Police Cameras Are Valuable... But Not If They Can Alter The Videos
from the trust-goes-out-the-window dept
We've talked plenty about the value of body cameras and dashcams for police -- in acting as a deterrent to bad behavior by police while supposedly acting as public servants. Of course, that only works if people trust the video not to be edited and doctored. This week there are all sorts of questions being raised about the arrest and hanging death of activist Sandra Bland in Texas. There are plenty of questions about why she was even arrested in the first place, and then plenty more about why she died (the police called it a suicide, which many who knew Bland find highly questionable).In response to some of these concerns, the police released a 52 minute version of the dashcam video of her arrest -- though for some reason, the YouTube version has since been taken down. Perhaps it's because people watching the whole thing noticed a bunch of really sketchy problems with it that suggested the video had been edited, while the audio remained in tact. Ben Norton first posted the details of these, highlighting a bunch of weird artifacts like disappearing cars that magically reappear seconds later:
The Texas Dept. of Public Safety said it would look into the video problems, and officials have denied any edits and have said that they will re-upload the video (which likely explains why the original has now gone missing). It also seems worth noting that the timing of the edits doesn't make it look like anything important was edited out (it all happens after the arrest itself).
It's possible that there was just some sort of weird glitch with this footage, but it's a reminder that anything that calls into question the credibility and accuracy of these kinds of videos will only undermine the purpose of these videos. We've heard too many stories about how some of these cameras can be "turned off" or that police would have access to the coverage before it's released to the public. If officials want these systems to actually work, they have to be trustworthy on their own. While this is likely just going to turn out to be some sort of technical problem that will be fixed, with nothing nefarious at all, it still acts as a strong reminder for the need to make sure that this kind of footage is stored and released in a way that doesn't raise such questions.
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Filed Under: accountability, dashcams, edits, police, police cameras, sandra bland, texas
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/s
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Real video has time stamps
This video doesn't. The video is clearly a composite (many different segments put together to make a longer product) sync'd with a soundtrack from a different video.
There is *no way* this is anything other than intentional. The sheer number of decisions required to come up with this, let alone post it, is second only to a lane-changer embarrassed to death. Suicidal death.
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Re: Real video has time stamps
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Re: Real video has time stamps
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"every frame has an incrementing number"
Indeed.
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In any other country the citizens would be stringing these criminals up when their government officials refuse to prosecute the dirty cops
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You know...
A third pary video escrow service, while anathema to government agencies' "we control the information that should be free and public" attitudes, could provide some much needed goodwill.
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The North Korean School of Video Editing?
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Re: The North Korean School of Video Editing?
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Maybe explains most or all of it? Would not explain the tow-truck operator exiting more than once, unless he went back into the cab before exiting ("oops forgot something").
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For example my own in-car camera is always recording while the car is running. It's recording in a loop, continuously recording over what came half an hour or so before.
If I want to KEEP the video, I hit a button on the camera. Of course by then the accident or other incident has already happened, so the recorder preserves the video starting from several minutes BEFORE I hit the button.
I suspect that this patrol car's camera is always continuously recording. What the auto-start function does is preserve the recording starting from a moment before motion triggers it. The flashing tow truck lights trigger it several times in a few seconds, and each time it preserves the video from MORE than that few seconds before. So you see the same cars go by several times.
But that's just a guess.
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Sure, the motion activation system is probably not handling the flashing tow-truck lights as well it would the occasional car or person going past.
But as long as it's not *losing* video, that might be considered good enough for law enforcement purposes. "Don't excite the conspiracy theorists" was unlikely to have been in their design criteria.
Again, I'm guessing here. But it's a guess based on some experience with similar cameras.
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And it also doesn't explain anything for the guy getting out of the truck.
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Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink"
I suspect we will never no the truth, but if we did it serve as another reminder that the government deals harshly with thorns in its side. (I'll not reference the mountain of cases where this has been proven to be the case. The reader will choose to believe what they believe.)
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Re: Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink"
(need to edit better)
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Take two!
CUT!
C'mon, let's look like we aren't a bunch of violent, secretive, sadists with badges, here guys. AGAIN!
...
Take 34!
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Cop lied in tow truck segment
On the contrary, he REFUSED to tell her anything in response to repeated questions from her. He did tell her that if she didn't get out of the car, he would "light her up" as he was brandishing his TASER.
Smoking in own vehicle while black is now a crime, I guess.
I agree wholeheartedly with Sandra Bland when she called this pig a pussy.
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Re: Cop lied in tow truck segment
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Statements Prior To Video Viewing
Statements should reflect the witnesses' best recollection and testimony, NOT be a narrative based on what the video reveals.
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Should be able to tell
And I'm sure somebody is doing that analysis right now.
Video aside, cops have been beating up people who don't show proper respect (esp. if someone "unimportant") for as long as there have been cops. I don't think it's anything new.
What is new is video cameras in everyone's pocket. Cops seem to be having a huge amount of trouble adapting to the new situation.
acting
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I'm impressed.
If they don't have a patent on the process, they really ought to get one.
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DPS response
DPS spokesman Tom Vinger said glitches in the recording occurred when it was uploaded for public viewing."
Any one know which encoding codec you can use to upload to youtube that will screw with the video but not the audio?
I'm calling a very high probability of bullshit on the DPS.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/texas-police-insist-video-shows-full-arrest-of-sandra-bl and-1.2293155
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Time Stamps on Police videos
Hmmmm...
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Re: Time Stamps on Police videos
'Texas LEO dashcam footage' (no quotes)
and, at least the first two videos that came up
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Texas+LEO+dashcam+footage&page=&utm_source=op ensearch
That is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTebYE4ajNs
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB-XWlw09SY
Don't have a timestamp. Perhaps the timestamp you see is on the Youtube preview pic, which seems to be a youtube timestamp.
The third video that comes up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgzbyFSLn7g
does have a timestamp and the timestamp doesn't have its own background.
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The video confirms there was no reason to pull her over
The officer was driving in the opposite direction of Bland, then suddenly made a 180 turn and sped up towards Bland. Bland switched lanes to try to get out of the officers way.
The only thing even semi-illegal Bland did was forgetting to use a turn signal when switching lanes to get out of the officer's way.
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Re: The video confirms there was no reason to pull her over
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Since, in several courts, police deposition supercedes video to the contrary...
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What could be in those missing segments...?
The officer making questionable comments on:
her race and lineage
her history as an activist
references to the KKK or other like minded groups
allusions to lynching
Naw..... it's probably inconsequential material with no bearing on the incident at hand. They were just streamlining the file so that it would upload quicker. Yep, that must be it. /s
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Re: What could be in those missing segments...?
Since she died in her jail cell several days later it would look bad for the police department if that got out
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... if they can alter video,
This ensures that any attempt to falsify evidence on video would be invariably exposed by the redundant copies. Therefore, it would be foolish to even attempt a falsification.
If a policeman attempts to stop a participant or bystander from recording the official interactions, that action alone should be accepted as evidence that the policeman's claimed position is invalid.
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As a digital forensics student
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Re: As a digital forensics student
The system you described has an obvious weakness: the signature is created on extraction, not recording.
We need systems that can be verified by others, not proprietary black-boxes. As a student, can you explain the system in detail? Could you write an academic paper describing the algorithms, with independent software to verify the video? Can you explain the threat model and countermeasures employed? What extent does someone have to go to to fool the system? E.g., does the attacker need to have physical access to the police car that recorded the video, or can they fake a signature from their dorm room with only an MP4 file?
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Why isn't there a time code we can see.
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I suspect that the police department tampered with the footage without being fully appreciative of the fact that their amateur attempt at spin doctoring can't hope to compete with the masters at "news" outlets like TYT, MotherJones, and The Guardian.
Step two for this media-manufactuted hysteria will involve increasingly ludicrous speculation (à la "hands up, don't shoot!") to rile people up as much as possible before the facts start coming out and burst this bubble. Just like with Rodney King. And Michael Brown. And Freddie Gray. And and and.
Every time they cry "Wolf! Wolf!", they lose credibility and grant the government leeway for actual abuses of power.
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This is what lots of people were saying
The police cannot be trusted with evidence that implicates police.
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Too late for Matrix jokes.
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It's Not just Video Editing
Why?
Well, one reason that comes to mind is that it would reduce the chances of the dashcam's microphone picking up what is said during any altercation outside the police car.
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You don't have to encrypt, just create a hash of each frame...
It is also very easy to detect changes by noting the increase in certain frames types in the video (presuming they're using modern compression.)
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altered video
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