Web Cam Controversy Posted Tuesday, February 06, 2007 at 1:58:49 PM     Alexandria Bay, NY 1000 Islands  Comments  Unique Views 2431/Total Views 2454

Well, the web cam at Skiffs seems to be causing quite an issue for a few people..

So far I have dealt with about 5-6 people that have major issues with it and about 150 people that think it is great or don't care either way.

I have come to the conclusion that the 5-6 people that have a major problem with it all have something in common. THEY ALL HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE !

One guy is on disability and doesn't want anyone seeing him in the bar everyday spending his disability money drinking.

Another guy smokes a lot of joints and cheats on his girlfriend whenever he can. He doesn't want to be seen by anyone with another girl or seen rolling a joint before he walks outside to smoke it.

Another guy is also big into the drug scene and is on probation. He doesn't want to be seen in the bar because he isn't supposed to be in a bar.

Another guy can't stop talking about big brother, facial recognition technologies, invasion of privacy, and his amendment rights. Yeah ok, whatever.

One girl isn't old enough to drink and is using a fake ID, She doesn't want her parents seeing her at the bar.

Another person gets completely shit-faced and drives drunk and says he doesn't want the cops waiting for him outside. This person is also an IDIOT if they really think the cops are going to do that. I'm not even going to talk about that again because it's such a stupid argument.

I could go on and on.... Personally, I'm sick of it and the next person that starts talking out of their ass about it to me is going to get zero response from me. I'll leave the bar if I have to. I have better shit to do than argue with drug dealers, felons, drunk drivers, underage drinkers, conspiracy theorists, people cheating on their significant others, people that just like to bitch about everything, people that just like to argue, and people doing shit they are not supposed to be doing. That's their problem and if they don't like it they can stay home.

The rest of us decent people who just like to have a good time and see our friends on cam when we are away or maybe wave to our friends when they are away will continue to enjoy the webcam. Bars like the HogsBreath have been doing web cams since 2002 and in the beginning they went through the same sort of stupid shit from the closed minded minority. After a while the cameras are accepted and well liked. It is common for friends to call the bar and buy their friends a drink or lunch. The interactive possiblities are endless, not to mention fun.

Skiffs Web Cam Discussion Link
http://www.abaynews.com/abaynews/news_item.asp?NewsID=168

There is also a Poll on the abaynews.com Home Page


Now, Here is something for the Facial Recognition, Big Brother is Watching, Conspiracy Theorist to read since the Skiff's Cam is a 320x240 low resolution mjpeg stream compressed at 40% quality. I'm no expert but, In my opinion Facial Recognition on the Skiffs Cam would result in false positives up the ass or no positives. The only thing any Modern Facial Recognition System can do with a low quality/low resolution IP Camera System with any sort of accuracy is a HEAD COUNT. There is not enough resolution with a Cheap Low Quality IP Based Camera to to do facial recognition with any sort of reasonable accuracy. You also need decent lighting. I don't care if you are the FBI, The CIA, or Frigin James Bond. You need a quality analog video feed or a higher resolution/less compressed digital video stream to do quality facial recognition and the Skiff's Cam isn't either. I mean hey, if you go stand right close in front of camera and look dead at it a Facial Recognition System could you pick you up easily.

Here are some examples of the exact resolution this camera is set at and what happens when you zoom in on someone's face.



Like I said unless they stand fairly close and stair right at the camera they are pretty safe from any sort of Facial Recognition System selecting them out of millions of faces in some database of faces.

Now, even if THE MAN can do quality facial recognition with this camera feed they would still have to design a complicated system to take the java web stream from my page and feed into to their system. No easy task because I monitor the feed pretty closely for bandwidth abuse and I would disable what they were doing as fast as they did it. If my system sees one IP or IP Range doing abnormal activity I know about and I take action. My system also has limits set on how long one IP can view the video feed and automatically cuts them off for a certain amount of time. Now, lets talk about the shear amount of processing power it would take to run facial recognition 24 hours on a video feed. I highly doubt they have the resources or time to tap into every single web cam that shows up on the internet much less some web cam in a bar in Alexandria Bay. Hell, I can barely keep the cam feed running. It breaks every day or so. Anybody that thinks goverment agencies can easily tap into some live web cam system doesn't know jack shit about the way the internet and web pages work. Is it doable, sure. Would it be worth the effort, hell no! Even it they got it working it would probably break the next day and would need constant babysitting by some programmer.

Everything you see on CSI or the Movies is not real ! You can't magically enhance low resolution blurry ass images into something accurate.

And even if I am wrong about the facial recognition capabilities of the CIA, The Sercet Service, or Interpol who really gives a fuck !!|

The bottom line is... If you're really worried about something like that you got issues. Personally I think some people just like a good argument and will argue about anything.

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