1. Professor Gates is currently working on a new project that investigates the emerging professional field of video forensics and its attendant technologies in order to examine the ways in which new visual imaging and archiving technologies are being incorporated into, and transforming, modern investigatory and evidentiary practices. She is especially interested in the emerging forms that police work is taking in the digital economy, including the cultural labor that the police perform in their roles as surveillance workers and media analysts.

    — Interesting new research focus for Kelly Gates - v close to WITNESS’ new directions.

    (Source: communication.ucsd.edu)

  2. In fact, while much effort has been expended on analysing video surveillance as a tool of social sorting, there is a current lack of research regarding the spatial logics and characteristics of CCTV. Before targeting specific social groups or individuals, the installation points of the cameras, their technical features (zoom, angle of vision, etc.), their direction while unattended and the active manipulations of their position by camera operators are first and foremost related to specific portions of space. Individuals or social groups are monitored once they enter the cameras’ gaze. Social behaviour is of interest only within the cameras’ premises. As a limited window to the city, video surveillance must thus above all be considered as ‘surveillance of space’.

    — Spatial articulations of surveillance at the FIFA World Cup 2006 in Germany - Francisco R Klauser, 2008

  3. An hour with Helen Nissenbaum and Jonathan Zittrain talking about privacy, with some knockabout comedy at the beginning… (via MIT TechTV – At What Cost?: The Privacy Issues that Must Be Considered in a Digital World. - Nov 2011)

  4. Professor Laura De Nardis’ keynote address on “Technologies of Dissent” at Oxford University “A Decade in Internet Time” conference on September 3, 2011.

  5. The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website. As of Today, we’ve sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over $500,000. Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a profit around $200,000 (after taxes $75.58). This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video. They would have given you an encrypted and regionally restricted video of limited value, and they would have owned your private information for their own use. They would have withheld international availability indefinitely. This way, you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want, and you can watch it in Dublin, whatever the city is in Belgium, or Dubai. I got paid nice, and I still own the video (as do you). You never have to join anything, and you never have to hear from us again.

    I really hope people keep buying it a lot, so I can have shitloads of money, but at this point I think we can safely say that the experiment really worked. If anybody stole it, it wasn’t many of you. Pretty much everybody bought it. And so now we all get to know that about people and stuff.

    — Louis CK shares the results of his direct download experiment in a crushingly funny letter to fans.

  6. Much of the time I’m not even looking at the viewfinder; instead I’m glancing all around me, calculating what’s going to happen next and whether or not I need to move,” he says. “My strongest tactic is to think back to when I was younger. As a child we jump, roll, hide and play all the time; it feels instinctive to move around in a creative way. Those instincts don’t leave us, and now I know what I can use them for.” Beyond those instincts, Bahgat’s only protection is a pair of heat-resistant gloves that enable him to hurl back any teargas canisters landing near his feet, and some onions and eyedrops to help combat the effects of the gas. Bahgat’s exploits have earned him an almost mythical reputation among revolutionaries, many of whom describe him standing serenely with his camera in the thick of the action, seemingly immune to the ammunition and chaos exploding all around him. But as Bahgat himself explains, rumours of his invincibility are wide of the mark: he has been hit by gas cylinders, sprayed with birdshot, and has had eight pieces of metal in his leg for 10 months; shrapnel embedded so deep that doctors are loth to remove it. The distinction between activist and journalist is one that doesn’t concern him; he also dismisses any claims to heroism, shuffling uncomfortably whenever passersby stop to offer praise.

    — Egyptian cameraman at the heart of the Tahrir Square clashes | World news | The Guardian

  7. Holy, holy, holy moly. Looking forward to every human rights organisation buying one of these.

    RoboKopter Zamieszki I (by latajacakamera)

  8. Gatewing X100 product video 2011 (by Gatewing - see Gatewing’s site)

  9. Ethics in Business panel at the Carnegie Council in NYC, featuring Yahoo!’s Ebele Okobi-Harris and YouTube’s Abbi Tatton on the new challenges of global information-sharing as they run into human rights concerns. (via the WITNESS blog.)