Birmingham's "Operation Netcast" - Big Brother?

Other than these inish-nutives a copper is a rare sight in
Birmingham. In truth it has decayed very badly. Some areas are
personally uncomfortable just to drive through in daytime.
Nowhere in London, Liverpool, or even Milton Keynes has invoked
that feeling.

I was addressing your point with a simile to highlight the
potential danger in your argument. So answer the question. Would
you agree to the entire UK population being compulsarily
fingerprinted and DNA sampled towards similar ends?

Because the law of this land has always presumed innocence
without evidence to the contrary. Without grounds for suspicion
we should not be scrutinised.

At times it's helped but it can be damaging. A while ago I was
grilled for 4 hours over the murder of a young girl. My only
crime was taking my kids to the zoo on the same day the police
were logging passing vehicles where the body had been found. A
witness remembered a large white car. I had a white Jag so the
'puter spits out my details and the Plod assume they've got a
result. Shit happens but it ain't pleasant. This is what occurs
when we allow the police to use computers in place of detectives.

No, I'm saying it's technology that threatens to enslave us. All
we have on our side for the moment is official ineptitude. Take
the CSA's computer fiasco.

To be honest I wasn't sure what point you were trying to make.
Could you rephrase?

riccip

 

Will note for future, I'm on the sociology of education path atm. Not
done any crime stuff for about 7 years, so I'm well out of date.

Ooo nasty when it's a lecturer, you have to hope you have a decent one
and not an ego monster. It shouldn't make any difference, systems are
in place to ensure it doesn't (I sat on a rather nasty academic board
when in the SU and advised another student not to take it that far -
togh decisiom that one and tied up in some horrendous personality
clash politics that the Uni had been merrily turning a blind eye to
while students suffered) but you do get cases..

I'd laugh only it isn't funny.

Yes you mentioned that - mix of research approaches yes?

See above.

hmmm, very broad range. I'm never sure about the philosophy/sociology
cross overs. Neither one thing nor t'other. How's it rate on the
academic to populist scale? I dip into both ends (yes, yes, whatever)

 

Your examples however aren't compulsory. You could choose not to
have a bank card or to leave Cardiff Uni. You won't be offered
any option of choice when ID cards are forced upon us.

Perhaps not "as yet", although some factions within those
countries would disagree. I'm not sure if those countries with ID
cards had the accompanying database that our State will possess.

True. I'm worried what will happen when the data on an individual
is incorrect or misleading. In another thread I outlined my woes
concerning an imaginary figure on the Taxman's computer. The
Taxman knows I don't owe it. A judge has agreed I don't owe it.
But I must still pay because the IR computer says I do.

riccip

 

Lady Nina emerged from their own little world to say

It's not so bad. He's quite laid back. Although the staff do seem to be
in awe.

I asked him to be my dissertation supervisor. He agreed.

Yes. Some secondary data analysis and interviews. All qualitative data.

It's the in thing. I have been taught how sociology has its roots in
French and German philospohy. Kant, Comte and Hegel being the main
influences of Weber, Marx and Durkheim, the so-called founding fathers.

c20 philosophers such as Althusser, Lyotard, Derrida & Habermas all
feature regularly in reading lists. Most are completely barking, but,
just like your oft quoted Goering, they say something meaningful.

 

Colonel Tupperware emerged from their own little world to say

Heh. I was quite impressed with the BBC newsreel footage that accompanied
the recent CSA fiasco. Huge EDS logos were evident in the top left of the
screen. Top job.

 

Heh. Sounds promising then.

<nods> The choices I made within the degree started broad then
narrowed to the philosophy and psychology end. then within that they
narrowed again.

Yes. Lyotard and Derrida I did, Althusser and Habermas I struggled
with but I think that was because I was so young at the time. Each
time I return to the canon (and there's another discussion) I find
something new.

 

They've had ANPR at the Trafford Centre for over a year now. It was
briefly mentioned in the local paper around that time, but it's been
kept reasonably quiet. Probably so as not to deter chavs from shopping.

I think ANPR won't spot anything wrong if you've put on the plate reg of
a legit car on, but in police cars I think it shows the expected
make/model/colour car of the reg, which a copper can check visually. So
it'd be best to copy the reg of a similar car.

People do get wrongly pulled when the ANPR misreads the reg though, from
things like rust/black screws on the plate.

http://www.traffordcentre.co.uk/default.asp?id=1992

 

Nurse! This one needs his lithium dosage increasing.

What the hell has PNCing a few thousand registration
numbers got to do with the I.D. card debate[1]?

You effectively have a sort of contract which allows you
to use the roads. You agree to pass a competence test,
insure your vehicle, tax it, keep it roadworthy and abide
by the rules of use. Why should the way in which the relevant
authorities check you are abiding by your part of the
bargain, be of major concern? Seems eminently sensible to me.

I, like most here (probably), happen to disagree with some
of the rules and the relative importance (and penalty
weightings) applied to the some transgressions of those
rules. But generally I see no problem with how the authorities
choose to police those rules. You still have a choice...

[1]Which, for the record, I disagree with.

--
Alex
BMW R1150GS
DIAABTCOD#3 MSWF#4 UKRMFBC#6 Ibw#35 BOB#8
http://www.team-ukrm.co.uk
Windy's "little soldier"

 

You disagree with the debate?

Fascist!


--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Kawasaki ZX-6R J1
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, TEAR#3 (and KotL), DS#5, COSOC#9, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

That would be lower case then?

 

Clearly.
I disagree with all debate. How could I, possibly, be wrong?

Now **** off you speccy northern twat and stop picking up on minor
syntactical errors in otherwise worthy postings.

--
Alex
BMW R1150GS
DIAABTCOD#3 MSWF#4 UKRMFBC#6 Ibw#35 BOB#8
http://www.team-ukrm.co.uk
Windy's "little soldier"

 

Do you not want to discuss it?

Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!

--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Kawasaki ZX-6R J1
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, TEAR#3 (and KotL), DS#5, COSOC#9, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

<Chorus>

Shut up peasant!

Phil

 

Really?

I'd quite happily walk through everywhere in Birmingham.

 

350 highly trained police officers participated in yesterday's
Birmingham inish-nutive which led to just 50 arrests, mainly for
motoring offences. Each arrest roughly equates to THREE WEEKS
active police work per officer. Meanwhile burglaries continue
unabated at twice the national average. Given B'ham's abysmal
crime detection record such squandering of resources borders on
the obscene.

If the use of Automated Number Plate Registration technology
continues unchecked then within 10 years it will be built into
every speed camera in Britain along with every police jamjar and
possibly every motorway bridge. By 2008 with compulsory ID card
registration the State will be keeping in-depth data files on
every one of us. I believe at some point the two will be linked
so that every individual's movements will be "mapped", everywhere
they go during their lifetime.

You seem to forget that those are our roads and *our* rules. They
belong to us as a society, not to the police or the State. We pay
the police to serve us by enforcing our laws and catch criminals.
However crime statistics clearly demonstrate how the emphasis has
shifted from detecting serious crime to "easy nicks" for minor
transgressions aimed at generally law abiding members of the
public. "Zero tolerance policing" works well in America where
they target ALL law breakers both large and small. Here it is
interpreted as a licence to harass.

There has never been a better time to consider a lucrative
criminal career. Your chances of getting caught are minimal so
long as you keep your speed down and your vehicle taxed. Ask any
professional motorcycle thief. When your last bike was stolen
were you honestly satisfied with the ensuing police
investigation, or lack of it?

Alas you see no inherent dangers in being policed by computer.
Sadly such apathy endangers the personal freedoms of the rest. I
hope you feel the same way in a few years' time when someone has
"spoofed" your ID data to cover their tracks.

To emigrate possibly. My family are seriously considering a move
to Germany (yes I know, "don't let me stop you"). One can travel
the length and breadth of Germany without spotting a speed
camera. Despite a plethora of petty laws, rules and regulations
the police and State maintain a healthy "hands-off" approach,
policing criminals rather than the general public. They take an
individual's right to personal privacy very seriously with legal
protection built into the system. We Brits once cherished similar
values.

riccip

 

Then walk past the Black Cat Cafe unarmed to test that opinion.

riccip

 

In an exchange, your voice data is usually sampled at approx 8000Hz, and
telephone exchanges tend not to be like PCs. They are massively
distributed systems for starters, processors on every level, right from
the lowly device processors on the line interface cards, extension
module regional processors, regional processors, right up to the central
processors, adjunct processors and IOG processors. In other words,
processors everywhere.

Slap in the right APZ/APT software unit, and the right hardware, and I
should think that you could do anything to those little 8k packets of
voice you wanted to, including voice recognition. I can't see the powers
that be wanting to monitor or being able to monitor every line, but some
percentage of lines.... only the ones of interest to them.

Ok, a little knowhow is a dangerous thing, but I can see how a system
like this could be made to monitor a portion of selected lines quite easily.

I'm not paranoid, but have worked with exchanges for a while, and can
see how the monitoring of lines could work[1].

[1]Ignoring the fact that mobile exchanges have special APZ based
monitoring software all of their own.

 

Nope. Only that there be reasonable grounds for suspicion.

We have such a system already. The crime rate? You have a 27%
risk of being a victim of crime. 13% increase in murders and
serious wounding in the last year. 21% increase in "violence
against the person" in the same period. 10% increase in criminal
damage. 6% increase in sexual offences. Real crime goes
comparatively uninvestigated. Many victims don't even bother
filing a report.

riccip

 

Lozells? Not exactly the city centre is it?

 

Exactly. That's what any self-respecting criminal will be doing
when the authorities carpet the country with ANPR detectors. Only
the innocent need concern themselves.

Yes I saw that on a TV proggy. Poor cop looked gutted when his
"court fine evader" turned out to be a chap with a rusty number
plate bolt. Rest assured such a thing will be an offence in due
course. They'll be nicking you for having bird shit on your
plate.

riccip