Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • September 1, 2023 7:57 AM

@ Vi Mcknight,

You’ve not considered “wire tap” regulation and legislation.

It has very very broad skirts.

For instance whilst CCTV is legal, in banks and similar you can not record audio because it’s considered to be a form of wire tap.

The same applies to all electronic surveillance where it is possible for some form of recording to be made.

So much so that if you give evidence and it is challenged, and you produce an audio recording to show you are telling the truth, then your evidence can be entirely thrown out due to it in part due to wire tap, and in part due to withholding it (so in effrct a setup for a deliberate entrapment).

Thus the trick is to show “contemporaneous notes” that are effectively a “transcript” made at the time or soon after. Thus the audio recording magically becomes legal like a shorthand note book, as it’s purpose was either as an “Aide-mémoire” or for an impartial third party to type up (think time shifted stenographer).

As is so often the case,

“It’s not the action but the intention”

That makes it a crime or not under the notion of,

“actus reus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea”

Or in english “the act is not culpable unless the mind is guilty”.

Clive Robinson • September 2, 2023 5:34 PM

@ vas pup, Vi Mcknight, ALL,

Re : Lip reading of CCTV.

“Having access to AI tools it is easy to translate image (lips moving) into the real speech. Looks like those restrictions are not up to date with technology.”

Lip reading of CCTV footage has always been possible especially with eye hight cameras.

It’s one of the less well known reasons why CCTV cameras are usually placed high and to look down at 45 or more degrees, so that lip reading is difficult.

But also lip reading is an aquired skill, something I’ve had to come to terms with as I suffer from increasingly blocking tinitus, for which hearing aids do not work.

Oh and for fun when younger I learned to speak sing –not that well– with barely moving my lips, and when smiling, oh and to whistle a tune when smiling as well… Yes it’s a silly party trick most of the time but occasionaly it has it’s uses when “standing on Parade” and similar.