> The camera can have different ways of seeing encoded in it, including kinds of gazes that enforce social agreements about what kinds of behavior and people are considered “normal”
The phrase "kinds of gazes" strikes me as the sort of thing that's only going to make sense to people trained in a very particular and idiosyncratic flavor of ethical critique. What a normal person sees here is, "These cameras can detect if people are acting bizarre and dangerous," which is probably something most people would appreciate. In Seattle, the problem, of course, is that the streets are full of people acting bizarre and dangerous, it doesn't take a camera network to find them, and the police seem to be under strict orders not to do anything about it.
bonoboTP 28 seconds ago [-]
I think it's clear what it means but indeed it's formulated in a critical theory framework (see also "male gaze" in feminist theory) that makes it seem more complicated.
Yes, they take camera images and videos and there is value judgment regarding the behaviors.
In plain language, the authors criticize the approach of law enforcement around drug use and dealing, living on the street in tents etc.
But the language makes it sound like special academic expert language and hence automatically right and high prestige.
myrmidon 49 minutes ago [-]
My best guess would be
[[Surveillance cameras normalize/denormalize behavior in a way that is easily biased and undemocratic.]]
It might e.g. direct the full force of law against a drunk urinating on a tree (easy to spot/classify), while tolerating vicious verbal attacks disguised by somewhat subdued body language (missing data/difficult to detect).
Letting automated surveillance systems judge people will inevitably influence our own collective judgement.
ctoth 13 minutes ago [-]
> tolerating vicious verbal attacks disguised by somewhat subdued body language
Two people arguing in public, words only, is close to a legal non-event in the US. So I would hope so?
seethishat 10 minutes ago [-]
Until one of them communicates a threat, then it is a criminal matter.
thewebguyd 48 minutes ago [-]
> acting bizarre and dangerous
The problem with surveillance like this becomes "who gets to decide what is bizarre and dangerous?"
mc32 37 minutes ago [-]
They could at least address that the man and woman on the street would easily identify as people who need to be put in a paddy wagon. Leave the unsure cases alone. Get the obvious ones.
What came to mind is a camera pointed at the cash register tells a very different story than the camera pointed at the ATM, or pointing from the ATM for that matter. Placement and the stories behind them offer interesting perspectives on what the observers are trying to catch or deter.
superbyte 42 minutes ago [-]
I miss when every second comment on hn didn't sound like a cop
gowld 42 minutes ago [-]
>> enforce social agreements about what kinds of behavior and people are considered “normal”
> What a normal person sees here
The post is talking about you.
shermantanktop 1 hours ago [-]
Lots of po-mo art-school language on this site about “encoding ways of seeing” and “gazes.”
The content itself is somewhat interesting but imo plain language would be more accessible.
patja 9 minutes ago [-]
I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about statements like these which seem to assume the reader is incredibly uninformed and naive, to the point of condescension.
"sends the information to a central storing place (called a database)" TIL what the word database means?
"Amazon can use your purchases to know more about you using patterns." Is this news to someone? Condescending.
"It might be connected to a network (via Internet or radio frequency)" Radio frequency and Internet are not really directly comparable
Also don't like that the site hijacks the appearance of my mouse pointer, which feels similarly disrespectful of the reader.
gs17 42 seconds ago [-]
The way it's written, I wouldn't be surprised if it was meant to be read by/to children (or at least used by a elementary/middle school teacher).
pietervdvn 13 minutes ago [-]
For everyone interested in this topic: with https://mapcomplete.org/surveillance, anyone can easily see and update surveillance camera's in OpenStreetMap
xx_ns 2 hours ago [-]
> A probe packet contains the MAC address as well as the list of all the past Wi-fi networks that your device has tried to join before, which can reveal a lot about you!
Generally, most modern devices send broadcast/wildcard probes precisely to avoid leaking the PNL. From what I know, directed probes are only sent for hidden APs.
rafram 1 hours ago [-]
And most modern devices randomize MAC addresses ("Wi-Fi addresses" in Apple-ese, for probably obvious reasons) between networks, and even between broadcasts/connections to the same network.
gausswho 38 minutes ago [-]
I think this is only true for mobile devices? I'm curious how one would configure Linux to randomize MAC addresses by default.
rafram 21 minutes ago [-]
macOS rotates MAC addresses between networks by default, and between connections to the same network unless it's password-protected. (It's under System Settings -> "Details..." or three-dot menu by a network -> "Private Wi-Fi address.")
Windows also randomizes by default as long as your network controller supports it.
It sounds like Linux requires some textual configuration that depends on your distro.
c22 29 minutes ago [-]
In Linux changing the MAC address can be done simply on the command line, so I'd probably just write this functionality into a bash script that I'd call before ifup.
Correct. All major OSes stopped broadcasting the preferred SSID list by 2017, with Android and Linux being the last. Apple stopped in 2014. Windows by 2009.
SauntSolaire 2 hours ago [-]
Surprisingly milquetoast list given the title
oofbey 2 hours ago [-]
They clearly have an agenda, but also openly acknowledge that public surveillance is a two sided coin, balancing public safety and convenience with privacy. Some of the risks they identify are real, but others are unabashedly exaggerated.
tpolm 45 minutes ago [-]
If the survelliance tech is so great, why post amber alert messages with the license plate numbers all over all highways to help find the car?
mc32 40 minutes ago [-]
The more eyes the better the chances. Obviously it’s not total information awareness the likes one of the previous DNIs dreampt about. We see its imperfection if the fact that a very public case in Arizona abduction case is basically cold. They basically have zero leads -which is pretty incredible in this day and age.
1 hours ago [-]
corprew 1 hours ago [-]
Based on context on their site, this looks like it was generated in ~2019 from data gathered before that, and some stuff in it is out of date as other comments mention.
nobody_r_knows 1 hours ago [-]
[dead]
Rendered at 16:13:17 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
> The camera can have different ways of seeing encoded in it, including kinds of gazes that enforce social agreements about what kinds of behavior and people are considered “normal”
The phrase "kinds of gazes" strikes me as the sort of thing that's only going to make sense to people trained in a very particular and idiosyncratic flavor of ethical critique. What a normal person sees here is, "These cameras can detect if people are acting bizarre and dangerous," which is probably something most people would appreciate. In Seattle, the problem, of course, is that the streets are full of people acting bizarre and dangerous, it doesn't take a camera network to find them, and the police seem to be under strict orders not to do anything about it.
Yes, they take camera images and videos and there is value judgment regarding the behaviors.
In plain language, the authors criticize the approach of law enforcement around drug use and dealing, living on the street in tents etc.
But the language makes it sound like special academic expert language and hence automatically right and high prestige.
[[Surveillance cameras normalize/denormalize behavior in a way that is easily biased and undemocratic.]]
It might e.g. direct the full force of law against a drunk urinating on a tree (easy to spot/classify), while tolerating vicious verbal attacks disguised by somewhat subdued body language (missing data/difficult to detect).
Letting automated surveillance systems judge people will inevitably influence our own collective judgement.
Two people arguing in public, words only, is close to a legal non-event in the US. So I would hope so?
The problem with surveillance like this becomes "who gets to decide what is bizarre and dangerous?"
> What a normal person sees here
The post is talking about you.
The content itself is somewhat interesting but imo plain language would be more accessible.
"sends the information to a central storing place (called a database)" TIL what the word database means?
"Amazon can use your purchases to know more about you using patterns." Is this news to someone? Condescending.
"It might be connected to a network (via Internet or radio frequency)" Radio frequency and Internet are not really directly comparable
Also don't like that the site hijacks the appearance of my mouse pointer, which feels similarly disrespectful of the reader.
Generally, most modern devices send broadcast/wildcard probes precisely to avoid leaking the PNL. From what I know, directed probes are only sent for hidden APs.
Windows also randomizes by default as long as your network controller supports it.
It sounds like Linux requires some textual configuration that depends on your distro.