7 ms·

Ask HN: What happened to surveillance camera guy?

56 points by Jamie9912 5y ago

Ironically it looks like his content has been taken down from YouTube AND archive.org https://archive.org/details/SurveillanceCameraMan18 https://archive.org/details/SurveillanceCameraMan18

globular-toast 5y ago
Interesting. Every now and then I download and save a local copy of content I think will be "at risk" for future censorship. This was one that I saved. I'm not surprised it's been taken down from Youtube because, well, it's Youtube. But odd that it would be removed from archive.org.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- sixhobbits 5y ago
  Archive.org processes takedown requests too - they have some exemptions for retro games etc, but they are not above the law.
- sackerhews 5y ago
  What was it about? Mind sharing it? curl --upload-file ./the-video-file.ext https://transfer.sh/your-reference.ext
numlock86 5y ago
As someone who has no idea what this is: What's the context here? By the name I would assume violation of multiple privacy related cases, which probably justifies deletion from basically everywhere. But then again, I have no idea what's the deal here.
- TowerTall 5y ago
  Apparently it is a video or a series of videos[1]. [1] https://www.are.na/block/2951836 https://www.are.na/block/2951836
- justusthane 5y ago
  Apparently just a guy who wandered around Seattle filming people with a camcorder. https://blogs.harvard.edu/internetmonitor/2013/07/10/surveillance-camera-man-draws-ire-provokes-questions-about-recording-in-public/ https://blogs.harvard.edu/internetmonitor/2013/07/10/surveil...
- globular-toast 5y ago
  It was a series of videos taken in public where a guy would just point the camera at people doing mundane things. The subjects would often question why he was filming them and the response was always simply "oh, I'm just making a video". Occasionally the guy would elaborate further and it seemed the point was that people are captured and recorded on CCTV and other surveillance methods all the time, so why would they care about his camera? Despite this the subjects would often become enraged and sometimes violent. It was fascinating for many reasons and I think a very interesting view on human psychology.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    There is a big difference between filming a specific public location, which I happen to pass through, and filming _me_ specifically. If the location is the subject and I am free to exit or enter the scene without my presence affecting the creativity of the work, then I have far fewer objections. But a video in which _I_ become the subject, which moves to focus my actions, is far more objectionable.
    - JustGoToThePub 5y ago
      > a big difference between filming a specific public location, which I happen to pass through, and filming _me_ specifically. How do you know they aren't filming you specifically[1], and why do you trust them? [1] And don't say 'I'm not interesting enough', 'cos I don't believe you.
      - karmakurtisaani 5y ago
        Of course they could be. The same way everyone around me could be a paid actor. But that's either absurd or frightening depending on your own psychology. A person pointing a camera at you without your consent, however, is almost universally disturbing.
        JustGoToThePub 5y ago
        Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me :-)
throwuxiytayq 5y ago
Ouch, sounds like a lawsuit/c&d maybe?
- EricE 5y ago
  Under what law?
DavidPeiffer 5y ago
I was able to find #6 on Vimeo. I'm entirely unfamiliar with this content. https://vimeo.com/98862974 https://vimeo.com/98862974
- rhklein 5y ago
  You can still find all 8 episodes searching vk.com
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
timdaub 5y ago
I loved his stuff and how upset people got. You could say it was performative art criticing post-modern technocratic stance on privacy: While Zuck said privacy is over: this dude got people raging. "I'm just making a video" Legend
- ehnto 5y ago
  It puts me in a tough spot, because on one hand I believe public space should be able to be recorded, but on the other hand this is pretty obnoxious behavior and pretty threatening in context. There are laws that cover this kind of stuff that are unrelated to filming, so police definitely could do something here. We see it as a video on the internet and know the intent but in the moment, it's some guy filming you and your family and not explaining why, I would totally get why people are furious.
  - bendauphinee 5y ago
    As a photographer myself, how do you think street photography happens? Sometimes the mundane stuff is unstaged, and when I was shooting it, you end up throwing a lot of stuff away anyway. In North America, you have no right to privacy in a public space. I understand why people are antsy about being photographed / recorded in public, but they direct that anger at the person doing it instead of the laws that allow it. Besides, the person you see and who is generally being intentionally visible isn't usually the one you have to worry about.
    - ehnto 5y ago
      Did you watch the videos linked elsewhere in this thread? He's acting pretty insidious, it's not just street photography. Even just someone following you around like they are, with no camera, would be uncomfortable/threating to some. He follows one family back to their car.
    - yoz-y 5y ago
      > but they direct that anger at the person doing it instead of the laws that allow it. The law that allows filming in public spaces clearly was not meant to allow this kind of creepy behaviour. People are rightfully directing their anger at the person abusing the law, rather than the law itself.
tsywke44 5y ago
He has a new channel, ”Vagrant Holiday”. Highly recommend. https://youtube.com/c/VagrantHoliday https://youtube.com/c/VagrantHoliday
- belter 5y ago
  "Riot Holiday" that was insane. As somebody commented, this guy would be the ironic commentator to the end of the world...
cortic 5y ago
It is fascinating even reading these comments, people falling over themselves trying to define a difference between 'some guy' recording them, and cctv (which is effectively 'some guy' recording them). It kind of reminds me of a nature program i watched some time ago, where they 'concealed' the cameras in plain sight by strapping them onto trees to get footage. Its important to remind ourselves that we are simple animals too, and when we don't see the 'guy' we don't feel the threat.
- emerged 5y ago
  It’s pretty simple. The state passively monitoring everyone is a blanket society scale phenomena. One dude following you around with a camera is a targeted 1:1 social confrontation. The difference is so vast it baffles me that anyone would consider them interchangeable.
  - belter 5y ago
    The state monitors you actively not just passively: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Unite...
  - cortic 5y ago
    Any amount of fear for someone following you that you can see, should be more for someone following you that you can't see. The fact that its inverse is a weakness of our psychology.
  - EricE 5y ago
    Why are you assuming passive monitoring from one and active from the other?
  - karmakurtisaani 5y ago
    Fully agree with you. It feels like people who think differently on the matter have abstracted away everything else but the fact that there's a camera looking in your direction. Sure, if you think like that, they're the same, but if you consider the context AT ALL, they're two totally different things.
belter 5y ago
Surveillance Camera Man had some of the most fascinating videos ever uploaded to the Internet. They were: - A form of Urban Art. - A study of Human behavior. From the relaxed and curiosity driven reactions of a few, to the freaked, untitled, scary, reaction of many. - A intrusion into the personal space of some, while in a public space, only made more fascinating by his calm brazenness. - Pure real life Golden Comedy. The most important reminder, will always be of how much our tolerance to surveillance is only based on the invisibility of said surveillance. In the digital world or in the real world. Always took Camera Surveillance Man, with his constant repetition, "It's just a camera", "It's just a video" as a statement of the must important unspoken question: "If you freak out about this camera, why don't you freak out about the others?" Commentators arguing about a personal invasion of privacy, are forgetting how easily it is to correlate two or three different signals, and de-anonymize you, therefore formally putting the camera back at your face again. Golden I tell you: "Just a video": https://youtu.be/AQgiLK5HuiA https://youtu.be/AQgiLK5HuiA https://youtu.be/t4mGnGFDs9Y https://youtu.be/t4mGnGFDs9Y This one, where the person arguing about it sits on a desk, with a large green panel that says: "CCTV Monitoring Station" https://youtu.be/X_cO41naHCg https://youtu.be/X_cO41naHCg
petercooper 5y ago
There's a British chap who's been becoming popular on YouTube lately who does some interesting public filming which sounds like it might be similar (though not identical, as he is more focused on practicing his legal rights rather than provoking a reaction): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HmOju41Ma0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HmOju41Ma0
olwmc 5y ago
I believe he now goes by “Vagrant Holiday”. Could be wrong though
- Jamie9912 5y ago
  Oh my god I thought they sounded similar!!
theartfuldodger 5y ago
After seeing this comment and watching a few of the AMAZING vagrant holiday videos, I learned from the comments that he likes to upload to specific locations and has deleted his videos and re-uploaded them many times over the years. I checked other mentioned locations and you can still watch the full collection here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/OkQQggPH6a9B/ https://www.bitchute.com/video/OkQQggPH6a9B/
- Jamie9912 5y ago
  It just loads forever :( Looks like the request times out on the video player
  - theartfuldodger 5y ago
    Ah, thats terrible, I was still watching Vagrant Holiday videos Here is a reupload - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBQi88JJ38Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBQi88JJ38Q
    - Inu 5y ago
      Reupload is gone...
      - theartfuldodger 5y ago
        That timing is interesting, I wouldn't be surprised if SCM is a hacker news reader or at least has a Google alert set up and actually saw this thread and reacted. Using the filename and basic dorking you can still find copies as I found a half dozen last night when sharing the above link, but seems like sharing any link just helps it disappear. If the two channels are really the same producer, which seems true to me, than some of the actions recorded for Vagrant Holiday are not something you can put your face next to, if SCM was filming in his own neighborhood he may have become concerned about opsec and what clues are inadvertently remaining in that old content that could lead back to him. I don't see what external privacy/legal concern would cause all videos to be removed since they are all different subjects so I think it his choice.

56 points by Jamie9912 5y ago

Ironically it looks like his content has been taken down from YouTube AND archive.org https://archive.org/details/SurveillanceCameraMan18 https://archive.org/details/SurveillanceCameraMan18

globular-toast 5y ago

Interesting. Every now and then I download and save a local copy of content I think will be "at risk" for future censorship. This was one that I saved. I'm not surprised it's been taken down from Youtube because, well, it's Youtube. But odd that it would be removed from archive.org.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sixhobbits 5y ago
Archive.org processes takedown requests too - they have some exemptions for retro games etc, but they are not above the law.
sackerhews 5y ago
What was it about? Mind sharing it? curl --upload-file ./the-video-file.ext https://transfer.sh/your-reference.ext

numlock86 5y ago

As someone who has no idea what this is: What's the context here? By the name I would assume violation of multiple privacy related cases, which probably justifies deletion from basically everywhere. But then again, I have no idea what's the deal here.

TowerTall 5y ago
Apparently it is a video or a series of videos[1]. [1] https://www.are.na/block/2951836 https://www.are.na/block/2951836
justusthane 5y ago
Apparently just a guy who wandered around Seattle filming people with a camcorder. https://blogs.harvard.edu/internetmonitor/2013/07/10/surveillance-camera-man-draws-ire-provokes-questions-about-recording-in-public/ https://blogs.harvard.edu/internetmonitor/2013/07/10/surveil...
globular-toast 5y ago
It was a series of videos taken in public where a guy would just point the camera at people doing mundane things. The subjects would often question why he was filming them and the response was always simply "oh, I'm just making a video". Occasionally the guy would elaborate further and it seemed the point was that people are captured and recorded on CCTV and other surveillance methods all the time, so why would they care about his camera? Despite this the subjects would often become enraged and sometimes violent. It was fascinating for many reasons and I think a very interesting view on human psychology.
- dotancohen 5y ago
  There is a big difference between filming a specific public location, which I happen to pass through, and filming _me_ specifically. If the location is the subject and I am free to exit or enter the scene without my presence affecting the creativity of the work, then I have far fewer objections. But a video in which _I_ become the subject, which moves to focus my actions, is far more objectionable.
  - JustGoToThePub 5y ago
    > a big difference between filming a specific public location, which I happen to pass through, and filming _me_ specifically. How do you know they aren't filming you specifically[1], and why do you trust them? [1] And don't say 'I'm not interesting enough', 'cos I don't believe you.
    - karmakurtisaani 5y ago
      Of course they could be. The same way everyone around me could be a paid actor. But that's either absurd or frightening depending on your own psychology. A person pointing a camera at you without your consent, however, is almost universally disturbing.
      - JustGoToThePub 5y ago
        Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me :-)

throwuxiytayq 5y ago

Ouch, sounds like a lawsuit/c&d maybe?

EricE 5y ago
Under what law?

DavidPeiffer 5y ago

I was able to find #6 on Vimeo. I'm entirely unfamiliar with this content. https://vimeo.com/98862974 https://vimeo.com/98862974

rhklein 5y ago
You can still find all 8 episodes searching vk.com

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

timdaub 5y ago

I loved his stuff and how upset people got. You could say it was performative art criticing post-modern technocratic stance on privacy: While Zuck said privacy is over: this dude got people raging. "I'm just making a video" Legend

ehnto 5y ago
It puts me in a tough spot, because on one hand I believe public space should be able to be recorded, but on the other hand this is pretty obnoxious behavior and pretty threatening in context. There are laws that cover this kind of stuff that are unrelated to filming, so police definitely could do something here. We see it as a video on the internet and know the intent but in the moment, it's some guy filming you and your family and not explaining why, I would totally get why people are furious.
- bendauphinee 5y ago
  As a photographer myself, how do you think street photography happens? Sometimes the mundane stuff is unstaged, and when I was shooting it, you end up throwing a lot of stuff away anyway. In North America, you have no right to privacy in a public space. I understand why people are antsy about being photographed / recorded in public, but they direct that anger at the person doing it instead of the laws that allow it. Besides, the person you see and who is generally being intentionally visible isn't usually the one you have to worry about.
  - ehnto 5y ago
    Did you watch the videos linked elsewhere in this thread? He's acting pretty insidious, it's not just street photography. Even just someone following you around like they are, with no camera, would be uncomfortable/threating to some. He follows one family back to their car.
  - yoz-y 5y ago
    > but they direct that anger at the person doing it instead of the laws that allow it. The law that allows filming in public spaces clearly was not meant to allow this kind of creepy behaviour. People are rightfully directing their anger at the person abusing the law, rather than the law itself.

tsywke44 5y ago

He has a new channel, ”Vagrant Holiday”. Highly recommend. https://youtube.com/c/VagrantHoliday https://youtube.com/c/VagrantHoliday

belter 5y ago
"Riot Holiday" that was insane. As somebody commented, this guy would be the ironic commentator to the end of the world...

cortic 5y ago

It is fascinating even reading these comments, people falling over themselves trying to define a difference between 'some guy' recording them, and cctv (which is effectively 'some guy' recording them). It kind of reminds me of a nature program i watched some time ago, where they 'concealed' the cameras in plain sight by strapping them onto trees to get footage. Its important to remind ourselves that we are simple animals too, and when we don't see the 'guy' we don't feel the threat.

emerged 5y ago
It’s pretty simple. The state passively monitoring everyone is a blanket society scale phenomena. One dude following you around with a camera is a targeted 1:1 social confrontation. The difference is so vast it baffles me that anyone would consider them interchangeable.
- belter 5y ago
  The state monitors you actively not just passively: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Unite...
- cortic 5y ago
  Any amount of fear for someone following you that you can see, should be more for someone following you that you can't see. The fact that its inverse is a weakness of our psychology.
- EricE 5y ago
  Why are you assuming passive monitoring from one and active from the other?
- karmakurtisaani 5y ago
  Fully agree with you. It feels like people who think differently on the matter have abstracted away everything else but the fact that there's a camera looking in your direction. Sure, if you think like that, they're the same, but if you consider the context AT ALL, they're two totally different things.

belter 5y ago

Surveillance Camera Man had some of the most fascinating videos ever uploaded to the Internet. They were: - A form of Urban Art. - A study of Human behavior. From the relaxed and curiosity driven reactions of a few, to the freaked, untitled, scary, reaction of many. - A intrusion into the personal space of some, while in a public space, only made more fascinating by his calm brazenness. - Pure real life Golden Comedy. The most important reminder, will always be of how much our tolerance to surveillance is only based on the invisibility of said surveillance. In the digital world or in the real world. Always took Camera Surveillance Man, with his constant repetition, "It's just a camera", "It's just a video" as a statement of the must important unspoken question: "If you freak out about this camera, why don't you freak out about the others?" Commentators arguing about a personal invasion of privacy, are forgetting how easily it is to correlate two or three different signals, and de-anonymize you, therefore formally putting the camera back at your face again. Golden I tell you: "Just a video": https://youtu.be/AQgiLK5HuiA https://youtu.be/AQgiLK5HuiA https://youtu.be/t4mGnGFDs9Y https://youtu.be/t4mGnGFDs9Y This one, where the person arguing about it sits on a desk, with a large green panel that says: "CCTV Monitoring Station" https://youtu.be/X_cO41naHCg https://youtu.be/X_cO41naHCg

petercooper 5y ago

There's a British chap who's been becoming popular on YouTube lately who does some interesting public filming which sounds like it might be similar (though not identical, as he is more focused on practicing his legal rights rather than provoking a reaction): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HmOju41Ma0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HmOju41Ma0

olwmc 5y ago

I believe he now goes by “Vagrant Holiday”. Could be wrong though

Jamie9912 5y ago
Oh my god I thought they sounded similar!!

theartfuldodger 5y ago

After seeing this comment and watching a few of the AMAZING vagrant holiday videos, I learned from the comments that he likes to upload to specific locations and has deleted his videos and re-uploaded them many times over the years. I checked other mentioned locations and you can still watch the full collection here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/OkQQggPH6a9B/ https://www.bitchute.com/video/OkQQggPH6a9B/

Jamie9912 5y ago
It just loads forever :( Looks like the request times out on the video player
- theartfuldodger 5y ago
  Ah, thats terrible, I was still watching Vagrant Holiday videos Here is a reupload - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBQi88JJ38Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBQi88JJ38Q
  - Inu 5y ago
    Reupload is gone...
    - theartfuldodger 5y ago
      That timing is interesting, I wouldn't be surprised if SCM is a hacker news reader or at least has a Google alert set up and actually saw this thread and reacted. Using the filename and basic dorking you can still find copies as I found a half dozen last night when sharing the above link, but seems like sharing any link just helps it disappear. If the two channels are really the same producer, which seems true to me, than some of the actions recorded for Vagrant Holiday are not something you can put your face next to, if SCM was filming in his own neighborhood he may have become concerned about opsec and what clues are inadvertently remaining in that old content that could lead back to him. I don't see what external privacy/legal concern would cause all videos to be removed since they are all different subjects so I think it his choice.