>Sounds reasonable for now. Thinking of making the number of cameras customizable.
Certainly. The number of cameras is somewhat arbitrary, the main feature desired is an arrangement that can record the entire 360 degree horizontal landscape. 6 cameras should be sufficient with the (older) 4x3 screen aspect ratio. With the modern HD's 16 x 9 ratio, it's conceivable that a 4 camera system would be sufficient, and probably 5 cameras. The compression hardware allowing for as many as 6 cameras should be more than plenty, and there would not be any need to have all cameras installed at any given time. This same system could also be used to run a fixed system, perhaps mounted on a high location.
>For full transparency, when you describe a lot more recording than most people do on their phones (like mounting 360 video on a high location without specifying that it is confined to private property, or in an area where people have asked for it, or is publicizing its recordings), I start feeling scared because I'm reminded of the current surveillance state. Just so you know, because others might have that response too occasionally.
I am proposing building a useful tool. I don't work under the illusion that it is possible to always prevent "bad people" from using that tool for "bad things". Nevertheless, I am quite confident that given the large number of applications of this tool, an enormous net benefit to people will occur.
I look at it this way: I am not proposing a major leap in technology. Most of it already exists. Smartphones, SSD's, battery packs, and cameras. WiFi and cell-phone data transmission. What I'm proposing could be readily done with existing chips and devices. If "cops" (term used generically) actually WANTED a 360-panorama video recording system, for recording demonstrations or riots, don't you think somebody would have already put this together?
My answer to that is this: Cops DON'T want their 'standard of performance' to be raised in ways they don't want to see, all the time. Sure, they'd no doubt love in very limited cases to use such a device to provide evidence against a few defendants, but they know it wouldn't stay limited to that! People would start to EXPECT that every 10th cop would have this kind of device, with the video eventually made publicly available. Or "worse", to them, how about EVERY cop? And all that video would have to be made available to every defense attorney, in every trial !!!
Already, many and perhaps most jurisdictions have cop-body-cams, which I consider an enormous advance. That is, it's an advance IF the cops are REQUIRED to wear the cameras, and even more importantly, they are not allowed to push some sort of "reset and erase data" button if they've just murdered a citizen. The issue isn't so much "surveillance", but "who controls and benefits from that surveillance?".
Have you ever heard of the "CSI effect"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSI_effect Future jurors exposed to technology begin to expect that technology to be used in just about every case, not just the few that cops and prosecutors would like to see.
(A few years ago, I saw a show on an advance in evidence collection. While photography has long been used in collecting crime-scene evidence, the problem is, it isn't immediately clear what photographs have to be taken. What was being described amounted to a 'photograph robot', a device which drives through a crime scene (indoors or out) and photographs 'everything'. Not merely in the 360 degree horizontal plane, but in fact "up" and "down" as well. At extremely high resolution. Unfortunately, a few minutes of searching YouTube, I cannot find an appropriate video.)
When we think of 'reasons that cops have to fear video surveillance', perhaps we mostly think of incidents like Rodney King in 1992, George Floyd in 2020, and a few other incidents over the years. And yes, that's a big matter. But I think there is also a class of surveillance that would show cops in a bad light, even when they are seemingly doing 'nothing'.
Portland Oregon, a city a few miles away from me, is actually somewhat famous for a series of skirmishes that go on. There is a repeated suspicion that the leftist government of Portland orders its cops to turn away when there is a disturbance by leftist protestors. Occasionally, organizations like Patriot Prayer announces a rally, and shortly afterwards Antifa shows up, and a riot ensures. Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fECgG5NLUr4
The Portland Police, operating under the leftist Portland government, have frequently been accused of following orders to allow Antifa to riot. That might be true, but it's hard to collect evidence supporting (or opposing) such an accusation. Most publicly-accessible evidence is limited to reporting and broadcasts by news media, and there are few such news crews, and their cameras only point in one direction at a time. And they choose, if for no other reason than the lack of broadcast time, to air only a limited portion of their photography.
I've seen some broadcasts, and given these major limitations (and major cuts) it is very difficult to figure out who is actually doing what. As importantly, it isn't clear if (for example) the cops are accidentally-on-purpose FAILING to respond to assaults. A few seconds of an assault, with a cop somewhere in the background, might not unambiguously show the kind of deliberate negligence that would resolve the ambiguity.
In one rather-well publicized example, gay conservative journalist Andy Ngo was violently assaulted by Antifa-types about a year ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WzMZxT-41k Naturally, he wasn't assaulted because he is gay; nor was he assaulted because he was a minority (Asian). Apparently he was simply assaulted because he is called "conservative". In this day and age, that is enough to merit a cracked skull or even worse.
If a person wearing a Personal Black Box had been around, many minutes before, during, and after this kind of assault, I think it would have been far more clear who was complicit in the events. I have no doubt that cops fear that kind of exposure. And that's exactly why we should welcome it.
> Any thoughts on supporting a standalone phone app, on the software side?
I think the App running on the smartphone device will control the rest of the device. Most of the processing (video compression) should be done by the central board, not by the smartphone. I think the smartphone would be able to run anything you ordinarily would want to run, such as telephone service.
>You mentioned a lot of experience making new hardware designs. Are you imagining designing a custom board? I imagine that would open options up a lot but it sounds like a big investment of effort and time for most people.
Yes, I think that a custom board will be very desireable, and probably necessary. Is it possible that an existing design compresses the output of 6 HD video cameras? I haven't looked, but it seems unlikely.
>My experience with consumer single board computers was that you have to drop the quality very low or use multiple boards in a pluggable way. I value seeing from multiple angles more than seeing in all directions, myself, but it seems needed no matter how it functions.
Fortunately, existing technology (or technology that can be readily assembled) could do so much better. See this, which is over 7 years old!
"During its demonstration, Qualcomm showed that the Snapdragon 800 chipset compressed 1080p 30 frame video clips at a bit rate of 4Mbps using its built-in HEVC codec software stack. On the other hand, the predecessor H. 264 video codec technology encoded the same 1080p 30 frame at far higher bit rate of 6Mbps.Feb 13, 2013" [end of quote]
I've just started looking at the Qualcomm Snapdragon series of microprocessors.
>I understand you are beginning to prepare a board design. I mostly know software nowadays so I'll leave the chip review to the rest of the list.
I am trying to keep the added-technology things a simplified great deal, using mostly existing technology: Using a smartphone as a controller and a communications (WiFi, cell phone data) box. This allows future upgrades to 5G as well. An existing SSD, an existing battery back, too. What I've become aware of, literally in the last two days, is how much functionality is in a modern smart-phone, especially a 5G one.
I calculated that the as-compressed output of 6 HD cameras could be 40 megabits/second, but from the cite above even 7-year-old technology compressed a 1080P, 30 frames per second vide at 4 megabytes/second. . Even a 4G phone will be able to transfer that data rate, 4 x 6 cameras, or 24 megabytes per second. I think. And I also discovered
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi that WiFi 4 and above has a high-enough link rate to accomodate this.
The two main things that must be designed are the camera stack and the video-compression central board.
>On the software end of hardware freedom, I'm aware of a need for common hardware that has good support for software defined radio, especially with multiple receivers and antenna types. Do you have any interest in including possible radio logging in the system maybe as a plan for eventual expansion?
If the video-compressing central board is as uncrowded as I anticipate (perhaps two, multi-core CPUS, maybe Snapdragons?), there will probably be a lot of extra room available for an SDR, and other devices.
>Radio logging might further expand to drone tracking, planted device detection, etc; and would stimulate better emissions control and reduced undiscussed wireless communication in response, which helps privacy.
Their most recent devices use 8-cores. Perhaps that will handle the compression of 3 HD video devices, but I don't expect to rely on that. Three, or possibly two such physical CPUs (with few other responsibilities) will probably easily handle 6 HDTV cameras.
PC board layout these days is rather easily done. It shouldn't be a problem. A six-layer PCB, with components on both sides of the board, should be more than sufficient.
"Snapdragon is a suite of system on a chip (SoC) semiconductor products for mobile devices designed and marketed by Qualcomm Technologies Inc. The Snapdragon central processing unit (CPU) uses the ARM RISC instruction set. A single SoC may include multiple CPU cores, an Adreno graphics processing unit (GPU), a Snapdragon wireless modem, a Hexagon Digital signal processor (DSP), a Qualcomm Spectra Image Signal Processor (ISP) and other software and hardware to support a smartphone's global positioning system (GPS), camera, video, audio, gesture recognition and AI acceleration. As such, Qualcomm often refers to the Snapdragon as a "mobile platform" (e.g., Snapdragon 865 5G Mobile Platform). Snapdragon semiconductors are embedded in devices of various systems, including Android, Windows Phone and netbooks.[1] They are also used in cars, wearable devices and other devices. In addition to the processors, the Snapdragon line includes modems, wi-fi chips and mobile charging products." [end of quote]
It will probably not be possible to send more than a tiny fraction of this data directly to the Internet, so I anticipate sending maybe 1 frame/second for each camera, to be stored remotely. I've read that eventually, 5G technology will be able to transfer 10 gigabits/second, but I doubt that this will be kept up in a crowd of thousands of people, many of whom will be using their own cell phones.
>You can also compress it super-low quality when quick motions matter.
Yes, that's possible. As with many things, there will always be a trade-off in these matters. According to this,
Wi-Fi
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, WiFi 6 has a link rate of between 600-9608 megabits/second. 18 gigabytes per hour (what I calculated as 3 gigabyte/camera/hour, with 6 cameras) is 40 megabits/second. According to this,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G 4G was/is supposed to handle as much as 1 Gbit/second. But in a crowd of smartphone-users, what this will translate to 'in real life' is questionable.
The streaming system should be able to respond to requests to reduce upload rate during congestion. It might be good to provide a way for a user to say when or where something important is happening, so the software could prioritize it. It could also be good to be able to look at streams to verify they are working.
The smartphone might also be linked to a nearby confederate (is that word too anti-PC these days?) by WiFi, whose system might mirror as best as possible the video material being collected. One goal is to ensure that complete destruction of the system will not lose all the data collected. If the location of the event was anticipated, perhaps a remote data-collection box could be installed, which would act as a safe data backup.
Hey, I never was a 'software guy'. This is well beyond my ability to choose. But one advantage of implementing a WiFi transmission is that there may be less competition for data transfer during a protest/demonstration in the WiFi bands, rather than cell-phone data bands.
>Any idea how I might connect with other software people around this?
What about doing a Google search for "snapdragon programmer" or "smartphone programmer" ?
This kind of system would probably have an even bigger market to journalists and news crews. I don't expect it to substitute for traditional video cameras, but its presence would tend to guarantee that most information gets collected. It would tend to protect the news crews, because it would store a record of any attacks on them.
Jim Bell
>Sorry I jumped excitedly on your project like this. I can do some software coding but need to work with others to take something to completion. That difficulty is also why I think of reusing existing work where possible.
We should welcome all assistance. If things seem to be coming along, I will probably announce this as a project about July 19 2020 at Las Vegas,
http://anarchovegas.com/
>Thank you. It's looking unlikely for now that I'll be able to make it to that event, but congratulations on keeping it held despite the pandemic scare. That's inspiring.
I am merely going to be an invited speaker, not an organizer. I want to be able to show how technology can be used to assist freedom, rather than to oppose it.
I believe that one theme of the event is development of technology. I'd also like to be able to announce a project of a replacement/competition for the TOR anonymization system, perhaps using a Raspberry Pi 4 CPU. The main obstacle to that at this point is finding somebody who would commit to write the appropriate software. I will probably announce both as projects, and see what kind of support we get.
>It's the other topic, but there have been a lot of software attempts to replace or augment Tor that likely one could contact or even bring back to life for a project for a dedicated setup. Somebody may even have compiled a list of those somewhere. It seems strange to not have people mention this.
>Karl
An old saying: "After everything is said and done, a lot more gets said than done".
Cypherpunks are (or, at least, were) supposed to actually be able to accomplish things. I'm trying to return to that era.
Jim, I'm reading your e-mail while replying.
"I am interesting in participating in designing and building one. It helps me to set a norm of speaking concisely and to the point, as reading can be hard for me when working. I am sorry if I have skimmed over something already said. Have you started any projects?"
I've done a substantial amount of electronics in the 1970's and to the early 1990's, but I haven't done an electronics project since then. Not that I couldn't pick it up quickly: The major thing I'm missing is knowledge of the current set of devices available and construction techniques.
I designed and built a constant-temperature bath in the ealry 1970's, also a 4-digit audio frequency counter, also a 4.5 digit digital voltmeter. In 1977 I built a "Dyna-Micro" microprocessor trainer, from the design in Radio-Electronics magazine.
I was born in 83 and I believe I built a robot hand by following a design in Radio-Electronics as a child. I was self and family taught, but mostly software.
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I added to that with a custom-PC board with 8K by 8 memory, which actually seemed like a lot of memory at that time!
Starting in 1978, I designed and built my custom-bus Z-80 microprocessor computer which at one point had about 600 IC's, mostly wire-wrapped. My father and I set up the ability to make 2-sided PC boards around 1972, but since we couldn't plate-through the holes, actually assembling such a board was a bit tedious. I built two 32K by 8 DRAM cards using Motorola 4k x 1 6605 DRAM chips, later replacing them with static RAM.
MCM6605A Datasheet | Motorola Semiconductor - Datasheetspdf.com In hindsight, I decided that I should have used one of the 16k x 1 DRAMs that had become available.
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MCM6605A 4096-Bit DRAM datasheet pdf provided by Datasheetspdf.com Datasheet pdf Search for MCM6605A.
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In 1980, I invented the solid-state disk, I called it a "SemiDisk", and in late 1981 I started a company which built them for 10 years, for the S-100 bus, the TRS-80 Model II, the IBM PC, and the Epson QX-10. The first three started as 512k byte cards, with software that implemented a virtual disk.
the consumer SSD guide on StorageSearch.com
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S100 Computers
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You are very experienced with electronics.
In 1990, I designed and built a device which used 76 IRLEDS to flash, activating the Opticom traffic control system to turn red traffic lights into green traffic lights. Had I gone into major production, I would have used as its motto: "It's the most fun you can have in a moving car !!!".
That sounds awesome.
HOW I FORESEE THE PERSONAL BLACK BOX:
I see a central box, about the size and shape of a common smartphone, but with no user interface. It will include connectors to:
1. USB, to a standard, commercial smartphone.
2. To the camera stack, 4-6 HD cameras. (About 3 gigabytes per hour per camera.)
3. To a battery pack.
4. To a SSD. At 3 gigabytes/camera/hour x 6 cameras, about 18 gigabytes per hour. So, a 1 terabyte SSD should be sufficient, if its data transfer rate is enough.
The central box will probably include 2-3 multi-core microprocessors, and its main task will be taking the data outputs of the cameras, compressing them, and sending the result to the SSD.
Sounds reasonable for now. Thinking of making the number of cameras customizable. Any thoughts on supporting a standalone phone app, on the software side?
You mentioned a lot of experience making new hardware designs. Are you imagining designing a custom board? I imagine that would open options up a lot but it sounds like a big investment of effort and time for most people.
It will probably not be possible to send more than a tiny fraction of this data directly to the Internet, so I anticipate sending maybe 1 frame/second for each camera, to be stored remotely. I've read that eventually, 5G technology will be able to transfer 10 gigabits/second, but I doubt that this will be kept up in a crowd of thousands of people, many of whom will be using their own cell phones.
You can also compress it super-low quality when quick motions matter.
The smartphone might also be linked to a nearby confederate (is that word too anti-PC these days?) by WiFi, whose system might mirror as best as possible the video material being collected. One goal is to ensure that complete destruction of the system will not lose all the data collected. If the location of the event was anticipated, perhaps a remote data-collection box could be installed, which would act as a safe data backup.
The actual control of the camera system might be done remotely: The person wearing the system shouldn't be expected to do anything other than being a camera platform.
Sounds good for journalists working with a team.
This kind of system would probably have an even bigger market to journalists and news crews. I don't expect it to substitute for traditional video cameras, but its presence would tend to guarantee that most information gets collected. It would tend to protect the news crews, because it would store a record of any attacks on them.
Jim Bell
Sorry I jumped excitedly on your project like this. I can do some software coding but need to work with others to take something to completion. That difficulty is also why I think of reusing existing work where possible.
It's obvious that people who are oppressed by local authorities need a personal black box.
I am interesting in participating in designing and building one. It helps me to set a norm of speaking concisely and to the point, as reading can be hard for me when working. I am sorry if I have skimmed over something already said.
Have you started any projects?
I'd like to build this in a way that quickly gets it usable by average people. Once it is easy to use and stable the people who can make the most use of it can share it among each other and more developers may contribute exponentially.
Am I on the same page as you?
A few weeks ago, I got done binge-watching every episode of NCIS, and am now up to Season 4 of Criminal Minds. Naturally, this induces a bit of what I'll call cinematic paranoia. In what seems to be a majority of episodes, a victim gets attacked, usually ends up dead, and the plucky investigators are stuck trying to figure out what happened. Naturally, they usually do, but only after about 45 minutes of high-tension showtime. It occurs to me that what people may need, for physical security, would be what might be called a "personal black box", analogous to an airplane flight recorder. Or, a civilian version of a cop's body-cam.
Any modern smartphone would have the basics of such a device: A high-resolution camera, microphone, and a huge amount of storage. And a quick 911-call if necessary. The mere possession and use of such a device would probably deter the large majority of potential attackers. And even if it does not completely protect a given user, it would allow far more easy identification of the perpetrator. Parts of this, of course, are not a new idea.
However, storage is not enough: In use, in some instances, an attacker would presumably be aware enough to take or break the device, so some sort of continuous or discontinuous upload of the data could be done, to be available no matter what else happens. Say, a frame per second when nothing seems to be happening, and a greater rate when triggered somehow. Could a heart-rate monitor be employed, sensed one axis of the phone's accelerometers? Or if the wearer falls down? Or if a sufficiently-loud noise is heard, etc. Or if a trigger-word is spoken a la Siri?
Can the data transfer be made economical? Even an average of 1 megabit/second would be over one gigabyte during a 3 hour usage per day. That's substantially greater than most people currently use. One possibility is that the phone could upload the data to the cell phone company, where it could be "parked" for a few seconds or minutes. If nothing happens to the phone to cause a trigger (some sort of attack) the phone could instruct the cell phone company to abandon the data. Conversely, if a trigger occurs, the cell phone company would move 100% of the data to a backup system for later retrieval. Presumably, the cell phone company would offer discounted rates for such transfers, and only offer that service if the local service is sufficiently unloaded at that moment.
Jim Bell