Paper accepted for publication in IEEE ISWC 2001, for being presented
October 2001:
<h1>The Witnessential Net</h1>
<h2>Steve Mann and Robert Guerra</h2>
<pre>
Corresponding author:
S. Mann
Assistant Mailroom Clerk
EXISTech Corporation
Facility Garden, 111 Shaukiwan Road, Unit 9A, Block 4, Hong Kong.
mann@eecg.toronto.edu
http://existech.com/mailroom.htm
</pre>

<h2>abstract</h2>
The Witnessential Network for the protection of Human Rights workers, and
others who may be subjected to violence, is achieved through a new kind
of imaging and hierarchical architecture having special properties ideal
for defense against unaccountability of attackers.  Incidentalist video
capture and self-demotion are introduced as new collegial forms of
defense against unaccountability.  Results of various experiments
conducted worldwide over the past 20 years, on the inventing, designing,
building, and using of wearable photographic apparatus having these special
properties are also described.  Other fundamental concepts with respect
to a Personal Safety Device suitable for Human Rights workers are
introduced.

<h2>Keywords</h2>
Protection of human rights,
Accountability,
Self demotion,
Self bureaucratization,
Personal Imaging,
Augmented Reality (AR),
Mediated Reality,
Human Rights,
Witnessential Network.

<h2>Introduction: The need for Witnessential Computing</h2>
There have been previous
attempts to equip Human Rights workers with
hand-held cameras so that they can document violence, and many of these
attempts have even been backed with massive corporate funding:
<pre>
  We began when Amnesty International
  invited us to be the sole sponsor of Human
  Rights Now!, a 1988 world concert tour
  which reached millions of young people on
  five continents.
  ...
  In partnership with musician Peter Gabriel and the
  Lawyers Committee for Human Rights we founded
  Witness, a program that equips frontline
  activists with hand-held video cameras to
  document human rights abuses.
www.reebok.com/about_reebok/human_rights/home.html
</pre>

Unfortunately, in many situations, the mere presence of a video camera
results in immediate violence directed to a person with a camera.
Thus hand-held cameras often serve to provoke rather than deter violence.

<br>
Download:
<ul>
 <li><a href=witnessential.ps.gz>gzipped Postscript version of the full
     paper</a>
 <li><a href=witnessential.html>html, but with bugs from latex2html
     (missing figures, etc.)</a>
 <li><a href=iswc01press.ps.gz>popular press
     article about the IEEE ISWC conference</a>
</ul>
<hr>
For more information on the Witnessential Network, visit a
<a href=http://wearcam.org/witnessential_nets_not_cameras.htm>
brief description of the Witnessential project.</a>
<hr>
The Witnessential project is also described, in detail, in
the book,
<a href=http://eyetap.org/cyborg_randomhouse_doubleday.htm>
Cyborg: Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in the Age
of the Wearable Computer</a>.
<hr>
<hr>