[118572] in Cypherpunks
Re: camera tech for crime prevention
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (djv@bedford.net)
Sun Oct 3 00:15:10 1999
From: djv@bedford.net
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 23:29:51 -0400 (EDT)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
In-Reply-To: <37F59222.43E0C997@ibm.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9910022313500.15632-100000@pollux.chuck>
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Reply-To: djv@bedford.net
On Fri, 1 Oct 1999, Spike Jones wrote with malice aforethought:
> Eugene Leitl wrote:
>
> > It would seem a very good idea to not let this happen too
> > easily. Pilot projects on face recognition for criminal deterrance are
> > on the way, and ubiquitous cameras are certainly proliferating. A
> > carnival, anybody?
>
> Before you jump me or flame me, think this over. Im proposing
> a testable hypothesis. We could surely invent software that
Could you state your hypothesis a little more succinctly? I
could not detect any hypothesis. I detected some agitprop
for a police state, but:
WHAT IS THE HYPOTHESIS?
WHAT IS THE TEST OF THE HYPOTHESIS?B
> could identify faces more accurately than can humans, which
> would keep innocents out of prisons and get dangerous felons
> off the streets. That being the case, *why not* let this happen
> too quickly? Let it happen! It cannot happen too quickly.
>
> Where Im going with this is: NO FEAR. Popular catch phrase
> today. If you are not committing crimes, then no fear. You *want*
> face rec instruments everywhere. If you *are* a violent criminal,
> then yes, be afraid, be very afraid. The future may not be your
> kinda place, but for the rest of us, face rec software is your friend.
This is no hypothesis, this is a load of plant food.
Absolutism is always appealing on paper. Utopias are always proposed
on the assumption that they'll "work".
Why should "zero crime" be a desirable state? That is not a
rhetorical question. Why?
Look here, son: if you are "innocent", then you have nothing to fear
from a depth-interrogation with drug cocktails and a little trip
through room 101.
As part of your absolutist scheme you also assume absolute security
of the system, absolute accuracy, absolutely incorruptible police,
and absolute coverage.
Your last paragraph is couched in language that I have grown to
recognize as being designed to operate subliminally and suggestively.
Now pay attention: here's a system that will work with absolute
perfection: Develop a machine that can detect the presence
of a human being, and can guide a weapon capable of slaying a
human being with absolute reliability. Place these machines
to give 100% coverage of the little Kakotopia you want to live in.
Then implant each sheep with an ID transponder.
If the machine detects a human without an ID transponder, it shoots.
If it detects a "violent criminal" (which you have, through some
miraculously absolutely perfect system of justice, identified),
it shoots.
Simple. You have nothing to fear. Living under the gun is easy,
if you're a good boy.
Now explain to me how *my* little system is different from yours.
I think it's exactly the same, except I said outright "kill 'em
right there in front of the bakery." You, being an Utopian idealist,
want it done cleanly in some back room.
D.
--
In each of us, there burns a soul of a woodchuck.
In every generation a few are chosen to prove it.
