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lightbulb moment...
Sep. 23rd, 2012 11:27 amSo. There's facial recognition software, voice recognition software, gait recognition software. There are facilities for archiving all this information, software for integrating it (follow the tags).
There's increased surveillance, both routine and on the ground. (link covering RNCCTV, REAL ID, undercover cops - very 1984)
And, as always, the "big three" of terrorists, organized crime, and pedophiles is trotted out as justification... I've come to the conclusion that they're right, sort of.
The quote of the day is, "Prisons are like universities, they're only profitable if you put butts in the seats.” Criminalizing the general populace, the surveillance, the militarization of municipal police forces - none of this would be happening if people weren't profiting from it.
Privatizing prisons, turning incarceration into a profitable business - this changes the narrative of social control, of being a good citizen, the very basis of what Law and Government do in ways that I just can't wrap my brain around. The narrative breaks in ways that induce severe cognitive dissonance; I literally cannot think about this. One clear thought, though, is that lobbying to make laws to incarcerate more people, deprive them of "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" just to get rich - is deeply criminal. That is the organized crime that is driving the surveillance state.
There's increased surveillance, both routine and on the ground. (link covering RNCCTV, REAL ID, undercover cops - very 1984)
And, as always, the "big three" of terrorists, organized crime, and pedophiles is trotted out as justification... I've come to the conclusion that they're right, sort of.
The quote of the day is, "Prisons are like universities, they're only profitable if you put butts in the seats.” Criminalizing the general populace, the surveillance, the militarization of municipal police forces - none of this would be happening if people weren't profiting from it.
Privatizing prisons, turning incarceration into a profitable business - this changes the narrative of social control, of being a good citizen, the very basis of what Law and Government do in ways that I just can't wrap my brain around. The narrative breaks in ways that induce severe cognitive dissonance; I literally cannot think about this. One clear thought, though, is that lobbying to make laws to incarcerate more people, deprive them of "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" just to get rich - is deeply criminal. That is the organized crime that is driving the surveillance state.
Remember Cubic? And its various spin-offs and subsidiaries and associated companies like Abraxas and Trapwire and Ntrepid, the webwork of interlocking major shareholders and board-members?
The selling of surveillance requires fear as a marketing technique.
I wish the legend on the diagram wasn't so hard to read. One of dots looks like it might be labeled PBS, Occupy Oakland is a little clearer.
Anarchist (or more complex forms) appears 11 times in this short document, violent is used 9 times, illegal is 6, protest (and protestors) shows up 10 times (only once NOT in the context of anarchist or violent or illegal). Peaceful shows up 3 times... Agenda, much? (How many of the #occupy folk are anarchists? How much of the violence at #occupy events was perpetrated by people in uniform? HOW MUCH is protest, dissent being stigmatized?)
(And, just to point out the obvious: while that pretty association map is probably fiction, not made by monitoring connections in social media... Don't think they're not watching.)
The selling of surveillance requires fear as a marketing technique.
I wish the legend on the diagram wasn't so hard to read. One of dots looks like it might be labeled PBS, Occupy Oakland is a little clearer.
Anarchist (or more complex forms) appears 11 times in this short document, violent is used 9 times, illegal is 6, protest (and protestors) shows up 10 times (only once NOT in the context of anarchist or violent or illegal). Peaceful shows up 3 times... Agenda, much? (How many of the #occupy folk are anarchists? How much of the violence at #occupy events was perpetrated by people in uniform? HOW MUCH is protest, dissent being stigmatized?)
(And, just to point out the obvious: while that pretty association map is probably fiction, not made by monitoring connections in social media... Don't think they're not watching.)
It's *Unca Walt*, too!
Aug. 16th, 2012 01:54 pmFacial recognition at Disney (not clear from the article if Identix is the company responsible for the equipment), municipal monitoring all over the continent (Michigan, outskirts of Vancouver, as well as NYC, Vegas, etc...).
I want a broad-brimmed hat fitted with low-power IR LEDs that spell out "Presumed Innocent" around the brim - I think it could be done with fiber optics without too much trouble.
I want a broad-brimmed hat fitted with low-power IR LEDs that spell out "Presumed Innocent" around the brim - I think it could be done with fiber optics without too much trouble.
personal freedom roundup...
Aug. 14th, 2012 07:24 pmI'm going to ignore the NYT whitewashing of Trapwire. Also going to ignore Cubic's claims that they're not associated with Trapwire (too much overlap on various boards between Trapwire, Abraxis, Cubic, Ntrepid, etc for them to claim no association whatsoever).
I've seen claims that the things Trapwire brags about are just not technically feasible... and to that, I say 1) bullshit (and if it isn't possible now, facial recognition is improving to the point that this technology will be biting the naysayers in short order), and 2) there's still a problem.
We do have increasing surveillance, everywhere. Surveillance undercuts the presumption of innocence, one of the basic tenets of the legal system (the counter to "if you've got nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is "if I'm not doing anything illegal, you've got no business surveilling") and tends to discourage dissent. (You wouldn't want that to go on your permanent record, would you?)
Which brings up the next issue. You get recorded by a camera somewhere. Then what? Who owns the camera? What happens to that image, the location and time-stamp, that data? Who owns the data? It's digital, can be replicated infinitely; where does it go? Who stores it, keeps it, guards it, sells it? How long do they keep it? (Are corporations/NGOs covered by FOIA? I was in several Las Vegas casinos not that long ago, and a number of them are Trapwire customers - how do I find out if I was recorded? Can I get my records expunged or corrected?)
There's more, of course... but I'm grumpy enough, going to stop now.
I've seen claims that the things Trapwire brags about are just not technically feasible... and to that, I say 1) bullshit (and if it isn't possible now, facial recognition is improving to the point that this technology will be biting the naysayers in short order), and 2) there's still a problem.
We do have increasing surveillance, everywhere. Surveillance undercuts the presumption of innocence, one of the basic tenets of the legal system (the counter to "if you've got nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is "if I'm not doing anything illegal, you've got no business surveilling") and tends to discourage dissent. (You wouldn't want that to go on your permanent record, would you?)
Which brings up the next issue. You get recorded by a camera somewhere. Then what? Who owns the camera? What happens to that image, the location and time-stamp, that data? Who owns the data? It's digital, can be replicated infinitely; where does it go? Who stores it, keeps it, guards it, sells it? How long do they keep it? (Are corporations/NGOs covered by FOIA? I was in several Las Vegas casinos not that long ago, and a number of them are Trapwire customers - how do I find out if I was recorded? Can I get my records expunged or corrected?)
There's more, of course... but I'm grumpy enough, going to stop now.
Apparently, my face is not "sensitive or personally identifiable information."
Because... this is a company that bragged about its hot-shit face-recognition software and has the stated purpose of integrating security camera images and phoned-in tips for analysis of suspicious patterns of behavior. Anything that allows them to say, "Oh, look, #994199 is back again, and taking pictures with a better camera this time!" means they HAVE TO be storing what I would consider to be personally identifiable information....
Because... this is a company that bragged about its hot-shit face-recognition software and has the stated purpose of integrating security camera images and phoned-in tips for analysis of suspicious patterns of behavior. Anything that allows them to say, "Oh, look, #994199 is back again, and taking pictures with a better camera this time!" means they HAVE TO be storing what I would consider to be personally identifiable information....
well. (updated) (again)
Aug. 10th, 2012 02:51 pmTrapwire seems to have become a 'splody thing since this morning's linkage...
http://www.businessinsider.com/trapwire-everything-you-need-to-know-2012-8
http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/10/creepy-spying-system-revealed-by-wikilea
http://www.dailydot.com/news/trapwire-surveillance-wikileaks-twitter/
http://storify.com/superwarrant/threeprong-trapwire-removal-strategy
(several pages in, this gets fun - sf0-style RPG, anybody?)
more: http://publicintelligence.net/unravelling-trapwire/
(see also trapwire.net, for as long as that lasts...)
... and, why NDAA is so important.
http://www.businessinsider.com/trapwire-everything-you-need-to-know-2012-8
http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/10/creepy-spying-system-revealed-by-wikilea
http://www.dailydot.com/news/trapwire-surveillance-wikileaks-twitter/
http://storify.com/superwarrant/threeprong-trapwire-removal-strategy
(several pages in, this gets fun - sf0-style RPG, anybody?)
more: http://publicintelligence.net/unravelling-trapwire/
(see also trapwire.net, for as long as that lasts...)
... and, why NDAA is so important.
things to brighten your morning...
Aug. 10th, 2012 08:27 amNOT.
Warrantless wiretapping is permissible... ..for some values of "permissible".
And, of course, it's not just wiretapping: looks like it might not be just emails in that complex in Utah... (well, not really - I'm guessing the company might be keeping them in Texas, though...)
Is your bookcase properly sanitized?
Warrantless wiretapping is permissible... ..for some values of "permissible".
And, of course, it's not just wiretapping: looks like it might not be just emails in that complex in Utah... (well, not really - I'm guessing the company might be keeping them in Texas, though...)
Is your bookcase properly sanitized?