The Inquirer – Wednesday 13 December 2006:
A SYSTEM which will enable network operators to disable the camera function inside mobile handsets has been installed by leading operators in both Europe and North America.
The software is being supplied to both operators and leading telecoms integrators by software house, Mformation. Clients already include Telefonica, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Cingular and Rogers.
Basically, the system can turn off (or turn on) any application which runs inside the handset. This includes the camera function as well as picture messaging (MMS), Bluetooth and WiFi.
One major benefit for an organisation where photos snatched by a cameraphone can be commercially dangerous, is that regular employees will no longer have to surrender their handsets on entering a building.
The mobile network will sense the employee’s location and then temporarily disable the camera’s functionality via an OTA (Over-The-Air) message.
My prediction: The system will be implemented in all digital cameras. Laws will be passed making it illegal to bypass the system. (Actually, it probably already is illegal under the DMCA.) The police will start using this technology. Which means that it’ll essentially be illegal to take pictures of the police in action! Keep those film cameras guys, we’ll need them!
Always keep some analog devices around – we may need to go back to them.
Better keep your own film development lab too – it will probably soon be illegal for commercial labs to develop “unauthorized” pictures too, i.e. pix of police beating the crap out of the sheeple at a demonstration. Every developed picture will be recorded and monitored “for the children” or something.
Heil Bush!
The system will be implemented in all digital cameras.
Which would require all digital cameras of the future to have some form of wireless connection…
Don’t need to keep a film camera, just keep one of the current digital cameras – the majority of which don’t have any wireless connectivity capability.
#2 Again, this is not only in sthe US, ALL states seems to, all off the sudden, be wanting to shut up their citizens
Oh thank god, I hope they do this for all the phones. I’m soo limited as to what kind of phone I can have at work now.
I fear this will be the last Blackberry that comes without a camera.
I for one say w00t
“Which would require all digital cameras of the future to have some form of wireless connection…”
You’d have to admit that it would appear pointless to stop camera phones for security reasons while allowing other forms of tiny digital cameras to operate. Thus, the only way this system makes sense is if it applies to all cameras. If the only way this makes sense is to add technology to digital cameras, then that is what will happen.
I, for one, welcome our Big Brother overlords.
Sorry, I couldn’t help my self.
Saudi Arabia tried to ban cameras in mobile phones. They failed. This just ain’t gonna happen. I, for one, will not allow my carrier to disable anything in MY phone.
isn’t there a way to hack the camera to make the system think it’s turned it off, when really it’s just turned it on? It is scary how digital has enabled the power and control freaks… to the point where lots of products are just ruined. The number one reason i don’t own a HD-DVD or BRD.
FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD
#4 – Yes, and the reason all the world’s countries want to do this is because they watch the former “beacon of democracy” (now just a fascist theocracy) USA do these things and think “well it must be OK then!”
#10 – who benefits from this FUD? Intentionally sown FUD always serves the hidden agenda of someone – a politician, an MS or IBM, a cause…
#11 – Basing a “well it’s okay then” on U.S. practice makes sense only if the U.S. is held up as a positive standard of something. From a global point of view, Bush and neocons have pretty well disposed of any remnants of that kind of high regard. Governments want to do it because they can, not because the U.S. does it. Governments are about wielding power, which is its own reward. “Of, by and for the people” has always just been a comforting fiction dispensed to, as someone put it here, the sheeple.
This is the kind of thing that can cause cell phones to become a passing fancy. We lived without them before, so why are they so necessary now?
Which will create a market for hacked phones, foregoing profits to big corporate phone companies, capitalism at its best.
#11 Rob, you’re partly right. Some may say that if the US is doing it, is OK (the former not an admission I think is happening), but some are arguing that in order to fight the US, they can get away with anything because the US is after them and this is the vast majority of the new police states, even when not only the US is doing nothing, but on most cases the US is their biggest economical allied.
#12 I just read your reply. I’m with you here.
8: they can already turn on the GPS tracking in your phone without letting you know about it — how could they resist? They’ll never talk about it, but believe it, they can, at any schmuck police/intelligence agency’s secret request. And turn on your mic, without you knowing about it. Monitoring your text and voice traffic is already being done.
The precedent has been set with e911. Your phone is a computer controlled by the police and any corporation with money enough to get the government to coerce the police. Turning off your camera is trivial.
We are not moving to a police state — we’re moving to a prison state, a giant, open air prison where the police and Homeland Security are for all intents and purposes our guards and wardens. The difference between being in actual prisoner and a free man will be about where they permit you to go, rather than the rights you think you have.
If you want a positive alternative, let’s build open source handsets that use encrypted communications to a ridiculous degree; hook them up via wifi to any hot spot and create an ad-hoc voice and text network that 1- won’t be GPS enabled unless that is the user’s choice, and 2-can’t be monitored to the degree that the cell phone networks are. This is a trivial piece of hardware to implement. Frankly, our communications aren’t the government’s business.
I have an alternative to all this. Become a Police Officer or become part of government like the FBI, then you can be big brother. You will do the watching… Imagine having the latest gadgets and watching technology at your beck and call. Full speed ahead!! Where do I sign up??
#13 This is the kind of thing that can cause cell phones to become a passing fancy. We lived without them before, so why are they so necessary now?
This is a bit off-topic, but you asked — In the strictest sense, they aren’t necessary…
In my opinion, however, who in their right mind want to live without them? I hear plenty of anti-cell phone comments and cannot fathom where these borderline Luddite ideas come from.
Yes… other people can be annoying with the obnoxious pop-music and full blast ring tones and their endless babbling about trivial bullshit…
However, cell phones cut the cord between you and the traditional phone company. I prefer life without a land line. I like knowing I have access to a modern communication device when I travel that wasteland between cities, or that my geography does not dictate my ability to contact family, friends, or business associates.
Some say they don’t like being able to be called 24/7… To them i say, grow a pair. If I don’t want to talk, I ignore the call – or better yet, I can turn off the phone, much as I do in a movie theater.
As a libertarian, I hate government control, but LOVE government punishment. There are legitimate reasons why cameras should not exist everywhere, both in corporate R&D departments, and gym locker rooms.
So, I propose a new thought, non-proportional punishment. Take a picture in a gym locker room of a naked person (without their permission), life in prison. Copy a CD and sell it for 1/2 the price, million dollar fine (or life in prison).
Government control sucks, but is because there are lots of selfish, greedy and immoral people out there. So, fine with me, take away all controls, but punish the bastards who do wrong, punish them hard.
18. OFTLO: I am with Dick on this. I Friggin HATE cell phones, much as I hated the beeper (I know you guys are probably too young to remember those). I understand the convenience factor, I just dont see the need to have an electronic leash / government tracking device 24/7. Maybe I’ve been in tech support too long, spent too many hours on the phone, but not having a phone with me gives me a sense of freedom.
You really think not answering your phone or turning it off is a ballsy move. Sheesh.