Well here is the article, http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/san-diego-smart-city-parking-1.4498964 To those people that don't like LED fear not, they are also doing this with Gas street lighting, welcome to the world where every street light will become a big brother watching over you.... 

Generally, all the "smart" stuff as solution in search for problem. The benefits of the "smart" system are described as "smart system", "interconnected infrastructure", etc. None of it really explains why it is needed

There is one application that makes sense : The free parking spot search

But this part does not need anything beyond very low res camera - for which a parked car is few pixels and a pedestrian can't be reliably spotted, and basic image processing - comparing the pixels of the parking spot location to the surrounding road, ignoring fast changes (moving car). Such processing can be done on the device itself with a simplish microcontroller

Then, there is no need to even share the data to the cloud. Instead, output 0/1 to an indicator light mounted on the same streetlight. If you want to go somewhere, you want a parking spot nearby, not somewhere far away. So you come there and look for a lit indicator on one of the streetlights within sight distance. And this will also serve non smartphone users

When a system is not "filtering out", but physically incapable of capturing identifying information (due to camera resolution, and to plain absence of cloud connection), then there is no concern of big brother using it

All kinds of 'smart' stuff is being thrown at us today...like we really need it. We've lived without it for eons. Makes me wish for the simpler days of mercury vapor (over 30 years ago).

I think it is only logical that things would progress in this way, though the only thing really novel about it is that they put all these existing technologies into one fixture. I don't really like the idea of someone constantly watching me, but the career path I have chosen isn't exactly conducive to privacy. There is someone or something watching everything I do, and I've just resolved to the fact. What concerns me with these systems is the general ease of "hackability." It's way to easy for the wrong people to get access to that data, and too easy for people to use it for the wrong reasons.

Generally, all the "smart" stuff as solution in search for problem. The benefits of the "smart" system are described as "smart system", "interconnected infrastructure", etc. None of it really explains why it is needed

There is one application that makes sense : The free parking spot search

But this part does not need anything beyond very low res camera - for which a parked car is few pixels and a pedestrian can't be reliably spotted, and basic image processing - comparing the pixels of the parking spot location to the surrounding road, ignoring fast changes (moving car). Such processing can be done on the device itself with a simplish microcontroller

Then, there is no need to even share the data to the cloud. Instead, output 0/1 to an indicator light mounted on the same streetlight. If you want to go somewhere, you want a parking spot nearby, not somewhere far away. So you come there and look for a lit indicator on one of the streetlights within sight distance. And this will also serve non smartphone users

When a system is not "filtering out", but physically incapable of capturing identifying information (due to camera resolution, and to plain absence of cloud connection), then there is no concern of big brother using it

That system already exists and I don't believe it uses a camera of any sorts. There is a shopping centre nearby which has a something called a "Car park guidance system" which has a sensor above each parking spot and a indicator at the end of the spot which is green when the spot is free and red when the spot is taken. It can be seen from a distance in the car park and is hooked up to displays throughout the car park to show the number of available parking spots.




Whether these systems relay information to a cloud or a server is unknown.

There is a similar system at the parking lot of the Cinemall mall, and it often lies in the number of the lots available, and marking green lights at a used lot and not at a free lot.

I think it is only logical that things would progress in this way, though the only thing really novel about it is that they put all these existing technologies into one fixture. I don't really like the idea of someone constantly watching me, but the career path I have chosen isn't exactly conducive to privacy. There is someone or something watching everything I do, and I've just resolved to the fact. What concerns me with these systems is the general ease of "hackability." It's way to easy for the wrong people to get access to that data, and too easy for people to use it for the wrong reasons.

All those smart things are a solution in search for problems, and the people developing them do want to build companies and make money, so they find effective ways to push it. The way is, to convince the main crowd that it is beneficial, even if logically it is either not needed, or could be achieved in a much simpler way, or is not related at all. Our experience is, that when you call anything "smart", everyone buys into it and noone questions it. The "buying smart things makes you smart" is no different than "buying cool things makes you cool"

The next step is, that if anything have data input capability and network connection, it can be used for surveillance, whether for commercial or power purposes. Sometimes for not really a defined purpose at all, what is called "just in case" (in case we find a problem that needs this solution)

The municipalities etc fall somewhere between the other parties : The "smart" industry targets them. Most consumers do expect things to be getting "smart" and the municipalities want to please them. The municipalities themselves, and possibly governments, do sometimes want to benefit from the surveillance capabilities



It is logical, that some careers (yours ?) requires watching over your shoulder, but it is ultimately you who chose this career. It is not logical or normal, that surveillance become the standard

Things that become unwritten standard requirement are generally a threat to our liberty. For example :

 - There are researches that prove, that people who are not on Facebook are people with psychological and psychiatric problems

 - There have been cases, where boss of a company would refuse to hire, when he asks the would-be employee to show him his Facebook profile, and the guy says he does not have one. This could be truth. This could be a lie, if the guy (rightfully so) thinks his facebook is off limits. The boss might assume the guy is not normal (backed by the researches), or that he is hiding something (as if, it is not ok)



Regarding "hackability", the ones most expected to abuse the information are the ones in hold of it, for a number of reasons :

 - There is quite little, what use a hacker from the side could do with information about available parking spots, or even about parked cars with identifying personal information. This information is much more useful for implementing mass surveillance

 - To implement mass surveillance, it is important to correlate constant data input from multiple sources. A hacker from the side would have to break into each of them and put work into maintaining those breaches functional. The municipality or government have access to all that by default

That system already exists and I don't believe it uses a camera of any sorts. There is a shopping centre nearby which has a something called a "Car park guidance system" which has a sensor above each parking spot and a indicator at the end of the spot which is green when the spot is free and red when the spot is taken. It can be seen from a distance in the car park and is hooked up to displays throughout the car park to show the number of available parking spots.

Whether these systems relay information to a cloud or a server is unknown.

There is a similar system at the parking lot of the Cinemall mall, and it often lies in the number of the lots available, and marking green lights at a used lot and not at a free lot.

I have seen the system posted by Dor in person. In each indicator "luminaire", there is what looks like a pair of ultrasonic emitter/receptor, aimed towards the parking spot. This would indeed work well in an indoors parking, where the device can be mounted right above the parking spot, but imagine installing something like this outdoors : From the height of a lighting pole it would not work. Installing small poles next to each parking spot is extreme cost. Wiring an inductance measurement loop in the parking spot is expensive too, though otherwise is a good solution. There the camera based systems make sense

The ultrasonic parking spot based system might or might not be transmitting to the cloud, but more importantly, it's input (the ultrasonic receptor) is not capable of inputting any information that could even remotely be used for surveillance

Now in L.A. (Los Angeles) Philips lighting is working with spotshot and building street lighting with Gunshot sensors, not that it's a bad idea if you have high firearm related crimes, but it's added surveillance, that will just move the location of the crime to an area not using sensors to detect it, or promote the use of technologies to make it undetectable by the sensors like a silencer, which in this case is nothing more then oil filter from local walmart, so you create a larger problem, other people in the area can't hear the gun shots and take cover and are at a higher risk from stray rounds, but they did leave that out of the article they don't like to mention the drawbacks. The article is found here And this costs a city $95,000 / year / Square mile, yep it's a subscription based service.. Expect to see those LED saving to erode quickly as time goes on, they will just end up paying someone else the money... 

But on the bright side they are using this system in Kruger National Park, South Africa to combat Rhino poaching, and it has saved a few rhinos, even though a few script kiddies could of built it for less then a years subscription and they would of owned it outright...

The best thing that could happen to systems like spotshot in American cities is, when some kids find out how to build a firecracker loud enough to trip the sensors multiple times a day

Firstly, I have to ask, dor123, How did you make your computer screen all mirrored like that where everything is right to left ?

Secondly, I despise anything with smart features. You will never see me owning things like smart tvs, fridges, toilets, lamps and those ridiculous Alexa or google home things or automated home controls etc. Having a smartphone is already pushing it for me

Firstly, I have to ask, dor123, How did you make your computer screen all mirrored like that where everything is right to left ?

My Windows 7 is Hebrew so it is right to left, rather than left to right and so Google Maps:

Thats really neat

Firstly, I have to ask, dor123, How did you make your computer screen all mirrored like that where everything is right to left ?

Secondly, I despise anything with smart features. You will never see me owning things like smart tvs, fridges, toilets, lamps and those ridiculous Alexa or google home things or automated home controls etc. Having a smartphone is already pushing it for me

We have a couple of Sony smart TV's but they're not so smart as they used to be, as Sony have removed support for BBC iPlayer and Youtube, which were two of the main reasons we bought them 

We would never have any other equipment connected to the net, apart from phones and tablets, but we never use the location feature, or any other means of tracking what we're doing.

What a rip that they removed the features. More the reason I would not invest in those tvs as features I would of paid for can be taken away. Plus theres the fact that if the tv lasts a long time, its going to age and become dropped from support updates and features will not work. Then there is the matter that the ones with cameras, mics, can and are capable of watching and listening.

It can be certainly possible that it can provide feedback to companies on whos watching their ads or what reactions if any they are getting. If spying is indeed happening, it is driven by ad revenue, if not for that they wouldnt bother.

I must add that if you look into the patents of some of these big companies like google and microsoft have on their stuff you are in for a surprise. Amazon is clearly up to something