Another Reason Not To Raise Your Voice In Public

from the they-can-hear-you dept

Wed, Nov 22nd 2006 3:54pm — Joseph Weisenthal

We've been pretty amazed at all the innovation in surveillance technology lately. Those grainy videos from convenience stores are rapidly becoming ancient history. The most exciting advances in technologies that can identify certain types of behavior, like violence or just plain old suspiciousness. The latest is some acoustic technology that can identify aggression in somebody's voice. So police can be alerted if it sounds like a fight is about to break out in a store or on the street. One of the big problems with this type of thing is the possibility for false positives. Actions that aren't violent or aggressive may from time to time be identified as such. And if there are too many, it ruins the usefulness of the technology. But perhaps by rolling these technologies together, law enforcement could improve their confidence as each one could confirm what's being picked up on the others. As for the other big problem, the continued erosion of privacy, it doesn't look like any help is on the way.

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15 Comments

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Carbinefreak, 22 Nov 2006 @ 4:09pm

Woot first..
i bet a lot of teen will be spotted for this ROFL o well time to be a obnoxious teen again.. i mean still
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Nov 2006 @ 4:12pm

Just 'cause it's watching you, doesn't necessarily mean your privacy is being invaded.
If you're out in public, someone could be watching you, listening in on your conversations anyway. But even beyond that, technology has one interesting ability people just don't always have: the ability to forget on demand.
Furthermore, the process has to be fully automated, or no one will respond, simply because there's not enough time and/or money.
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qyiet, 22 Nov 2006 @ 4:17pm

Deliberate False Positives
If a surveillance system automatically notified police how long do you think it would be before bored teens figured out how to set it off, over and over again, therefore making it ignored, much like the guy down the street's car alarm
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Rick, 22 Nov 2006 @ 5:07pm

Minority Report....
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Nobody Special, 22 Nov 2006 @ 8:20pm

agression is against the law?
The problem I see is to alert Police any time aggression or violence in the voice is detected. Hello, it is not a crime to be voice aggression. And as long as you don't threaten someone you can have violence in your voice.

The real problem is thus: this is an attempt to regulate behavior before it happens. And while there is plenty to be said about watching those who are headed in the direction of trouble, police are not the ones to be involved at the sound of trouble.
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Multi tasking, 23 Nov 2006 @ 8:02am

Why don't they couple that with facial recognition, eye movement and hand gestures. Flipping someone off on the freeway it triggers the satelite to contact you via cell phone (since everyone has one) If you don't comply, they shut off your phone service and your Sirius satellite radio until you attend anger management. I'll just die without my cell phone because I love to talk, and put on my make up listen to Howard Stern and drive with my knee at the same time.
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Prometheum, 23 Nov 2006 @ 10:07am

Re:
So the GOVERNMENT gets to just shut off cell phone and radio service to whomever it wishes if they're too angry? Or did Verizon and Sirius suddenly get really, really altruistic and decide that they can't have angry customers, even if they keep the money flowing to their pockets? Even though it'll affect the type of asshole you described, that's still against basic privacy rights, and is just paving the path to Big Brother more and more.

I'd be really freaked out if they coupled it with facial recognition. Start storing the faces of people who seem to be pissed off and schedule them for "anger management"? That's straight out of Orwell.
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pimutheta, 24 Nov 2006 @ 9:35am

Re: Re:
She was being sarcastic
And if they ever do put these things up I'm definately gonna trigger that thing on purpose for the hell of it.
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Donald Duck, 24 Nov 2006 @ 11:51pm

So if you was in a flock of criminals
You could tell your flock to go to the area where the voice nazi machine is and tell your flock to start screaming at each other or play some rap music while you are busy boosting the local jewelry store.

The voice nazis would come after the ones making the noise right.
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Skeptikos, 25 Nov 2006 @ 10:17pm

Re:
So they'll be following every car driving around town booming rap or metal...

At least the emo kids will be safe.
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Not So Mindless American (profile), 25 Nov 2006 @ 11:58pm

Re: re: Skeptikos
So they'll be following every car driving around town booming rap or metal...

At least the emo kids will be safe

Oh, and the screaming and whining and crying wont set off the system either?
Get real.
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Rodney R Rollins, 27 Nov 2006 @ 6:30am

Another Reason Not To Raise Your Voice In Public
This weekend in New York a man was shot to death and two others wounded, one critically in a hail of at least fifty bullets because, according to our police commissioner the officers thought they over heard something about a gun... They were unarmed... We can all do without this device... By the way the dead man was scheduled to be married this past Saturday...
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susan lipisnki 1, 22 Dec 2006 @ 8:13am

poiaste
polias freyair fzserq
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susan lipisnki 1, 22 Dec 2006 @ 8:14am

poiaste
polias freyair fzserq yj gal-owt dothk afop mrtqia
gkoqoaq gkaao dnaa boiye dawrq
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Graham, 27 Dec 2006 @ 10:56am

Re:
Your a noob "first comment" "rofl" leave the serious discussion for mature adults.
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