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Comment by pfortuny | Hacker News Reader

There’s London too, totally dystopian.

Most cameras in the UK are private, rarely working well, and usually not networked or easily accessible to the police. It could be better, but the idea of the UK as a surveillance state is seriously overblown outside of maybe a handful of streets.

Don’t forget ANPRs that can track your vehicle all around the country. Doesn’t even have to cross paths with a police car - they’re at most major junctions and all over the motorway

Good. But still doesn't stop the absolute fkwits doing 110mph around the m25 every day; how they get away with it I have no idea.

Because you can't boil a frog by starting at 100°C.

You introduce the surveillance as a way of mitigating extreme, rare occurrences, like terrorism.

You gradually make it common to use when solving major crimes, like murders.

Only then do you start tracking down traffic infractions.

Doctorow calls this the 'Shitty Technology Adoption Curve' https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/

Not really. I got mugged quite close to a tube station in relatively central London and no CCTV footage, so all the cameras are useless.

I was on a jury for a court case where: the incident was caught by a bus camera, but the police waited 6 months to ask for footage, footage is deleted after 1 month and they know this. The shop across the road captured the incident on CCTV but the cop had "tech problems" trying to transfer the video file to his laptop - even then they didn't even bother to sign a document stating what they saw in the video.

CCTV and cops (at least in and around London) are just totally useless. And the gov is useless too, "fighting" crime rather than addressing what causes crimes.

Otherwise, it's not too bad a place to live for a travelling Kiwi, great launchpad into Europe, oh wait they fucked that up with Brexit, too.

> great launchpad into Europe

So pick another country or just fill-in the required paperwork. Wetwipe.

Commonwealth countries in general (I'm in Canada) had a convenient pathway into Europe by way of EU-era UK.

I've lived in several countries at this point, and no, it's not just an administrative task of completing paperwork. Immigration is hard. Do it wrong, and you might find yourself in Rwanda, for example.

And maybe don't call people 'wetwipes' on HN? If you want to hurl insults, well: All the web is yours, except HN. Attempt no landing there.

>..., great launchpad into Rwanda. Corrected for you.

London police are pretty much pro dysfunction at this point.

Partly just a product of its street layout. They need a lot more cameras to get the same amount of coverage that a grid-based city would need, since vantage is so poor.

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