[IP] Man in Germany Foils Burglary in Brazil
Begin forwarded message:
From: Ross Stapleton-Gray <ross@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: December 14, 2006 8:36:25 AM JST
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Man in Germany Foils Burglary in Brazil
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/
2006/12/13/financial/f102507S62.DTL
"Businessman Joao Pedro Wettlauser was in Cologne, Germany, on Sunday
when he received an alert on his phone informing him that someone had
entered his vacation house in Guaruja, 54 miles south of Sao Paulo,
police said.
He quickly turned on his laptop and, thanks to security cameras
connected to the Internet, was able to see a tattooed man stuffing
goods into trash bags..."
Which is, of course, our future, when the cost of global bandwidth
drops low enough, and the value of what's to be protected is high
enough, to make it cost effective to engage eyes anywhere. In this
case it was pretty simple, with a traditional alarm piping its alert
over the phone network; he could have just had the alarm call in the
police, though having one's own eyes on the situation avoids paying
for false alarms, etc. But imagine when cheap bandwidth means that
anyone with some spare time can be drafted into a "hey, watch my
stuff, 'k?" network. Some Kalihari bushman's day job will be
checking in on Beemers in parking garages in Manhattan.
(Now, I can think of about as many *evil* aspects of high-speed
global comms, too. Drug dealers, for example, can hire out the same
bushmen as lookouts, at the additional cost of sticking a wireless
camera up to watch things.)
Ross
----
Ross Stapleton-Gray, Ph.D.
Stapleton-Gray & Associates, Inc.
http://www.stapleton-gray.com
http://www.sortingdoor.com
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