den Otter wrote:
> ----------
> > From: mark@unicorn.com
> > And who watches the watchers?
>
> Other watchers. Visualize it as a circle of people where everyone
> watches the guy in front of him, while being watched from behind
> himself.
And you know what people call that particular sort of circular formation?
> > And where exactly are you going to store all that data anyway? You don't
> > have enough atoms to store more than a few hours of global surveillance
> > data at an accuracy high enough to be useful. You can't store the universe.
>
> No need to store the universe. There would be many cameras, but obviously
> not *everywhere*, just on strategic public spots (therefore not a transparant,
> but rather semi-transparant society). I'm not sure how much data can
> be stored with current technologies, but it should be quite a lot. Obviously
> it would require giant complexes (the self-replicating chip factories in
> the desert would certainly come in handy, though it should also be feasible
> in the traditional way), and after an x amount of time a part of the files
> would probably have to be deleted to make room for new data. You'd
> simply take the system as far as current technology would allow it, and
> expand from there (you could think about turning large parts of the moon
> into storage space, for example. Same for the earth's deserts etc).
> > Uh, you can't use criminals who are caught to prove that criminals are
> > stupid, when most of the criminals who are stupid get caught and most of
> > the smart criminals don't. The law enforcement folks I've spoken to
> > certainly seem to be aware of that.
>
> Most criminals are stupid. That more aren't caught is more due to the
> incompetence of the police than to the crook's intellect. That more
> aren't *convicted* is of course due to inherent flaws in the justice
> system. This is probably even a bigger problem than police corruption/
> incompetence/indifference etc.
Actually, for example, serial killers that are caught tend to have genius level intelligence. I would suppose that those criminal geniuses who don't like or have no need to get so violent merely go into politics...
> > And, of course, in your wonderful future the smart criminals would take
> > over the surveillance system and hence would no longer be regarded as
> > criminals, just like Clinton and Reno.
>
> Clinton has been voted into power, hence he is technically not a criminal,
> but rather that what the people deserve. Of course, *any* system can
> be corrupted, but it can be made extremely difficult to do and keeping
> the takeover hidden would be harder still.
Actually, given that the Federal Election Commission report on the '96 election shows that Clinton overspent his spending limits by some $46 million, there is a case that he is in fact a criminal who stole his office. Too bad we can't use that as grounds to undo all the damage he's done since....
> > >Furthermore, you can't fool an integrated surveillance system by
> > >"simply" dropping fake DNA or changing your face. You can't
> > >possibly find and modify all the relevant surveillance details (in
> > >time).
> >
> > Yes I can, because with universal global surveillance I can get any
> > information I want. Is this universal surveillance or isn't it? You
> > can't have things both ways.
>
> Yes you can, more or less. Only those involved in a criminal case
> (prosecution & defense) have access to the data, and they are
> monitored by others while looking over the evidence (and the others
> are monitored by a 3rd party, etc.) Changing data from the access
> terminal can be made physically impossible (limited command
> functions).
>
> > >The thread is about eliminating arbitrary justice, about revealing the truth
> > >by means of technology.
> >
> > What is "the truth"? Why is video more "true" than anything else?
>
> The truth is what really happened (for example: x shoots y with gun z).
> Video is simply the most detailed and explicit tool to record "reality"
> that is available to us today. It's like a perfectly neutral witness with
> a photographic memory.
Hardly. Video can easily be spliced and doctored by anyone with a few thousand dollars of computer equipment. What is needed is some sort of encrypted pseudo-random background signal which cannot be faked, so that alteration of video can easily be detected.
Mike Lorrey