6 ms·

I'm not sure why I haven't seen this addressed yet, but doesn't the widespread use of something like Glass portend the dramatic fall of the prevalence of street

by liber8 14y ago

I'm not sure why I haven't seen this addressed yet, but doesn't the widespread use of something like Glass portend the dramatic fall of the prevalence of street crime? Widespread use of CCTV cameras are one thing, but millions of eye-level recording devices (presumably automatically beamed to the cloud at some point), would seem to me to be a major deterrent to all sorts of street crime. I can see this effecting not just things like person on person crime (muggings, rape, battery, etc.) but also burglaries, arson, or any other crime that requires a getaway. Police or citizens could issues statements like "We had a break-in at 9:30 at 555 Main Street. If you were in a 5 block radius of that address, click here to upload your video feed from 9:00 to 10:00." Obviously this also has terrifying privacy concerns as well, but the extent to which this could completely transform society seems to be undersold here, doesn't it?

jere 14y ago
Ask Darien Long, the "badass mall cop." He works in an area in downtown Atlanta infested with drug dealers and he constantly encounters people who want to threaten him. He has said repeatedly that his two most important weapons are his taser and his chest mounted GoPro camera, even though he carries an assortment of weapons that would make Batman jealous. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/darien-long-mall-cop-reddit-video_n_2601615.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/darien-long-mall-co...
drcube 14y ago
Actually, I think privacy concerns could be alleviated by something like this. It's just so much information, getting anything useful is like taking a sip from a fire hose. Imagine your hypothetical break in is in downtown Manhattan. Do you really expect law enforcement to sift through video data of the hundreds of thousands of people who fit that profile? How would they know if someone's feed was missing? Basically, there's so much noise, the signal effectively gets lost. Granted, big data applications could be brought to bear on the problem, but then it's the same cat and mouse game criminals and police have been playing forever.
- wklauss 14y ago
  A lot of security falls into that "firehose" analogy. Your door lock is relatively trivial to brute-force. What is preventing thieves from entering your house is that you live surrounded by other targets. Problem with the Glass approach is that we now require police to sit through videos, but eventually it will be easier to mine all the data with algorithms, especially if we get better at facial recognition, etc... Personally, i don't mind a glass-pervasive society. I worry about the fact that all the data goes around a single company's infrastructure and the fact that, for this specific company, hardware is a commodity and data is what they are after.
- liber8 14y ago
  I don't envision this being a problem at all. First, its easy enough to have a checkbox that says "I saw it, here's the feed you want." (In all likelihood, if anybody committed a crime in downtown Manhattan where hundreds of people were around, the cops wouldn't have any need to ask the public for data anyway.) If nobody saw it (or doesn't know what they were looking at, as would usually be the case if they saw a getaway car), I still don't think there will be a firehose of data. The feed will already be geotagged and time stamped, making it easy to sift through by hand. Plus, much of this can be automated, even with the relatively rudimentary recognition software we have now.
WestCoastJustin 14y ago
To a point this is already happening with cell phone cameras and social media. Lots of people were identified in the 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup riot [1] due to pocket cameras and cellphone pictures/video. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Vancouver_Stanley_Cup_riot#Social_media http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Vancouver_Stanley_Cup_riot...
danso 14y ago
Dashboard cams in Russia are ostensibly popular because they help document incidents of roadside violence/malfeasance http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/02/russian-dash-cams/ http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/02/russian-dash-cams/
- drzaiusapelord 14y ago
  Aren't these a requirement for any Russian auto insurance?
  - jsn 14y ago
    No.
md224 14y ago
I think the concept of mass surveillance of one other has been a concern of wearable/ubiquitous computing for a while now. Google "sousveillance" for more writing on this.
oinksoft 14y ago
It's awful. For ages, we've worried about The Government mounting cameras everywhere until the only private space was one's own home, and away from windows at that. 1984 famously envisioned a world where this surveillance extended to the domicile, but even then it was stationary and had blind spots. Seems that in the near future, there will be little need for any of this, and there will be no coercion; rather, most of us will vie for the most powerful, feature-loaded head-mounted camera. That's not to say that such an invention can or will only be used for evil. But there's no denying that this is huge progress for anybody dreaming of global surveillance or something like it.
- isaacwaller 14y ago
  I disagree that the technology is currently dangerous as very few people would opt to allow the government to view their video feed. It is as you say - something right out of 1984 - and most people would recognize that and not give permission. Unless the video is uploaded without the user's knowledge, I think we do not have to worry about government usage of these cameras.
  - yusefnapora 14y ago
    They wouldn't need to give permission to the government. "Get Glass today with 1TB free cloud storage. Access your precious memories from your phone, tablet or television!" Once it's in Google's cloud it's just a subpoena away.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - waterlesscloud 14y ago
      And even if the video isn't stored in the cloud, it's a safe bet your location data will be. Then the government can send you a summons if you were in the location at the time of the crime, requiring you turn over your video data. And if you don't, then you're breaking a law.
  - 14y ago
pasbesoin 14y ago
If you want a "professional's" speculation on this, read David Brin's "Earth". It's several years old, now, but this type of technology is one of the topics it took in fairly head on fashion, if also somewhat incidental to the main plot.
- nooneelse 14y ago
  Or his non-science-fiction speculations on such matters in The Transparent Society. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society)
dsr_ 14y ago
What I really want is for police officers on duty to be required to have it on and recording all their interactions with citizens.
- purplelobster 14y ago
  A very good use for this technology. Officers on duty are not entitled to privacy in my opinion. Everything should be recorded and archived to deter corrupt behavior.
fizx 14y ago
SF already has a dedicated police dispatcher watching twitter for news of crime.
neverm0re 14y ago
Sousveillance[1] seems to really answer 'Who watches the watchmen?' with 'We all do'. Ultimately I think not only crime will go down, but also more egregious cases of corruption. This is more harmful to governments in the long run who like a rather tight control over information, as the internet constantly demonstrates. I'm slowly learning to be okay with this aspect of AR. It's the /services/ that Glass secretly enable for its users that I find far more worrying than mere scrapbooking of your life. Just start thinking as sleazy as possible here, for a moment. If Glass can log conversations, it can also relay conversations to other parties to comment upon. I just can't stop imagining things like MTurk-like services staffed with popped-collar sociopaths fresh off the set of Jersey Shore, all working with your transcripts to be your 'virtual wingman' as you work your 'game' on unsuspecting people. Ridiculous, but just sleazy enough I could see it. I imagine if we all really just wanted to depress ourselves today, we could keep coming up with more and more ideas of how to exploit AR for social advantage/manipulation. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance
- surfaceTensi0n 14y ago
  A slightly more futuristic take on AR's sleazy side: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/08/02/sight_a_short_film_on_augmented_reality_contacts_by_daniel_lazo_and_eran_may_raz_video_.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/08/02/sight_a_s...
purplelobster 14y ago
Watch the 3rd episode in the first season of "Black Mirror" to see some of the downsides of 24/7 video recording.
- WickyNilliams 14y ago
  And to a certain degree the 2nd episode of the second season. Whilst it's not entirely central to the plot, it is touched upon with the pervasive recording via mobile phone.

by liber8 14y ago

jere 14y ago

Ask Darien Long, the "badass mall cop." He works in an area in downtown Atlanta infested with drug dealers and he constantly encounters people who want to threaten him. He has said repeatedly that his two most important weapons are his taser and his chest mounted GoPro camera, even though he carries an assortment of weapons that would make Batman jealous. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/darien-long-mall-cop-reddit-video_n_2601615.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/darien-long-mall-co...

drcube 14y ago

Actually, I think privacy concerns could be alleviated by something like this. It's just so much information, getting anything useful is like taking a sip from a fire hose. Imagine your hypothetical break in is in downtown Manhattan. Do you really expect law enforcement to sift through video data of the hundreds of thousands of people who fit that profile? How would they know if someone's feed was missing? Basically, there's so much noise, the signal effectively gets lost. Granted, big data applications could be brought to bear on the problem, but then it's the same cat and mouse game criminals and police have been playing forever.

wklauss 14y ago
A lot of security falls into that "firehose" analogy. Your door lock is relatively trivial to brute-force. What is preventing thieves from entering your house is that you live surrounded by other targets. Problem with the Glass approach is that we now require police to sit through videos, but eventually it will be easier to mine all the data with algorithms, especially if we get better at facial recognition, etc... Personally, i don't mind a glass-pervasive society. I worry about the fact that all the data goes around a single company's infrastructure and the fact that, for this specific company, hardware is a commodity and data is what they are after.
liber8 14y ago
I don't envision this being a problem at all. First, its easy enough to have a checkbox that says "I saw it, here's the feed you want." (In all likelihood, if anybody committed a crime in downtown Manhattan where hundreds of people were around, the cops wouldn't have any need to ask the public for data anyway.) If nobody saw it (or doesn't know what they were looking at, as would usually be the case if they saw a getaway car), I still don't think there will be a firehose of data. The feed will already be geotagged and time stamped, making it easy to sift through by hand. Plus, much of this can be automated, even with the relatively rudimentary recognition software we have now.

WestCoastJustin 14y ago

To a point this is already happening with cell phone cameras and social media. Lots of people were identified in the 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup riot [1] due to pocket cameras and cellphone pictures/video. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Vancouver_Stanley_Cup_riot#Social_media http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Vancouver_Stanley_Cup_riot...

danso 14y ago

Dashboard cams in Russia are ostensibly popular because they help document incidents of roadside violence/malfeasance http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/02/russian-dash-cams/ http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/02/russian-dash-cams/

drzaiusapelord 14y ago
Aren't these a requirement for any Russian auto insurance?
- jsn 14y ago
  No.

md224 14y ago

I think the concept of mass surveillance of one other has been a concern of wearable/ubiquitous computing for a while now. Google "sousveillance" for more writing on this.

oinksoft 14y ago

It's awful. For ages, we've worried about The Government mounting cameras everywhere until the only private space was one's own home, and away from windows at that. 1984 famously envisioned a world where this surveillance extended to the domicile, but even then it was stationary and had blind spots. Seems that in the near future, there will be little need for any of this, and there will be no coercion; rather, most of us will vie for the most powerful, feature-loaded head-mounted camera. That's not to say that such an invention can or will only be used for evil. But there's no denying that this is huge progress for anybody dreaming of global surveillance or something like it.

isaacwaller 14y ago
I disagree that the technology is currently dangerous as very few people would opt to allow the government to view their video feed. It is as you say - something right out of 1984 - and most people would recognize that and not give permission. Unless the video is uploaded without the user's knowledge, I think we do not have to worry about government usage of these cameras.
- yusefnapora 14y ago
  They wouldn't need to give permission to the government. "Get Glass today with 1TB free cloud storage. Access your precious memories from your phone, tablet or television!" Once it's in Google's cloud it's just a subpoena away.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    And even if the video isn't stored in the cloud, it's a safe bet your location data will be. Then the government can send you a summons if you were in the location at the time of the crime, requiring you turn over your video data. And if you don't, then you're breaking a law.
- 14y ago

pasbesoin 14y ago

If you want a "professional's" speculation on this, read David Brin's "Earth". It's several years old, now, but this type of technology is one of the topics it took in fairly head on fashion, if also somewhat incidental to the main plot.

nooneelse 14y ago
Or his non-science-fiction speculations on such matters in The Transparent Society. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society)

dsr_ 14y ago

What I really want is for police officers on duty to be required to have it on and recording all their interactions with citizens.

purplelobster 14y ago
A very good use for this technology. Officers on duty are not entitled to privacy in my opinion. Everything should be recorded and archived to deter corrupt behavior.

fizx 14y ago

SF already has a dedicated police dispatcher watching twitter for news of crime.

neverm0re 14y ago

Sousveillance[1] seems to really answer 'Who watches the watchmen?' with 'We all do'. Ultimately I think not only crime will go down, but also more egregious cases of corruption. This is more harmful to governments in the long run who like a rather tight control over information, as the internet constantly demonstrates. I'm slowly learning to be okay with this aspect of AR. It's the /services/ that Glass secretly enable for its users that I find far more worrying than mere scrapbooking of your life. Just start thinking as sleazy as possible here, for a moment. If Glass can log conversations, it can also relay conversations to other parties to comment upon. I just can't stop imagining things like MTurk-like services staffed with popped-collar sociopaths fresh off the set of Jersey Shore, all working with your transcripts to be your 'virtual wingman' as you work your 'game' on unsuspecting people. Ridiculous, but just sleazy enough I could see it. I imagine if we all really just wanted to depress ourselves today, we could keep coming up with more and more ideas of how to exploit AR for social advantage/manipulation. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance

surfaceTensi0n 14y ago
A slightly more futuristic take on AR's sleazy side: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/08/02/sight_a_short_film_on_augmented_reality_contacts_by_daniel_lazo_and_eran_may_raz_video_.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/08/02/sight_a_s...

purplelobster 14y ago

Watch the 3rd episode in the first season of "Black Mirror" to see some of the downsides of 24/7 video recording.

WickyNilliams 14y ago
And to a certain degree the 2nd episode of the second season. Whilst it's not entirely central to the plot, it is touched upon with the pervasive recording via mobile phone.