What may be the world's first cybernetic hate crime unfolds in French McDonald's

After looking at the guy I see why he was attacked. He looks like the Borg from the Star Trek movies. They were afraid they would be assimilated. No one wants to be party of a hive type community. The funny thing is, most of the employees are connected up to a a Borg type system stuck on the side of their heads, and they are working on the glasses.

reply to post by fusionhunter


Considering they have all them pictures, their suspicion seems to have been correct, no?

Oh another thought. It is permanently attached, and needs special tools to remove. Stupid, it should have a detachable coupling! To prevent damage to yourself, of course. Like if a really strong wind came, or a little baby grabbed it and pulled. It should detach, without ripping the wires, make sense?

Originally posted by CrimsonMoon
reply to post by Gauss

 

You miss the point, the eyetrap contains a CCD Digital camera.

Recording or not is irrelevant, it has the capability. Don't get me wrong I think the technology is neat, but when people start becoming complacent about being filmed, that's when our privacy will be threatened the most.

He was totally wrong to expect it was his right to walk into anywhere with equipment like this without showing some respect for other peoples privacy & rights. Not just the staff but other punters in the 'restaurant'.

Good on them they were right to stand up for their privacy and call him out.

I'm freaked out by the idea that people don't see any issue with a stranger pointing a camera directly in their face. How can people think that it's acceptable, are they really fine with a stranger walking up to them or their family and pointing a camera at them? Will it still be fine if it turned out the person was a paedophile and wanted pics of their kids to upload to the internet for other paedophiles to look at?
I would say to people, if you have no idea who somebody is, is it really fine for them to be making you the subject of their captures without even seeking your consent? Recording or not is irrelevant, a camera purposefully pointed at your face may or may not be capturing.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
If McDonalds did ban filming, and they put a sign on their door, and they refused you service and asked you to leave, that would be well within their rights, and I would have no problem with it.

If you think McDonald's has the right to request to not be filmed, why shouldn't a person have that right? A store can put a sign on the door, a person can't practically go around with a sign attached to them, but they can be asked for their permission to be made the subjects of whatever video processing is occuring.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
BUT, this was just some idiots attacking something they don't understand, it wasn't company policy to beat up everyone with a fake eye, LOL!

Perhaps they understood that somebody, without asking, was pointing a camera at them.

Originally posted by DaMod
Tell me, how is this any different than someone with an android or iphone? Those little pieces of tech happen to have nice cameras on them... they do images and video with sound..

Do you think there's no problem with some complete stranger walking up to you, raising their iphone or android up to you face and snapping portrait pictures or taking footage without warning or giving you a chance to decline them permission?

This isn't the same as somebody taking film or photos around town and inevitably getting the faces of unknown bystanders in the background, it's not even the same as somebody taking pictures of crowds on busy streets. This is a camera being pointed directly at people by somebody they don't know.

Originally posted by kozmo

Originally posted by Bluesma
- Wait a minute, are you guys aware that that Mc Donalds, by french law and tradition, could be sued if someone in it filmed another client and put it in public diffusion?

Ignorance is a bugger sometimes......

Whose ignorance? I think the ignorance is with the French law-makers who make such a stupid law. Stupid is as stupid does...

I guess that's all subjective, whether it is good to have the right to defend yourself or not. If you have no rights to protect your image and reputation, and enjoy that, it is your right IF you are in a country that supports that!
If you are in France, people still have that right, so misunderstandings happen.... the stupidity is in thinking that the whole world has the same values as yourself!

Originally posted by Bluesma
Hate crime.... hahaha.... what a way to spin it!

No I didn't read the whole thread, I apologize. I am sure it has all been covered.
I wanna have my say anyway.

Obviously the people took it as a camera, that could record images, and in France people are EXTREMELY concerned about their image being taken or used by strangers.

They didn't know it was attached to his head, they probably couldn't understand a thing he was saying or showing to them, hate had nothing to do with it. The irony is that in fear of having their faces recorded and used against them, they brought exactly that upon themselves (fear has that effect of attracting it's subject..)

I'm not really ready to call it hate crime either. And it may very well be as you say that they couldn't understand him - but they tore up his doctor's papers and threw him out. Language barriers is no excuse for acting like ruffians.

But anyway..... is that you in the avatar OP?
Damn you're hot.

edit on 17-7-2012 by Bluesma because: (no reason given)

It is indeed me, and thank you. I'm a sucker for compliments.

Originally posted by fusionhunter
If anyones ever played the Deus Ex series, it's based a lot around modern day conspiracies. In the latest game there's bascially two main sides. Those for modifications or augmentations of the human body and those against it. Thought I might just throw that in. Who knows what the future might hold for us in the next couple of years.

In this case is it hate crime because of what he is or did the employees just get pissed off and thought he was recording them.

I love the Deus Ex games, especially Human Revolution, and that game is a perfect vision of what I think our future looks like, a future where more and more people augment themselves voluntarily and without the need to do so because of lost limbs. We do live in exciting times.

And as for the why of what the employees did, I suspect it was just them being assholes towards "another American", so to speak, exactly because he *was* an American, and one with a weird contraption on his face. Just my guess, however.

reply to post by Gauss

It is indeed me, and thank you. I'm a sucker for compliments.

Walker Texas Ranger... Only shorter and skinnier and maybe a bit less macho

Lol, j/k Gauss, nice hat though

reply to post by Recouper


The only person who had the "camera" (EyeTap) in his face was Mann himself. Just for the record. And as said before, the camera automatically buffers (saves) and continually deletes pictures taken to enhance vision. This means that the photos are automatically removed within minutes, unless the thingie is damaged, as in this case where photos are therefor saved. Just for clarifications.

reply to post by Juggernog


Haha, thanks, man. Not to brag, but it's not the first time I've been compared to Mr Norris. Third time actually.

reply to post by CrimsonMoon


I definetly see your point CrimsonMoon and agree with your comments. I personally would not want someone to record me without my permission. He should have considered where he was at and what they were doing at the time.

reply to post by Gauss


Get a room

It is quite a well known fact to most Europeans that the french are scared of technology there not familiar with.

I heard the manager was in the back preparing a white flag...

Originally posted by Gauss
reply to post by Recouper

 

The only person who had the "camera" (EyeTap) in his face was Mann himself. Just for the record.

If I'm across a McDonald's counter from you and point a camera directly at your face, would you not say that I have a camera in your face?

Originally posted by Gauss
And as said before, the camera automatically buffers (saves) and continually deletes pictures taken to enhance vision. This means that the photos are automatically removed within minutes, unless the thingie is damaged, as in this case where photos are therefor saved. Just for clarifications.

And if I walk up to you and point a camera at your face will you actually know that video capture is not being either saved or perhaps directly streamed on the Internet?

If I walk up to you and point a camera at your face and start streaming video to an unknown site on the internet and you don't know who I am and I haven't asked or even warned you, are you going to be happy about that? How about we take it further, what if it's not you I walked up to, what if it's your girlfriend/wife? She doesn't know who I am, you don't know who I am, I just walked up to her and I'm pointing a camcorder at her and neither her nor you know why. Are you feeling happy about that?

Let's say you are happy about that. Do you think it's unreasonable that somebody else in that position might not be?

reply to post by Recouper


No, I would not disapprove of that unless you were "in my face", i.e., right in front of me, filming me in an obnoxious way. And if I were uncomfortable with it, or if my girl did not like being filmed, I would ask you to stop. If you didn't, I would take the camera from you.

But, here's the big thing. They didn't ask him to stop "filming", or cover up the thing. They didn't even ask him to leave the premisis. They grabbed his EyeTap, and tried to yank it off his head. Then they tore up his doctor's papers, and then they grabbed him, pulled him out of his chair and threw him out of the restaurant.

See, when I was in the Army, there was something roughly translated to "Escalating stairs of violence" (Much easier to pronounce in Swedish). The concept is fairly easy to understand; Use only as much violence as is required by the situation. Use only as much violence as you can defend the use of in court.

These people used excessive amounts of violence where none was needed. The camera in his face isn't the issue here. The issue is their un-provoked aggression and use of force against a customer, without ample appliance of diplomacy before resorting to violence.

So this guy has this thing permanently attached to his skull?

And he is not blind in that eye and is just looking through the lens?

I am a bit confused.

Originally posted by Gauss
Took a while to find any mainstream news sources that wrote about this, but I found some random newspaper called the Herald Sun, so here's a link:

Macca's staff broke my hi-tech glasses, says Steve Mann

As you guys say, this is madness. If I were him, I would not have hesitated to defend myself with excessive amounts of force.

Edit to add: Trying to find the man's blog. Does anyone have a link to it?

edit on 17-7-2012 by Gauss because: (no reason given)

Possibly not the wisest idea in France to defend with excessive force, given their legal system and laws differ greatly from the US.

question of the day is'

is it eavesdropping ? and what is done with the data collected?

there is your crime perpetrated and what has the French's panties in a bunch.

Us Americans just see a new gaming toy silly us

reply to post by Noinden


Well, to clarify I'm originally from Sweden, where our laws are also different and more similar to French than in the US, and I wasn't serious about the "excessive" part, but definitely about the "force" part. As far as I'm concerned, I would've given those people a couple of solid kicks to the nuts and claimed self-defense.

bearing in mind that we are all under constant video surveillance these days, it's only fair that we return the favour, at every available opportunity. what's good for the goose etc. as for the physical assault, i think robust physical self defence would have been perfectly reasonable. it's what i would have done. robustly.

I totally think the McDonald's employees were wrong.

The increase of small portable technology is possibly causing paranoia in some people.

In this video below a demonstration is shown how cameras can be converted using night vision mode to see through clothing.

Perhaps this was a concern of the attackers. Regardless they were wrong.