Gang of villagers chase away Google car | Hacker News Reader

Gang of villagers chase away Google car

cnn.com

11 pointsepi0Bauqu19 comments

And now burglars know of a great place where people are so well-appointed that they don't want the burglars to know. One often meets his destiny on the path he takes to avoid it.

Brits are completely ok with government surveillance but once The Google takes some pictures, it gets real!

These things might be related. The authorities in the UK seem to be fully committed to the notion that filming something on a digital camera gives you power over it. A lot of infrastructure has been built, and a lot of PR money spent, in the service of this magical principle. There are CCTV cameras everywhere, and everyone knows that they're a symbol of authority.

Studies show, I believe, that the cameras don't accomplish much, especially when you calculate the marginal cost/benefit of adding still more cameras. The cops lobby for more cameras anyway, justifying them with professions of faith. If we all believe that a cop is watching, then it will be just like having a real cop standing there!

That kind of environment takes its toll, psychologically. If you tell people over and over that a fuzzy digital image of their street is a powerful tool in the hands of a cop, you're also subtly suggesting that a fuzzy digital image of their street might be a powerful tool in the hands of the nameless criminals lurking on the scary Internet.

Another, completely different theory: People take the opportunity to protest against Google's cameras because, when you protest against a government camera, it doesn't go away. Instead, you might get investigated or arrested. The Google van is a convenient scapegoat for people's general fear of centralized surveillance and loss of privacy.

And both of these theories could be true at the same time! The subconscious is a mysterious thing.

> That kind of environment takes its toll, psychologically.

This is very true. I am starting to seriously contemplate leaving the country, because it's becoming such an oppressive environment.

Well, be careful of the grass-is-always-greener phenomenon.

Here in the USA cops aren't as addicted to cameras. Instead, they're addicted to tasers. I have never been tased, but I'm told that the experience makes you long for the relative bliss of being continuously photographed. Especially if the tasing induces heart failure, in which case the comprehensive photo coverage would come in very handy for your family's lawsuit.

I have a friend who agreed to being tased as a taser demonstration at some convention. What a dumb thing to do!

Yes. Never do this.

The list of things that can happen to you starts with the absolutely certain ("excruciating pain") and meanders through the not-improbable ("nightmarish flashbacks" and "debilitating injury caused by your sudden collapse and involuntary writhing") on the way to the rare-but-possible ("instant death").

None of these things are fun.

    I have never been tased, but I'm told that the experience makes you long for the relative bliss of being continuously photographed.

And I have been told that being hit with pepper spray makes you long for the (much) shorter incapacitation of the taser.

One of the things I hope to avoid in this life is having to decide between being tased and being pepper-sprayed. That's a poser. One definitely wants to look around for Door Number Three.

Already done, I'm immigrating to Canada from the UK. The people are generally really nice, although the government is bat-shit crazy, but seems relatively benign through incompetence and lack of adequate leadership.

You have no idea. But, welcome to Canada, anyway. Where are you planning on living?

Currently in the GTA, but I'd never rule out a move out of the GTA in the future. It's a bit crowded by my taste, but then I moved from #50 to #227 by population density. Hopefully I don't end up moving from the most populated part of Canada to the least... I hear it gets mighty cold in the arctic circle.

The idea is sort of rational: privacy isn't solely about your information being recorded, it is about your information being accessed and accessible. Honestly, if my entire life were put on photographs and stored on a computer at the NSA (no doubt sandwitched between the Ark and a microfilm showing what really happened to JFK), I really wouldn't care that much.

Now, if it were searchable by Google Images, I'd pretty much die.

Government surveillance is an internet myth. The idea all the CCTVs in the UK are connected, and government controlled is quite laughable. They wouldn't be able to co-ordinate anything as complex as that.

The vast majority of CCTV is locally owned, by individual business owners.

It's a moral panic. They're never rational.

I live near Boston, so our local equivalent of the spooky Google van is: circuit boards. Remember: If you carry your homebrew audio amplifier inside a cheap plastic case, it is not a terrorist threat, but otherwise the cops might threaten you with deadly force and charge you with a felony.

Let's not even get into the topic of carrying liquids onto airplanes.

The only good thing about incidents like this is that they provide anthropologists with teachable moments. It's easy to laugh when some other culture claims that a camera can "steal your soul". Ha ha! Those primitive people! That sort of thinking would never happen in a sophisticated modern culture like ours!

Security by obscurity doesn't work well.

I remember reading that thieves target houses whose entrances have some sort of cover, as one of the things they look for.

Instead of complaining to Google about collecting already public information, they should work on stuff like pulling out trees covering the front door.

We're rich! We have special exemption from the law and can stop you creating a useful public resource!

I'm embarrassed by my countrymen. They do not speak for me.

Your embarrassed by people who don't want their houses cased on the internet? I would be more embarrassed by the rate of burglary, but that's just me...

Also, I'm curious about the posited "uses" of photographing residences. Besides casing.

I don't know about you, but I've used Google Street View in residential areas a lot, and never once for "casing".

I've used it to look up someone's address I'm going to visit and then get a view of that portion of the street so I could recognize it more easily.

I've used it when helping a friend shop for new houses, to look at some of the places that published open houses and help narrow down which ones to actually take the time to go visit.

I've used it when chatting with distance friends online to show them places familiar to me.

... ... ...

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