[From Epoch Times - Photographer Richard Gordon Documents U.S. Surveillance Cameras]
Eight years after the attacks of 9/11, documentary photographer Richard Gordon is exploring the controversy of security over personal privacy in his new book, American Surveillance. Amazon
In a project spanning 2003 to 2008, Gordon served as what he calls an observer in a climate with an increasing number of security cameras in public spaces. Shooting pictures with 35mm film in black and white, Gordon became a spy of countless spy cameras.
rshah General
[From Intelligence officials looking to cull terror info from huge stashes of surveillance tape -- chicagotribune.com]
A research program, Video Analysis and Content Extraction, has been under way since 2001 by the Office of Incisive Analysis, part of the government’s Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity. It is spending about $30 million and has several interesting projects related to this blog.
An overall program overview is available here. The VACE program provides funding for innovative, creative, high-risk research to achieve significant advancements in video content extraction technologies. Some listed examples include:
• VACE-funded face detection technology was transferred to NSA, who is providing additional funding to move to a PDA.
• VACE UAV technology transferred to the Joint Warfare Analysis Center enables UAV exploitation.
• Many VACE funded video research technologies are feeding the commercial market. Technologies are being integrated into existing commercial products, such as InforMedia, TerraSight, VideoFOCUS, MARVEL, AlertVideo, Digital Video Manager by companies including CMU, IBM, Honeywell, Salient Stills and Sarnoff Corporation. For example video resolution enhancement technology was transferred to the FBI Forensics via VideoFOCUS diminished time for decision making.
Another online publication, Intelligence, lists the companies by funding area for the phase II research in 2003-2005. There are also many powerpoint presentations online by Dennis Moellman who heads the program, for those that are seeking more information.
rshah General
[From SecurityInfoWatch.com Article- Eye on Video: Examining intelligent video]
Fredrick Nilsson of Axis Communications offers a number of myths on intelligent video. They are:
Myth 1: Intelligent video is more intelligent than you
Myth 2: Intelligent video is the wave of the future
Myth 3: I’ve seen the demo, so this must really work!
Myth 4: It takes a PhD to set it up
Myth 5: You need a digital signal processor (DSP) to run intelligent video
These all seem sensible to me. (I have a broader view of smart camera systems than Objectvideo, see their definition here)
rshah General
[From New Video Surveillance Cameras - High-Tech Law Enforcement Spying Programs - Popular Mechanics]
Great article, here are some interesting snippets:
Liberty Island’s video cameras all feed into a computer system. The park doesn’t disclose details, but fully equipped, the system is capable of running software that analyzes the imagery and automatically alerts human overseers to any suspicious events. The software can spot when somebody abandons a bag or backpack. It has the ability to discern between ferryboats, which are allowed to approach the island, and private vessels, which are not. And it can count bodies, detecting if somebody is trying to stay on the island after closing, or assessing when people are grouped too tightly together, which might indicate a fight or gang activity. “
My heist had been condoned by Pedro Ramos, Pathmark’s vice president of loss prevention, though he didn’t know precisely when or where I was going to attempt it. The beer was identified by an object-recognition scanner at ankle level—a LaneHawk, manufactured by Evolution Robotics—which prompted the cashier’s question. Overhead, a camera recorded the incident and an alert was triggered in Ramos’s office miles away on Staten Island. He immediately pulled up digital video and later relayed what he saw. “You concealed a 12-pack of Coronas on the bottom of the cart by strategically placing newspaper circulars so as to obstruct the view of the cashier.” (Using Storevision)
But examples abound. Take E-ZPass. Drivers signed up for the system to speed up toll collection. But 11 states now supply E-ZPass records—when and where a toll was paid, and by whom—in response to court orders in criminal cases. Seven of those states provide information in civil cases such as divorce, proving, for instance, that a husband who claimed he was at a meeting in Pennsylvania was actually heading to his lover’s house in New Jersey. (New York divorce lawyer Jacalyn Barnett has called E-ZPass the “easy way to show you took the offramp to adultery.”)
rshah Applications, General
From The Art of Surveillance, Wired has a story in its culture section with 11 images relating to surveillance.
Also, Newsweek ran a story on the new documentary film, Look by Adam Rifkin, that shows the impact of surveillance by relying entirely on surveillance footage. The web site has some good info and the writers have blogs. Right now the film is only in a few cities, hopefully at some point they will release a DVD (it will never come to a theater near me).
rshah General
From ABC News:
A basic story on whether surveillance cameras reduce crime. Nothing new, but the article is balanced (which is unusual).
rshah General
From Tech-Faq.com:
They have a definition for smart cameras, which is a starting point.
Smart cameras refer to the new-generation surveillance cameras with behavior-filtering capabilities; they are linked to software that can help the camera identify suspicious behavior. Thus, the person in charge of security need only look at videos when smart cameras send him an alert. This minimizes lost man-hours on monitoring perfectly normal activities and facilitates timely emergency responses.
Here are my quick problems with the definition. First, it focuses too much on behavior analysis rather than all the possibilities with video analytics. Second, it neglects other types of sensors that may provide useful information. But it is way better than the wikipedia, which only notes smart camera and nothing about smart cameras and a vague definition of video analytics.
rshah General
From FCW.com:
A nice article on smart cameras. It discusses the role of video analysis software used by the Halifax Port Authority (vendor is PureTech Systems) and the San Francisco airport (vendor is Vidient). It also gives a sensible use for smart cameras:
The airport spent about $30,000 for software that sounds alarms if it detects someone trying to bypass security via the exit lane for arriving passengers. “Many airports use a person to watch this lane, but we felt it was the best use of our resources to simply automate the monitoring job,” Short said.
As well as spill-over benefits of cameras:
Video software can also assist with forensic analysis after an incident occurs. Of the three incidents that have triggered alarms since the Rapid City Regional Airport installed motion-detection software in 2006, one involved a passenger who ignored alarms and continued to the boarding area. The video record of the event was a major piece of evidence for the U.S. attorney who prosecuted the breach.
Dilip Sarangan of Frost and Sullivan chimes in:
the market faces challenges in reaching that size. For one thing, the accuracy of analytical algorithms must improve. “This is still very, very much an emerging technology,” Sarangan said. “Only in the last year or two have we started to see companies actually implementing these solutions so they could be used as a complete security solution.”
rshah General, Vendors
Inspired by the Cincinnati Post:
Its something sociologists have long recognized, but its talked about very little. When cameras go up in one area, some crime may just move to another area. The term for this is displacement.
“We’ve never really gotten anything useful from them,” said Cincinnati Police Capt. Kimberly Frey. With hopes that they would be a boon for crime-fighting, the city first installed video cameras in 1998. By 2000, their utility was already in doubt. A review by the University of Cincinnati that year found the devices accomplished little beyond shifting criminals out of areas under the lens into unwatched spots, where they resumed their illegal activities.
While the police captain is shaking his head, the academic review provides some key insights. Some of results of the study were published in Security Journal by Mazerolle, Hurley, and Chamlin (I believe the Cincinnati study was done for David Hurley’s dissertation):
Our study of CCTV in Cincinnati found that surveillance cameras create somewhat of an initial deterrent effect in the month, perhaps two months, following implementation. We conclude that erecting signs to notify people about the cameras could possibly increase the level of deterrence of CCTV. Signs about CCTV cameras in operation would also address some of the fairness issues raised by civil libertarians. We also suggest that shifting CCTV cameras around on a frequent basis could solve two dilemmas: first, it would increase the number of hotspots under surveillance, and hence remove some of the inequities observed in CCTV deployment; second, short and periodic, as opposed to permanent, deployment of CCTV cameras would capitalize upon some of the initial deterrent effects of the cameras that are observed in our data.
The recommendations seem solid to me and should be considered by those deploying cameras. (And this shows the value of allowing academics to study the deployment of crime fighting technology).
**UPDATE** SORRY FOR THE DOUBLE POSTING – I posted this last year, but for some reason there was still a draft on my computer
rshah General
From USATODAY.com:
A story analyzing the market for video surveillance from an investment perspective. First, some perspectives:
In 2006, venture capitalists and other investors poured $100 million into late-stage video surveillance technology companies. Experts think the market is ready for consolidation.
Yet while digital video cameras are starting to emerge, more than 90% of cameras today still generate conventional analog images. Generally, that camera is attached to a video recorder or encoding appliance to translate the analog signal to digital. Start-ups making this conversion technology include . . . . These companies also typically offer some form of video analytics to help determine whether an image is important or not.
“We’re going to see more (mergers and acquisitions) from the likes of IBM and Cisco,” said Dilip Sarangan, a research analyst with Frost & Sullivan, a San Antonio-based technology consulting firm. “A lot of the previous M&A activity has been from traditional security players, but now it’s a growth market for information technology firms.”
Breaux Walker, managing director of America’s Growth Capital, an investment bank in San Francisco . . . “I think this is a hyped bubble,” Walker said. “When you look at the market, it’s just not that massive.”
While I don’t have any real knowledge for how fast this market is growing, my feeling is that its not very fast. While smart cameras systems are being installed, it is still a very small part of the market. There are lots of reasons for this, but I think most of these will disappear in the next 5-10 years as IP cameras proliferate and image processing power increases. So while I wouldn’t bet on these round of companies, I think its inevitable that this technology will be deployed.
rshah General
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