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Each camera in China is far more invasive due to how they're used. The government views cameras as the means for total population control. The goal is to proces

by allenz 8y ago

Each camera in China is far more invasive due to how they're used. The government views cameras as the means for total population control. The goal is to process, cross-reference, and store surveillance across the entire country, to know and control every minute of people's lives. Compare to the US, where most cameras do not have facial recognition, are not interconnected, and do not store data long term.

naveen99 8y ago
Storing feeds of each camera is got to be expensive. I thought about recording my life. It would be too expensive for me to do surveillance on myself 24/7 and then do analysis on the feeds. And i make more than the median Chinese or american.
- allenz 8y ago
  The government doesn't need to store the video, just the processed data, such as each person's history of locations, emotional states, interactions, and actions. Analysis is automated and thus scalable to the entire country. The underlying technology improves exponentially, so everyone underestimates the social impact that this will have in a decade.
  - naveen99 8y ago
    So you agree storing 24/7 video on a billion people is not practical today. I don’t think processing is practical either. Processed output can be bigger than source depending on what you want to do and doesn’t remove the need to store original data to get value out of it always. Technology has improved exponentially in the past. No guarantee it will continue. Ram prices are double from a year ago. Gpu prices are also not much better than 2 years ago. Luckily we have improvements in m.2 ssds.
    - allenz 8y ago
      > Processed output can be bigger than source I gave specific examples of processed outputs that are much smaller than source and are trivial to store today. No need to store the source video. For an example of what you can do with location history, see https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/ https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metad...

by allenz 8y ago

naveen99 8y ago

Storing feeds of each camera is got to be expensive. I thought about recording my life. It would be too expensive for me to do surveillance on myself 24/7 and then do analysis on the feeds. And i make more than the median Chinese or american.

allenz 8y ago
The government doesn't need to store the video, just the processed data, such as each person's history of locations, emotional states, interactions, and actions. Analysis is automated and thus scalable to the entire country. The underlying technology improves exponentially, so everyone underestimates the social impact that this will have in a decade.
- naveen99 8y ago
  So you agree storing 24/7 video on a billion people is not practical today. I don’t think processing is practical either. Processed output can be bigger than source depending on what you want to do and doesn’t remove the need to store original data to get value out of it always. Technology has improved exponentially in the past. No guarantee it will continue. Ram prices are double from a year ago. Gpu prices are also not much better than 2 years ago. Luckily we have improvements in m.2 ssds.
  - allenz 8y ago
    > Processed output can be bigger than source I gave specific examples of processed outputs that are much smaller than source and are trivial to store today. No need to store the source video. For an example of what you can do with location history, see https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/ https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metad...