The Road to Big Brother 212
brothke writes "In The Road to Big Brother: One Man's Struggle Against the Surveillance Society, Ross Clark journals his struggles to avoid the myriad CCTV cameras in his native England. That's difficult given the millions of cameras in public locations there. Before going forward, the use of the term 'Big Brother' in both the title and throughout the book is erroneous. Big Brother has its roots in George Orwell's novel 1984 and refers to an omnipresent, seemingly benevolent figure representing the oppressive control over individual lives exerted by an authoritarian government. The term has been misappropriated to describe everything from legitimate crime-fighting, to surveillance cameras, to corporate e-mail and network usage monitoring. Localities that deploy CCTV cameras in public thoroughfares in the hope of combating crime are in no way indicative of the oppressive control of Orwell's Big Brother. Should we be concerned that such a scenario play itself out in Ross Clark's UK or in the US? Likely no, as US government agencies are widely decentralized and isolated. Just getting the networks within a single federal agency unified is a daunting task; getting all of the agencies to have a single unified data sharing mechanism is a pipe-dream. Look at it this way: the US Department of Defense has more networks than some countries have computers." Read below for the rest of Ben's review.
The Road to Big Brother details Clark's attempt to be invisible to the millions of CCTV cameras in Britain, and details other types of national & agency databases and how they can be misused. Clark notes astutely that while much data is being gathered, often the most important clues are missed, and a lack of proportion often is the result.
| The Road to Big Brother: One Man's Struggle Against the Surveillance Society | |
| author | Ross Clark |
| pages | 200 |
| publisher | Encounter Books |
| rating | Powerful topic, but poor delivery and answers. |
| reviewer | Ben Rothke |
| ISBN | 978-1594032486 |
| summary | One man's account of how to dodge Britain's million of CCTV cameras and other forms of surveillance |
Some of the books observations are flawed. In chapter two, Clark writes that VeriChip markets its RFID chips with the aim of speeding the passage of authorized people through security checks. But its Verimed chip is made for patient identification and emergency patient management in hospitals. In Chapter 11, Clark comments that Facebook is essentially a forum for drunken college students who cannot conceive that any harm could come from disporting themselves in semi-naked poses for everyone to see. There is no indication that the comment was meant to be humorous, and there are many legitimate sober uses for Facebook.
Perhaps the worst distortion of the Big Brother hysteria, of which the book provides no source, is the claim that the CIA and FBI appears to know what airline meals a person chooses when they cross the Atlantic. Terrorists do their best to be stealthy, and will likely opt to bring their own special meal, rather than stand out and request a special one. It is not clear what the CIA and FBI hope to gain with such data.
The book documents numerous CCTV failures, from Brighton, England to Baltimore, Maryland. Chapter 3 has a 2005 quote from the Maryland Attorney General stating that CCTV's had yet to solve a single crime. The book also repeats the problem of fuzzy CCTV images and highlights other technology failures as far back as 1998. Surveillance technology has significantly advanced in the last 3 years, let alone decade. Focusing on failures from a decade ago is in no way indicative of the state of the art, nor does it do anything to solve the problem Clark addresses.
In the last 60 days alone, CCTV has been used to identify the alleged Craigslist Killer and shooter at Wesleyan University. While Clark may not realize it, CCTV and other related technologies has indeed revolutionized law enforcement. The underlying problem is that Britain's millions of cameras were deployed in the hope that they could magically solve crime. Cameras alone achieve nothing; but CCTV combined with trained humans and other crime prevention and detection methods are a powerful set of tools that many police departments are embracing.
The book notes that two CCTV schemes were sold to UK police in 2001 with the premise that they would eliminate crime and increase the number of visitors by 225,000 a year. Any police department that would believe such a marketing claim, without pilot testing and proof of concept should themselves be arrested for ineptitude.
The book would be better off quoting this year's CCTV successes, rather than those of obsolete equipment. As to the fuzzy image problem; newer, more powerful and often inexpensive cameras easily and quickly solves that predicament.
All is not lost on the book. Chapter 8 — Me and My ID, in which Clark documents how ineffective national identification cards are. National ID cards are all the rage and are being deployed in the hope that they will reduce terrorism, illegal immigration and other of society's ills. Clark notes that even if national ID cards were able to identify everyone correctly, and that is a huge assumption, it is still not clear what they would achieve. National ID's have been touted to reduce insurance fraud, but medical insurance fraud is often executed not by false identification, rather by patients lying about their circumstances.
The book touches upon, but does not really answer, nor go into enough details on why people allow such pervasive use of electronic surveillance technologies to seamlessly enter society. Be it CCTV cameras that film public parks or attempt to catch speeding drivers; many are deployed with little to no protestations.
While Big Brother achieved oppressive control over individuals, the real danger of surveillance systems is that they can easily be misused. Rather than achieving their crime fighting goals, they will mislead police with myriad false positives. Part of Clark's frustration is likely that the UK Police believe in some sort of CCTV Kool-Aid that their collogues in the US have not consumed. Why that is so prevalent in the UK is something that Clark doesn't address.
The Road to Big Brother: One Man's Struggle Against the Surveillance Society should have been a book that details the problems with a surveillance society, but often reads like it emanates from the ministry of misinformation.
Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
You can purchase The Road to Big Brother: One Man's Struggle Against the Surveillance Society from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Keep an "eye" out for these guys: (Score:5, Interesting)
From an article [sandiegoreader.com] in the San Diego Reader:
Last week in a Spring Valley business park, a tower nearly 100 feet tall sprang up seemingly overnight...I approached three men, dressed as though they might be engineers, who were standing in the parking lot outside NSM Surveillance on Via Orange Way. When I asked them what the tower was for, one of them responded with the joke, "We can't tell you. We'd have to kill you."...By Wednesday afternoon the tower had disappeared.
Though that particular product was probably just a communications tower, the article describes how easy it is to set up an Orwellian society, especially with a systems integrator such as NSM Surveillance.
There aren't "millions" of CCTV cameras. (Score:5, Interesting)
That figure was made up by a lazy tabloid hack writing for the Daily Telegraph, who counted the number of CCTV cameras in about a quarter mile of the main street of a particularly unpleasant part of London, and then multiplied by the total distance of roads in the UK.
It's not even believably wrong - it's so mind-buggeringly flawed that it defies human comprehension as to how anyone could possibly think it's even nearly right. If that figure was correct then you would pass a CCTV camera every 20 metres on every road in the UK. My driveway alone would have three or four cameras on it.
I really wish people would stop spouting such patent nonsense.
CCTV cameras scare me a bit (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, I am not so sure of the real value of these cameras. I mean, yes, in many circumstances they are helpful, but in all?
Sure the craigslist killer may have been harder to catch, but men like him have been caught without any use of CCTV cameras before. Had he not been caught yet, some more lives may be lost or damaged, However, we are talking about overall policy of society... a single incident of a single "bad guy" does not a case for public policy make.
With the advent of a DHS, with the successes, its not hard to see how creeping centralization can happen. I know that some police departments are often given direct access to private security cameras in many buildings, and particularly of the outward facing cameras that overlook city squares etc.
It may be hard to centralize them now, but technology only makes it easier.
Then look at the CORI system here in MA. A recent study found many accesses that were probably unauthorized. As far as they can tell, a significant portion of local police will think nothing of using the system to look up famous people's information. Of course, thats only been identified by looking for searches on famous names. An ex-girlfriend, Wife's new boyfriend, etc, there is no telling.
Tehcnology gives new abilities. However, when you build infrastructure that has the potential for abuse, you have to build in proper checks and balances, or trust not just its designers, but the operators of the system, now...and into the future.
the new Big brother will not run on a platform. He is quite happy to "creep on in" on the backs of otherwise good intentions. Like the recent no fly list issue. A plane that merely flew threw US airspace was detained and a reporter questioned... because someone put him on the secret no fly list, and somehow the US government got ahold of the passenger manifest. Was he put on the list as a mistake? Or was he put on because someone didn't like what he had to say and wanted to harass him? Where are the checks and balances?
-Steve
i always find this topic humorous (Score:1, Interesting)
slashdot frequently decries mass hysteria, yet fears of television cameras to capture speeders is apparently the gateway to the downfall of western civilization and liberal/libertarian ideals. gee, maybe its just to catch speeders?
i try to find the reason for this peculiar slashdot hysteria, and i really can't find the reason why a bunch of otherwise intelligent people go so bonkers over transit cameras. maybe it is just that some people here take the symbolism of 1984 as if it were divine infallible revelation. that the book is just a halfbaked work of fiction, whose implications have absolutely nothing to do with the reality we find ourselves in today, is apparently besides the point
for example: little brother. orwell never considered this. the idea being, anyone with a cell phone camera has the same surveillance technology as the state and can use that against the state in collusion with other individuals, a la rodney king. the implications of this technological balance between the individual and the state, even though rodney king happened almost twenty years ago, is apparently completely beyond some of you great minds to even consider. no: transit cameras are an unstoppable identity destroying force, a slippery slope into totalitarian fascism, and we have no defense against it. huh? how about this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BART_Police_shooting_of_Oscar_Grant [wikipedia.org]
is this the future as presaged by orwell? you can't consider that REAL LIFE example? no: orwell's FICTION laid it all out, and it is unquestionable divine revelation? are you paranoid schizophrenics?
its as if slashdot takes orwell as some sort of infallible prophet, and no one actually applies any mental effort to analyze what he actually writes, to come to conclusion: gee, nice science fiction story, absolutely NOTHING TO DO WITH OUR CURRENT REALITY. EVER
some of you would laugh at superstitious illiterate 3rd world rural people who might believe, for example, that giving them the evil eye would give them cancer, or that taking their picture steals a bit of their soul
this is exactly how i think of some of you. so many of you take with unthinking devotion the idea that speeding cameras are equivalent to a slippery slope to totalitarian fascism. its absolutely hilarious, the panty twisting stupidity of this notion. really
frankly, i find no difference between some of your thinking on george orwell's cheesy fiction and the thinking religious fundamentalists and their sacred texts
enjoy geroge orwell, please. i especially liked "animal farm". but some of you really have to update some of your frankly ridiculous blind assumptions on camera technology and western civilization. you are quite the laughing stock the way some of you get worked up into a tizzy over what is frankly, not the slightest big deal
you may now mod me troll and continue your groupthink whineathon about how speeding camaras are fascism
airheaded twits
Sir, I have an idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Boss: "What's that Jenkins?"
Agent: "Lets do a big budget reality TV show called Big Brother, that way the term Big Brother is further misunderstood by the general public and they'll stop calling us that"
Boss: "That's brilliant Jenkins!"
Big Brother In My Government? (Score:3, Interesting)
It is more likely than you think. [deafdc.com]
When government keeps getting bigger and bigger, it starts to behave and act more like Big Brother than our founding fathers.
The government that governs least, governs best. [virginia.edu] Whomever said that be it John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, or Napoleon.
It seems at least in fiction, there is a way to fight the UKian Big Brother [wikipedia.org] but I wouldn't advise it to UKians, least if they don't want to get arrested. :)
I wouldn't say 'erroneous'... (Score:3, Interesting)
"Before going forward, the use of the term 'Big Brother' in both the title and throughout the book is erroneous."
The usage of 'Big Brother' to refer to any sort of general surveillance is not only common, but perfectly valid. It is indeed a reference to 1984, but it primarily references the ever-present posters that remind people 'Big Brother is watching', not the oppressive government itself. If -someone- is watching, that someone is often referred to as Big Brother, because BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING, not necessarily because that someone is part of an authoritarian regime of oppression and misinformation.
Re:i always find this topic humorous (Score:4, Interesting)
thinking that TV cameras are the slippery slope to 24/7 facism is not hilarious; it is reasonable fear. ...people would have gasped.
Suppose the british , by spending money, make the cost of cameras and software cheaper - surely that will hasten the day when, say N korea will have cameras implanted in everyone at birth...that is not wacked out/. fear m ongering, that is a reasonable fear.
I wonder how old you are: the loss of liberty and freedom, just in my shortlife (i'm 53) is astonishing - but it happens slowly, or in a climate of fear 99/11) and you don't really notice how bad things are: if you ahd told people on 9/10 that to get on an airplane, you had to show up 2 hours early, not carry a penkife,
Re:i always find this topic humorous (Score:3, Interesting)
...fears of television cameras to capture speeders is apparently the gateway to the downfall of western civilization and liberal/libertarian ideals. gee, maybe its just to catch speeders?
That's a laughably naive supposition. The first mistake you make is assuming the speed has been set for the sake of safety, and not to catch 'speeders' as a profit-generating exercise. There have been numerous stories about places where traffic lights are set up so more people will run the red and get ticketed. There's also this story [winnipegfreepress.com]. Note the 20-fold increase in tickets year-over-year. Living in the area, I can assure you it wasn't because everyone decided it was time to start speeding. As noted in the article, there were an obscene number handed out in off-hours construction zones where the speed was reduced at all times, rather than using the reduced speed while passing workers sign. Both signs can be found in this pdf link [gov.mb.ca].
Re:CCTV cameras scare me a bit (Score:3, Interesting)
A recent study found many accesses that were probably unauthorized. As far as they can tell, a significant portion of local police will think nothing of using the system to look up famous people's information. Of course, that's only been identified by looking for searches on famous names. An ex-girlfriend, Wife's new boyfriend, etc, there is no telling.
-Steve
As someone who had access to lots of confidential information (much like any sysadmin), I can say that the temptation to snoop on public figures and personal relations is indeed great.
For this level of invasion of privacy (cameras are even greater invasions of privacy IMO than financial records), there should be a very good justification, which I think there isn't, else the abuses will easily overwhelm the benefits (perceived or otherwise).
The real question... (Score:3, Interesting)
is why the feed from these cameras aren't publicly available, and why the cameras aren't installed in the offices of our public officials, police forces, and anyone else doing the public's work. I'd argue there's an even greater need for us to keep an eye on them than there is for them to keep an eye on us.
Install the surveillance cameras for yourselves first, and then we'll gladly allow you to watch us in public. And please don't cite "privacy concerns". We threw those out the window a long time ago.
Re:Logistically impossible (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Logistically impossible (Score:2, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)