Catch a thief from your armchair and win cash

Here is the latest from the UK:


The service works by employing an army of registered armchair snoopers who watch hours of CCTV footage from cameras in stores and high street venues across the country.

Viewers can win up to 1,000 pounds ($1,600) in cash a month from Devon-based firm Internet Eyes, which distributes the streaming footage, when offenders are caught in the act.

For the pointer I thank Michael Rosenwald, who has just published a new book on the sports writing of Gay Talese

From another front, S.S. sends me this link for "the culture that is Britain."


Unless there are restrictions placed on it, I strongly expect this will very quickly become a Chinese cottage industry, somewhat along the lines of WoW.

Or you could sign up to ogle city women from the comfort of your farm.

Interesting game theory potential.

Do you get to select high crime or low crime venues to watch.

If I see and report before you see and report, who gets the prize. Will people watch during low crime hours, or just high crime hours.

Would there be a potential alliance between a criminal and a watcher with the criminal sharing the booty with the would be armchair watcher.

Do I get book rights, video rights, television rights as an armchair watcher.

Who bears the cost if I misreport something as an incident when it is a harmless activity.

Do I need to cary insurance if I report someone for doing something they didn't do or if someone was falsely arrested. Do I need insurance if I was negligent and didn't see something that was obvious while I was taking a burrito break or fell asleep.

Can stalkers or voyeurs apply for the position. Do you get to keep the footage for blackmail purposes.

Who pays for my testimony time in court if I report as a witness, or does the video footage speak for itself.

If a tree falls in the wilderness....

U.S. border states have been doing something similar for some time. They place cameras on the border and volunteers across the country watch empty dessert and river banks for hours on end in hopes of spotting a Mexican crossing illegally so that they can contact authorities.

ah, that dogging article warms my cockles ... good old Blighty. yes, I think that's Elgar I hear in my mind's ear.

(why is "in my mind's eye" used but not "in my mind's ear"?)

You would think this operation would be outsourced. Given that recognizing crime is relatively easy and it is already distributed over the internet, why don't they use the cheapest labor available?

Put cameras on roads in Afghanistan and Iraq, watch for IEDs being placed.

Once confirmed, winners get to shoot the missile from the UAV.

The Simpsons already did it.

Britain has come a long way from "No Sex Please, We Are British," though I am sure many there feel that the country has strayed badly. But it still keeps its sense of humor (humour, that is).

During the Second World War, American soldiers had the reputation among the British of being over-sexed.

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