3 ms·

many cameras /everywhere/ are 'decoys' although often through lack of maintenance and being broken rather than intentionally. as much as they are being a secur

by jheriko 11y ago

many cameras /everywhere/ are 'decoys' although often through lack of maintenance and being broken rather than intentionally. as much as they are being a security hole, they are also a cheap deterrent. i'd rather we have them than not. most criminals are smart enough to not want to be seen... despite the misconception that many criminals are stupid, desperate or somehow abnormal people who do not behave like 'the rest of us'. in the cases where people are genuinely out of their minds it won't make a difference. in that case its much sadder that there is no possible deterrant imo, than that we can not then track down the perpetrator of the crime.

iolothebard 11y ago
Here's the photos. Just because a few weren't working (or real) doesn't mean they have no footage: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Photos-released-of-suspect-in-killing-on-BART-6757070.php#photo-9246649 http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Photos-released-of-suspec...
- jheriko 11y ago
  sure, they mention in the article that they have photos, but the message i got from the article is that having the cameras be real would somehow be of benefit because they help you track down the criminals. to me, it seems very doubtful that the argument presented has any merit. they are described as a 'security gap' in the title and repeatedly in the article, but the evidence supporting that viewpoint is entirely absent. (i should clarify that its not a worthless argument, just the example used to present it contains evidence only for the counter-argument as far as i can see)
- some-guy 11y ago
  That wasn't taken from a train camera however. I ride BART every day and have always wondered if the train cameras are even in use most of the time. I suspected not, and this news story confirms my suspicion.
realusername 11y ago
Indeed... cameras need to be maintained when they are broken, the video quality of cameras is not really good for space reason so the footage is not usable all the time, the videos need to be stored somewhere with a good backup system and must obey local laws about data retention, different cameras are managed by different people so you need some paperwork to access everything which might be needed, they need to be checked regularly to see if they still work fine... Putting all of this in place is not really cheap and easy to maintain all the time, that's why not everything works 100% of the time.

by jheriko 11y ago

iolothebard 11y ago

Here's the photos. Just because a few weren't working (or real) doesn't mean they have no footage: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Photos-released-of-suspect-in-killing-on-BART-6757070.php#photo-9246649 http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Photos-released-of-suspec...

jheriko 11y ago
sure, they mention in the article that they have photos, but the message i got from the article is that having the cameras be real would somehow be of benefit because they help you track down the criminals. to me, it seems very doubtful that the argument presented has any merit. they are described as a 'security gap' in the title and repeatedly in the article, but the evidence supporting that viewpoint is entirely absent. (i should clarify that its not a worthless argument, just the example used to present it contains evidence only for the counter-argument as far as i can see)
some-guy 11y ago
That wasn't taken from a train camera however. I ride BART every day and have always wondered if the train cameras are even in use most of the time. I suspected not, and this news story confirms my suspicion.

realusername 11y ago

Indeed... cameras need to be maintained when they are broken, the video quality of cameras is not really good for space reason so the footage is not usable all the time, the videos need to be stored somewhere with a good backup system and must obey local laws about data retention, different cameras are managed by different people so you need some paperwork to access everything which might be needed, they need to be checked regularly to see if they still work fine... Putting all of this in place is not really cheap and easy to maintain all the time, that's why not everything works 100% of the time.