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

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

Steve Mann's Homepage

Steve Mann's Twitter

if someone recording you in public or at a place like McDonald are not using the video for profit or in anytype of a malicious way then whats the big deal?
You really that worried about being a passing face on a youtube video.
Got over your self if your really think your that important. No one cares how ugly you are.
Anyone from Europe or have been there know that your practically being recorded at all times, by the government or what ever establishment your in anyway. Same for big cities here in the US.
I just don't see how it really invades on your privacy.
And in any case this guy did not deserve to be assaulted like that. His kids must of been so scared.

Never did like france myself. Talk about rude... oh and don't forget about the dog #, EVERYWHERE

What are you people talking about privacy?

You don't have any privacy in public...if people can see you you are not private.

The whole idea is ludicrous. The eyes and ears of thousands of strangers take in your image
and watch and listen to what you do constantly...if you're attractive, or very unattractive, you're subject
to even more scrutiny...

An invasion of privacy occurs when someone tries to covertly listen to your private conversation
or observe you when you are in a private environment, like a bathroom, or a motel room, or
a bedroom...

You people are talking about being video or audio recorder without consent.....
For crying out loud, you are video'd and taped ALL THE TIME.

I get violently angry when a traffic cam takes my picture...I get mad when (For quality control purposes)
I am audio taped---(stick your euphemistic language up your keister). But that's not an individual
with a camera in public recording whatever he CAN ACTUALLY SEE AND HEAR ANYWAY....
That's a bureaucracy of government or corporate entities assuming the right to record private citizens.
And that's another whole ball of wax...

Who cares if someone records what they can see in a public place?

And as for corporations, casinos, court rooms....sometimes the privacy of intellectual property, or
courtroom testimony, or even casinos protecting themselves against clever thieves is justified...
and if someone doesn't want cameras in a place that they control or own, so be it. But when
you're out in public (and McDonald's is not a public place--it is a a private place with accepted public
access) you are being watched----the only distinction between the eye and a camera is the ability
to recall data and present it....

i had no idea french people ate mcdonalds.

also had no idea a smart person would feed his family mcdonalds

Did you folks know its legal to photograph folks without permission? How else do tabloids exist? Its only when you sell the photos that permission is needed....im a photographer on the side and i have had to explain myself a few times on this. I often take photos in crowded settings where im photographing over peoples heads and the camera is basically pointed right at them with a huge telephoto lens.....but they arent in a shot. Also, ive taken photos of crowded places...such as the beach. I have photos that have over a thousand people in them. These photos are infact legal for me to sell, they are not "of" a person. And if im taking a picture and a bikini babe walks in front of me, i click the shutter...im bad haha. its legal... And if youre stupid enoigh to stand in front of a camera....and think youre not going to be on film...ummmmmmm

it's horrible if true and those responsible should be prosecuted, but it does have a faint smell of either being a set up or maybe he did some provoking for publicity, maybe?

reply to post by spoonbender


Rofl - I actually laughed out loud to the big-mac assimilation bit. Kudos, I rarely laugh out loud reading this stuff.
As for the hate crime itself - thats it. I'm going full cyborg and going straight to McDonalds. First thing I'm asking them for is some electricity, and if it is on the dollar menu.

reply to post by Ericthenewbie


your brain is a recording device. should we ban those? this was by all accounts a prosthesis. maybe we shouldn't be outraged when someone with a fake leg gets thrown out of mcdonalds too eh?

I am proud to say that I puked on McDonalds during this year's Independence day.

That is all.

reply to post by Gauss


Its all fun and games to the McDonalds employees until one day - BOOM - they get assimilated...

Its technology advances like this that seems cool, up to he point in goes back in time and tries to kill Sarah Connor.

Originally posted by ThinkingCap
I am proud to say that I puked on McDonalds during this year's Independence day.

That is all.

edit on 17-7-2012 by ThinkingCap because: Grammar

Dear diary.....

Originally posted by Gauss

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.

Well, but that's all relative judgement according to what we are used to and accept as 'normal'.
Like I have french friends that went to the US on vacation. Apparently they didn't understand some law of the road and were pulled over by a cop.
They made the unfortunate mistake of leaning over to look in the glove compartment for the papers of the rental car.....
and ended up on their stomachs, on the road, with a gun pointed at their head by a red faced screaming 200 pound cop!

All they could see was that they were unecessarily assaulted.
I tried to explain to them that all americans know to keep their hands on the steering wheel as the cop approaches, and that yelling he was doing outside that they couldn't understand was probably "Keep your hands where I can see them!")
But see, they were convinced it was a hate crime- an illegal attack because of the anti-french propaganda that was so big at the time.

McDonalds, as you all probably know, is a target for a large part fo the population here, which is against the spread of processed junk food culture. When they open they are often subject to protests and vandalisation.
We got one in our town only two years ago, and it was set on fire the night before it's opening.

If you are going to open a McDonalds in France, you would have to be very alert to the danger of others trying to destroy your business.

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

Thank you, a bit of eye candy is always appreciated!

Those people are stupid, attacking that guy.

It reminds me of Ghost In The Shell with all the cyborgs and digital eyes and things. Crimes are easier to solve because the cops can plug into people's brains and view what their eyes saw before their deaths, etc.

reply to post by jonnywhite


Wow such a defeatist attitude while missing the point of my concerns completely, "like saying if you can't beat them, might as well join them"...and to clarify once again, I'm not against technology as you so blatantly try to imply by your wiki link... I'm actually for it but not without educating myself on it's capabilities and understanding it's potential implications within our society.


reply to post by optimus primal


Your are correct that the brain is technically a storage device however your brain isn't currently able to have it's information overtly retrieved and stored content removed or streamed by or to a third party.
Also the "eyetap" is NOT a prosthesis device like as you mentioned a fake leg, take the time to read the article or research who Mann is...he has full vision in both of his eyes and has been developing and testing this type of technology for over 30 years now.

reply to post by CrimsonMoon


Your right, we should refer to McDonalds as a choke n puke....I think even the mods could agree with that one.

reply to post by Ericthenewbie


like it or not, augmented reality eyeglasses are coming and they will be widely accepted, it is the future of our digital age. while you are in public you have no expectation or right to privacy. your home and property is a different matter, and while businesses may have the right to not allow photography in their buildings, the way they went about it was assault plain and simple. you're already in thousands of pictures on dozens of different databases and home computers, everyone who spends any time in a city or vacation spot is. now there are plenty of sources involved in this wiki that you can check out yourself, but if you live in the US, if you're in public, and not under one of the caveats like a public restroom, your expectation of privacy ie right to privacy, is nil.

privacy

you're fighting a battle that's , realistically, already been lost. there will be no stopping augmented reality. i suggest concentrating on personal property and in homes, that's where you have the power and where it should be.

you are right though, that the man wasn't using the glasses as a prosthesis. it could be argued that one day his technology will lead to another such item for the blind like those already in and that have been in developement, however i wont put it forth as one to reduce offtopic chatter.

Well.. it's not a hate crime and they weren't trying to hurt him.

They saw his digital eye glass and thought it was a pair of the new "google glasses" which can be removed.
Maybe it's a French thing, but in the US (at least where I am from) no one would try to take something off someones face.

You can see this guys digital eyeglass and google glasses compared in this pic below.

reply to post by optimus primal


I just want to clarify a little. i dislike being photographed as much as the next paranoid. however, there's what i want and what reality is. reality is, we don't have the expectation of privacy in most public situations, and to some extent i agree with that. your outrage is better spent on invasions of home privacy is all i'm trying to say i guess.

While this does seem like an asinine reaction - two thoughts:

First, many people are likely to recoil at some of the trans-humanist efforts just like they do when people augment with piercings and implants. It's other-worldly and takes some getting used to.

Second, if you are not too bright, don't listen too well AND have a language barrier, you might assume it was some sort of bomb. Let's face it, Europe is a powder keg what with the immigration concerns and now the Olympics.

Originally posted by GogoVicMorrow
Well.. it's not a hate crime and they weren't trying to hurt him.

They saw his digital eye glass and thought it was a pair of the new "google glasses" which can be removed.
Maybe it's a French thing, but in the US (at least where I am from) no one would try to take something off someones face.

You can see this guys digital eyeglass and google glasses compared in this pic below.

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

of course they wouldn't, because as far as i know in most place in the US that's assault. If you need someone physically removed who wont leave willingly, you call the cops to do it. i don't know anything about french laws however sooo it may or may not be legal to do so there.

I'm going to have to agree with Recouper here. Anyone pointing a camera at strangers 2 feet away is asking to get his/her ass kicked, and if Mann did that in the wrong part of London he would have been stabbed.
We're also talking about minimum-waged employees in Paris, who most likely put up with all kinds of sh!t from customers all day, and this might have been the final straw.

It's all about common sense.