The Defence
Add comment November 13th, 2007
Posts filed under 'Surveillance'
Watching the watcher watching…
This is weird:
Speed cameras in the Scottish Borders may soon be monitored by security cameras to protect them from vandals.
…not only do we increasingly try to make account of ourselves, we’re also training our technologies to make themselves accountable. Ad absurdum! Interesting.
Add comment February 5th, 2007
FedEx rufuses shipment of made-up stuff
Read this and weep! FedEx refuses to ship arty “novelty” items since they look “suspiciously like bomb making material” - note that bomb-making material, according to the cans, could be stuff like “infinite impropability” rocket fuel or just air: cans with nitrogen (78,084% pure - like the atmosphere) or neon (0,0018% pure) - suspicious, oh but how! What’s the paranoia coming to? Reminds me a little bit of the Steven Kurtz case - only silly!
Add comment January 18th, 2007
Gaze talk?
According to this article from New Scientist, people become more altruistic (in not exploiting the “commons” when paying for coffee in apsychology department kitchen) when a simple pair of photocopied eyes was felt to be watching. The researchers seem to conlude that the “innate altruism” thesis might be on the wrong track. Personally, I’d like to beleive that we are naturally altruistic, and that it speaks more of psychology faculty and students. Also, what kind of altruism are we talking here - the kind of “turn the other cheek” unconditional altruims or the kind of reciprocal altruism (as in tit-for-tat in game theory?). In terms of InC, what are the implications of altruism and cooperation for Social Software, Creative Commons and stuff like that. I’m sure there’s at least a Pscyhology of Animal Behaviour masters here.
3 comments June 29th, 2006
Pigeon cyborg bloggers
Environmentally aware pigeons become bloggers. Carrying GPS and simple mobile transmitters, 20 pigeons traverse the skies of San José, transmitting air pollution levels, photos and create a dynamic map of air quality. This is pretty brilliant use of blogs and pigeons, methinks!
Add comment February 10th, 2006
Surveillance Cool
As Bruce says, this is just about very very true! 
Via
Add comment January 28th, 2006
Surrepetitious Lie-detector
Bruce reports on the New Scientist article about the effort to build a surreptitious lie-detector.
THE US Department of Defense has revealed plans to develop a lie detector that can be used without the subject knowing they are being assessed. The Remote Personnel Assessment (RPA) device will also be used to pinpoint fighters hiding in a combat zone, or even to spot signs of stress that might mark someone out as a terrorist or suicide bomber.
Handy also for bringing up your kids: Did you wash your hands? Yeah! (maybe slight current through surveilled kid) AUCH!!! Gotcha!
Or restaurant personnel, or the prime minister, or…which reminds me of the silly, self-fulfilling spin-detecting algorithm. If you decide that spin is
“text or speech where the apparent meaning is not the true belief of the person saying or writing it”
…well then I suppose it’s relatively easy to make stuff like this. But really, why is spin actually lying or not believing? I mean, it might not be actually untrue, but merely shrouded in popular rhetorics, brushed up a little etc.
Add comment January 25th, 2006
Reading
Bogard: The simulation of surveillance: hypercontrol in telematic societies. Bogard cleverly calls it a “social science fiction” (is is social sciencefiction or socialscience fiction?) No matter, the book is an interesting take on the relation between Derrida’s simulation and Foucaults surveillance fictions. Bogard argues that surveillance has come to be more than just observation - surveillance in telematic societies is part of an active shaping of lives, of predicting and making our environments controllable. As such, surveillance is a simulation of order, of predictability and discipline and simulation is the extasy of surveillance, of knowing everything in advance through coding and controlling.
Add comment December 17th, 2005