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Comment by wilfra | Hacker News Reader

The camera is not what bugs these people, it is him. If it were a cute little kid or a super model - or just somebody with a much better attitude - there would have been a much different response.

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Would you say that standard surveillance cameras have a good or bad attitude?

I'm not a fan of surveillance cameras but I think they are different because they are passive.

People don't feel threatened by surveillance cameras because they think no one is watching that video 24/7 and it is used if something goes wrong or needs investigation.

Where as some random guy suddenly walking in with a camera makes them think that person must have some immediate and possibly malicious intention.

I think your assessment is right. Furthermore, I believe the intent of the video is to get people to question why these perceptions exist.

Fixed surveillance cameras might seem passive, but they really are typically more intrusive than this guy's project. That's what makes it so interesting to me. I totally understand how it'd be creepy to have someone physically walking around recording me, but in reality, a campus-wide set of "passive" surveillance cameras (say, at my workplace) will gather far more information about me than this guy could ever hope to record on his own.

Yeah I agree and with improvements in the technology it will get even worse. Cameras can already have pretty decent microphones and speech-to-text technology is pretty damn good so I wont be surprised if soon they start recording sound and analysing it in realtime. It wont cost all that much compared to a lot of other things.

However I was only trying to explain the behaviour of the people.

Neither. Surveillance cameras don't interrupt classrooms. Surveillance cameras don't distract musical performers. Surveillance cameras don't walk on to private property after being told to leave.

Hes an asshole who happens to be carrying a camera. And then when people get irritated, he makes it out as if the camera is the primary cause.

Regardless of his behavior, the point he's making is totally valid. You can no longer claim that "I'm doing nothing wrong, therefore I don't mind being recorded on security cameras wherever I go" - if you saw the sheer extent of footage collected of you and the data that can be extrapolated from that footage, you would be horrified.

>Surveillance cameras don't distract musical performers.

(Street) musical performers distract me though.

Yeah, I think the point could have been made without the jerkiness, though the jerkiness does make the expression of the point somewhat "unique". Three ways to get a better response: wear a sign that says 'security camera', have a display showing the surrounding circle of your GPS location on google street view, and give answers to "what are you doing?".

I think you might be right. Even minus the camera, if he was just staring the reaction probably would've been similar.

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