George Orwell, prophet.

[Dreadnought]

Talking CCTV trialled (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/5353538.stm).

Now I've seen it all. How long until we see Big B-liar's face on our TV screens 24 hours a day, telling us how wonderful things are and how well we are doing in the war against Eastasia...

[Kaishowing]

Unfortunately, I think it's just the thin end of the wedge......They're already talking about scrapping the road tax in favour of direct-debiting drivers for the actual roads they use, by tracking the cars via microchips in the sat nav systems (which are becoming far more common)....and with the Oyster travel card system in London going to expand, they'll be able to track movements when on foot too.
I wonder just how far it'll go!?!:eek:

[j4bberw0ck]

Unfortunately, I think it's just the thin end of the wedge......

Yes, agreed.



They're already talking about scrapping the road tax in favour of direct-debiting drivers for the actual roads they use, by tracking the cars via microchips in the sat nav systems (which are becoming far more common)....and with the Oyster travel card system in London going to expand, they'll be able to track movements when on foot too.
I wonder just how far it'll go!?!:eek:

I have confidence that it'll be some while before road pricing by tracking vehicles can be made to work for reasons I outlined in the National Identity Card Scheme thread a while back:


Your movements are not tracked by satellite. Your movements may be tracked by a small black box in your car. I understand that the result is the same, but let's get it right.

It's important because whenever governments put in a system to track / monitor / charge, the whole of human ingenuity is diverted into getting round it. Examples:

1. Governments charge tax on income. As tax rates go higher people resort to more and more elaborate ways of disguising their income or avoiding tax. "Is it cash?" is just the start.

2. Government sets limits on "duty free" goods or goods bought in an area of lower tax rates. Before you know it you have a sub-industry of people bring in alcohol and tobacco for resale.

3. Government introduces speed cameras. Result: an immediate market in camera detectors (legal or otherwise), laser jammers, RF jammers and simple Bowden cable devices which allow a motorcyclist to "flip" his rear numberplate up so it can't be photographed. Also sprays which allegedly mask your numberplate from the camera, fresnel lens numberplates - there is no limit to human ingenuity.
4. <edit> - hehehehe.... beautiful example of ingenuity, just found >>>here<<< (http://forum.caithness.org/showthread.php?t=12972)

The government can't even make tagging of offenders work properly. How they'd make tracking the movements of 25 million vehicles from minute to minute work is beyond me.

Follow the logic above. Government decrees you'll pay by the mile and it's now compulsory to fit a black box to track movement. If black boxes go faulty at the rate of say 0.5%, then at any one time there'll be 125,000 faulty black boxes needing replacement. During that time they don't know whether you're using the car or not; there'd be a revolution if the box was also an immobiliser......

How long would it take, do you think, before instructions for sabotaging your black box appeared on the 'net? Before a sub-industry sprang up selling other black boxes that jam / fry / interfere with the government black box? I'd give it about 3 minutes........... the alternative would be to set up roadside cameras with a radio installed. As you drive past, the radio link interrogates the black box and if it gets no reply or a faulty checksum, it photos you. Cost? Huge. Weaknesses? Lots. Speed cameras have been bombed, burned, rammed, spraypainted.... and what's happened? Many have been removed because of the public's reaction. They turned ordinary law-abiding people into vandals. Big Brother cameras are a step too far, I think.

But the general point by Dreadnought about government spying on people and seeking to control them is a real one, and George Orwell did indeed have it described accurately.

[Dreadnought]

Yet more State control/intrusion? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6170070.stm)

[Kolskegg]

The thought of Blair's s-mug on a huge screen is disturbing. I already avoid Ananova's news because his face gleams with insistent fervour every time you go to the site.

This kind of thing is frightening to me, because it often gives me the feeling that the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. George Orwell 1942