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RE: Phone Tapping YES - Cameras Everywhere NO

Comment comment by VnutZ on 28 January 2008

Hmm some places have great cameras..I once crossed the toll plaza from MD to DE, and was accidentally in the EZ Pass Lane (my view was blocked by a large semi, alas). A couple of weeks later, I received a letter from the DE DOT detailing my violation and asking for $2.00. In the letter was a photo of me, my car and a VERY clear shot of my license plate. They got their $2.00.

True - a lot of the newer systems are featuring significantly better cameras than the old 320x200 cameras of the past. Still, the good cameras come at the cost of being located on locations with money (like toll plazas) or bank security, etc. The black and white footage from a franchise 7-11? Still sucks. Traffic cams along I-95? Still pretty bad other than letting you see the weather and how congested a road is.

I think a lot of it has to do with field of view as well. Take the traffic cam for example - it's purpose is not to read license plates but to show a swath of highway. It can do that with a wide angle lens and a low resolution. Now, the camera that nabbed your felonious joyride through the EZ-pass (grin) probably had a much narrower field of view aimed to catch the license plate, make of car, etc. Was it a black-n-white image? Many of those higher resolution cameras make use of infrared imagery to work day or night and to penetrate license plate obscuring scams.

Digital communication--there were stories back a few years ago about the 'Echelon' project. My understanding is that nearly every digital conversation--phone, chat, etc.-- could be recorded, scanned, pattern analyzed, etc. Echelon was supposed to do this on a global scale. I figure the digital world is eavesdropped on all of the time; nothing is sacred not even the words I'm typing here.

That sounds strangely familiar, I'll need to Google a little to refresh my memory. Now if only the eavesdropping NSA folks would participate on OmniNerd - we could get some cooler conversations going!

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True - a lot of the newer systems are featuring significantly better cameras than the old 320x200 cameras of the past. Still, the good cameras come at the cost of being located on locations with money (like toll plazas) or bank security, etc.

No argument there, and my 'feloneous' ride was photographed by a b&w camera, so it could have been IR. Even though it only cost me the price of the normal 'ride' through (though, if I hadn't paid in in 10 days, it would have cost me $25 more), I'm still more cautious these days--I try not to get caught up in any 'packs' when heading toward toll plazas.

I had only owned the car 6 hours when I got nabbed too..LOL..I was heading for CT for some R&R.