Hounder

Ok, I am a fourth year New Media Major at the University of Maine and I am trying to do a project for my senior capstone. The idea is that you have a screen saver that people download that uses their iSight (or webcame in general) to take video and stills while the saver is active. The screen saver will then show different clips of the day while its running.

The neat part is that it has another feature. It would also detect motion, and when motion is detected it would only do what is listed above. When their is no motion, it would upload the footage it took throughout the day to another users screen saver (P2P). At the same time, it would be showing footage from another random user of the saver.

The basic principle is a P2P video exchange, but the users don't realize that it is going on. The point is that users install all sorts of programs and never even know their power. Also, they don't realize the power of their computers either. I want people to eventually find out what it does, and then it will just become a neat screen saver for users who want it to perform those functions.

What I ask of you...is criticism, code help, suggestions, comments, anything. If you are a programmer and want to get a huge boost of your name on our campus (12,000 students), then maybe you would want to work with me on it.
If you have some helpful hints of places I could find help...that'd work too. Anything is good.

Thanks a lot guys, and I hope to become a more avid poster in this forum (my knowledge is restricted to HTML and PHP though). Alright, later.

tempest

What if the webcam is near my bed, and the motion it's detecting is me and my girlfriend on said bed... Don't i have grounds to sue you for? Especially if you've written a program to send the video elsewhere without my consent?

Your idea is to write a program to invade people's privacy, as a playful joke... Warning: Not everybody will get it. I even go as far as to speculate that nobody will get it, unless "getting it" means they think that you're invading their privacy and should never be allowed near a computer again...

I think your idea has an interesting concept, but as far as putting this on people's computers when they don't know what it does, it's just wrong.

Maybe you could modify your project idea to be a screensave that displayed a random screen shot from your website where people could upload photos they wanted to be included ... develop this part in PHP/MySQL and have people submit things categorizing them to their particular group "University of Maine" for instance and let the users choose from what category their screensaver will display images from...

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Hounder

True, that point has been brought up by some of my peers. The thing is, I have a strong interest in bringing people to realize the power of their computers...so how can I do that without scaring them? I think if I advertised the saver as a P2P video program, then only the more advanced computer users would download it.

Now, people can know what it does. I plan to have the full explanation of what it does in the install and on the site where you download it. The thing is, I think the people I'm targeting (computer users who don't pay any attention to what they do with their computer), will ignore the writing.

Getting it, in this case, would be feeling betrayed by the program or the computer...so yeah...any response will do for this project.
I got my basic idea for the project because of the webcams being built into computers now, and people not even realizing (such as my friend). And then when I heard about Rbot...I basically liked the idea of it. (I'm not a devious person...I just want to have a strong purpose behind my capstone)

Thanks though Tempest. You have any idea on how I could make it less...invasive...and yet still give that scary punch? I really want to nail that point in.

DaWei

Random thought: prolly not possible to scare the stupidity out of people.
Non-random thought: invading people's privacy is a huge no-no and calls forth words and descriptions that I'll forego for the nonce. I'm with Tempest 100%.

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Hounder

Alright, well...Should It be an advertised P2P video swapping sort of thing you think? Or should it just have no video swap at all?

I realize that it seems like this invasive program, yet, the real point of it was to warn people that things like the Rbot virus are out there. How can I get this point across and still create my program?


Thanks a lot guys, you've been real helpful.

MBirchmeier

People would much rather think they're safe than actually be safe. Even if this 'scare tatic' were to work, how long do you think it would last.

Think of how people feel about the security of the US now vs on early 2002. Yet look at how well we've fared http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/911reportcard.pdf

The illusion of security keeps people happy, and even if you make people aware, chances are they won't actually do much about it.

-MBirchmeier

nnxion

Mbirchmeier,

The whole idea of terrorism is to get people scared.

They don't want the US messing with their government, because they can influence their own government enough, but they can't do much against the US government.
The people that can influence the US government are the people living in the US (duh). If you get them scared, they might want their government to retreat. That's really all of it. Suprisingly many don't see this.

You may have noticed I didn't mention the EU, that's because they don't do a **** thing. All they want to do is talk, which isn't gonna work with terrorist.

BTW That report ain't pretty.

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MBirchmeier

Which is the whole idea of the OP's program... I wonder how his peers (or the courts) would see it.
Motive not withstanding, the response would probablly be the same. Outrage at the atrocity, a short period of awareness and change, followed by a feeling of complacency until something happens again. People would 'feel safe' look at all the things we did right after it happened, surely things have improved since then. Then go back to the way things were.

To paraphrase DaWei, no matter how hard you try you can't cure the stupid.
I wonder if such a prank would be that much more acceptable accross the pond. I doubt it, but i'm not as familiar with Eurpoean culture.
No... no it's not, we've (US) been apathetic about 'security' until we flubbed the hurricaine response, there will be another period of awareness which has probablly already almost ended, which will return to apathy until the next botched response. We'd rather do what's easy rather than what's right until it's too late.

-MBirchmeier

xavier

The screensaver shouldn't have the possibility to connect to the internet that's for sure ... other than that , i guess it could be funn for some people.

Also , do normal webcams have motion detector :eek: ? i wasn't aware of that :p

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ivan

No but it could be programmed... Not very difficult I believe...