Big Brother Google is watching you

[1vegan]

Link (http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/smile-its-googles-candid-camera/2007/06/04/1180809390551.html)

(it's a three page article with examples, I only quote a small part)
Smile, you're on Google's candid camera
No sooner had the oohs and aahs died down after last week's release of Google's new eye-popping street-level imagery service than the privacy concerns began rearing up.

Google Maps Street View is a feature on a free service that enables users to call up photos taken on the streets which then can be panned 360 degrees, zoomed in and out and tilted up and down.

While most of the shots capture people engaged in innocuous activities, if you look a bit closer you'll occasionally see people caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time or just in an awkward moment.

Anyone in the world with an internet connection can now pop up a photo of a woman exposing her g-string as she leans over, or a man striding towards an adult bookshop, or another bloke who may or may not be relieving himself on the pavement.

The feature has been widely dissected by legions of spotters around the world, many of who have graduated from trawling the aerial and satellite imagery on services like Google Maps or Google Earth looking for oddities.

To date, those images have been top-down views of our world and the resolution has not been high enough to enable individuals to be identified.

But that has all changed with Street View. This bottom-up perspective allows users to not only make out faces of the passers-by on the street, but to also pan around and see people in their gardens, verandas or balconies and in some cases inside their homes.

The feature is currently only available for parts of San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Miami, and Denver, but Google says to "expect many more city rollout announcements" in the near future.

Google is turning more and more into a big brother that controls a lot of things.
They know what you search for, and they work with the Chinese to block certain search results for the chinese public.
I myself notice that if I have sought something to buy on the net, that my search results for other things go down, cause I get way too much results for auction sites. :professor:

[Bowwowmeow]

That's truly frightening. Lots of people take the casual attitude that, if you aren't doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about. That's missing the whole point of privacy invasion. I recall reading studies years ago about the stress caused to workers who know they are under constant camera surveillance. Society is already full of messed up people. This is only going to add to the burden of stress.

I wonder if we shall soon be hearing of people who find where these cameras are hidden, and start destroying them. It would be nice to see the Supreme Court of the US step in and rule such spying unconstitutional before the people have to take it into their own hands, but that's not likely to happen while Google holds the purse strings.

[Gliondrach]

Here in the UK we are used to being filmed as we walk down the street. Usually only the camera operaters can see us. But I don't like it.

[Gliondrach]

On the telly programme 'Spooks', which is about MI5, they often trace people by trawling through cctv camera images and matchng them to photographs of people on various databases such as passports and driving licences. I wonder if there is such good facial recognition abilities available now?

My driving licence is from the time before they required photographs.

[Gliondrach]

I heard today about a system the police have for identifying cars. In some places the police cars have cameras that are linked by computer to various databases. They can find out a lot about the registered owner of any car that passes them. The cameras recognise the car number plates. They can tell if the driver is insured - by linking to insurance company records, if the driver is on any of the special lists of people such as those who have been arrested for burglary, armed robbery, wearing odd socks, etc. Even cars belonging to law abiding citizens go on some record - once they pass in front of the camera they are recorded. This is a good way of knowing who was where and when they were there.

If your car is seen near the site of a demo it could be recorded. It will ring bells if it is seen near the site of another one. They will know that you attend demos. You could be suspected of terrorism.

George Orwell's book will have to have a title change from 1984 to 2007.

[Oracl]

George Orwell's book will have to have a title change from 1984 to 2007.
:agree: :whiteflag:

[snaffler]

If anyone is involved in any animal rights no matter how small the Big Brother sods have loads of data on you we always get filmed at SHAC marches and photographed. People just take it on now and just wind then up by smiling or insulting the camera ops.

Your beliefs are your beliefs and your actives are what they are unfortunately some one some place is not comfy with that, so one way or another they will film you and photograph.

Store loyalty cards monitor your buying habits, web pages start to become aware of your fave searches and place appropriate ads online.

Anyone with a myspace page who promotes the fact they are vegan on it must have spotted related ads appear in txt form in the control panel area ?

Mind if you are using firefox install greasemonkey they add the add remover script for myspace that puts a spanner in the works. :uhuh:

Jase

[Gliondrach]

And the government here in the UK still wants us to have identity cards - despite all the cock ups recently of private data being lost by government departments.

[my3labs]

And the government here in the UK still wants us to have identity cards - despite all the cock ups recently of private data being lost by government departments.

What are the identity cards all about? I've never heard of it.

[Gliondrach]

They say they would be to make the country safer and would stop fraud. Yes, a suicide bomber will not be able to blow himself and a dozen other people up if he's carrying an identity card. And as for fraud - all the secret, personal data about millions of people that have gone missing or turned up in boxes on street corners would negate any attempts at stopping fraud. And organised crime wouldn't be put off by cards. Bung some civil servant a few thousand and you'll have all the info about hundreds of people to get round any card system - or to make copies of any card.

There is talk about eventually using iris recognition - but we all know how unreliable technology can be. Imagine someone who needs cash but his or her iris pattern is not recognised due to some fault in a computer system. That person will no longer officially exist because they won't be able to prove who they are. And if they can prove who they are in some other way, what's the point of the cards? And how do they prove who they are in the first place so that they can get a card to prove who they are?

It's really all an attempt to control us and to track our every move. It stems from the EU's Gestapo/KGB mentality.

[snaffler]

Love your answer Gliondrach :agree: That iris thing makes me laugh as well what if the person who has top priority to access something at a secure company gets a black eye or pokes his eye out on a branch in the woods...it will end in tears for all involved.

[1vegan]

What are the identity cards all about? I've never heard of it.

An identity card is a card that the government sees as an ID, just like you can "ID" yourself with your drivers license, or a passport.

In Europe you can travel to a lot of countries with just an ID card, you don't need a "full passport" for that.

In my country, every one above 14 iirc, is required to be able to show some form of identification on first request by the police. If you don't have it, it will be something like a 180 dollar fine.

[dreamer]

They passed a law here (in the U.S.) to make drivers' licenses basically an "I.D." card. (And non-drivers are still supposed to get an I.D.) It is supposed to start with people renewing their licenses this year (in May)--unless the state gets an "extension". It may not be implemented that quickly because most states are arguing that it's impossible to get it ready in time, but so far the law hasn't been changed.

I too get annoyed when people (often my students or my dad) say stuff like, "why do you care if someone knows what you're emailing/reading/doing if you're not doing anything wrong?" Well, mainly because it's my private business, but also because it's quite possible they might misinterpret something I do/say/email/read as wrong. Like how the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act defines you as terrorist because you "interfere" with an animal enterprise (such as animal agriculture giants) making money. Couldn't I technically be terrorist then by just being vegan--since I'm not buying their products? Right now apparently they aren't being that ridiculous, but I could see the possibility of that argument being used if they just wanted to "get" some particular vegan.

[Gliondrach]

Right now apparently they aren't being that ridiculous, but I could see the possibility of that argument being used if they just wanted to "get" some particular vegan.

It would be used. Give any politician or bureaucrat a power and it will be used. Just like the so-called anti-terrorist laws here. You can be arrested for standing at the Cenotaph and reading out names. What a heinous crime that is - a real threat to public safety.

As for the cry of 'if you aren't doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear'.... well, who knows what might be a crime in the future? Who would have thought that it would be a crime to stand at the Cenotaph and read out names? Or that it would be a crime to do anything that might cause an animal-torturing business to lose a few dollars?

And, as I've written about in other places many times before, who would have thought in 1920 that it would be a crime to be a Jew in 1933 in Germany? Think how much more efficiently the Nazi cowards could have rounded up all the Jews if they had had the technology for spying on people that exists now.

The spirit of the KG(estapo)B lives on. Filthy scum!

[1vegan]

People in the U.S can only hope that the next president won't abuse the laws that have been made since 9/11 and the witch hunt on "terrorists" started.

But I doubt a next president would undo the patriot act etc.