Boston PD Experimented With Facial Recognition Tech

“It's going to get better and better. As it does, it's not just the FBI, CIA, and government agencies, but also every shopping mall you go into, potentially sports arenas,” Crockford says. “It's going to look a lot like dystopian scenes in the mall in the film Minority Report.”

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/beantowns-big-brother

BEANTOWN'S BIG BROTHER: HOW BOSTON POLICE USED FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY TO SPY ON THOUSANDS OF MUSIC FESTIVAL ATTENDEES

By Luke O'Neil

Although we look back on it now through a mournful or angry lens, it's easy to forget just how downright disorienting the days and weeks following the Boston Marathon bombing in April of 2013 were. Adding to the surrealism of the drama for me was a night spent on lockdown in my…

Scramble Face Recognition Tech with CV Dazzle Camouflage

Anti-Surveillance Camouflage for Your Face
In a world of increasingly sophisticated facial-recognition technology, a drastic technique can throw the machines off your trail.
Robinson Meyer
Original Link (with great photos)
JULY 24, 2014

The NSA made me slather my face in make-up.

Or, it didn’t make me, exactly. But last spring, I found myself wandering around D.C., wearing dazzle camouflage for the first time. It was a sunny Saturday, the capital swamp neither frigid nor muggy-oppressive—perfect for walking. It took me 45 minutes to get all the makeup on, to get the pencil right and the hair dangled just so.

I spent the day hanging out with some friends around Adams Morgan, a neighborhood seemingly developed by former hippies who had…

Urban sensing - light poles have eyes, ears, etc. (Chicago)

Big Brother? Chicago to measure pedestrians' movements
by Jolie Lee

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/06/24/chicago-big-da…

By year's end, Chicago could have as many as 50 sensors attached to downtown light poles collecting data on everything from the humidity to air quality to the noise level.

The project, called "Array of Things," has the potential for far-reaching applications. For example, air quality data could help you navigate a route through the city that avoids pollution and allergens. Or traffic data could inform the city where best to install bike lines.

"The whole project is, how can you get the city to be more helpful to people by telling us about itself?" said Charlie Catlett, director of the Center for Computation and Data at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory, in an interview…

wtf?! Robocop tech rolls through SF like a Dalek.

http://knightscope.com/

Sci-Fi movies have a remarkable way of freeing the mind to think through future possibilities. It is for that reason that I treated my team to opening day at the movies to see the remake of Robocop. The movie paints a vivid, albeit extremely dramatized, picture of how robotics might influence and redefine what lies ahead in public safety.

Knightscope is definitely a hot topic! Most recently, Gartner named Knightscope in its annual "Cool Vendors" report (Gartner Cool Vendors in Automotive, Thilo Koslowski, 9 April 2014). Plug and Play Tech Center selected Knightscope from over 350 start-ups as its Hottest Company for March 2014. And Knightscope’s previous awards include the Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce 2013 Award for Startup Company of the Year and Best of Show…

Excessive Police Raid Due to Protest Graffiti (Vancouver)

http://warriorpublications.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/police-raid-house-i…

At around 9AM on June 3, 2014, approximately 16 cops from the Vancouver Police Department raided a house in East Vancouver under the pretext of investigating six mischief charges related to graffiti tags dating from June, July, and October of 2013. The four residents of the house, and one guest, were removed one by one by police aiming pistols at them. One person inside the house looked out their bedroom window and saw a cop pointing his pistol at him.

The house targeted by the raid is comprised of radicals involved in Indigenous resistance as well as anarchist projects in the city (including myself, the editor of the Warrior Publications wordpress site).

Once removed from the house, the five people were placed in a prisoner transport van…

SF Graffiti taggers could face a much bigger price tag

Graffiti taggers could face a much bigger price tag

C.W. Nevius

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/Graffiti-taggers-could-fac…

Graffiti in San Francisco is a mess - literally and figuratively. That's not a scoop, it is merely a discouraging reality.

It begins with the city being a mecca for spray paint vandals from across the…

SF Takes Aim at Graffiti Vandals

SF takes aim at graffiti vandals, tries to lessen burden on victims
Posted by Joshua Sabatini on Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 7:29 PM

Supervisor London Breed has introduced legislation targeting graffiti vandals; police made 203 graffiti-related arrests in 2013, most of them adults.

San Francisco’s $20-million-a-year graffiti problem has seemingly caused more problems for victimized property owners and public agencies than for the vandals.

But now the City Attorney’s Office could be allowed to go after graffiti vandals in civil proceedings that would force them to pay for the damage and perform community service.

Supervisor London Breed and other city officials say the current process does not work and penalizes the victims, since property owners must remove graffiti within 30 days or face fines.

“We estimate that over 90 percent of the graffiti offenses are committed by the same people,” Breed said Tuesday, when she also introduced…

Stencil graffiti practically legal in NYC - if you're white and wearing a suit

 

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/12/i-got-myself-arrest…

Ten years ago, when I started my career as an assistant district attorney in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, I viewed the American criminal justice system as a vital institution that protected society…

Legal Dept: Techies Developing Apps to Fight Graffiti

Just a few examples from a simple Google search:

Graffiti Buster: http://www.troyweb.com/graffiti-buster/
Since the days of Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, graffiti has adorned the walls of our urban neighborhoods. In modern times, spray paint and marker pens have become the most commonly used graffiti materials. Graffiti is a quality-of-life issue that can result in costly cleanup and lowered property values. It generates the perception of blight. The appearance of graffiti is often perceived by residents and passers-by as a sign that a downward spiral in a neighborhood has begun, even though this may not be true.

The Graffiti Buster App was created as another tool to combat blighting graffiti in our neighborhoods. With the app, the reporting of graffiti is now streamlined, providing all needed information directly to municipal authorities. Reporting graffiti for cleanup is now as easy…

Woman Arrested for Instagramming Street Art

Woman Arrested for Instagramming Street Art
by Hrag Vartanian on April 4, 2013

Original here: http://hyperallergic.com/68151/artist-arrested-for-instagramming-street…

20-year-old artist Jennifer Pawluck was arrested Wednesday morning at 10:30am after posting a picture of anti-police street art on her Instagram feed a few days before.

“Many of my friends do not like the police,” Pawluck told the Huffington Post Québec in French. “I thought it would be funny to put the picture on Instagram. I do not even know who he is, Ian Lafrenière.”

Pawluck…