Big Brother is Watching You (You Rook Mahvelous)
The other day I received an email from a listener who suggested a claim I’d not heard before. The government’s evil plan to switch everyone over to digital TV is actually to make darn sure there’s a set-top box on every TV in America, because (and this was news to me) set-top boxes contain a camera that lets Uncle Sam keep an eye on your private activities.
Tear open any such boxes, and shazam, there’s your camera.
The email goes on to explain a bit further:
Just by glancing at that specific video, I see a few problems. Why is the camera affixed to an inductor? That would render any signals almost useless from the EM interference. Why are there no apparent signal cables? Usually internal components aren’t designed to hide cables and whatnot, as only technicians building the devices ever see it, and it would be far too costly to hide the cables. Why a pinhole camera? It could have a wider lense, but cameras like that usually have a very small angle, making any pictures almost unusable. Also, those cameras don’t generally work well in low light, making the picture less useful. Why is it behind the plastic? That plastic is only transparent to infra red light, which allows the IR signal through, and not light in the visible spectrum. And even if there is a section that is transparent, the camera is too far back, so the hole would vastly limit the visible range. If its an anti-tamper device, why would anyone care? Why not just disable the internal chips with a collapsable circuit like other electronic anti-tamper devices do. What reason could they have to report the persons picture? And, of course, these are not cable boxes, they are just receiver boxes. That is, they simply do not send any data back. Ultimately, why would the government care? I don’t think they would.
For my money, I’d just like to see the room where CIA agents watch 120 million television broadcasts simultaneous, recording and transcribing everything that happens in front of every set in America.
Consider this poorly-sourced information, but I seem to remember a Slashdot post which claimed that set-top boxes would have cameras for a single reason: motion-detection. For ratings purposes, the content providers want to be able to tell the difference between when someone’s actually watching a show, and when the TV’s just playing to an empty room.
I don’t know if that’s true or not.
Considering most Americans don’t use over the air signals, and hence don’t need a set top box, this wouldn’t be very effective.
Suppose everything the paranoid thinks about the digital receiver box is true. How useful to the government is to be able to see people sitting and watching TV? Surely the camera wouldn’t be able to pick up much more what is directly in front of its lens.
This is hilarious. I had to forward the clip to the guys in the component camera division to find out why they missed such a huge sales opportunity. The microphone is a trimmer pot, but I guess that’s nit picking. And its an IR sensor not RF. The camera module has been glued on without power or signal connections. Unless its a new super secret technology that taps some of the power from the input transformer and sends the video signal out the AC power line.
I looked at two videos. One, claiming to show a camera and microphone, is so out of focus I can’t determine what I am seeing. The other is taken by the light of a Christmas tree and is so dark I cant see anything. Even when the guy is shining a flashlight on the unit the camera work renders the image useless. Don’t people look at what they are posting before they post it? In any case, I learned nothing from those videos, but, I betcha there is no camera in any of them.
It seems like the single most important question is how would the supposed camera and microphone transmit their information back? The box is connected up to power, the TV, and a TV antenna, so the conspiracy nuts should show proof of information being transmitted out out of the box itself or one of those before we should care.
I’m not quite sure how they propose such a low power device is capable of broadcasting a return signal over the air, but they need to find a signal first before I care about their theories of transmission.
From the quoted description, it seems to me like this guy has completely misunderstood the IR remote control receiver.
Hahaha – as if ‘Big Brother’ the loser TV show weren’t bad enough. Even the bad old Soviet Union didn’t couldn’t watch people like that (it relied mostly on brainwashed weasels to rat you out, then stalked you from there).
The feds don’t watch all 120 million videos all at once. They have a big render farm with state of the art face recognition software that they run all the videos though. You might notice that internet companies are restricting peoples bandwidth claiming it’s because of P2P traffic. That’s a bald faced lie. It’s because of these cameras and the extra bandwidth needed to send the signals back to the feds.
Unfortunately the rendering software they’re using is Smedge so all the videos have a ton of dropped frames so they spend most of their time rendering those out, and never get around to actually identifying anybody.
I’m Live! On the air!
I’ll use my powers of hypnosis to get all of the jack booted thugs to send me all of their jack boots. Then we will have proof of their treachery, or thuggery, or something.
Look into my fuzzy, powerless, wireless, pointless, camera. You are getting sleepy, sleepy.
I’ll let you know when I have all of the boots. Probably in a month. I’ll post a grainy video using light reflected off of Easter Eggs. Mwahahaha, Mwahahaha!
Huh. I didn’t know the government was so interested in watching a 30-something man in his underwear eating pizza while cheering on the Rays. To each his own, I guess.
(Clean your monitors, CIA! Season opener April 6th! I’ll be there!)
Well there’s one way to find out if the government is spying on you, get a pin hole camera and set it up to take a photo set it up in the box then see what happens.
The video is a hoax, but here’s what’s real.
FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029_3-6140191.html
The Chinese version of Skype forwarded text messages to the government.
http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2008/10/answers_to_some_commonly_asked.html
The Programmable Communication Thermostat would allow power companies to control home temperatures in an emergency.
Radio broadcasts are encoded with an ID code that’s picked up by Arbitron’s Portable People Meter.
An advertising avatar was 20% more effective when it tracked and mirrored the viewer’s head movement.
If you are concerned just block the lens of that thing with a wad of gum. And if they are cameras, why would big bro want to watch you watching TV! Television producers are the only people that would find this information useful.
Why? Because in 21st century America, TV watches you!
Hey I’ll have to stop watching TV nekkid.
Huh. I think I’ll have to start watching TV nekkid.
My ‘set-top box’ actually sits under my TV near the floor. If someone is, somehow, watching me, they have a fantastic view of my feet. Lucky them! I don’t even like looking at my feet, they’re quite ugly and have partially webbed toes!
I knew it!
Finally a full employment scheme that will work! Genius!!
“They don’t have to build TVs that watch us. They build TVs that we watch.” — Rev. Ivan Stang
Please take that out and ruin your volume control! Yes, let’s spend $100s on equipment you don’t understand and make it unreturnable by dissecting it. If that were my husband he’d be sleeping on the porch for the next 2 months.
I submit myself as a test subject. I will sit in front of this thing wearing a turban, kneeling on a Muslim prayer mat smoking a big joint, listening to pirated mp3’s, and masturbating to porn videos I downloaded from the Pirate Bay.
If I vanish suddenly, call my lawyer.
Dang. Scott C stole my idea.
Huh. My first thought was that if the government wanted to “make damn sure everyone had a set-top box”, they’ve already failed: you can just get a TV that has a DTV (ATSC) tuner in it.
My second thought was that this person obviously doesn’t understand the very good reasons why we’re going to digital — it frees up a ton of RF band for use by emergency services and the like. It was engineers, emergency services, and TV stations pushing for the switch; it was consumer rights groups that pushed for the “set-top box coupon” program.
The “how would the CIA surveil everyone” argument is a straw man, though. If the government were to try to establish ubiquitous surveillance, it would be either automatically monitored, with flagged events being archived for human review; or it would be activated only if someone wanted to specifically look at a particular feed.
A more interesting consideration is how a .gov plans to tie a generic receiver box to an individual owner… I wouldn’t want to run that project. ;-)
Read Baudrillard; look into marketing research and how they use T.V. ratings.
You are being “watched” in a manner of speaking, but not through anything occult or conspiracy oriented. In actuality, it is blatantly overt in how they use the information obtained, and even directly how the information is obtained.
Society is manipulated, through absolute ignorance.
Wait …. was that redundant? “Society” “ignorance” …. I think so, mia culpa.
They use TV ratings to decide whether to pick up the “Skeptologists”, among other things.
Ah, that takes me back.
In the early 80’s I had a friend who worked at a cable company and told me about a tech support call.
An older woman asks, “Do blue ones work?”
Tech support: “Um, excuse me?”
OW: “Do blue ones work?”
TS: “Do blue whats work?”
OW: “Blankets”
TS: “What do you mean?”
OW: “My friend said if you cover your tv with a green blanket then you can’t see inside my house. I don’t have a green blanket, but I have a blue one. Will that work?”
TS: “Yes maam. The blue one will work just as good as the green one.”
Any word yet on the Mystery Lights at Sea?
I would have laughed at the suggestion anyone would buy into this…if only I hadn’t witnessed it for myself whilst working ion the US last year. I had seen three people with tape over their iSight because they believed they were being watched. Paranoia. Maybe it’s something in the water.
Well I have the dish network and two boxes in my home. Frankly, if the government is watching me my TV as I sit and watch I want my damn tax money back.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/02/dtv-converters.html
I wonder if the fact its been revealed to be a hoax will slow down the conspiracy folks.
Slow them down? No, they’ll just blame the NWO for brainwashing you into thinking it’s a hoax. I just love the fact these people claim to be in search of the “truth” whilst avoiding it.
I heard that Alex Jones said it’s a hoax on his radio show.
Conspiracy theorists are irritated by hoaxes, which detract from “real” conspiracies. For example, they’ve attacked crop circle pranksters.
Alex Jones admits it’s a hoax? Did hell freeze over? Is that one of the signs of Armageddon?
I’ve covered mine with tinfoil. I trust that will take care of it.
ABSURD!!! It does no good for the government to watch us watch tv. The real conspiracy is the digital signal itself. The television is a social programming tool and digital makes it far more effective.