[silk] Everyone's surveilling

[shiv sastry]

The link I quoted from was carefully selected of course.

The ONLY crime whose likelihood is reduced by security cameras is said to be 
shoplifting. 

Regarding spying and surveillance, the more you spy, the greater the amount of 
resources you need to analyse the recorded data. In the absence of that you 
are recording trash that is good only for framing people who may have done 
nothing.

The Indian nuclear tests in 1998 were done under 24 hour surveillance by US 
satellites. But they didn't nail anyone. But such inconvenient facts don't 
prevent anyone from surveilling more and more and more. As a result I believe 
that it is important to behave like one is being watched, reserving really 
private stuff to periods which you can document as being really private, or 
private enough for you to be comfortable.

But that is all the freedom one has really. All "freedom" must be found within 
these constraints. 

A senior of mine, a Professor of Internal Medicine wrote a book called "Trick 
or Treat" which has nothing to do with surveillance, but he describes some of 
the less desirable side effects of overinvestigation in medicine - using all 
the high tech tools available. Often, such an overinvestigated person is 
discovered to have a previously undiscovered and completely unrelated 
symptomless condition that may not even require treatment. But its accidental 
discovery leads to anxiety, further investigation and, sometimes, even 
needless treatment.

Surveillance for disease has become commonplace in many countries in the 
world. Surveillance for diabetes, heart disease, bone disease, dental 
disease, breast cancer, cancer of the cervix, colon cancer, and cancer of the 
stomach are "routine" in some part of the world or the other. While these 
tests are often a matter of choice, and one can refuse, I know of instances 
in which a person who fails to submit to surveillance but later develops a 
disease that could have been detected earlier is "punished" because his 
insurance will not cover him for not having cooperated earlier.

Medical records of course serve as a permanent record that can pin you down 
and make you a crime suspect depending on how national laws choose to use the 
information.

A national genetic database that is open for police to look at can always be 
compared with genetic samples from cells found on cigarette butts, or other 
sources at the scene of a crime. If you happened to be there - you join the 
list of suspects.

shiv



On Friday 21 Sep 2007 1:57 pm, Binand Sethumadhavan wrote:
> On 12/09/2007, shiv sastry <cybersurg at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tuesday 11 Sep 2007 11:03 pm, ashok _ wrote:
> > > do you have any statistics to this effect... that cameras have reduced
> > > or prevented crime ?
> >
> > Yes
> >
> > http://www.thefoucauldian.co.uk/bb.htm
> > "The statistics show that video surveillance can improve security. With
> > 90 % of banks now fitted with cameras, 50 % of robbers are identified and
> > arrested within two years. Thanks to video surveillance in the Paris
> > metro, 83 % of incidents are now detected, and arrests have risen by 36
> > %. The use of this technology in department stores has reduced
> > shoplifting by two thirds. "
>
> On the other hand, see this article (from slashdot):
>
> http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23412867-details/Tens+of+thousan
>ds+of+CCTV+cameras%2C+yet+80%25+of+crime+unsolved/article.do
>
> (or http://tinyurl.com/2n6zrz)
>
> "A comparison of the number of cameras in each London borough with the
> proportion of crimes solved there found that police are no more likely
> to catch offenders in areas with hundreds of cameras than in those
> with hardly any".
>
> Binand

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