Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • November 13, 2024 11:20 AM

The article opens with,

“Will Freeman began noticing lots of cameras.”

To many this will sound like Will is paranoid, he’s not, these cameras are popping up all over the place.

In the UK quite often they are installed in “public parking” where you are allowed only an hour or so of parking to “Shop in their store” and the camera systems are tied into the till systems.

Untill recently most of these number plate reading cameras were installed by private companies as part of what used to be the “private parking” scam where people became subject to thousands of pounds of fines and even criminal records (look up UK “Single Justice Procedure” and what happens to those who do not pay the fines that are imposed often unlawfully).

But they are also now in “Public Places” run by the same companies but on behalf of what we call “Local Government” in the UK and some are used to “ring fence” entire towns or cities again as a “revenue raising” measure loosely disguised as some form of “antisocial” or other “preventative” measure.

In the article we see this “lie” referred to by,

“Flock is one of the largest vendors of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) in the country. The company markets itself as having the goal to fully “eliminate crime” with the use of ALPRs and other connected surveillance cameras, a target experts say is impossible.”

You can be assured that the “experts” are correct when they say it’s “impossible”, and even an average person can also work out why.

It’s a nonsense to cover the fact that these systems are “currently” for “revenue raising” and it is only going to get worse in the way the “rent seeking” will be “extracted” with further “lies for cover” given at every stage.

But note the “other connected surveillance cameras”, these are what you might call CCTV currently put in to “reduce crime” and fail at it.

Part of the reason they fail is that the surveillance is,

1, Operated by fallible humans
2, They only get viewed long after any crime has occured.

Thus criminals who have any kind of evolutionary ability have learnt how to “work around active surveillance systems” like CCTV (the same is becoming true for surveillance by travel cards, credit cards, mobile phones, and even other fake security communications systems).

In short none of these surveillance systems are even close to 100% even when people are not trying to deliberately or otherwise evade them. Yup people get “creepy” or “sixth sense” feelings, they don’t know why but it causes them to avoid “people and places” without recognising it consciously.

So far we’ve found that whilst these systems may initially be successful they fairly quickly end up “failing totally” at things like “anti-crime” etc.

That is those who are “a little thoughtful” and also “a little observant” in effect “out evolve” these static surveillance systems, and often the systems that are not static (as those who hunt are generally not that good at it in oh so many ways). This is because being thoughtful and observant are two fundamentals of “prey creatures” that have developed working “survival instincts” by evolutionary processes.

You can see part of the “hunter failings” and the consequences referenced in the article with, Will commenting,

“I’ve become good at spotting them just because I’m kind of subconsciously always looking for them”

Longterm readers may remember I’ve made this observation about quite a few things. Probably most often about “odd antennas” and “human behaviours”, the latter to do with those “watching the watchers” in “close safeguarding” and “in personal surveillance” activities.

Most people do not understand antennas speak volumes about what the systems are that connect to them. In turn these connected systems speak volumes about what is going on. So the antenna is “meta-data” and the probable systems “meta-meta-data” which like communications “traffic Analysis”(TA) gives away much of what is going on to an observant and thoughtful person. Whilst the person might be wrong, any avoidant actions they might take tend to be both “low cost” and “low risk” thus effectively “inexpensive” to them if wrong, but with a very high return in the cases when they are right… Thus the “ROI Calculus” tells you why in nature it’s a well developed “survival instinct” that functions below the conscious mind in quite a few people (it gets given fancy names one of which is “situational awareness” another is “thinking hinky” an expression our host @Bruce used to be fond of).

Likewise those who “watch bodyguards” or “follow others” supposedly covertly and the like, by their out of place behaviours “stand out” to those just “trailing along” or just sitting on the sidewalk. So if you do “close protection” or similar it’s wise to have your own watcher trailing along or sitting waiting to spot those who are “Watching the watchers”.

It’s not “paranoid” it’s,

“Not being low hanging fruit.”

Which in a “target rich environment” may well save you from harm.

My father used to tell me when I was young,

“The place to be when there is trouble is somewhere else.”

By which he ment that if you were observant and thoughtful you could see situations starting to happen and thus take avoidant actions sufficiently early. So not only whilst you still could safely, but sufficiently far ahead that nobody could say you were in any way involved… As if and when it did “kick off”, you were “not there long before” and thus could not even have been a witness let alone involved.

Which brings us back to why all these doomed to fail “anti-crime” systems are being brought in. Currently they are being used for “revenue raising” in a way that,

“Taxes the foolish and unprepared.”

But history tells us this is not the end game. Penultimately all surveillance systems are about “power through control” even when actually being used for anti-crime activities. But ultimately all surveillance systems are about oppression via “violence and war”. Because that is how the power is exerted through “Guard Labour” and how those under the oppression almost always “throw it off”. It’s one of the reasons that certain types of Empire fail badly and painfully, whilst others morph or fade into society and thus change with it.

These “surveillance systems” will fail, as they do not give equity just oppression. So history gives us an indication of what can happen and the general questions we can clearly ask are,

1, How the systems will remain hidden / excused untill sufficiently ubiquitous?
2, How they might change or be augmented?
3, How the power they give to a few will be used to oppress?
4, For how long they will be used to oppress?
5, How the majority will eventually get rid of the oppression they cause?

We can see the first already in progress with the “anti-crime” lie, and how that is changing into “revenue raising”. And it’s safe to predict there will be several more lies to in effect hide the spread of these systems. It is after all just a variant of “Think of the Children” and similar political covers and “dog whistles”.

The second is on the technology side something those in power “double down on” over and over when systems they think will bring them power fail over and over. Their behaviour mirrors the various “investor fallacies”,

https://dariusforoux.com/investing-fallacies/

And they just end up throwing “good money after bad” and there are always “willing hands” to help them achieve this (think back to 9/11 and what ended up being called “Security Theatre” and various economies got crippled as a result).

The purse holders fail to realise the rule that con and other artists know only too well,

“The new only works when unknown to the audience.”

As it becomes known it becomes less and less effective.

So as we are in an AI LLM/ML investing bubble currently that has kind of replaced the Blockchain / NFT bubble of Web3. We can expect those “willing hands” to take up AI as a way,

“To make surveillance deliver the power the purse holders think it should give.”

History and common sense should tell people two things,

1, It’s at best unlikely and much more likely to fail expensively.
2, There are always those that will take money from those that “have more money than sense”.

The trick is to be in the “willing hand” group in “a safe way” such that you not just “fleece the idiots” you can “DeFlock” them as well.

Clive Robinson • November 22, 2024 6:39 PM

@ Bruce,

Indirectly relevant.

It’s about the making of a camera that does not use conventional optics but “nano-antennas” on top of a neural network. The result is a small grain sized camera with high fidelity in full colour.

Think of it as a “Phased Array Antenna” combined with a small version of an “AI LLM network” that produces a camera to small to be seen by the human eye at more than a few feet (about six).

Think what it could do if embedded into the frame of a pair of glasses etc. It would make surveillance trivial. Worse the usual “bug finder” way of finding hidden cameras is 180degree reflection off of a reflecting surface seen through a focused lense. There is no focused lense in such a camera…

From the article,

“The “meta-optics” camera is 500,000 times smaller than comparable imaging devices.”

https://cacm.acm.org/news/a-camera-the-size-of-a-grain-of-salt-could-change-imaging-as-we-know-it/

This is the sort of technology nightmares are made of in the cold light of day.