back to article DHS deploys HD 'video quilting' chandeliers in Boston

The Department of Homeland Security, gigantic government security octopus of the USA, has announced plans to wrap Americans in a huge "high resolution video quilt". The DHS vid-quilt tech is called the Imaging System for Immersive Surveillance (ISIS), and uses a "discreet, chandelier-like frame — no bigger than a basketball" …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Discrete Chandelier Type arrangement

    It reminded me of those camera housings in larger shops in the 70's, looking a bit like an interrogation droid. IIRC they were black, spherical and had loads of lenses pointing out in all directions, so you couldn't tell which were the real ones. Does anyone know what they were called?

    They were great. At least as a child you could pretend you were living in a Terran Federation City and that Blake and his mates would come and invite you to join.

    Now that hope is just crushed.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Title

      Re: 70's 'interrogation droid' camera housings, "Does anyone know what they were called?

      "...

      Cameras.

  2. smudge
    Big Brother

    And what has it achieved?

    So by now the security team at Boston Logan International airport will have the very best collection of high-res down-blouse videos in the world. But how many terrorists have they caught?

    BTW, a chandelier of cameras the size of a basketball is not "discreet".

  3. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Derroizds

    ...will be detected by klazzified Artficial Intelligence processing the camera data ???

  4. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    now

    they can see terrorists in HD as they are allowed to board planes by "security" staff who were too busy going through some old lady's handbag to really care.

  5. g e

    Apple missed a trick there

    iPanopticon

  6. Qwelak
    Happy

    VId Quilting

    I thought they were talking about DfS for a while there

  7. CT

    Metaphor overload

    "The DHS vid-quilt tech is called the Imaging System for Immersive Surveillance (ISIS), and uses a "discreet, chandelier-like frame — no bigger than a basketball" holding an array of HD cameras pointing in all directions with their images seamlessly "stitched" together to form a single mighty goldfish bowl style image"

    quilt, chandelier, frame, basketball, goldfish bowl - sounds like a road accident with the removals truck.

    Anyone know what this is about?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Linux

      @ CT

      "quilt, chandelier, frame, basketball, goldfish bowl - sounds like a road accident with the removals truck."

      Or the worktop in Steve Ballmer's kitchen after he's made himself a sandwich.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ain't no hard-on . . .

    like a surveillance tech hard-on!

    IT's like Bill Hicks 'military catalogue' jape brought up to date.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Terminator

    360 view

    we have just given terminator a 360 view field. i'm sure that didn't happen in the movie.

    1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      It was in the TV series

      Season 1 episode 8.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    Happy goldfish bowl...

    ...to you, to me and to everybody!

  11. Nexox Enigma

    Hey, they probably got me

    I bet they got my whole fiasco of attempting to get a replacement 1U power supply onto an airplane. After the 8th xray they decided that it was probably safe. They still gave me a lecture, just to be sure.

    And I re-read that Arizona Fat Pipe article (read it when it was new) and it still cracks me up. Every day reminds me why I read El Reg...

  12. IR

    Much needed

    Because airports are known as lawless places with a lack of security.

    I bet these things are pricey.

  13. Robert E A Harvey
    Coat

    It's been done

    It's been done before:

    http://tinyurl.com/yb692qm

    I'll get me blazer. It's got natty stripes.

  14. Andus McCoatover
    Joke

    Can they put them in ladies' toilets?

    Anyone know the IP addy...

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    They need to do something ...

    On the few occasions I have flown London to Boston I have experienced the UK security at Heathrow meticulously keeping inbound and outbound interrnational passengers separated from each other and from domestic passengers. In contrast, the 'security' on arriving and departing Logan was practically non-existant. They could perhaps concentrate on these processes rather than this high-technology stuff.

    Anonymous because I don't want a 'no-fly' listing for daring to criticise the Merkins' security deficiencies.

  16. I didn't do IT.
    Unhappy

    Re: After the fact

    So this means that they will have [the potential] to have complete accountability [and liability?] for every slight and miss in the security screen? So when the next "unknown attack" happens, they will have a complete picture of who, what, and when?

    Yeah, I can see that really going well when all the security peoples know that EVERYTHING is being watched... There will be "unknown" areas of nil or non coverage that will be where "incidents" are "alleged" to happen; because without the camera to back it up, its Uber Important DHS/TSA Man vs. common pleb.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Everybody happy in the goldfish bowl

    "We've seen that terrorists are determined to do us harm, and ISIS is a great example of one way we can improve our security by leveraging our strengths,"

    They did? I think they just decided that because of the juicy pork barreling involved. But then, they've been at that game for half a dozen decades if not half that many centuries. United Fruit wasn't the first All-American Commercial[tm] reason for a coup d'etat.

    The cost? Everyone's privacy, funny talking people's lives, .... Small change in return for continuous fat paychecks, hey.

This topic is closed for new posts.