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Wired has a fun story about an Austrian hacker group called Quintessenz that found various ways to mess with their country's closed-circuit surveillance cameras. Partly they were just blinding the cameras various ways, but more interesting is that the group found a way to intercept and decrypt the video signals—bringing to mind David Brin's (increasingly prescient-seeming) Transparent Society.

Comments

[Paul]

Believe you me, I'm all over it.

[James]

See, those people are, in fact, fighting for my freedom. And I am thankful for it. I really am.

[jf]

If there must be watchmen, everyone should be able to watch them. Nothing less is acceptable. In addition, in a truly free society, I've come to believe that openness in all areas is the only option. Secrets do not make us safer.

[Rhywun]

The website mentioned in the article, http://www.vam.com, which "gives users the ability to search by country or topic -- and then rate the cameras", ain't there.

[Bo]

Didn't try it, but I'll bet it's "cam," not "vam."

[BobDole]

2600 had a great article about this a few issues back. I forget the command, but there were a lot of unsecured directable cameras hooked directly to the internet. It was really entertaining for a week or so. Also, numbers for letters.

[Larry A]

The pendulum swings. The open model is like when people used to grow up in small towns where everyone knew everything they and their parents and grandparents had done.

No more copying down driver's license numbers before cashing a check.

[Andrew Ian Dodge]

Nice, that would be fun...CCTV live!