Legal Information

Shepard Fairey's Arrest Begs Question: Art or Vandalism?

How Shepard Fairey's arrest provides a new look at an old question: Is it art or is it vandalism?

By DEBORAH VANKIN AND DAVID NG (LA Times)

Shepard Fairey has never been one to play by the rules — and that's par for the course for someone in a street art community that exists on the cultural margins.

Or does it?

The L.A.-based street artist and graphic designer, best known for his 2008 "Hope" poster timed with Barack Obama's presidential campaign as well as the "Obey" image seen on posters and T-shirts worldwide, was arrested last week while passing through customs at Los Angeles International Airport. Authorities there noticed that Detroit police had issued a…

SF artist's Pride show squashed

SF artist's Pride show squashed by foundation, due to assault claims
By Chris Roberts @cbloggy (Examiner)

Street artist Jeremy Novy is no stranger to controversy.

Before he won commissions to put his signature stencils of koi fish on public and private property in The City, his art — pasted on sidewalks and buildings — sometimes broke the law.

Starting Monday, Novy — a rare LGBT street artist in the hetero-dominated world of taggers and stencilists — was supposed to have a monthlong gay culture-themed show in the Castro.

Called “…

Woman convicted for posting street art on Instagram

Here is an update from a 2013 post about the arrest:

Woman Found Guilty of Criminal Harassment for Instagramming Street Art
by Benjamin Sutton on May 18, 2015 for Hyperallergic

Jennifer Pawluck, the Montrealer who was arrested in 2013 for posting a photo of a piece of street art on Instagram, has been convicted of criminal harassment and, on Thursday, was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and 18 months probation. Her community service must be completed within a year.

The 22-year-old college student has also been forbidden from posting any public messages on Facebook, Twitter…

How NOT to Document Your Illegal Work

S.F. cops say they caught prolific tagger 'Cryst’ admiring his own work

By Kurtis Alexander
Published 6:24 pm, Friday, March 13, 2015

An 18-year-old San Francisco man was arrested Thursday for allegedly painting his “Cryst” signature in many parts of the city.

One of San Francisco’s most prolific graffiti vandals was arrested Thursday while taking admiring photos of his work in Dolores Park, authorities said.

For months, police have been trying to track down the tagger, now alleged to be San Francisco resident xxxx, 18, who has painted his hallmark “Cryst” signature and other etchings from the Mission District to Treasure Island.

“This guy has tagged businesses, people’s homes, public property, Muni stuff, a lot of city property,” said police Capt. Dan Perea. “There are thousands and thousands of dollars worth of damage done by this one person … We’re very happy that we grabbed this guy.”

Police caught up with xxxx after someone phoned police…

The rise of the anti-facial recognition movement

The rise of the anti-facial recognition movement
By Joseph Cox on September 14th, 2014 for kernelmag.com

With Facebook automatically tagging your photos, Google Glass apps being able to pinpoint faces, and police using high-end technology to match digital and physical identities, big brother’s watchful eye is all around us.

While the technology behind facial recognition continues to develop as its presence increases, some artists are trying to give citizens their privacy back the best way they know how—by designing contraptions that help ordinary citizens avoid detection.

You might not know Leo Selvaggio, but there’s a chance you’ve seen him—or someone strikingly identical to him…

Gonna tag a BART station? Eyes may be watching.

Some BART riders may be reluctant to report crimes because they don’t want to draw attention to themselves. That’s why on Thursday, officials from the transit agency unveiled BART Watch, a free app that lets users discreetly report crimes on trains.

“It’s an app that is sort of like texting police,” said BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost.

The app lets users take a picture or send a text to BART police rather than call 911 or rush over to an intercom at the end of a train, something that BART officials said riders often won’t do out of fear for their safety.

The app is available for iOS and Android devices and works in English, Spanish and Chinese, Trost said.

Text alerts can be sent anonymously, and if users are out of cell phone range, their text will be stored and sent whenever service returns…

Boston PD Experimented With Facial Recognition Tech

“It's going to get better and better. As it does, it's not just the FBI, CIA, and government agencies, but also every shopping mall you go into, potentially sports arenas,” Crockford says. “It's going to look a lot like dystopian scenes in the mall in the film Minority Report.”

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/beantowns-big-brother

BEANTOWN'S BIG BROTHER: HOW BOSTON POLICE USED FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY TO SPY ON THOUSANDS OF MUSIC FESTIVAL ATTENDEES

By Luke O'Neil

Although we look back on it now through a mournful or angry lens, it's easy to forget just how downright disorienting the days and weeks following the Boston Marathon bombing in April of 2013 were. Adding to the surrealism of the drama for me was a night spent on lockdown in my…

Scramble Face Recognition Tech with CV Dazzle Camouflage

Anti-Surveillance Camouflage for Your Face
In a world of increasingly sophisticated facial-recognition technology, a drastic technique can throw the machines off your trail.
Robinson Meyer
Original Link (with great photos)
JULY 24, 2014

The NSA made me slather my face in make-up.

Or, it didn’t make me, exactly. But last spring, I found myself wandering around D.C., wearing dazzle camouflage for the first time. It was a sunny Saturday, the capital swamp neither frigid nor muggy-oppressive—perfect for walking. It took me 45 minutes to get all the makeup on, to get the pencil right and the hair dangled just so.

I spent the day hanging out with some friends around Adams Morgan, a neighborhood seemingly developed by former hippies who had…

Urban sensing - light poles have eyes, ears, etc. (Chicago)

Big Brother? Chicago to measure pedestrians' movements
by Jolie Lee

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/06/24/chicago-big-da…

By year's end, Chicago could have as many as 50 sensors attached to downtown light poles collecting data on everything from the humidity to air quality to the noise level.

The project, called "Array of Things," has the potential for far-reaching applications. For example, air quality data could help you navigate a route through the city that avoids pollution and allergens. Or traffic data could inform the city where best to install bike lines.

"The whole project is, how can you get the city to be more helpful to people by telling us about itself?" said Charlie Catlett, director of the Center for Computation and Data at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory, in an interview…

wtf?! Robocop tech rolls through SF like a Dalek.

http://knightscope.com/

Sci-Fi movies have a remarkable way of freeing the mind to think through future possibilities. It is for that reason that I treated my team to opening day at the movies to see the remake of Robocop. The movie paints a vivid, albeit extremely dramatized, picture of how robotics might influence and redefine what lies ahead in public safety.

Knightscope is definitely a hot topic! Most recently, Gartner named Knightscope in its annual "Cool Vendors" report (Gartner Cool Vendors in Automotive, Thilo Koslowski, 9 April 2014). Plug and Play Tech Center selected Knightscope from over 350 start-ups as its Hottest Company for March 2014. And Knightscope’s previous awards include the Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce 2013 Award for Startup Company of the Year and Best of Show…