Be Excellent To Each Other

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8293784.stm



Sign me the fuck up

I think I'd just push the "THIEF" button at random. Or, as a colleague suggested, use the service to case places out for burglaries.

I mentioned this last night. I got really pissed off, no fucker asked me if I wanted random arseholes off the street spying on me. And of all places, it's being tested in my home town first. In less than a month. And nobody even told us. Fuck's sake.

Commercial only, though.

And? They'll still be people spying on their neighbours for cash prizes.

An idea forms - £1,000 for catching a shoplifter? I'd take a shoplifting rap for £1,000. Who's going to press the button, then take their turn?

I'd imagine (this is only a guess) that you wouldn't get feeds from your home area, so this is less 'snoopy' in that sense that regular CCTV.
Or 'webcam' as they're now known.

I've been in the monitoring centres for proper security monitoring companies. Big secure areas monitoring lots of different premises. Totally different to a bunch of punters looking at a low quality stream with one eye, with Jeremy Kyle in the other.

Also shoplifting is small beans compared to out of hours risks and other types of theft. CCTV is mainly used for evidence, by the time someone has put down their cream cake and clicked a "arrest that man" button the thief will be long gone.

Note that it's "up to £1000" and it's not a reward for catching shoplifters. Catching shoplifters gets you points. Points get you a bigger chance of winning £1000.

Bah.

Prizes!

This scheme needs more Night Trap.

There are only about 20,000 people in stratford. Plus that doesn't really make me feel much better - the wealthy lot spying on the people from the poor neighbourhood and vice versa doesn't sit right with me, either. It's a dodgy, sinister precedent to set either way, encouraging power tripping tosspots to turn in anyone they don't like the look of.

I'll take the changing room cams in La Senza, please.

I give it 12 months before we're living in The Running Man.

I for one welcome our new idiot neighbour overlords.

Oh dear. Trade your civil liberties to win BIG CASH PRIZES! Perhaps Friend Computer will soon be a reality?

Not Myps, he's on the straight an narra.

Because the ARCs don't pay attention on a professional basis, rather than in a half-arsed amateur way.

I'm a bit confused by this: who is it supposed to benefit? I mean, what sane shop would hand over monitoring of their security to a bunch of randoms on the internet? You'd want proper guarantees about monitoring levels, and someone to shout at and that if something was missed, and in that case, why not just pay for proper CCTV monitoring?

I'm signing up for this as I want to see SA in the bath.

It is proper monitoring. The 'problem' they're trying to fix is that CCTV isn't monitored in real time, rather it's used as proof at a later date. I suspect quite a lot of shoplifters are uncaught if they're not immediately picked up by a store detective. This is nosey bastards pushing a button when they see Mrs Brady slip a frozen chicken up her clout.

It's an improvement (and presumably a small cost increment) over a recording-only setup. But probably costs far less than a professional monitoring service.

That's already on the internet, dear.

What's to stop you calling a friend and saying 'Yeah, I've got Topshop up now... yeah, the guard's just gone for a piss, grab some stuff and leg it!'

I see this is back in the news