QuickDuck
God
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2001
- Posts
- 15,569
I like this.....
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,56185,00.html?tw=wn_ascii
Ronald Deibert, a University of Toronto associate professor of political science, wants people to grab their cameras and hit the shopping malls Dec. 24 and participate in World Sousveillance Day.
Surveillance means "to view from above." Sousveillance means "to view from below."
On the day before Christmas, at noon, local time, all over the world, Deibert wants citizens to "shoot back" at surveillance cameras -- not with guns, but with cameras of their own. Participants are to head out, in disguise, to their favorite malls and public spaces, and photograph all the security cameras they find.
Deibert warns that photographing security cameras will quickly cause large men wearing navy blue blazers and two-way radios to place their hands over your camera lens. Photographers may even be escorted off the premises.
Which is exactly the point. Deibert hopes World Sousveillance Day will "raise awareness about the increasing pervasiveness of all forms of surveillance in today's hypermedia society."
"A lot of people probably aren't aware of the extent to which they're being monitored," he says.
Deibert chose Christmas Eve because it's one of the busiest shopping days of the year.
Pointing a camera at a surveillance camera is the brainchild of Steve Mann, an MIT Media Lab graduate who pioneered the wearable networked computer/camera. When he was netcasting his life from a helmet mounted webcam, he got into a number of situations in which the people who controlled the security cameras didn't like having his camera turned on them.
Mann's suggestion for World Sousveillance Day? Affix a dark acrylic rectangle to the front of a sweatshirt, with the following words clearly visible: "For your protection, a video record of you and your establishment may be transmitted and recorded at remote locations. ALL CRIMINAL ACTS PROSECUTED." Mann likens this device, which he calls a MaybeCam, to Schrodinger's Cat: maybe it is a camera, maybe it isn't, but its very existence changes the behavior of the people nearby.
According to Deibert, when security people find themselves on the other side of the camera, "they lose their anonymous power of surveillance, and it makes them feel vulnerable."
"Remember when the curtains part and the Wizard of Oz is revealed for what he really is? Same deal."
Chief John Pignataro, head of the Info Tech Division of the Baltimore Police Department, isn't perturbed by World Sousveillance Day.
"Since the cameras are overtly there, who really cares?" he asks. "We put up signs saying, 'This Area is Under Video Surveillance.' People know they're there."
Baltimore has more than 60 police department surveillance cameras placed throughout the city.
"I would be upset if they came and started taking picture of surveillance cameras around (police) headquarters," Pignataro added. "Everyone's aware of the possibility of a terrorist attack."
Paula Kelliher, marketing director of the upscale Galleria Mall in White Plains, New York, warns that photography, especially of surveillance cameras, is not permitted on mall property.
"It's not really in the best interests of our customers," she said.
-------------------
I think i know what I will be doing on Christmas Eve
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,56185,00.html?tw=wn_ascii
Ronald Deibert, a University of Toronto associate professor of political science, wants people to grab their cameras and hit the shopping malls Dec. 24 and participate in World Sousveillance Day.
Surveillance means "to view from above." Sousveillance means "to view from below."
On the day before Christmas, at noon, local time, all over the world, Deibert wants citizens to "shoot back" at surveillance cameras -- not with guns, but with cameras of their own. Participants are to head out, in disguise, to their favorite malls and public spaces, and photograph all the security cameras they find.
Deibert warns that photographing security cameras will quickly cause large men wearing navy blue blazers and two-way radios to place their hands over your camera lens. Photographers may even be escorted off the premises.
Which is exactly the point. Deibert hopes World Sousveillance Day will "raise awareness about the increasing pervasiveness of all forms of surveillance in today's hypermedia society."
"A lot of people probably aren't aware of the extent to which they're being monitored," he says.
Deibert chose Christmas Eve because it's one of the busiest shopping days of the year.
Pointing a camera at a surveillance camera is the brainchild of Steve Mann, an MIT Media Lab graduate who pioneered the wearable networked computer/camera. When he was netcasting his life from a helmet mounted webcam, he got into a number of situations in which the people who controlled the security cameras didn't like having his camera turned on them.
Mann's suggestion for World Sousveillance Day? Affix a dark acrylic rectangle to the front of a sweatshirt, with the following words clearly visible: "For your protection, a video record of you and your establishment may be transmitted and recorded at remote locations. ALL CRIMINAL ACTS PROSECUTED." Mann likens this device, which he calls a MaybeCam, to Schrodinger's Cat: maybe it is a camera, maybe it isn't, but its very existence changes the behavior of the people nearby.
According to Deibert, when security people find themselves on the other side of the camera, "they lose their anonymous power of surveillance, and it makes them feel vulnerable."
"Remember when the curtains part and the Wizard of Oz is revealed for what he really is? Same deal."
Chief John Pignataro, head of the Info Tech Division of the Baltimore Police Department, isn't perturbed by World Sousveillance Day.
"Since the cameras are overtly there, who really cares?" he asks. "We put up signs saying, 'This Area is Under Video Surveillance.' People know they're there."
Baltimore has more than 60 police department surveillance cameras placed throughout the city.
"I would be upset if they came and started taking picture of surveillance cameras around (police) headquarters," Pignataro added. "Everyone's aware of the possibility of a terrorist attack."
Paula Kelliher, marketing director of the upscale Galleria Mall in White Plains, New York, warns that photography, especially of surveillance cameras, is not permitted on mall property.
"It's not really in the best interests of our customers," she said.
-------------------
I think i know what I will be doing on Christmas Eve
