproportionate influence over the lives of others should have all exercise of that influence very closely monitored.  As that article clearly illustrated, what's at stake is frequent physical bullying and intimidation by police when they know they aren't being monitored.  What's at stake with your average person is not anything so important, but people will use those unimportant things anyway to exercise control.

On this one I'm pretty sure we can agree, but it does seem a bit unfair that the police should be recorded, but everyone else, should not. I'm a pretty strong advocate that if you have public surveillance it should be more of a universal thing that is wielded for or against everyone equally.

Now there is a difference between watching over the population as a whole or the citizenry watching the government, as is the case when just the police is recorded. As has been pointed out there is a huge imbalance of power. There should be checks in place to prevent abuse of that power.

[SalmonGod]

It makes it the harassment more thorough and easier to carry out.  Sticking with my personal experience example, the work myself and my targeted co-workers were doing was far above office standards.  Without the surveillance, the results of our work and the observations from an occasional stroll would have been all she had to work with.  She wouldn't have been able to construct a legitimate basis for her harassment.  She may not have even developed a personal distaste for us, because she wouldn't have learned nearly so much about us.  We would have simply been workers getting the job done, not young geeks with attitudes and interests completely opposed to hers.  With surveillance, she was able to scrutinize literally every minute of our time with very little effort, and bear down on us with maximum allowable penalty for every minor infraction.

Isn't it sort of your managers job to know about you and what you're doing during work hours? It seems sort of odd to claim that without technology your manager wouldn't have been able to get to know you and decide she hated you. Plus as I said, if your manager really wanted to make your life hell, I'm pretty damn sure she would have found a way. But I think we've probably hit something of an impasse on this point.

I would however question how useful this surveillance even was for your company. I know a lot of companies do this sort of thing, but I'm honestly not sure how much this sort of thing actually helps productivity.

You're right.  I can't debate this without going way more in-depth on the specific situation than is warranted for the topic at hand.

And it isn't useful for the company.  My co-workers and I have presented hard statistical evidence about how her treatment of us has harmed the company.  Doesn't matter.  It's just a way for pathetic people to feel important and powerful.

And I have no problem with surveillance being pointed back the other direction.  I think that police being equipped with cameras is great.  Any person who wields disproportionate influence over the lives of others should have all exercise of that influence very closely monitored.  As that article clearly illustrated, what's at stake is frequent physical bullying and intimidation by police when they know they aren't being monitored.  What's at stake with your average person is not anything so important, but people will use those unimportant things anyway to exercise control.

On this one I'm pretty sure we can agree, but it does seem a bit unfair that the police should be recorded, but everyone else, should not. I'm a pretty strong advocate that if you have public surveillance it should be more of a universal thing that is wielded for or against everyone equally.

Except my whole point is that equal application does not produce equal effect.

State of the art speech recognition is much better than you realize, and video analysis is not as difficult compared to that.

Protesters have already found themselves placed on domestic terrorist watch lists because facial recognition software identified them at a protest, whether or not they broke the law.

[Pnx]

Man, I'm feeling kind of tired of arguing this stuff, but I will say in closing that I still feel that public surveillance can really do a lot to serve the common good. It can prove that you were at the scene of a crime, which may be something you consider good or bad, but it can also prove that your weren't at the scene of a crime, or tell you what exactly happened there. This sort of thing is what we usually use witnesses for, but my own experiences have told me that witnesses can be... ludicrously unreliable.

That said, I think in the model government I've been trying to put together in my head for a while now, I'd probably have some form of seperation of powers thing going on for any kind of public surveillance thing. So that the people responsible for the cameras, are different from the people responsible for arresting and charging people.

Also that guilt by association stuff is BS, and shouldn't fly cameras or no cameras.

[Devling]

SalmonGod, it sounds like it's more of a dick boss issue, then a technology issue.
I can use fire to cook food, or I can use it burn shit. Doesn't make fire bad or good. If something causes more bad things to happen then good, you probably shouldn't use it. But it doesn't make the technology itself bad.