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Posts with tag big brother

Britain's Surveillance Cameras Get Ears and Brains

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Jun 29th 2008 at 5:15PM

Britain's Surveillance Cameras Get Ears and BrainsIt was less than a year ago that closed circuit television (CCTV) security cameras in the UK were given the ability to hear. Now, in some places, those cameras are getting a major upgrade in the form of an artificial intelligence program that law enforcement officials hope will eventually be able to identify and locate specific sounds. The current generation of software is sophisticated enough for complex image recognition -- it can even identify if a car antenna is up or not.

The next step for the software is to learn to identify the waveforms of sounds, such as a car window being broken. The hope is that the camera will then be able to locate the sound, pivot to spot its origin, and alert the camera's operator. As the software "hears" more it will learn to identify more sounds.

Big Brother isn't just watching anymore, he's listening and learning. [Source: BBC]

Public Audio Surveillance Hits London

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Oct 23rd 2007 at 7:25AM

London Police Love Their Surveillance
Everyday this Big Brother stuff gets scarier and scarier. Pretty soon the only place you'll be safe is in your own home, in your bed room, under the blanket. We posted before about experts declaring that by 2057 there will be roughly one million sensors and recorders for every U.K. resident. It looks like London is wasting no time rushing towards that goal.

We're well aware of the security cameras already all over the city, but it looks like Londoners will also have to brace themselves for audio surveillance, too. In order to break up gangs, London police have begun a program using audio bugs placed in public places.

Currently, the listening devices have only been deployed in Lambeth, in south London, where youth gangs are particularly prevalent, and where gun crime has risen 10 percent in the last six months. The hope is that the intelligence gathered will help authorities identify key figures in the tight-knit, but loosely organized groups, which will better allow police to disrupt their activities.

Public eavesdropping, sans warrants, by law enforcement is sure to rankle some privacy advocates. Authorities are hoping a drop in crime will quell the inevitable uproar. We shall see.

Would you approve of audio eavesdropping if it reduced crime in your area?

From The BBC

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New Technology Detects Terrorists Before They Strike

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Oct 9th 2007 at 8:31AM

Big Brother Wants to Detect Terrorists Before They Strike

All your Big Brother nightmares are about to come true, thanks to an $800,000 award from the Nation Science Foundation. The money is funding computer and behavioral scientists at the University of Buffalo to work on a tracking system that will allow authorities to score an individuals likeliness to commit a terrorist act.

Sound creepy? Well, it gets even better. The system works by monitoring the faces, voices, bodies, and other biometrical data of people while they're being interviewed on video (so make sure you don't get pulled over and interrogated in some special room). Venu Govindaraju, professor of computer science and engineering, says "The goal is to identify the perpetrator in a security setting before he or she has the chance to carry out the attack." We guess innocent until proven guilty is a quaint notion in a post 9/11 world.

The system will also feature the ability to learn over time from interviews with subjects, meaning that having an off day could raise your "malfeasance" score. We're not even sure how to react to this sort of news any more except to remind everyone of Blackstone's formulation, very much at the heart of our legal system -- "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."

From Engadget

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Sneak Peek at Next-Generation Surveillance

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Sep 17th 2007 at 5:27PM

More New Surveillance Technologies on the WayBBC corespondent Humphrey Hawksley recently got up-close and personal with Big Brother, or rather the people developing the next generation of surveillance technology.

Hawksley's first visit was with a team of researchers at Maryland University. They've developed a technology that can pick individuals out of a crowd based on the way they walk. His second visit was with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (the guys who invented the Internet), which is working on projects as widely diverse as instant language translation and an unmanned surveillance plane that could stay up in the air for as long as five years at a clip. Finally, Hawksley gets a sneak peek at some amazing surveillance technology that uses radio signals to see through walls.

While all of this is a glimpse into the, perhaps, scary future, U.S. cities such as Chicago and New York City are already beginning to test systems similar to London's, which allows the 24/7 monitoring of many city streets. Post-9/11, surveillance in one form or another is a necessary evil that, for the most part, the public seems to be OK with. According to recent polls in both the U.S. and Britain, about 75 percent of citizens want more surveillance, not less.

We agree, but only to a point. After all, it's all fun and games until you're awoken out of bed every morning by the giant face on the screen above your cot.

From BBC

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