io9: big brother

This Is Your Body At The Airport

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:20:00 PDT

This isn't concept art for Dr. Manhattan or CG work for a nude android — it's the body of a random man, walking through an airport scanner. You won't meet the person viewing this ultra-revealing image, but still.

According to AFP/Getty:

A full body scan is pictured on a computer screen at Manchester Airport in Manchester, north-west England, on October 13, 2009. The scanner works by bouncing x-rays off an individuals skin to produce an outline of the person's body which is then used to detect concealed, potentially dangerous objects. The image is then transmitted to a remote security officer who has no visual or verbal contact with the area where the machine is located.

Photo by PAUL ELLIS/AFP/Getty Images

What Happens When Security Cameras Get Involved With Matchmaking

Graeme McMillan — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:30:02 PDT

What if Big Brother was hijacked by Big Cupid? DreamWorks' new movie Good Looking shows a future dating service that uses surveillance camera footage to match lonely hearts without fail. Well, almost without fail.

The project, just announced by the studio, is the product of screenwriter Chris McCoy, who came up with the idea after seeing the amount of anti-crime cameras while on vacation in the UK:

If someone could organize that information and know what everyone in London was doing and eating and who they're dating and who they're going home with, then that's an incredibly powerful tool... I think I have an oddball brain or something, but then I started thinking about how all that stuff could be applied to matchmaking. It would totally subvert Match.com and eHarmony, (where) I think people lie about who they are or they say what they think people will want them to be. But 'Good Looking,' my service, knows who they are and can put them together.

That doesn't mean that everything always works out, of course; the movie centers around the one person who turns down his computer-selected match, just to reassure mainstream audiences that matters of the heart are too wacky and unpredictable for machines to understand.

'Good Looking' catches Dreamworks' eye [Hollywood Reporter]

Big Brother is Watching You Surf the Web

Lauren Davis — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:00:00 PDT

If you browse Cthulhu fetish sites in the comfort of your own home, who’s going to know? You can clear your browser history and secure your home network, but that doesn’t mean your late night Lovecraftian lust sessions are safe from prying eyes. A new nationalized database system could let the British government know exactly how you’re spending your online time, as well as your email and cell phone contacts.

Telecom companies in the UK already store mobile and web information, including which numbers you call, which websites you visit, and which addresses you email, for 12 months. This information is already available to government investigators on demand, but the government wants to nationalize the database to make it readily searchable and hold the information for two years. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith defends the proposal as essential to criminal investigations:

"Communications data - that is, data about calls, such as the location and identity of the caller, not the content of the calls themselves - is used as important evidence in 95% of serious crime cases and in almost all security service operations since 2004.

"But the communications revolution has been rapid in this country and the way in which we intercept communications and collect communications data needs to change too.

"If it does not we will lose this vital capability that we currently have and that, to a certain extent, we all take for granted.

But some are suspicious of the Home Department’s motives:

Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "The government's Orwellian plans for a vast database of our private communications are deeply worrying…

"Ministers claim the database will only be used in terrorist cases, but there is now a long list of cases, from the arrest of Walter Wolfgang for heckling at a Labour conference to the freezing of Icelandic assets, where anti-terrorism law has been used for purposes for which it was not intended."

Perhaps it's time to step up the development of ParanoidLinux.

Giant database plan 'Orwellian' [via Kurzweil]

Zombies Invade, and the Only Safe Place is a Reality TV House

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:51:54 PDT

Though some might say that zombies already inhabit reality TV shows like Britain's smash hit Big Brother, a new show called Dead Set is taking that claim to the next level. Produced by the same company that makes Big Brother, the (fictional, scripted) show takes place in the Big Brother house as massive zombie attacks take place outside. At first, the inhabitants of the surveillance game show house don't realize anything is going on. But then things get bloody.

Written by UK Guardian columnist and media critic Charlie Brooker, the show will be mostly zombie horror but its setting obviously gives it a satiric edge to it. According to the Guardian:

It is understood that in Dead Set, the Big Brother house becomes one of the last places where people can shelter from the zombies . . . the contestants in the Big Brother house are unaware of the massacre going on outside. [It's] described as being like cult US show 24 "but with zombies."

Big Brother has always had a bit of a science fictional feel to it — the show is named after the dictator in George Orwell's 1984, after all, and the new Doctor Who paid homage to the show during its first season. The show will be directed by Yann Demange, who recently worked on Diary of a Call Girl with Doctor Who alum Billie Piper. The show, which will span six episodes, is set to air on the E4 digital channel later this year. Hopefully, more details to come on Monday, after the creators make some announcements at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival and at the Film4 FrightFest.

Charlie Brooker's E4 Zombie Thriller [UK Guardian]