Google Glass: An Etiquette Guide
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
As mentioned, any hacker could turn off whatever restriction you're going to put. Pretending that we're preventing something is stupid and wrong. It's a hypocrisy that is so typical it makes me angry.
To a large extent, secret photographing/recording is a technological revolution, and it will, predictably, meet some resistance. We can either:
* pretend to do something about it.
* help people resisting transition into it.
There are really no other options. Preventing it from happening is not an option. What would you do?
It's very similar to the whole "illegal downloading of music" business. Millions of dollars are spent, laws, national (global!) debates are held, all sorts of technological hurdles are put into play, and ... nothing prevents any kid from downloading whatever they want from the Internet.
All this "pretending to do something about it" has a cost. Some scapegoats are going to suffer greatly along the way. Aaron Schwartz's example is famous around here, but it's absolutely not the only one. Do we need more innocent victims?
It is the polite thing to do to make obvious whenever you are recording other people. Google can and should help with that politeness. Society is perfectly capable of creating and enforcing rules without laws.
That is, this is about creating a desired societal norm. You're right, there are people that will violate this regardless. There's always someone who will hide a camera in the girls bathroom, and there's little you can do to stop it, but yet we've been able to get to reasonable place in society that we still assume there aren't hidden cameras in "private" places.
Incremental improvement is better than nothing, and this is an example of an incredibly cheap, obvious incremental improvement with no downside.
It's already the case that you are recorded without your knowledge or consent on a regular basis. Whether you're browsing a department store or planting a bomb at a marathon, there's a chance you'll be caught on tape.
Who knows what the world will be like in 10, 25, 50 years from now? We may be able to download a digital copy of memories from the brain, in which case every pair of eyes will be a video camera.
An extreme example, I know, but the point is simple. We can waste time and money fighting against the inevitable, or we can accept the changes in our world and learn to live with them.
And you can insult random people on the street, or repeatedly fart loudly on a crowded bus.
The article is about etiquette.
A red light that says the camera is active works unless explicitly circumvented. Let me explain this in simple logic to you:
Your initial state is 'no red light when recording', which means 100% of strangers don't know if you're recording them. They will all assume you are an asshole.
If you add a red light that works by default, the new state is this:
Red light when recording, unless modified to remove the light. Most strangers may not know you can disable the light, so they won't worry. Strangers who do know will ask you if you are recording them. In cases where the light is on, then it's obvious - you're recording them.
Do you see how this works? It's almost as if seatbelts and helmets aren't useless just because you can take them off.
I really don't think I am, but perhaps it's an incompatibility in the way you're sending and I'm receiving.
TSA screenings work when not circumvented. When circumvented, you can bring a wide variety of weapons aboard a plane. Red lights on wearable computing devices work when not circumvented. When circumvented, your can record surreptitiously. They seem quite similar to me.
> If I add a red light that works by default ...
If I add a screening process that works by default ...
> Most strangers may not know you can disable the light ... so they won't worry ...
Like most people don't know that it's possible to get bombs through TSA checkpoints, so they don't worry. You're making the analogy more clear, not less.
Or to give a more clear example, compare the TSA with customs. Customs does, in fact, do a very effective job of stopping certain kinds of contraband from crossing the border. They don't stop ALL OF IT, but they stop some. So when evaluating Customs, you have to decide whether they are simply inefficient, or not good enough at their jobs, or acceptably effective. In comparison, TSA literally does jack shit. Nothing. Which is why it's called security theater.
Whether or not it's appropriate to call something security theater also depends on the stakes involved; TSA screenings are considered inappropriate and unacceptable because the cost incurred by the screenings is high (in time, dignity, etc) and the payoff is low - it's a net loss.
Adding a red light costs literally nothing - cents on the dollar - and inconveniences no one. Even if... let's say 25% of google glass customers turn the LED off, the other 75% haven't so it's still working. You can very easily do a cost/benefit analysis here and it is hard to come up with a sane analysis where the LED isn't worth the cost.
If you're going to throw terms around, you should at least make a basic attempt to understand what they actually mean.
Let me make sure I understand. Are you saying that, 100% of the time, packing a gun in your carry-on won't get caught by a TSA screening? If not, what do you mean exactly by "don't work, period."
TSA screenings were introduced to stop terrorists from hijacking airplanes.
EDIT: On the assumption that you will continue to display top-notch reading comprehension:
"The TSA was created as a response to the September 11, 2001, attacks. Its first administrator, John Magaw, was nominated by President Bush on December 10, 2001, and confirmed by the Senate the following January. The agency's proponents, including Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, argued that only a single federal agency would better protect air travel than the private companies who operated under contract to single airlines or groups of airlines that used a given terminal facility.
The organization was charged with developing policies to protect U.S. transportation, especially in airport security and the prevention of aircraft hijacking."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_Security_Adminis...
EDIT 2: I should also point out that we had sky marshals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Air_Marshal_Service
. . . by preventing them from carrying weapons onto those planes. Yes? So, going back to my original questions, if the screenings are security theater, according to your definition, they should be 100% ineffective at that job without any attempt at circumvention. Or have I read you incorrectly somewhere along the lines?
All that stuff about the purpose of the TSA organization in your edit is useless, because I'm specifically talking about the screening procedures.
This is wrong on several levels: first, it ignores the fact that security screenings existed prior to the establishment of the TSA. So the TSA screenings could have no value for actual security without being 100% ineffective, if they were no more effective than the preexisting screenings.
And second, because something can be security theater and still have some positive effect on security, if that positive effect is both not its primary motivation and not remotely warranted by the cost.
Security theater doesn't mean that there is no gain in security, it means that the security function is pretextual and any security effect is incidental.
First of all, make sure that, if the light breaks on its own, the camera will stop functioning. (To prevent "innocent" recording without the red light.)
Second, pass a law requiring hardware manufacturing to include these red lights, and making it illegal for people to record others in public with devices which have been modified to function without a light. (It wouldn't be needed for cameras, which have no other purpose -- I'm talking about devices like Google Glass.)
I'm not necessarily saying this is the best solution to the problem, just that it's one possible solution.
After all, if you're in a restroom while someone else is wearing Google Glass, and you know they'd be hit with a $10K fine and up to two years in jail if they were recording you, then you're probably going to feel OK that they didn't hack the red light. Anything's possible, of course, but it becomes a crime like any other.
The point is that a red LED or shutter sound make it obvious to other people that photography is happening, in the most common cases. Someone who wants to surreptitiously photograph people without their permission will always do it, yes, but that doesn't mean the solution is to 'help resisting people transition into' being photographed without their permission in any and every scenario.
If the common case (i.e. stock Google Glass) has a 'recording' LED or shutter sound, it becomes much easier to address situations where a well-meaning person violates someone's privacy without thinking about it. This will lead to proper etiquette and understanding being formed. The alternative, 'I can take video of you without your knowledge, get over it, the FUTURE' perspective is not going to win anyone over anytime soon. Especially vulnerable minorities.
What does the red light solve, if not telling others that the glass-wearer is recording?
The same thing you do in any other situation where someone is behaving in a socially unacceptable way:
1. Legislate against that behaviour.
2. Punish those who do it anyway.
You can't stop it completely, but if for example the penalty for recording in public without everyone's consent were crushing your shiny new toy right in front of you the first time, fining you a month's salary the second time, and throwing you in jail for a month the third time, I think you'd find very few people really felt that using always-on recording technology was so valuable they couldn't do without it.
As for your analogy with copyright infringement, well, people used to say that driving while talking on a mobile or smoking in a crowded bar were too ingrained in society and no-one would be able to stop them. It turns out they were wrong, and the people who want to do those things at the expense of others are a small minority, and most of them give up and find other things to do instead when you threaten them with being arrested. The others, you try to catch and actually arrest.
As has been said many times before, just because we can do something, that doesn't mean we should. I could do all kinds of things right now that would hurt people in all kinds of ways, and nothing would physically stop me, and many of those things probably aren't even illegal. I still don't do them, because hurting people is a scummy thing to do.
Wearable computing and ubiquitous photography are going to be things as the cost of hardware falls. This is already true compared even to the world of the late nineties. Google glass is just the first attempt, but there will be others. WSJ opinion pieces are not going to define how people use it.
The actual social drawbacks combined with the benefits will be the determining factor in how people use it. I imagine (from actually watching people's reaction to the device in person) that in real scenarios most people will not care that you are wearing a Glass/iSee/Windows Goggle 8. And likewise, the relative infrequency of surreptitious recording being useful will limit how often the devices will be used that way.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/16/augmented-reality-explorer-...
As Kurzweil would say first the tech will be made for people with disabilities. Then it will at some point be better than real eyes and some people will start getting them on purpose. Finally most of the rest will at least augment themselves. People thought cellphones were stupid on the 80s. They thought computers were stupid in the 60-70s or at least that no normal person would want one. Now most 1st world people have both in the their pocket. Glass is only the first step.
Nobody's suggesting that you should be required to have an indicator that tells people you're looking at them. That's stupid.
A physical lens cover is the way to go.
A camera-free version is an even better option.
To get around this you would have to actually touch the hardware, so you need to take the device apart and rewire the camera (which can be and, considering the size of the device, probably will be pretty complicated). Sure, I’m certain it can be done, but not by many people.
There's a strange social phenomenon where some people feel obliged to not only pass judgment on the way other people enjoy their life (the same contingent of people who seem to dislike those family stickers on cars and people who take pictures of food), they must evangelize/enforce the style of life they're more comfortable with.
What's wrong with bluetooth guy (and his predecessor of 10 years before, cell-phone guy) using his technology? Deal with it like you deal with everything else: endure it, go somewhere else, or explain politely how their behavior is demonstrably harmful (not merely annoying, harmful).
> Be courteous and take the device off in locker rooms, public bathrooms, business meetings, movie theaters and anywhere else where wielding a camera would be improper or offensive.
Agreed. Those are legal issues and should absolutely be observed (the law, not the events).
Just a thinking-out-loud exercise. Move along.
I think if cochlear implants were mass-market for people who weren't born deaf, we'd probably already be facing some of the same social problems there - if it was widespread and common that people just carried around recording devices in their skulls, and anything you said anywhere could be recorded and replayed without your knowledge or permission, and it was common, that'd probably make people pretty paranoid. The introduction of smartphones and other commodity recording devices has already caused a problem here - with stories of police officers/military confiscating or damaging phones that are being used to record their acts, etc.
To a degree this isn't something unique to Glass, it's just the first time we've had a theoretically mass-market device come out that aims to make recording truly ubiquitous and non-obvious.