[Clips] How Britain Beat Hooliganism

[coderman]

On 6/17/06, R.A. Hettinga <rah at shipwright.com> wrote:
> ...
>   A NUMBER OF countries have grappled with soccer-related violence, but one
>   has significantly reduced hooliganism with some unusual steps that would
>   startle most American sports fans.

well, no one said the Panopticon wasn't effective; just too invasive
and prone to unacceptable abuses (either potential or currently
realized for varying frequency and atrocity)


>   The country is England, and measures range from deciding who can buy
>   tickets to telling fans where they can sit. For matches with entrenched
>   animosity between the teams, some clubs will sell only to people with a
>   ticket-buying history, meaning a tourist or casual fan can't simply buy an
>   available seat. To minimize taunting, fans of visiting teams must enter
>   stadiums through separate doors marked "visitors," and then must sit
>   together.
> ...
>   While no one in the British police or government considers the hooliganism
>   problem solved, hooligans have been pushed away from the stadiums. Some 59%
>   of the arrests in the 2004-05 season took place away from stadium grounds,
>   and a police spokesman said the measures have forced some hooligans to use
>   the Internet or cellphones to arrange fights.

if you get past the initial "fuck big brother" reaction there are
actually some interesting insights to be gleaned here concerning
reputation between peers in public and private spaces, the nature of
gauging your personal risk in large groups, and so forth.

techniques certainly applicable to cypherpunk and privacy advocate goals.

the rest is left as an exercise for the reader...
*grin*