atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General Telecom News Hikvision Digital Technology + Cisco = Big Brother

Two quality articles--aside from the pay-per-look WSJ page--that cover today's news about the half million spy cameras being deployed through Chongquing (formerly Chung King), China:

https://thenextweb.com/asia/2011/07...r-surveillance-network-with-ciscos-help/

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2011/07/05/cisco-working-on-chinese-surveillance.html

The government municipality of Chongquing (think of it as as Washington D.C. in that it's a non-state, specially isolated government doohickey) has an area of 31,776.2 sq miles. By my math, that puts something along the lines of 300+ cameras per quarter mile. Wow.

Anyone on the board that knows me or my philosophy is aware that I am strongly opposed to this kind of privacy violation. Yes, I know that "being in public" isn't private per se, but in my mind it has always carried a small sense of privacy. I mean, random people outside my immediate space have previously NEVER been able to view my familiy walk down the streets of Los Angeles...only those who happen to be on my block have.

Now while my attitude seems extreme, let me ply you with this: If the same "wisdom" were to apply to your home, I would argue that it's not necessary to have blinds or curtains on your windows. After all, what could you possibly be doing in there that would cause you worry if someone saw you?

One day this may happen. Some government or law enforcement agency will finally wield enough power and convince everyone that there are soooo many [meth labs, unethical sex acts, physical abuse...pick one] that it's actually OK for us law abiding citizens to forgo such a freedom of privacy "for the better of the populous". Maybe the Feds should be able to enter your home at any time "for your safety". I'm not paranoid--unless some nouveau hippy generation comes in to save us, it's destined to happen.

Nothing good can come of this.

Cameras in public are a fact of life.

In a big city with millions of people going about their everyday lives, my feeling is that the chances of one person being singled out are so tiny, that it just doesn't bother me.

The buses and subway car platforms used by the MBTA (Massachusets Bay Transit Authority) all have (or shortly will have) cameras. From the moment I board a bus to the time I walk up out of the subway station....about a block from the office....I'm within the view of a camera (except on the subways cars themselves.....for now anyway).

This will sound trite, but I don't conduct myself in a way that would draw undue attention. And if someone(s) decide(s) to attack or rob me on a bus or platform, I'll be quite thankful for those cameras being where they are.

And I feel that the chances of anything happening to anyone is so trivial that cameras are absolutely, positively unnecessary.

Don't watch TV (I don't...or very rarely do), because it's better to be uninformed than misinformed.

I leave my car unlocked, my front door unlocked and my windows open at night. Me and my friend Chris have done this for years and guess what? Nothing happens! Yes I care about my family. That's why I teach them not to live in fear.

The ability to leave cars & homes unlocked depends heavily on where one lives. If I lived in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, Allston or Brighton Mass (parts of the city of Boston), I sure wouldn't do anything like that.

If I lived out in the "sticks" of Cheshire, Goshen or Monson Massachusetts, I might be more receptive to doing that.

Tim, I couldn't agree with you more. It's that infamous "slippery slope" and we, as a populace, keep giving the government more and more leeway to take our personal space, privacy and rights away from us. Maybe I'm a dooms-dayer, but I look at the path we are on and it scares me to my core. I'm afraid for the fate of a once great country. I could easily slip in to a diatribe here, so I'll leave it at that. We need to wake up.

:thumb:

me too , I walk the dog every night down a mile long unlit under construction road often as late as midnight. I'm cautious but I dont live in fear

I agree surveillance cameras have gotten way out of hand I dont see it as a dark conspiracy to take our rights as much a lobbying by surveillance firms looking to make money at our expense

Actually, if we didn't have laws against indecent exposure and lewd public acts, I wouldn't have curtains, or a fence around the pool...

But I don't dismiss the camera matter as trivial just because I'm not ashamed of what I'm doing. Quite frankly, it IS a slippery slope toward a "big-brother" type of state.

When I'm sitting out on the back porch in nothing but a pair of grungy boxers, I know my neighbors might see me, that's OK, I've seen them at their worst as well--that's what having neighbors is all about. However, someone I don't know, perhaps in another town (or another country) watching me is quite unnerving. Also, though I don't mind my friends and neighbors seeing me, I don't necessarily want the moment immortalized in bits and bytes.

Now apply that logic to your public life as well. Who hasn't made some kind of social blunder they would rather forget. Do you really want someone posessing a video of you idly picking your nose while waiting for the bus? How about adjusting your "junk". And I've only touched on the innocent stuff. What about the person that IS cheating on their spouse?

Cameras are only mediocre as a deterent for realy crime. Banks are covered with cameras, as are most convenience stores, yet they still get robbed. Keep the cameras where they belong...in the TV and Movie studios.

@Skip: I'm in agreement about "no dark conspiracy" existing...government or otherwise. I sound the alarm only because the slipping of personal privacy in favor of the greater good is subtle, but substantial when you look backwards.


In addition to doing some cursory studies about things like the murder rate in China (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate), I did a "flyby" of Chongquing, the city to receive all those cameras, using Google Earth.

What a cool looking place! Too bad the corners of all these buildings will be littered with dark domes:




Cisco and company should forget about China and instead focus on South Africa; they have a murder rate that is double than that of the United States and ten times that of Asia.

At least this website is getting free advertising on the building (the panel below the one for Adidas)

I think this would better fit the phone booth, so moving. Thanks.