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Comment by raincole | Hacker News Reader

> But most people would agree that recording everything on every street corner 24/7 is not acceptable in a free society.

Do we?

No, this is a serious question. London seems to have 20,873 CCTVs on its streets[1]. If people don't protest against 20k CCTVs, do you really believe they'll protest against 30k, 50k or 70k? 70k is when by average one street has one CCTV. It's still not one per corner, but practically it's more than enough to track everyone's path.

Slippery slope? Yes. Are we going to slide down? Probably.

[1]: https://clarionuk.com/resources/how-many-cctv-cameras-are-in...

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London and its surveillance is a dystopian extreme no one should try to emulate.

And it's not like London is paradise on earth thanks to the cameras. They just have a lot of it.

I've been to many cities around the world that already left the London far behind. Miltiple cameras at every house looking in different directions, cameras at every isle corner in supermarkets etc. There are more cameras than citizens in those cities.

England has always been the first nation to suffer the designs of the elite. The bankster system, first in Britain. The secret services that have “license to kill”, ditto. A show for parliament and representation, the same. Emergence of a new elite class that wields power behind the throne, England. Political churches passed as churches of God, England. Surveillance and police state, England. 1984, also from England. Somebody in that Island knows where it is all heading.

p.s. and how could I forget. “Journalism” fleet street style, also England.

> Political churches passed as churches of God

The Egyptians would like a word

Good one. Yes, they gifted us with priesthoods. For that matter, banksters learned from Mesopotamians, so. But we’re discussing evil incorporated post enlightenment (where? lol) here.

And they don't work that well. I had a phone snatched on Stratton St and no decent footage.

Once true deep fakes come, and they are coming as sure as you're born, these CCTVs will be rendered moot anyway.

I didn’t down vote.

You will have to make a realistic multi angle deep fake faces before it happens. Like the face geometry and looks has to perfectly match the other deeps fake and any other camera. Plus matching different type of lights, camera gradient, lens, types, etc…

Most footage pulled from security cameras is only so-so anyway. Faces aren’t always perfect. Maybe this changes when they’re all 4kHDR.

Even in a world where perfect, indistinguishable-from-reality deepfakes could be created instantly at the push of a button, CCTV cameras would be no less useful in criminal proceedings than they are now.

"Yes your honor, I can testify that I personally pulled this footage from the camera at the corner of 15th street and King Dr."

Or, even better:

"Yes, your honor, I as an expert witness can confirm that this footage was signed by the secure hardware key embedded in the camera at the corner of 15th street and King Dr."

There, problem solved.

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