Interesting thoughts about surveillance

I realized recently that it is interesting that you have a lot of public places where you are not allowed to take photos. All the places where you have some sort of travelling, military, hospitals schools included photography might be forbidden or very restricted. I found this out while doing a third year product design project about transport. We tried to take pictures of trains and train stations but we got told that we would have needed a permission from London to do so... The reason given to it is that it prevents terrorism and gives some people privacy. I find this it a bit weird since at the same time all the cameras are filming you and that data is very easy to get. I know it is very easy to get since I found a 2 minute youtube video online which tells you how to hack some CCTV's online ( https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=iqHnxiiFmgE ) I couldn't believe that the tutorial wasn't fake and you can actually watch live CCTV while sitting in your bed drinking coffee, it is quiet insane... I am sure some cameras are more secure than the others but none of them should be as easy accessible as this! There is an interesting article about this http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/cctv-hack/

Surveillance projects funded by European Commission

I found quiet a few surveillance projects which have been funded by European Commission and which are quiet interesting since they are close to my topic.

1. ADABTS - Automatic Detection of Abnormal Behavior and Threats in crowded Spaces. The aim of the project is to find a system what detects if something interesting happens in surveillance devices. These situations would include for example

• Running in a place where you normally do not run (security check at an airport, at a bank office).
  
  
• Using an emergency exit (a good indicator that we have some kind of emergency situation).
  
  
• Going the wrong way in a one-way passage.
  
  
• Fighting.
  
  
• Screaming (agressively or for help).

Respect is an interesting programe since their main aim is to analyze the surveillance systems. I think their objectives and aims are very important since in many countries peoples opinion's haven't really been asked when the security systems have been implemented. 

RESPECT's Objectives:

1. Review the actual effectiveness of surveillance systems and procedures used in Europe in preventing / reducing crime; and in tracking evidence for improved prosecutions of crimes and acts of terrorism.
2. Identify and examine the social and economic costs involved in the adoption and implementation of identified surveillance systems and procedures.
3. Determine the legal basis adopted for these systems and procedures, identifying any best practices that may have evolved as well as those areas where there is a need for improvement.
4. Explore European citizen’s awareness/acceptance of surveillance systems and procedures based on attitudes to efficiency, economic and social costs.
5. Identify the possible effect of cultural influences on citizens’ acceptance of surveillance systems and procedures.
6. Compare and further develop findings on these systems, procedures and attitudes with findings found in the FP7 CONSENT and SMART projects.
7. Establish best-practice criteria developed on the basis of operational, economic, social and legal efficiency and citizen perceptions
8. Develop a tool-kit capable of pan-European application (and beyond). This would be composed of three main items:
   1. a matrix-style checklist incorporating operational/technical-economics-social factors – legal aspects which could be utilised as a decision-support tool for policy-makers assessing systems specifically designed for surveillance;
   2. system design guidelines and;
   3. Model force-level regulations which can be adopted by a police force for the deployment of surveillance systems including large-scale integrated systems. The matrix, design guidelines and regulations balance citizens’ privacy and security concerns

Visit of Tom Inns

Tom Inns came to our D&T lecture to talk about design brands & strategies. He made us all tell our goal for the future and create a plan for it. This was very good fun, the only person who didn't do it was Hugh and I really wanted to hear his! In general it seems that Tom Inns seems to be a very down on earth and easily reachable new head of the art school. It was interesting to hear what decisions he had made, one of them was that he came to our D&T lecture.

Trip to Sunderland

Last Thursday we had a factory visit to Sunderland's Nissan factory. The place was huge and we walked inside for 3 miles and only covered about quarter of the factory! It is a shame that photography wasn't allowed since photos would have shown well the intensity of the place: big machines, dark packed rooms, noise, sparks flying all around etc. The factory produces 10 000 cars per week. I calculated that it means that there is a car made every minute for 24/7. The workers had to work in a line which didn't stop and that seemed to be very stressful. Human beings should not be treated as machines... It opened my eyes in the way that I realized again how important role designers play in this sort of processes.

Web Cameras

On the way to our field trip to Forres I talked about my D&T topic surveillance to one of our lecturer's, Brian and gave me a very interesting link to an article which talked about government spying through web cameras. It was found out that the British surveillance agency GCHQ intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of wrongdoing, secret documents reveal. I think that is quiet shocking and breaking the limits of privacy massively. Even though I know that I will not get any trouble with the material and it probably will not affect my life in any way it is very disturbing that someone would have such a massive amount of footage of me without my permission. I recommend to read the article below!

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo

Ben Craven: Colour, the science behind the sence

On Thursday's second D&T lecture the topic was colours and how do we see them. I really liked the lecture and it made me understand and think about senses in general. For me the most interesting part of the lecture was the point when Ben showed us how our brain tricks us on shadows. The example below is an example which we were given, The square with A has a lighter colour than the square B. If you don't believe you can test it with Photoshop. After the lecture I was photoshopping this picture for ages and couldn't believe how I couldn't change the way I saw the colours even though I had evidence in front of me...It made me think what other things I see "wrong" due to my brain. I have been a rationalist for a long time so it was quiet an interesting thing to realise that everything is not seen as it really is. I realised that our brain actually fills up blank spaces  what it can't process which leads to "wrong" visions. I realised as well that colours are seen quiet different with different people, I obviously knew this before but I have never given thought about it especially when I design since I do decisions based on my own senses.

Lecture about open design by Roy Shearer & Paul Smith

In today's D&T lecture we discussed about different aspects of open design. By definition open design is the the development of physical products, machines and systems through use of publicly shared design information. All the people of our course have a small insight on how this system works since in the second year we had a project about wind turbines and as a task we had to create building instruction on "instructables" webpage.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Vertical-Axis-Wind-Turbine/ (Our team's website)

From that experience I already have some opinions about the whole open source system. In the second year our design process for the turbine was maybe a bit hectic (we build the final product in the last few hours of the project) and the outcome wasn't  the best possible. If people build our wind turbine exactly like it says in  the instructions it will not be the best possible product and can be a bit dangerous. We still made the website instructions look like we know what we we are doing and our design has got a lot of attention and comments. Today's talk made me think first time that I am actually in some extend responsible on something what is out there. 

I understand that there is the danger of people building objects blindly without thinking  the dangers of the building process or the final outcome.  It is a bit harsh to say but even if there are some accidents caused by open design it is 10000 better if people actually try/do/create new things instead of just accepting everything they are given. I believe that many designers in the end of the day have an intention of making good products especially if they are not looking to get money directly out of the designs. I am also sick of all the health and safety regulations which exist the real world and I can just imagine the jungle of regulations if open designs would start to get them as well. 

Now let's get to the benefits of open design. I can see world being a much more interesting place if people can find similar minded people and develop better ideas/services/products together. It enables people not only to create and design new things but also fix their old broken objects because since if they join the make/do community they will most certainly gain interesting skills. I am part of the MakLab and the atmosphere there is very inspiring.  

Some people seem to be afraid that there wouldn't be jobs for designers if everything would be open sourced. That would 100% not be true. If you think of writers, they can publish anything online and people can read from there. That is great but there are still many of them which will be working for big organisations which publish their books. I think that is the way product design will?should move on to. That enables the whole system to develop. Open system leads to criticism and criticism leads to development and better products.