Few could imagine a more chilling tale of depravity than the story that has emerged over the last few days concerning the kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard.
While her alleged kidnapper, Phillip Garrido, has now been revealed to have penned a disturbing blog, some commenters on Boing Boing have uncovered visuals from Google Street View that they believe show him in pursuit of a Google car.
Boing Boing co-editor Xeni Jardin has posted a series of Street View shots in which a van is seen progressing from Garrido's address in Antioch, Calif., toward a Street View car.
At Boing Boing, Jardin gives precise directions on how to follow the van on Street View and believes that its driver may have been suspicious of a Google Volkswagen that was filming for the Street View site. Jardin describes it as "the creepiest thing I've ever seen on Google Street View."
No one viewing this footage when it first went live would ever have considered it suspicious. However, some have pointed out that had police viewed this overhead shot from Google Maps, perhaps it might have made them search Garrido's home with a little more vigor.
Google must be used to having its neutrality questioned by now. However, when the alleged home of neutrality comes after you, perhaps you wonder if all this questioning of your motives is ever going to stop.
Not so long ago, it was the Greeks who decided they weren't too happy with Street View's prying artificial eyes. Now, according to the Associated Press, it's the Swiss who are getting nervous about their much vaunted (and much-profited from) privacy.
Hanspeter Thuer, the federal data protection commissioner of Switzerland, accused Google of not doing enough to blur faces and license plates. And he demanded that "Google immediately take its Google Street View online service off the Internet."
Ah, Switzerland. I have no reason to believe the man on the bike is a member of Parliament.
(Credit: CC Robert Thomson/Flickr)A Google statement to the Associated Press said that the company would discuss the matter further with the authorities in order to "demonstrate our industry-leading applications for protecting the private sphere."
Perhaps the most interesting snippet of this governmental request is that it appears to coincide with the Swiss newspaper NZZ espying a member of Parliament, Ruedi Noser, on Street View in the company of a lady who was not his wife, but was, praise be, his assistant.
Noser's reaction was charming in the extreme: "There is probably no problem for my wife, as you could also recognize my companion in the picture." Somehow, the use of the word "probably" offers a hearteningly realistic view of humanity on the part of the Parliamentarian. I think he will go far with such a sanguine view of the world's workings.
Whenever countries in Europe raise objections such as these, it appears that Google finds an appropriately European solution: discussions and talks, followed, no doubt, by the parsing of a few nuances, until the issue seems to recede from the public eye.
Then the Google eye can happily go back to work.
They might almost be men selling ice cream.
They ride around on tricycles, a big fridge-like box perched on the rear wheels, a brightly colored logo on its side.
And yet that 10-foot-tall mast between the rider and the box tells you that this isn't pistachio peddling. No, this is surveillance, Google-style.
Those nice people at Google Street View became frustrated that their cars couldn't access every single corner of the world. Indeed, earlier this year the company removed footage of one of its cars after it transgressed traffic regulations. Then there are those pesky pedestrian areas and fine places of historical interest that don't allow cars within their boundaries.
So what better way to obviate these obstacles than by sending in the trikes?
The tricycles will blur faces, but what will they stil capture and where?
(Credit: CC PSFlannery/Flickr)According to the Associated Press, the freewheeling three-wheelers hold nine cameras, a GPS, a computer and a generator. And they are currently wandering around the center of Paris, having already done some historical surveillance in England and Italy.
A Google three-wheeling spokesperson, Anne-Gabrielle Dauba-Pantanacce, told the AP: "The idea is to be able to offer 360-degree images of places that were inaccessible before."
Google Street View is a schizophrenic enterprise. On the one hand, it's lovely to be able to see images of streets one is hoping to access (even if the recession has wiped out so many of the stores that existed when Google filmed).
However, there is still something slightly creepy about the intrusion of strange men, in or on vehicles, who just might capture your tender and private moments. Like vomiting, for example.
The tricycles are, according to Google, fitted with technology that automatically blurs license plates and faces, which does give one a slightly warmer feeling in one's more sensitive areas.
Yet one wonders just which historical landmarks might be in the tricycles' path.
Have they already drifted down the corridors of Britain's Houses of Parliament, innocently observing as Members of Parliament conducted private business with their personal assistants?
Might they have gone into some government buildings and villas in Italy and accidentally espied Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi giving sophisticated political tuition to the 18-year-old leaders of tomorrow?
You see, I know that those who become involved in passionate and occasionally illicit trysts do tend to use places of historic interest for their clandestine meetings.
And even though their faces might be blurred, their clothes and body types will be evident.
Who can forget the tale of the cheating husband, whose car was allegedly spotted by his wife on Street View?
Oh, what historical histrionics might still await those who observe Street View's latest and most enterprising footage?
The world weaves odd, strangely patterned webs.
Last September, a 14-year-old boy told police in Groningen, Holland, that he had been knocked off his bike and robbed of some money and his cell phone.
What evidence did he have of his alleged assailants? Very little.
Six months later, the Associated Press reports, he was pootling around on Google Street View when he saw an image of himself--and of two males behind him, who, he seemed to remember, were just in the place where he was allegedly robbed.
So he called the police again.
Paul Heidanus, a spokesman for the Groningen police, told the AP that the police had to make a formal request to Google in order to obtain the unblurred photo from Street View.
"The photo could provide an important contribution to solving a crime," he said.
The police subsequently arrested twin brothers, one of whom was allegedly recognized by Groningen's robbery squad.
But here's what I would love to know: what was the 14-year-old alleged victim doing on Google Street View six months after the alleged event? Why pick that moment to return to the scene of the alleged crime?
And, secondly, what was the kind and sensitive Street View driver doing at the time of the alleged incident? Did the driver really just miss it?
Paul McCartney, or Sir Paul as he's strangely known across the Atlantic, sent a message to Google: "Please, please me."
"Please, please me by removing images of my house from your Street View service," that is.
According to the Sun newspaper, one of the world's most famous left-handed guitarists, was concerned that Google Street View offered a 360-degree view of his house. So his security detail contacted Google in order to remove all details of his property.
Fine lighting or fine highlighting? You decide.
(Credit: CC John Packer/Blank Slate Photography/Flickr)However, if you go to the Street View in question (now blacked out), and then move around, you will see that Google's house numbering appears to be slightly and strangely imprecise. When Google says you're looking at number 7, you're looking at number 3. So, if you happen to be looking for number 7, look at number 11.
The house in question is in the rather nice--but difficult to park in-- area of St. John's Wood. McCartney bought it in 1965 for a mere 40,000 pounds and, so legend has it, wrote "Penny Lane" and "Hey Jude" there.
It is not clear whether he wrote either of these songs on the circular bed, a gift from Groucho Marx, which adorns the meditation chapel in the garden of the home.
It would be most concerning if anyone could just go online and espy your circular bed, wouldn't it?
For Google Street View, Japanese version, it's not a wrap. It seems to be more of a wrap on the knuckles.
Google has received so many complaints about the height of its ambition, I am sorry, I mean the height of its cameras, that it will re-shoot all of its Japanese footage again. With cameras of a more modest scope.
According to some critics, Google's eagle eyes were more those of vultures, capturing the meat of rather too many private moments over too many private fences.
This is one of the offensively lofty Street View cars in Japan. You can just make out the red tip of the Ladybug 2 camera.
(Credit: CC Raneko/Flickr)In Japan, people are not fond of having even their clean laundry aired in public. And the protests became too great for Google to ignore.
So the company has agreed to bow to these complaints and lower its gaze by 16 inches.
Which will cost a little money, as it has already filmed in 12 Japanese cities, including Tokyo and Osaka.
This news comes as Google is also facing a few hurdles in Greece.
Authorities there have halted all Street View filming until Google satisfies them that its intentions are good and that its cameras will not show number plates, restaurant waiters smashing plates or anyone secretly watching the DVD of "Mamma Mia."
Beware Google bearing gifts.
Greece has decided to stop the lovely, sensitive Google Street View drivers from taking any more pictures while it considers whether those young Turks are taking too many liberties.
It has asked the somewhat large search company to provide information regarding the length of time Google intends to keep the images.
"I had one of those Street View cars outside my house last night. Trojan horses, if you ask me."
(Credit: CC Tilemahos Efthimiadis/Flickr)It has also asked about how Google informs those who might be leaving the homes of illicit lovers, emerging from pornographic establishments, or vomiting on the sidewalk (English tourists) and are suddenly caught by the righteous retina of the Google eye.
It appears that Greece has taken similar measures against a rival surveillance service operated by the Greek ISP Kapou.
As Plato himself put it: "Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous." Oh, but virtue is so difficult, is it not?
There are days when the mind is sluggish and the body votes for the Recalcitrant Party.
So I am grateful to Technically Incorrect reader John Wesley, who chose to point the parts of my eyes that might function today to a Web site called the Blotter.
Whoever is behind this criminally committed blog took it upon themselves, for reasons unbeknown to me, to scour Google Street View for crimes, misdemeanors, and simply strange, strange occurrences.
My first instinct was that these were entirely concocted images, made to amuse rather than amaze. Oh, me of little faith.
I have tried to locate as many of the addresses as are readable from the site. And while Google may have removed some of the more obviously egregious ones (I could not find the man appearing to climb toward a second-floor apartment in San Francisco, for example), some are still there.
The sword-wielding samurai from Pittsburgh, for example.
And the ladies of the day in Paris. How can I possibly assume these are ladies of the day? Well, they're standing by the curb in what looks like the middle of the afternoon and one is wearing, oh, please check it out for yourselves and decide.
The Blotter seems to have captured children smoking in Bristol, England, and even a couple of cases of apparent assault, drug dealing, and general lewd happenings--although one could question whether a Frenchman carrying an inflatable doll down the streets of Paris could really be classified as lewd.
More like a day in the life, really.
It has always been a great reassurance to those who don't like their houses featured on Google Street View that they can ask Google nicely to have the image removed.
Perhaps it is now even more reassuring as Google seems to have asked itself nicely to have an image or two removed.
One of its highly sensitive Street View drivers was wafting through the streets of Bradford, England, when he decided to, amazingly, go where he shouldn't--a lane marked "bus/bicycle/taxi only."
Unfortunately, this decision was taken beneath the noses of police officers.
I will now use the words of Chris Whiteoak, the chap who witnessed this whole affair and reported it to the Neatorama Web site, to describe what happened next.
He wrote: "The Google car sped off, went nearly the whole way round the block in busy Bradford city center (the police still following now with lights and siren on!), before eventually pulling into a car park...which just happened to be the car park to the old police station!!!"
Whiteoak was ordered by the officers to stop taking pictures. But, as any concerned citizen would, he burst on to Google Street View when it first launched in the U.K. to see whether the Street View camera car's pictures had made the cut. They had indeed.
Now some appear to have been removed.
For example, while the image of police picking up a reinforcement remain, one that showed the Street View car being pulled over appears to be no longer available.
Mr. Whiteoak told the Daily Mail: "'I think they must have taken them down quite recently."
One must conclude that someone at Google didn't like the perfectly legal photography taken by, um, someone at Google. How very odd.
Google Street View seems to have caused a little friction in the United Kingdom, as the British whisper loudly to defend their sense of privacy.
However, one group of people seems to have stared at the Street View camera cars, smiled, and been inspired.
Yes, the police took one look at the 360-degree cameras perched on top of innocent little cars and said to themselves: "We can do that."
Which is why residents of Greater Manchester will be delighted to hear that two Smart Cars, with cameras soaring skywards from their roofs will be patrolling their neighborhoods in a pilot scheme.
Will they ensnare texter-drivers or those applying make-up at the wheel? One hopes. But will they also capture gentlemen emitting their copious pints of lager onto the pristine sidewalk? Will they spot unfaithful husbands enjoying creepy trysts away from their forlorn wives?
What is clear, and this is something that I know will make some readers' loins gird with grit, the UK police is trying to do everything the Google way. Yes, they're doing it by the data.
In a cost-cutting joint venture, might there soon be a policeman inside?
(Credit: CC Master Man/Flickr)A police spokesperson declared to the Daily Mail: "'The Smart enforcement vehicles are fully police liveried and working in areas where our data analysis has identified a high occurrence of 'driver distraction' collisions and where officers have regularly observed offenses being committed."
The UK police is, indeed, being turned on to data analysis. What beautiful knowledge with which to start the week.
I only have one concern. In the Greater Manchester area, there do exist posh districts, populated by lawyers, accountants, night club owners, and money launderers.
Will they follow the example of the villagers of Broughton and surround the street-viewing Smart cars with a view to intimidating them from their midst?
If mob rule hits Greater Manchester, what hope is there left for the rest of the kingdom?
