UCD helps because it emphasizes that no innovation is ever finished: we have to see how it is used, and continually improve it. Email, and the rest, have a way to go, and UCD promotes that at each step we should be user-centred (driven by the needs of users and what they are trying to do) rather than technology-centred.
2. CCTV IS SUSCEPTIBLE TO ABUSEOne problem with creating such a powerful surveillance system is that experience tells us it will inevitably be abused. There are five ways that surveillance-camera systems are likely to be misused:Criminal abuseSurveillance systems present law enforcement "bad apples" with a tempting opportunity for criminal misuse. In 1997, for example, a top-ranking police official in Washington, DC was caught using police databases to gather information on patrons of a gay club. By looking up the license plate numbers of cars parked at the club and researching the backgrounds of the vehicles' owners, he tried to blackmail patrons who were married. Imagine what someone like that could do with a citywide spy-camera system.Institutional abuseSometimes, bad policies are set at the top, and an entire law enforcement agency is turned toward abusive ends. That is especially prone to happen in periods of social turmoil and intense conflict over government policies. During the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War, for example, the FBI - as well as many individual police departments around the nation - conducted illegal operations to spy upon and harass political activists who were challenging racial segregation and the Vietnam War. This concern is especially justified since we are in some respects enduring a similar period of conflict today.Abuse for personal purposesPowerful surveillance tools also create temptations to abuse them for personal purposes. An investigation by the Detroit Free Press, for example, showed that a database available to Michigan law enforcement was used by officers to help their friends or themselves stalk women, threaten motorists after traffic altercations, and track estranged spouses.Discriminatory targetingVideo camera systems are operated by humans who bring to the job all their existing prejudices and biases. In Great Britain, camera operators have been found to focus disproportionately on people of color. According to a sociological study of how the systems were operated, "Black people were between one-and-a-half and two-and-a-half times more likely to be surveilled than one would expect from their presence in the population."VoyeurismExperts studying how the camera systems in Britain are operated have also found that the mostly male (and probably bored) operators frequently use the cameras to voyeuristically spy on women. Fully one in 10 women were targeted for entirely voyeuristic reasons, the researchers found. Many incidents have been reported in the United States. In one, New York City police in a helicopter supposedly monitoring the crowds at the 2004 Republican Convention trained an infrared video camera on an amorous couple enjoying the nighttime "privacy" of their rooftop balcony.
What The Official Announcement Didn’t Mention Is That The Technology Used For The New Feature Incr
3. THE LACK OF LIMITS OR CONTROLS ON CAMERAS USEAdvanced surveillance systems such as CCTV need to be subject to checks and balances. Because the technology has evolved so quickly, however, checks and balances to prevent the kinds of abuses outlined above don't exist. Two elements in particular are missing:A consensus on limits for the capability of public CCTV systems.Unfortunately, history has shown that surveillance technologies put in place for one purpose inevitably expand into other uses. And with video technology likely to continue advancing, the lack of any clear boundaries for what CCTV systems should be able to do poses a significant danger.In just the past several years, many cities, including Washington, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, have for the first time installed significant numbers of police-operated cameras trainined on public spaces. And once these surveillance facilities are put in place, police departments will be in a position to increase the quality of its technology and the number of its cameras - and will inevitably be tempted or pressured to do so. Do we want the authorities installing high-resolution cameras that can read a pamphlet from a mile away? Cameras equipped to detect wavelengths outside the visible spectrum, allowing night vision or see-through vision? Cameras equipped with facial recognition, like those that have been installed in airports and even on the streets of Tampa, Florida? Cameras augmented with other forms of artificial intelligence, such as those deployed in Chicago?As long as there is no clear consensus about where we draw the line on surveillance to protect American values, public CCTV is in danger of evolving into a surveillance monster.Legally enforceable rules for the operation of such systems.A societal consensus about how cameras should be used is important, but in the end we are a nation of laws and rights that have their root in law. While the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution offers some protection against video searches conducted by the police, there are currently no general, legally enforceable rules to limit privacy invasions and protect against abuse of CCTV systems. Rules are needed to establish a clear public understanding of such issues as whether video signals are recorded, under what conditions, and how long are they retained; what the criteria are for access to archived video by other government agencies, or by the public; how the rules would be verified and enforced; and what punishments would apply to violators.There have long been well-established rules governing the audio recording of individuals without their consent (there is a reason surveillance cameras never have microphones). It makes no sense that we don't have equivalent laws for video recording.
That's not really a fair characterization. First, it was a difficult compromise situation (read the official announcement for the details). Second, Tomboy was accepted into GNOME before the MS/Novell deal; it is not new to the GNOME 2.18 release. Many of those who were originally in favor of accepting new applications even if it meant a dependency on Mono, or that were straddling the fence on that hot topic, have changed their opinion considerably since that deal. True, Tomboy hasn't been kicked back out of the desktop release (yet?) -- it's quite rare for anything ever to be kicked out once in -- but I'm somewhat surprised it hasn't yet been proposed.
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