One technology which doesn't seem to get much acknowledgement in Trav is facial recognition. Assuming a decent level of accuracy it would greatly simplify matters of ID such as licensing, law enforcement, etc at starports. Any society which has cheap fusion and grav vehicles will have this knocked on the head. Walking down the street you would simply see someone and likely get their latest social media posts floating next to them in AR. I don't think citizen privacy is really high on the agenda at the Moot either, so it would likely be ubiquitous. Is this explored in canon anywhere?
Facial recognition
- Thread starter mb345345
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Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
IMTU, the prevalence of 'surveillance society' depends on law level, TL, government code and local politics. Essentially, the higher the law level, government code, and TL, the more likely the police will have surveillance up. Other factors might play into things as well:
- Balkanized worlds, high pop worlds, and arcologies will almost always have surveillance up
- Worlds that have political stressors [revolutionary movements, hostile neighbors, etc.] will almost always have surveillance.
When it comes to security systems, especially high value target security systems, will have multiple layer security, including proof of life gates and duress codes.
WHULorigan
Cosmic Mongoose
When someone steals your debit/credit card info from a swipe-reader or from an RFID reader that scans your proximity "tap" from your card, or there is an internet data breach, they issue you a new card and card-number. I wonder how they will issue new us faces when the digital data from our face recognition gets stolen?
"I am sorry sir, but that face has been reported stolen and has been cancelled . . . "
alex_greene
Guest
Traveller was originally written pre-the surveillance society, when computers weighed 4 tons and barely had the bandwidth to run a digital clock.
Yes, the temptation to make the 3I a total surveillance society is so seductive to those in charge that you'd think everybody would be snapping up the tech the second we reach TL 7.
There's a problem with that. So many people can abuse that system that it won't work on a grand scale. It's about rights, including the right to roam which is the core of Traveller - your characters want the right to go where nobody knows your name.
Then you have the aliens - Hivers, Aslan, Vargr, Zhodani - who might take exception to having their rights curtailed in the 3I. People have launched warfleets over far less.
Besides, the Zhodani would never need tech to maintain a surveillance society. Everybody is conditioned to be too darned honest about everything that it would never occur to them to set up systems predicated on the idea that people as a whole are not to be trusted.
Surveillance societies are, at their core, afraid. They fear change. They fear time. They fear things they don't understand, which are above their EDU. They are afraid of everything, because they don't know how things work, and as an act of fear they set up Big Brother to keep people under their thumb.
Your Travellers would be the first to tell Big Brother 去你的！
Yes, the temptation to make the 3I a total surveillance society is so seductive to those in charge that you'd think everybody would be snapping up the tech the second we reach TL 7.
There's a problem with that. So many people can abuse that system that it won't work on a grand scale. It's about rights, including the right to roam which is the core of Traveller - your characters want the right to go where nobody knows your name.
Then you have the aliens - Hivers, Aslan, Vargr, Zhodani - who might take exception to having their rights curtailed in the 3I. People have launched warfleets over far less.
Besides, the Zhodani would never need tech to maintain a surveillance society. Everybody is conditioned to be too darned honest about everything that it would never occur to them to set up systems predicated on the idea that people as a whole are not to be trusted.
Surveillance societies are, at their core, afraid. They fear change. They fear time. They fear things they don't understand, which are above their EDU. They are afraid of everything, because they don't know how things work, and as an act of fear they set up Big Brother to keep people under their thumb.
Your Travellers would be the first to tell Big Brother 去你的！
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
You want total surveillance on your starship.
alex_greene
Guest
Guaranteed, you'll never get it. The Engineer will want to keep the cameras away from the closet where she keeps the still, and the Medic won't want anyone to know where the stash is.
You either trust your crew implicitly, to the point where you finish off each other's enemies *cough* sentences, or you get a crew you can trust implicitly. You get a Captain who doesn't trust her people to do their job, that's one ship you'll be hauling for salvage some way down the road.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
I don't know what you mean by 'total surveillance'...
IMTU, I presume that all common areas are video monitored and that there is an audio stress sensor to detect arguments or other disturbances in the passenger spaces. Staterooms remain private.
Certain hatches require three tier verification [any exterior hatch, bridge, engineering] with 'proof of life' verification [capillary movement in a retina scan, pulse in a thumbprint, etc.] and duress code words. The ship's computer requires a separate series of three tier access [facial recognition, retina scan, and random code group card]. The computer can be purged from the bridge and the ship's power plant can be slagged from engineering.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Semi privacy nooks in non essential area.
But you're in the middle of nowhere, with dim hopes of rescue if something goes wrong, and that's before you jump, so you want to know exactly what's going on in your vessel, and that all engineering is working exactly as it's supposed to.
But you're in the middle of nowhere, with dim hopes of rescue if something goes wrong, and that's before you jump, so you want to know exactly what's going on in your vessel, and that all engineering is working exactly as it's supposed to.
Yup, total surveillance on the ship. You do want a crew you trust implicitly - so much that you have no fear of being watched by other crew menbers. The still? The captain helps run it. The medic? The pilot helps fill it. Someone having a good time with someone they met on the last planet, in the privacy of their stateroom? Everyone on the ship has veto rights on new partners anyway - watching is both expected, and boring.
Total surveillance all the time. Not for fear - everyone on the ship trusts each other. Its for protection. 'We went to a new planet, with a species we never heard of, who developed large amounts of tech on their own. Oh sure, they're not a major race, and our TL15 stuff can do things they never imagined - but HOW their fabricators work is still just a tiny bit different to ours. If we accidentally bring something home with us - or if they try to sabotage us and plant it - we need to be able to examine and track every particle that came on board our ship. Yes including stuff in the bathroom. So if something goes wrong, we can fix it, before it leaves us stranded in jump space.' TOTAL surveillance - thats how good science WORKS.
Total surveillance all the time. Not for fear - everyone on the ship trusts each other. Its for protection. 'We went to a new planet, with a species we never heard of, who developed large amounts of tech on their own. Oh sure, they're not a major race, and our TL15 stuff can do things they never imagined - but HOW their fabricators work is still just a tiny bit different to ours. If we accidentally bring something home with us - or if they try to sabotage us and plant it - we need to be able to examine and track every particle that came on board our ship. Yes including stuff in the bathroom. So if something goes wrong, we can fix it, before it leaves us stranded in jump space.' TOTAL surveillance - thats how good science WORKS.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
Security and surveillance are not the same thing. In the case of facial recognition, it is a perfectly adequate form of security, perhaps as one factor of a multi-factor authentication system.
But that doesn't require a camera in every nook and cranny tracking your movements, just a system allowing access for authorised individuals to sensitive areas. Having facial rec cameras everywhere and tracking everyone's movement, but having easily picked locks - that's surveillance without particularly good security, except as an after-the-fact forensic tool and a way for high law level societies to encourage 'proper' behaviour.
Having cameras in the bathroom does no good (and can lead to no good) but having a weapons scanner in every doorframe accomplishes the same goal without being creepy about it. Well, assuming your goals are security related and not... well, you know.
One odd thing with this version of Traveller is that anti-hijack went from being relatively cheap software that just about anyone would buy to being an expensive add-on generally not worth the credits or bandwidth.
But that doesn't require a camera in every nook and cranny tracking your movements, just a system allowing access for authorised individuals to sensitive areas. Having facial rec cameras everywhere and tracking everyone's movement, but having easily picked locks - that's surveillance without particularly good security, except as an after-the-fact forensic tool and a way for high law level societies to encourage 'proper' behaviour.
Having cameras in the bathroom does no good (and can lead to no good) but having a weapons scanner in every doorframe accomplishes the same goal without being creepy about it. Well, assuming your goals are security related and not... well, you know.
One odd thing with this version of Traveller is that anti-hijack went from being relatively cheap software that just about anyone would buy to being an expensive add-on generally not worth the credits or bandwidth.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
I'm pretty sure that there are going to be smoke detectors everywhere, and probably gas sniffers.
Which means if your pet chihuahua farts, the ship's computer will know.
And then there will infra red scans, to detect any temperature changes.
Which means if your pet chihuahua farts, the ship's computer will know.
And then there will infra red scans, to detect any temperature changes.
I just imagine that the listed Security Software and Anti Hijack software are for "better than the default" versions. So your ship automatically has those features unless it's a plot point that it doesn't, but if you are running an Anti-Hijack 1, it is -2 to attempts to do those things.
That seems like a rather extreme reaction. That kind of surveillance is a pretty common trope in sci fi, whether it is quasi utopian like The Stainless Steel Rat or more overtly dystopian like many cyberpunk settings. If you don't want to play in that sort of setting, sure. But cutting off all contact over it? Oh-kay.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
You can be philosophically opposed to it, but it's almost certain on military and megacorporation spacecraft and ground facilities, even now.
There are ways, technological or not, to evade or disrupt it, but databases are right now being accumulated on everything you do or visit, virtually and realistically, as well as any identifying features, cookies, gait, acquaintances, fashion, and so on.
There are ways, technological or not, to evade or disrupt it, but databases are right now being accumulated on everything you do or visit, virtually and realistically, as well as any identifying features, cookies, gait, acquaintances, fashion, and so on.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
Okay folks, let's ask a simple question:
Is there video surveillance in the quarters /staterooms of modern naval vessels, merchantmen, or cruise ships?
No, there is not.
While I grant you that the Imperial High Laws doesn't care about a 'right to privacy', most societies in the Imperium do allow for a modicum privacy within one's own domicile. Obviously, some passive surveillance is reasonable and prudent. Things like electronic signal monitoring, air chemical sniffers, etc. are de rigeur aboard a ship. But video cameras or audio taping? Um, nope.
Is there video surveillance in the quarters /staterooms of modern naval vessels, merchantmen, or cruise ships?
No, there is not.
While I grant you that the Imperial High Laws doesn't care about a 'right to privacy', most societies in the Imperium do allow for a modicum privacy within one's own domicile. Obviously, some passive surveillance is reasonable and prudent. Things like electronic signal monitoring, air chemical sniffers, etc. are de rigeur aboard a ship. But video cameras or audio taping? Um, nope.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
I think there are about three aspects to sensors: sensitivity, range, and discernment.
I don't know how much you can stuff into a simple environmental sensor, but if it includes the electromagnetic spectrum, you can have a software programme recreate what is happening within a confined space.
As to range, sensors can pick up a variety of vibrations which can be recreated as audio, and now even airgapping electronics requires are a great deal of more buffering.
I'm not saying that we live, or will live, in a total surveillance state, but the tools already exist, and in many cases, we carry them with us voluntarily, and pay for them.
I don't know how much you can stuff into a simple environmental sensor, but if it includes the electromagnetic spectrum, you can have a software programme recreate what is happening within a confined space.
As to range, sensors can pick up a variety of vibrations which can be recreated as audio, and now even airgapping electronics requires are a great deal of more buffering.
I'm not saying that we live, or will live, in a total surveillance state, but the tools already exist, and in many cases, we carry them with us voluntarily, and pay for them.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
It's up to the Master and Owner to set policy.
You probably could disrupt surveillance devices by emitting white noise at the correct frequencies, but that would create a sensor black hole, which the ship's computer would become aware of, and the Captain might tolerate.
You probably could disrupt surveillance devices by emitting white noise at the correct frequencies, but that would create a sensor black hole, which the ship's computer would become aware of, and the Captain might tolerate.
