[extropy-chat] Wearable Camera Etiquette

[duggerj1 at charter.net]

Saturday, 10 April 2004

Hello all:

Adrian Tymes wrote 
"Yep.  Note that it's potentially a *lot* of hassle -
the degree definitely matters here.  It's a
cost/benefit calculation, and the cost exceeds the
benefit at this time."

Good. I understood you correctly then. Just how high would the benefits have to reach to make it worth your _personal_ while? If you'd rather not indulge my curiosity, I understand. 
     Extropian Agroforestry points out some of the far-term benefits. By contrast, I'll use this for the banal more often than not. I wish I had it earlier today when my mother's cat played with a foam ball, for example. At work, I wish I had it two months ago when a video projector had a fault that made the image appear as if stirred by a stick. I had a clear image of the skeptical impression on my boss's face after describing it to him verbally. He lacked a clear mental picture of the problem. This tool will fix that, just as the screen capture feature of modern oscilloscopes fix the problem of describing waveforms over the phone.


Mike Lorrey wrote:

"Someone asking you to not record
something that they consider private is their right."

How so? Does the right to communicate freely imply the right not to communicate at all? Does privacy correspond directly to non-communication? I certainly want to live in a society valuing privacy and anonymity, but I might like a society where these can be freely traded for various benefits better. I don't yet know.

"What if the person is on the run from Big Brother and doesn't want his
or her image being broadcast across the net, to be recognised and
triangulated?"

IMO: I have a civic obligation to help catch criminals. If he or she committed an act I don't think should count as a crime, then aiding them, or just not helping police, counts as civil disobedience on my part. 

This lies pretty far from the abilities of the camera I pre-ordered. To irretreviably lose video, just point the camera somewhere else for 30 seconds and don't save it.

Eugen Leitl wrote

"It depends on what you do is recognizable as such (how can people tell you're
capturing? Optical apertures are tiny these days)."

Based on the maker's ad copy, it seems about two inches long or so. You might hack it to fit behind a shirt button, but I don't plan on that. In the video and stills it seems pretty obvious. Video quality seems okay, but depth of field, low-light ability, shutter speed, and so on all remain unknown.

"Is there ja policy on gargoyling?"

Lovely neologism. Did you invent it?

"Are you in violation, and will they pounce on you while in the
process (streaming crypted stuff offsite)"

That lies outside the ability of this gadget. Adding it looks like a straightforward exercise, aside from some hardware hacking, but I have neither time nor money for it.

I have no real interest in legal liabilites yet. If I stay inside the bounds of etiquette, I bet I stay within legal limits too. Any thoughts?

Jay Dugger     :     Til Eulenspiegel
http://www.owlmirror.net/~duggerj/
Sometimes the delete key serves best.