New Government 24x7 speed camera/vehicle movement database
Discussion
www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/15/vehicle_movement_database/
amongst its many uses speeding on the motorway is listed.
will be starting in April 2006, maybe this should be a good time to raise the motorway speed limits?
Gary
amongst its many uses speeding on the motorway is listed.
will be starting in April 2006, maybe this should be a good time to raise the motorway speed limits?
Gary
DucatiGary said:
www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/15/vehicle_movement_database/
Truly horrible isn't it ?
My tax pounds are being used for this 1984 style surveillance.
Meanwhile, my drink driver mate [ also uninsured - have you seen
insurance costs for drink drivers ? ] reckons he won't be
going to prison this time because the prisons are full.
The only alleviation I can see is
a) UK Gov to implement this. They are useless at IT systems.
It won't work, in other words.
b) 30 million drivers by 12,000 miles a year is 360,000,000,000
driver-miles. At 100 bytes per record, that's a *lot* of data.
They already have something approaching this capability. My boss's friend was stopped and arrested when all the london bombing hoohar was going on for making several trips up and down the M1 in one day, there could be no other reason other than he got flagged up for being spotted frequently going between 2 places of interest.
Why the fuss?
This stuff has been around for 10 years.
Drive into the City of London? They know when you enter and leave, and where you have been, and have done for 10 years.
Drive through the conjestion charge? They can track you at every spot, know where you have been, and retain the data for 5+ years.
Drive from the M1 to the M25 going south, and then around the M1, M25, M40 etc. For the last 4 years they have tracked your every movements.
Personally I don't see what the fuss is about, especially as this stuff has been going on for so long in London and 15% of the population hasn't found any 'downsides' to it.
One could argue of course, "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry....."
J
This stuff has been around for 10 years.
Drive into the City of London? They know when you enter and leave, and where you have been, and have done for 10 years.
Drive through the conjestion charge? They can track you at every spot, know where you have been, and retain the data for 5+ years.
Drive from the M1 to the M25 going south, and then around the M1, M25, M40 etc. For the last 4 years they have tracked your every movements.
Personally I don't see what the fuss is about, especially as this stuff has been going on for so long in London and 15% of the population hasn't found any 'downsides' to it.
One could argue of course, "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry....."
J
joust said:
One could argue of course, "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry....."
J
I have nothing to hide, I just don't like having every waking hour of my life observed by some anonymous person in a central control room, issuing fines because I left the kettle on or accidentally dropped a crisp packet or something. Why this obsession with databases and monitoring EVERYTHING.
Here's test - go to your local town centre with a camcorder and do nothing all day except film the CCTV cameras. What do you suppose would happen?
Don't worry about it.
When the system becomes that pervasive, databases will come into existance that, allow the subjects of the system, to fool it.
As time passes ANPR systems will become obsolete because they are inherently error prone. The system will focus on vehicles not having a numberplate, but digital DNA. When this happens, the public will be able to run their own database which will allow people to "trade identities".
If you're going somewhere, and someone else who looks materially like you, is going the other way, you can swap identities halfway along. To the government it looks like you didn't go anywhere.
Edited to add;
"The system" won't be able to track every move you make, and it doesn't take many people to do this before the whole thing gets seriously confused. In the end it doesn't know where anyone is, and the police end up chasing their tails.
"Electronic warfare gets civil"
>> Edited by dilbert on Wednesday 16th November 02:03
When the system becomes that pervasive, databases will come into existance that, allow the subjects of the system, to fool it.
As time passes ANPR systems will become obsolete because they are inherently error prone. The system will focus on vehicles not having a numberplate, but digital DNA. When this happens, the public will be able to run their own database which will allow people to "trade identities".
If you're going somewhere, and someone else who looks materially like you, is going the other way, you can swap identities halfway along. To the government it looks like you didn't go anywhere.
Edited to add;
"The system" won't be able to track every move you make, and it doesn't take many people to do this before the whole thing gets seriously confused. In the end it doesn't know where anyone is, and the police end up chasing their tails.
"Electronic warfare gets civil"
>> Edited by dilbert on Wednesday 16th November 02:03
Absolutely right - the systems will be overloaded with data that they can't analyse, they won't work, they won't catch you if you have done nothing wrong (unless there is an error in the databases somewhere - VERY unlikely of course) and people will always be able to think of ways to fool the system.
But then the systems mentioaned by others are still in place, so we should ask questions about why since as they work why would the ideas not eventually work scaled up? Moore's law on technology development and all that says they could work eventually. If the existing systems don't work why are the costs still being met?
And why are these rather politically motivated ideas being promoted and presented by the allegedly impartial police service?
There are some points to be made. The system can only track vehicles - or more specifically, registration marks. That offers plenty of opportunity for mistaken identity of drivers and all the aggro that can go with that. Sure such situations can happen today but an automated system with a dodgy database or set of databases is hardly likely to improve the situation when the only justification for the cost has to be an increased 'success rate'. That it will continually fail is unlikely to stop it being used once the money have been spent in the name of terrorist protection. (Whereas the huge - but relatively small by comparison - NHS system could be canned as it does not offer much scope for saving the country by achieving one or two dramatic results ...)
Secondly this sort of activity is not that new though the electronic processing of the information is. I'm sure that there are plenty of books one could read that outline the way extensive surveillance of this nature has been and possibly is deployed across populations. History will help us here - think 1930's Germany, Russia for a few decades during the 20th century and no doubt many other places which have not received the publicity.
Quite why the authorities feel it is necessary to have this degree of monitoring in place - or even the potential for it - introduced through a back door rather than by open debate about the uses and benefits, is unclear to me. But if we consider recent results of policies and the direction that new regulation has taken there is a strong suggestion that the original objectives are not achieved (can't jail the baddies for example 'cos there are not enough beds in the jails and nobody is willing to increase the capacity) but the generally law abiding can be clobbered for technical offences quite easily and that offers - indeed almost demands if performance measurements are applied - the option to chase the easy targets and cover up on the difficult ones.
It would take a psychologist to explain why a relatively sophisticated society in a time of apparent success, wealth and security is so fearful of itself that it demands ever greater protection from 'the authorities'.
Or maybe it doesn't. Perhaps it just becomes so complacent that it simply ignores the actions of those who would be powerful and all controlling for whatever their personal reason and purpose. Up to the point where it can no longer ignore the actions of those who have chosen to be the authority.
At that point I suppose you either stand and fight the regime or leave for pastures new.
Still, I'm sure it will all be alright.
That nice Mr. Brown has a good hold on the economy, our Prime Minister is a man of peace and impeccable judgement and all of the Ministers have been selected for their cleverness, whiter than white moral principles and sound judgement in all matters. And of course most of them were active in the anti war and freedom movements during their student days.
So why do all of these relatively innocuous and potentially beneficial (in some ways) developments make me feel so very uneasy?
But then the systems mentioaned by others are still in place, so we should ask questions about why since as they work why would the ideas not eventually work scaled up? Moore's law on technology development and all that says they could work eventually. If the existing systems don't work why are the costs still being met?
And why are these rather politically motivated ideas being promoted and presented by the allegedly impartial police service?
There are some points to be made. The system can only track vehicles - or more specifically, registration marks. That offers plenty of opportunity for mistaken identity of drivers and all the aggro that can go with that. Sure such situations can happen today but an automated system with a dodgy database or set of databases is hardly likely to improve the situation when the only justification for the cost has to be an increased 'success rate'. That it will continually fail is unlikely to stop it being used once the money have been spent in the name of terrorist protection. (Whereas the huge - but relatively small by comparison - NHS system could be canned as it does not offer much scope for saving the country by achieving one or two dramatic results ...)
Secondly this sort of activity is not that new though the electronic processing of the information is. I'm sure that there are plenty of books one could read that outline the way extensive surveillance of this nature has been and possibly is deployed across populations. History will help us here - think 1930's Germany, Russia for a few decades during the 20th century and no doubt many other places which have not received the publicity.
Quite why the authorities feel it is necessary to have this degree of monitoring in place - or even the potential for it - introduced through a back door rather than by open debate about the uses and benefits, is unclear to me. But if we consider recent results of policies and the direction that new regulation has taken there is a strong suggestion that the original objectives are not achieved (can't jail the baddies for example 'cos there are not enough beds in the jails and nobody is willing to increase the capacity) but the generally law abiding can be clobbered for technical offences quite easily and that offers - indeed almost demands if performance measurements are applied - the option to chase the easy targets and cover up on the difficult ones.
It would take a psychologist to explain why a relatively sophisticated society in a time of apparent success, wealth and security is so fearful of itself that it demands ever greater protection from 'the authorities'.
Or maybe it doesn't. Perhaps it just becomes so complacent that it simply ignores the actions of those who would be powerful and all controlling for whatever their personal reason and purpose. Up to the point where it can no longer ignore the actions of those who have chosen to be the authority.
At that point I suppose you either stand and fight the regime or leave for pastures new.
Still, I'm sure it will all be alright.
That nice Mr. Brown has a good hold on the economy, our Prime Minister is a man of peace and impeccable judgement and all of the Ministers have been selected for their cleverness, whiter than white moral principles and sound judgement in all matters. And of course most of them were active in the anti war and freedom movements during their student days.
So why do all of these relatively innocuous and potentially beneficial (in some ways) developments make me feel so very uneasy?
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