How do you Handle Surveillance Cams in your Sci-fi?

[Emissarius]

If you're writing a sci-fi, and your MC does lots of sneaking around inside towers and buildings, how do you usually have them avoid surveillance cams aside from carrying a piece of tech that busts every camera in the building? Writers of fantasy usually don't have a problem with that sort of thing, and having been one myself for years, neither did I. Now that I'm writing a fantasy-turned-space opera though, I need to circle back and find an explanation for all the MC's espionage moments. Any suggestions/ references from novels or TV would be appreciated.

 

[Venusian Broon]

If you're writing a sci-fi, and your MC does lots of sneaking around inside towers and buildings, how do you usually have them avoid surveillance cams aside from carrying a piece of tech that busts every camera in the building?

A piece of tech that busts every camera in the building surely is a clear sign that your building is being compromised, no?

The only SF I've read that has surveillance cams in it is A Scanner Darkly by PKD, where, of course, he comes up with a completely messed-up scenario. Of no help for your story, but one of my favourite books!

Regards to your issue. Disguise? Walking about as cleaner, say. And then acting 'normally': i.e. act like a cleaner, or act like someone working late. Scoping out where all the cameras are, would be I think important, as that tells you where in the building to be careful and where you can relax and fiddle with any equipment.

Also it'll depend on who or what is in control of all the feeds? Is it an ever watchful AI that can trigger a call to security on a hair-trigger...or is it a tired human night-guard at 4 in morning, who could also possibly be distracted. Like internet security it is mostly the human element that is at fault, not the tech.

More high tech thoughts...why not break into the 'feed' of the cameras and broadcast a video that just shows a loop of time that had no one on it, so that the whole system is effectively blind and you can do anything in front of the cameras. (See Ocean's Eleven )

 

[Droflet]

Yeah, I had that problem in book 2. Initially our hero couldn't avoid them and, since he was expected to be there, there wasn't a major problem. Later in the book when the porridge hits the fan, he shoot them out. Not ideal but it worked for the story at the time.

 

[Emissarius]

A piece of tech that busts every camera in the building surely is a clear sign that your building is being compromised, no?

The only SF I've read that has surveillance cams in it is A Scanner Darkly by PKD, where, of course, he comes up with a completely messed-up scenario. Of no help for your story, but one of my favourite books!

Regards to your issue. Disguise? Walking about as cleaner, say. And then acting 'normally': i.e. act like a cleaner, or act like someone working late. Scoping out where all the cameras are, would be I think important, as that tells you where in the building to be careful and where you can relax and fiddle with any equipment.

Also it'll depend on who or what is in control of all the feeds? Is it an ever watchful AI that can trigger a call to security on a hair-trigger...or is it a tired human night-guard at 4 in morning, who could also possibly be distracted. Like internet security it is mostly the human element that is at fault, not the tech.

More high tech thoughts...why not break into the 'feed' of the cameras and broadcast a video that just shows a loop of time that had no one on it, so that the whole system is effectively blind and you can do anything in front of the cameras. (See Ocean's Eleven )

If I just ignore the cams altogether, would it raise any eyebrows? Most of the MC's sneaking around is done within his own organization's compound. He's not a highly-ranked member so it's unlikely that he could gain access to the feeds, at least not in book one. Or maybe, as a member of the organization, the building's A.I. won't raise an alarm no matter where he ventures into.

 

[Venusian Broon]

If I just ignore the cams altogether, would it raise any eyebrows? Most of the MC's sneaking around is done within his own organization's compound. He's not a highly-ranked member so it's unlikely that he could gain access to the feeds, at least not in book one. Or maybe, as a member of the organization, the building's A.I. won't raise an alarm no matter where he ventures into.

I don't know the situation you are setting up exactly; it may depend on what type or genre of book you are going for, I suppose. If you are writing a 'techno heist thriller' (I don't know if such a genre exists, but wth) then perhaps the reader would expect some sort of clever scheme that explains how your protagonist surrmounts such difficulties.

How important is the fear of being surveilled for the plot and character? If it's not important than just mention some hand-wavy reason for why the protagonist isn't worried about it and concentrate on what is important.

 

[Astro Pen]

Strange to relate I dealt with this while writing a chapter last night. So I had to think it through and treated it this way :

Hide in plain sight. Don't 'sneak around' or be furtive.

Instead, walk and act with total confidence as if you have every right to be there. Carry a sheaf of papers or whatever would pass for normal business in the situation.
Cameras normally tend to be set wide angle so it is not faces security are looking for, it is unusual deportment.

 

[.matthew.]

There's also the approach that they could use some tech that simply blurs their features or whatever so they can't be ID'd after the fact.

But sad to say, with the way surveillance is going, if you show it to exist in the future, then there will be no dodging it.

Maybe write up a reason why there's less surveillance than expected? Perhaps it's a secure building and not even the owners want to risk outside parties hacking their feeds and seeing inside? (could have a background in corporate/protest hacking wars).

 

[-K2-]

I'd think unless your SFF is dated in the year 2000 or earlier, you can't. Surveillance today goes FAR beyond just cameras in unsecured areas. Facial expression, mood recognition was available in even the earliest smart consumer TVs. Most secure places would have you carrying electronic identifying badges which include Radio Frequency IDentification, Near Field Communication, and Geospatial Tracking. If you're not carrying such identification, or if it doesn't match other aspects of you (face, eye, fingerprint, lip-print, voice, posture, height, weight, x-ray scanning (various internal features including dental/bone/joint work)) then they'll flag you as an intruder as well. It goes even deeper...you supposedly can be identified through heart rhythms, gait, etc.. Expect instant DNA analysis as well.

Point being, it's not just some simple camera system and a watchman even now. It's layer upon layer of cross checked, checks on checks, and checks on the system itself that does the work. IOW, if you're not supposed to be there--even now--they'll know. If you shut the system down they have another solution. Shut down the building, force everyone out and check them in person, and anyone who doesn't exit (checked with motion/thermal scans) is considered an intruder.

That's all real life...today. So, I'd have your person meant to be there. What she/he does with that ability (espionage) is up to them.

K2

 

[paranoid marvin]

Maybe give him a rank that allows him to go where he wants, and can only be questioned by someone of a higher grade. In the beginning, in lower security levels there is no-one at his level to question him. Later when he reaches the higher levels it becomes a lot more tricky.

Or you have a situation where - as in real life - people are only monitoring certain times in certain places. There's not enough people in the world to monitor all of the people in all of the places all of the time.

 

[ginny]

If you ask people they might say 4 screens are the maximum they can handle in surveillance.
In the same token the industry seems to think 16 is the max.
So the question first might be how many screens one person might be trying to monitor.

A wide bank of screens with few watchers might allow people to just act normal and not be noticed.
They would be looking for something that appears out of place.
The person who keeps watching their back--or opening every door they see--or looking for the cameras.

or
in an empty building
looking for movement or changes in the display.

 

[Elckerlyc]

or
in an empty building
looking for movement or changes in the display.

You would have software doing that for you. And not just by using cams.
I think the answer doesn't lie in technique or in a scientific approach but in magic. Or, for whatever reason, to not have any surveillance apparatus active or even installed in the building.

 

[-K2-]

edit/delete


K2

 

[ginny]

You would have software doing that for you. And not just by using cams.

That could--but does not have to be true; unless you explicitly make it true.
In the case of making it true; it is likely everything is automated and unless you want holes riddled through your building because of rats and other false positives the building auto system might have gas or vacuum reactions all automated.
Otherwise there would be at least one tech in the building to check the alarms as they are triggered and determine a response.

At that stage though it would be easier to hack the system that is automated possibly just change the table that names each room and have the whole system watching a closet somewhere while all the rooms are exposed.

 

[Astro Pen]

Wasn't there a Mission Impossible episode where the took a polaroid of the empty corridor and clipped it in front of the camera?

 

[Juliana]

There's also the approach that they could use some tech that simply blurs their features or whatever so they can't be ID'd after the fact.

Or a magical glamour, for those writing urban fantasy set in contemporary times... (I know, not sci-fi, but also an issue in contemporary fantasy)

 

[Serendipity]

With a lot of surveillance cameras you need a lot of watchers - which means that there will be an app to highlight oddities being recorded by the cameras. The best way is hack the app to ignore your protagonist going round his/her business.

 

[Ursa major]

The "PoV society" (if I may call it that) of my WiPs is very heavily surveilled (in public areas as well as secure locations).

However, for reasons** stated in those WiPs -- e.g. 1) the society still has concerns about privacy, so while it accepts that evidence for later use in trials may be stored for a period, it doesn't accept that they should be open (officially or otherwise) for other uses; 2) there have, in the past, been disastrous*** consequences when external elements hacked the surveillance systems -- the feeds from cameras and microphones are either delayed so they're nowhere near being real-time and/or only delivered to local/internal systems (some of which do no more than store the data, so nothing is observing, not even software).

Those doing things -- things they (officially) ought not to be doing -- take full advantage of this (by various means).


** - Whether or not there are other (less obvious/discussed) reasons why such precautions are taken is another matter entirely....

*** - Think of a world's surveillance systems being used by a hostile force to locate, and retrieve intelligence from, all the positions of those defending that world, and that hostile force being able to hear**** those defenders as they talk openly into their (now-uselessly) encrypted comms network. Such situations didn't end well for the defenders.

**** - The issue isn't that it's easy to hack, say, the voice recording system; it's that it's far easier to hack one (or a few systems) to obtain information on what's going on than it is to hack many thousands of point-to-point communications (that may be using individual point-to-point encryption).

 

[Joshua Jones]

Yeah, this really depends on what sort of technology is being used in the camera and in the monitoring systems, whether the cameras are public or target specific, and what sort of evasion you are looking to do. If your protagonist is looking to infiltrate, say, a completely automated weapons facility where no human ever goes to recover the MacGuffin, disguise wouldn’t work but hacking the AI probably would work marvelously. If you’re looking at a stereotypical setting where an overweight guy is munching on crisps while watching a bank of 863 screens/windows, you could play to the stereotype and have the protagonist pay off a couple to (or have a couple teammates) engage in amorous activity in full view of an outside facing camera on the opposite side of the facility while your protagonist infiltrates in disguise (or to say it another way, put something on one screen of great interest/distraction value to the security guy while reducing the protagonists draw to attention). If you’re looking at a mass surveillance system which uses facial recognition, hacking the system and swapping out the details of the protagonist with another person would be effective.

So it really does depend on context... one of the games I like to play is to design a system which can’t be beat, then wait a day or two and have a protagonist break in. Then wait another day or two and have the system designers fix the weakness... and so forth. It really helps me at least make things which make sense and don’t have obvious weaknesses, which are then compromised in creative ways.

If you like, you could expand upon the security system you’re thinking of here and I could give some specific ideas.

 

[MarcUK001]

We are in a surveillance society now. Cameras are everywhere. CCTV , dashcams, phone cameras, home security cameras. Many of these cameras are automated and are only viewed when an incident takes place the rest of the cameras are monitored full time.
Sci-fi tends to link these cameras to AI. i think Crime thrillers tend to use cameras a lot more in the stories. Cameras are just a tool, its the analysis of the camera data and timelines which i tend to focus on.
I`ve been a fan of science fiction my whole life. Science fiction is a good indicator of where society and technology are going.
If there was a robot, which could do the laundry, decorating i would buy it tomorrow..

 

[-K2-]

So, I tried to express how banks of monitors and people watching them are very outdated. In the video below is some very old tech, which if you apply it to facial features you'll get a minimal idea how FRT works:

That said, here is a 'slow/few parts per min.' inspection (inspection starts 40 seconds in):

That's just recognizing physical features. Add to that checking for numerous internal and external features (dental work layouts, thermal scans, heart rhythms, etc....all on the fly), you can see how without one person working they can check for a lot...in a crowd even. Think about it, FRT is so developed they give it to YOU as an option to unlock your phone.

Now add everything you carry constantly scanned. Electronics, credit cards, drivers licenses, currency, and you start to form a whole picture. Plus, it's tracked continuously. So, even a microsecond blip is noticed if you're not where the software algorithm predicts you should be. Now consider even your expressions, vital signs, posture, voice and >>inspired reactions<< are constantly tested. IOW, a light blinks by the ceiling, how do you react? Is it consistent or does it suggest you're overcompensating in some way (focused).

It goes on and on there is so much more to it, all done with a computer...today. Not 100 years from now, but right now. If a flag is thrown, people don't review the data then decide to pick you up. The software tells them to detain X person, then after they have you they review the information if they even feel the need to do that.

Stuff you see on TV and movies is antiquated tech at best.

K2