May 31, 2007
Leaking Surveillance Video
The Star-Ledger ran a story on a new policy limiting the number of employees allowed to make copies of videos captured by highway surveillance cameras. A video of a fatal car crash was posted on youtube.com last week. As the article notes:
"These kinds of tapes are for operational and law enforcement purposes, not for entertainment purposes," said state Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri, who also heads the Turnpike Authority board. "I'm not happy with the fact that these were released. We're going to take every action we can to figure out who is responsible and make sure it doesn't happen again."
. . .
Between 12 and 15 employees had access to the video, he said. Officials from the Turnpike Authority have been trying to determine which one of them copied the footage and shared it with someone outside. The New Jersey State Police is helping with the investigation, Orlando said.
There is a long history of government surveillance being leaked. Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call to governments for all surveillance whether its for crime or traffic. There needs to be a system in place that employs both technology and procedural safeguards to prevent abuse.
New Jersey also filed a lawsuit preventing the airing of the video, the IP issues are discussed over at madisonian.net.
Posted by rshah at 03:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Amateur Facial Recognition?
From michaelzimmer.org:
An interesting post by Zimmer on how its possible to search on a Google Image Search for just faces (e.g., “&imgtype=face” appended to the query). Google is essentially providing a database of faces, which could be useful for facial recognition. While there are potentially scary applications, for now, its just something interesting. I'll be curious if anyone is using this with smart cameras.
Posted by rshah at 03:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 26, 2007
Amsterdam airport deploys body-scanning machines
From Reuters:
Amsterdam's Schiphol airport began using new body-scanning machines at security checkpoints on Tuesday, the first major airport to use the technology to find metals and explosives hidden under clothing. The "security scan" system, which uses harmless radio waves to display head-to-toe images of people, is also being used by other airports on a trial basis, but Schiphol is the only one to deploy the technology for regular use at its checkpoints.
Going through the scanner takes about three seconds, allowing users to avoid metal detectors or body searches. For privacy, the digital images are viewed by security personnel in another room and deleted after they are viewed.
. . .
But the alternative, being hand-frisked, is "never a happy story," Rutten says.
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May 15, 2007
Surveillance Footage is Not Enough
From Chicago Tribune:
This article is one of those obvious points that everyone acknowledges, but rarely is found in news coverage. Just because you have footage of a bad guy, doesn't mean they will be caught and convicted. The article has a number of examples, but here are some good points:
"The bottom line is that videos are most helpful in cases where there is a relationship between the victim and the perpetrator," said Eugene O'Donnell, a former police officer and prosecutor who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. "When you get the stranger crimes where there is no discernible relationship, they are just by definition harder to solve."
In a number of cases where the suspect picks his target at random, the images are little more than a way to identify him after he has been caught, O'Donnell said.
Bond said that most often it's not police who identify the suspect from a photo, but witnesses or friends.
Posted by rshah at 10:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Human Relationships with Intelligent Machines
From washingtonpost.com:
A fascinating article on how humans build relationships with the robots they use in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are currently thousands of various kinds of robots used by the military. Just as humans have grown attached to their cars, ships, and planes, the same is true for robots.
Its an interesting phenomenon and makes you wonder whether designers should design in features to make robots with personality. I doubt smart cameras inspire this kind of attachment, but why not?
Posted by rshah at 10:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 09, 2007
Stop Sign Cameras
From the newspaper.com:
Redflex, a major developer of red light cameras, has developed a stop sign camera, read their announcement.
The stop sign devices are based on red light camera platforms, but they differ greatly in use. The more familiar stoplight cameras typically photograph a vehicle entering an intersection if a signal light changes to red as little as 0.1 seconds after the car crosses the stop bar line. In most cases, the resulting ticket photograph will show both the vehicle in the intersection and a visible red light, offering visual documentation of the technical violation. With the new Redflex stop sign cameras, a machine will make calculations to determine whether a vehicle did not come to a complete stop and deserves a ticket.
While I think this isn't as important as red light cameras from a traffic safety perspective, it does show the growth in this industry. I am sure over the next several years, we will see lots of these ticketing devices. They appear effective at enforcing laws and generating revenue. Moreover, the public outcry over them hasn't sufficiently coalesced to protest these devices.
Posted by rshah at 10:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 08, 2007
Many D.C. Red-Light Cameras Broken
From the Washingtonpost.com:
A reminder that all smart camera systems need to be continually maintained.
About half of the 50 red-light enforcement cameras in the District have been out of service in recent months, giving a pass to drivers and potentially depriving the city of millions of dollars in fines, according to a firm that has taken over the system.
Twenty-three of the cameras have not been working at all, and some have been out of service for as long as six months, according to a memorandum written by Phoenix-based American Traffic Solutions, or ATS, which is to officially take over management of the cameras today.
Posted by rshah at 10:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 03, 2007
3VR Anecdotes
From San Jose Mercury News:
A number of anecdotes on 3VR's technology, which was described here previously.
Consider what happens to criminals who write bad checks. Nowadays, a security camera can track someone who walks into a bank and take a sharp picture of the person's face. It can then compare that face to a database of known fraudsters. By the time the person walks up to the teller, the system can warn the teller not to cash a check from that person.
This technology is available today thanks to San Francisco-based 3VR, which has applied its search technology to face recognition. Using off-the-shelf computers, the 3VR system captures an image of a face from a security camera and compares it to faces stored in a database. More than 90 percent of the time it comes up with an accurate match, according to the company.
Three of the nation's top 10 banks as well as the Bank of Hawaii are using it. Other customers are in retailing, travel and national security.
The Drake Hotel in San Francisco discovered a case of employee fraud as a result of the 3VR system. It showed that one employee was clocking in and then disappearing for hours at a time. The system enabled hotel security to search through camera videos for the worker's face quickly, said Lisa Kershner, director of operations at the Drake.
Posted by rshah at 10:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 02, 2007
Next-Gen Binoculars Merge With Soldiers' Brains
From Wired:
A story on a technology DARPA is developing that would merge binoculars with our brains. The idea is to use human brains for target recognition and pattern recognition. Its still pretty far out, but the article makes the technology foreseeable (the first prototypes won't be ready for several years).
The most far-reaching component of the binocs has nothing to do with the optics: it's Darpa's aspirations to integrate EEG electrodes that monitor the wearer's neural signals, cueing soldiers to recognize targets faster than the unaided brain could on its own. The idea is that EEG can spot "neural signatures" for target detection before the conscious mind becomes aware of a potential threat or target.
Darpa's ambitions are grounded in solid research, says Dennis McBride, president of the Potomac Institute and an expert in the field. "This is all about target recognition and pattern recognition," says McBride, who previously worked for the Navy as an experimental psychologist and has consulted for Darpa. "It turns out that humans in particular have evolved over these many millions of years with a prominent prefrontal cortex."
That prefrontal cortex, he explains, allows the brain to pick up patterns quickly, but it also exercises a powerful impulse control, inhibiting false alarms. EEG would essentially allow the binoculars to bypass this inhibitory reaction and signal the wearer to a potential threat. In other words, like Spiderman's "spider sense," a soldier could be alerted to danger that his or her brain had sensed, but not yet had time to process.
Posted by rshah at 02:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Respectful Cameras
From Technology Review:
A camera system developed at Berkeley is capable of obscuring faces. The project is called Respectful Cameras. This project is similar to other work at CMU and IBM that attempts to strip out faces in surveillance footage. However, this technology appears to work in real time. The only drawback is this technology currently requires people to wear a marker (such as a hat or vest) to block their faces. Nevertheless, it is interesting research and hopefully just a precursor to other privacy enhancing technologies. Here is a image of the technology at work from the article:
Posted by rshah at 10:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 01, 2007
New York City's Smart Camera Plan
From New York Times:
A 25 year blueprint for NYC includes a role for smart cameras in several areas. For example, incorporating congestion pricing (ala London) for Manhattan below 86th Street from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays.
In Manhattan, cameras and other equipment at intersections would deduct money from a driver's E-ZPass account or photograph a car's license plate, with the driver given two days to pay the fee through the mail, online or at certain stores.
The city said yesterday that it intended to seek state approval for a three-year test of congestion pricing and would need to spend $225 million to buy and install traffic-recording equipment. Officials said the city and state could jointly apply for grants from the United States Department of Transportation to cover those costs.
''The federal government really does want to be helpful,'' Mr. Bloomberg said, in a rare departure from his prepared text.
According to thenewspaper, there are also proposals for:
plans to expand the use of multi-space parking meters designed to double-charge for parking. Bloomberg is counting on a windfall from traffic ticket revenue to further boost revenue from his plan. . . . Finally, Bloomberg wants to introduce speed cameras and massively expand the city's existing red light camera program.
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