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News of some White Rose Relevant Modern Art. At one of my other places I expressed some uninformed prejudices (“messing about”, I called it, and a commenter took exception) about an artist called David Cotterrell, prejudices I still believe to be on the button, now that they are slightly better informed by me having browsed through this site.
Here, though, is a description of a David Cotterrell work, which brings together the worlds of art and of surveillance:
‘The Paranoia of a London Attache Case’ consists of seven twenty two minute video recordings playing concurrently. It was produced using the closed-circuit surveillance camera network within Monument/Bank Underground Station in the heart of the City of London.
The Installation tracks the movement of the attashe case as it is carried by an actor through the labyrinth of tunnels, platforms and escalators that make up the public areas of the station. Observed by 81 of the station’s security cameras, the journey begins and ends with the case being exchanged on opposite platforms.
The security cameras were connected to seven monitors, in turn connected to seven video recorders. By pre-mapping the journey then filming and editing it ‘live’, it was possible to create a continuous sequence. This runs from 14:08:30 to 14:31:10 the time coding and location description can be seen at the bottom of each screen. The sound was recorded simultaneously using a recorder concealed within the attache case.
Look out Michelangelo. Still, it shows you something of what the arties are brooding on these days.
And next time you complain about the government spying on you, be ready for them to say: “Oh but it’s art.”
Patrick Crozier of Transport Blog links to this piece from last August at Tollroadnews about the EU banning one kind of road pricing technology, in order to make things easier for its own preferred sort of technology.
Here’s what the EU wants to ban:
No new DSRC systems would be permitted in Europe after 2008, and existing ones would be banned in 2012. This radical anti-DSRC move is an attempt to force adoption of what is seen as a modern technology (GPS) regardless of cost or difficulty by forcing out the existing short range wireless technologies.
And they want to replace it with their own pet satellite based system.
I always want to believe the worst of the EU, and unimpeded by any facts, I do. In this instance, I assume that the technology that the EU is engaged in banning is better from the civil liberties point of view than the technology it favours, and that this is part of why it is banning what it is banning. It doesn’t supply as much in the way of incidental snooping and central surveillance as the kit it wants to use.
Tollroadnews assert that it’s a bodge of the worst sort, because the new kit will work worse than the old kit. But if it could be made to work, would the system the EU wants be more centralised and Big Brotherish, or from this particular point of view is there no great difference? Obviously, comments welcome.
Adelaide is swathed with security cameras that observe comings and goings in the Adelaide CBD.
The local police love this and are boasting about how well it is going.
The company in charge of the cameras is well pleased as well, and are so pleased that they are providing live feeds from the cameras on their website. They have had the good grace to omit a privacy policy. After all, that would be a bad joke.
It had to happen:
Undercover Agents Talking To Each Other In ‘Under 12’ Chatroom
WASHINGTON, DC—In an effort to weed out pedophiles, two FBI agents, identified only as “Cutiepie1994” and “KoalaLover,” unknowingly communicated with one another in the under-12 chat room of TweenTalk.com for almost two hours Tuesday. “You should see me in my new bathing suit. It’s really rad,” Cutiepie wrote. “Kewl. Guess what? My parents aren’t home right now,” KoalaLover responded. Two minutes after their lengthy Internet conversation ended, KoalaLover unknowingly passed Cutiepie on the way into the bathroom.
Well, it probably will happen, assuming life imitates Onion.
I am right now in the “Yahoo Cafe” airside in Terminal 2 at Tokyo Narita international airport, in transit on my way from London to Sydney. This internet cafe is absolutely free, and I have been using it for 45 minutes or so and nobody has asked me to stop. (There is a sign up saying that the cafe is there to advertise Yahoo and Toshiba – the computers are Toshiba laptops). This is great, partly because I always enjoy getting things for free without having to pay for them, and secondly because I do not have any Japanese money, and there are no cash machines airside. (Given the lack of enthusiasm that the Japanese have for credit cards, getting a beer is going to be harder).
However, there is a sign up outside the cafe stating that people who wish to use the cafe must provide their passports (or some equivalent form of ID) to be scanned or copied, so that use can be monitored. It is stated that “This request is in compliance with various Japanese laws”. As to whether this means that the laws require this, or whether they merely allow this, I do not know. It also says that people who do not wish to have their use monitored in this way should not use the cafe. (I will take a picture of the sign, and I will post it when I am in Australia. I could try to do it now, but the machine has no free USB ports. For reasons I will get to).
When I asked to use one of the computers, I handed over my (machine readable) passport, and my passport was actually scanned by a machine, which presumably read my passport number and other details electronically. I was then given an electronic key device, which I was required to plug into the USB port of the computer I want to use. Therefore, my internet use is being connected with my passport number.
I do not know if the “government regulations” require lead to things like happening at all internet cafes in Japan, or just those at the airport. However, I cannot imagine that this sort of system is very hard to subvert with the internet in present form. I am sure that actual criminals have no trouble using the internet anonymously, and that it is only normally law abiding people like me who get their use monitored. (I am almost tempted to go to a porn site to see if I am instantly thrown in a Japanese prison, but I rather doubt that would happen. For one thing, this is the land where people quite openly read pornographic comic books on the subway. They are rather more relaxed about this kind of thing than the Americans).
However, there are lots of proposals in place (justified in a lot of cases by fears of copyright violation) to build computer hardware in such a way that monitoring of this kind is ubiquitous and automatic for everyone everywhere.
However, it’s interesting and a little troubling to see that one government of a democratic and in some ways quite liberal country is trying to do it now.
Update: It is perhaps less sinister than that. I went to the bar for a little while, and I came back to the internet cafe. I was recognised and handed another USB key thingy without checking my ID again. As I doubt they remembered my name, it seems they are not matching internet use to actual people, but are merely checking ID. They could switch to matching very easily and without anyone noticing, of course.
The Telegraph has an article about a roadside watch by local volunteers under fire.
Volunteers from villages, known as “speed watchers”, will use the devices at the roadside to identify speeding motorists before passing the information to the police. A senior police officer said the three-month pilot scheme at Milton of Campsie, near Glasgow, was a “local solution to a local problem”.
But motoring organisations, civil liberties groups and lawyers have criticised the idea on the grounds that there could be difficulties in providing acceptable evidence in court and that the system could be abused by people involved in disputes.
Well, it is a busybodies’ license to interefere further in people’s lives. When someone with attitudes such as Patrick Friel, the first person to be offered a speed camera, volunteers to ‘police local community’, I know the police are pandering to those with worst social instincts.
Everyone I’ve spoken to supports the use of the camera because something has to be done about speeding drivers.
Yes, and the way to do this is to help government impose more constraints on our daily lives.
Coverage of surveillance in the Nov 2003 issue of National Geographic is summarised and accessed here.
The theme, a running meme here, is that because surveillance technology can do such good stuff, it will be installed, and then it can also do bad stuff.
Underwater surveillance, we are told, saved this man’s life:
On this particular day maybe the lifeguards weren’t paying as close attention as they should have been. Certainly they believed the trim, athletic LeRoy was not a high-risk swimmer.
But on this evening LeRoy was practicing apnea swimming – testing how far he could swim underwater on one breath – and at some point, without making any visible or audible disturbance on the water’s surface, he blacked out. The guards failed to notice as he stopped swimming and descended to the bottom of the deep end of the pool. With his arms crossed over his head and his feet twitching, he was unconscious and drowning. It would take him as little as four minutes to die.
Although the human lifeguards watching the pool were oblivious, 12 large machine eyes deep underwater were watching the whole thing and taking notice. Just nine months earlier the center had installed a state-of-the-art electronic surveillance system called Poseidon, a network of cameras that feeds a computer programmed to use a set of complex mathematical algorithms to distinguish between normal and distressed swimming. Poseidon covers a pool’s entire swimming area and can distinguish among blurry reflections, shadows, and actual swimmers. It can also tell when real swimmers are moving in a way they’re not supposed to. When the computer detects a possible problem, it instantly activates a beeper to alert lifeguards and displays the exact incident location on a monitor. The rest is up to the humans above the water.
Sixteen seconds after Poseidon noticed the large, sinking lump that was Jean-François LeRoy, lifeguards had LeRoy out of the pool and were initiating CPR. He started breathing again. After one night in the local hospital, he was released with no permanent damage. Poseidon – and, more precisely, the handful of French mathematicians who devised it – had saved his life.
And if the machines can see stuff like that, what else can they see?
Thanks to Dale Amon for the tip about something called the Crypto-Gram Newsletter, which contains much of White Rose relevance. Dale particularly singled out a piece called The Future of Surveillance. Excerpt:
Some uses of surveillance are benign. Fine restaurants sometimes have cameras in their dining rooms so the chef can watch diners as they eat their creations. Telephone help desks sometimes record customer conversations in order to help train their employees.
Other uses are less benign. Some employers monitor the computer use of their employees, including use of company machines on personal time. A company is selling an e-mail greeting card that surreptitiously installs spyware on the recipient’s computer. Some libraries keep records of what books people check out, and Amazon keeps records of what books people browse on their website.
And, as we’ve seen, some uses are criminal.
This trend will continue in the years ahead, because technology will continue to improve. Cameras will become even smaller and more inconspicuous. Imaging technology will be able to pick up even smaller details, and will be increasingly able to “see” through walls and other barriers. And computers will be able to process this information better. Today, cameras are just mindlessly watching and recording, but eventually sensors will be able to identify people. Photo IDs are just temporary; eventually no one will have to ask you for an ID because they’ll already know who you are. …
And as soon as I saw the title The Patriot Act and Mission Creep I knew that White Rosers would want to look at that one also.
Big Mother
Here’s another of those Has This Person Been Reading White Rose? pieces, this time by Jemima Lewis in today’s Telegraph:
Some pestilential scientist has invented a device that allows parents to trace their child’s location via his mobile telephone. This is the latest in a rash of new gadgets designed to make sure children never get a moment’s privacy. There is the tracker watch, which uses Global Positioning System satellites to pinpoint a child’s whereabouts (and which, once affixed around the poor blighter’s wrist, cannot be removed without alerting the police). There are similar devices that can be sewn into the child’s clothing or school bag, or – creepiest of all – surgically implanted under the skin. And last month we saw the unveiling of a gadget which, when installed in the family car, reports back to parents where, and how, their child is driving.
It seems extraordinary that, at a time when children’s rights are more loudly invoked than ever before, there is not an uproar over this invasion of their civil liberties. There is no statistical justification for it: children in Britain are no more likely to be abducted by a stranger now than in 1975. It can serve only to foster parental paranoia and make children feel more hounded than ever.
Who would want to be young in the reign of Big Mother?
Often one says at this point: read it all. But that’s all of it. It’s just a diary bit in a longer piece which is about lots of other things as well. So, no need.
Speaking of medical privacy, time for a little light relief. The BBC reports that Philips has invented underwear that can monitor your vital signs and dial 999 in the event of a problem.
Apparently the hi-tech spy underwear can be washed and ironed as normal. Just be sure to take it off first.
The problem with using technology to look after children is that it is liable also, in due course, to be used to look after adults.
As part of writing for this, I occasionally buy the Times Educational Supplement, and on page 5 of the most recent issue (October 3 2003) it says this (paper only):
Pupils will soon be asked for a thumb-print instead of a password to enter internet chat-rooms.
A firm in the north-east of England has spent three years developing a scanner that will make it harder for paedophiles to prey on youngsters via the internet.
Think2gether, which is based in Gateshead, says the scanner is the first secure access system for chatroom users.
For about £30 schools will be able to buy the thumb-print scanner, which is already being used at the South Tyneside city learning centre and in Leicester education action zone.
Alan Wareham, director of Think2gether, said the system had attracted interest from as far away as Singapore.
“The problem is that children often tell other people their password, which is something adults tend not to do,” he said.
“A child can pass on this information in all innocence and the adult can then lon on as that child and pretend it is them using the chat-rooms.
“The scanner removes this possibility by scanning the child’s thumb-print three times before letting them in. We are also developing hardware which will monitor and record conversations in chatrooms, as additional protection.”
As so often when someone is quoted, the last bit is the scariest.
Australia is often held up as an example of a country where the threat of Big Brother was beaten off once and for all. Now it looks likely to re-emerge.
ABC reports Steven Fitzgerald, General Manager of Operations from the Sydney Airport Corporation, giving evidence to the Committee into Aviation Security. The Committee was critical of Sydney airport’s own security record and questioning Fitzgerald about plans to tighten up.
Fitzgerald admitted he had discussed the idea of a national passenger profiling database with the Federal Government.
The last few lines of the transcript are of relevance to British readers and others in Commonwealth countries:
COMMITTEE MEMBER: Sounds very Big Brother-ish.
STEVEN FITZGERALD: It’s? I think, that’s an issue that really is one for the Commonwealth and not private sector airports at this at this point.
COMMITTEE MEMBER: Have there been discussions with them about it?
STEVEN FITZGERALD: It has been discussed in terms of the broad and, I’ll have to say, confidential discussions that we have about the range of, of issues that are being considered around the world.
“Confidential”. Or “secret”, depending on how much you trust the people involved.
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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