I'm surprised the flock cameras aren't being disabled in a more subtle fashion.
All it takes is a tiny drone with a stick attached, and at the end of that stick is a tiny sponge soaked with tempera paint. Drone goes 'boop' on the camera lens, and the entire system is disabled until an expensive technician drives out with a ladder and cleans the lens at non-trivial expense.
A handful of enterprising activists could blind all the flock cameras in a region in a day or two, and without destroying them, which makes it less of an overtly criminal act.
Obviously not advocating this, just pointing out that flock is very vulnerable to this very simple attack from activists.
idle_zealot•about 19 hours ago
The goal here by activists isn't to directly physically disarm every camera. Like with any act of protest, it's at least as much about the optics and influence of public opinion. Visibly destroying the units is more cathartic and spreads the message of displeasure better. Ultimately what needs to change is public perception and policy.
andrewflnr•about 18 hours ago
If it's about sending a message, I think using a drone to defeat mass surveillance is quite evocative.
themafia•about 18 hours ago
Yes. It will invoke the state to pass even more draconian laws surrounding useful technology.
You want to evoke the people and not the state.
reactordev•about 17 hours ago
That poor printer in Office Space…
primax•about 10 hours ago
It had it coming.
mullingitover•about 19 hours ago
Sure, but por que no los dos.
One or two cameras getting bashed is basically a fart in the wind for flock, and I'd argue that it doesn't actually move the needle in any direction as far as public opinion goes. Those who dislike them don't need further convincing, those who support them are not going to have their opinion changed by property destruction (it might make them support surveillance more, in fact).
But hey, it's provocative I guess.
On the other hand flock losing their entire fleet is an existential problem for them, and for all the customers they're charging for the use of that fleet. Their BoD will want answers about why the officers of the company are harming shareholders with the way they're operating the business. Cities that have contracts with them may have grounds to terminate them, etc etc.
lazide•about 9 hours ago
There has been a pattern in the UK of destroying speed cameras for the same reasons - including in some cases throwing an old car tire around the pole and setting it on fire.
Why would I fly an expensive drone close to a camera, fumble about for a minute trying to get it painted like a renaissance artist, when I can get a paintball gun for much less?
culi•about 14 hours ago
Or use a powerful enough laser pointer. Bonus points if you use infrared since other humans can't see the beam and won't know what you're up to.
Though you either need a laser powerful enough to harm human eyes or lots of patience. Hong Kong protesters innovated a lot of these sort of resistance using lasers
So you can do it without your image being captured by the camera?
stavros•about 19 hours ago
The camera doesn't have a 360 field of vision, besides COVID masks aren't uncommon now.
dyauspitr•about 18 hours ago
Drones with a paintball gun attached?
Realistically that’s going to attract a lot of negative attention.
Stevvo•about 7 hours ago
Why get an expensive paintball gun when you can get a mask and a can of paint and a mask for much less?
stavros•about 6 hours ago
You also need a high ladder.
dyauspitr•about 18 hours ago
I don’t think they make commercial paintballs with hard to remove enamel or tempura paints.
wolvoleo•about 12 hours ago
True but maybe you can fill them yourself?
martin-t•about 18 hours ago
Last I heard, putting a glock on a quadcopter was creating an "illegal weapon system" or similar fancy sounding BS but I wonder what the accusation would be for a paintball gun on a drone?
Must less recoil too.
Arainach•about 18 hours ago
I don't think there's a drone in this proposal.
On the list of "laws you don't want to screw with", National Firearms Act violations are high on my list. Regardless of whether something is or isn't a violation, I'm certainly not interested in paying expensive lawyers to argue they're not.
mock-possum•41 minutes ago
“All it takes is a tiny drone”
Alright you buy one for me and I’ll consider it
robotnikman•about 19 hours ago
Somewhat related, I'm pretty sure there was a guy in China who did exactly this as protest against their surveillance. Seems effective.
kybernetyk•about 13 hours ago
>All it takes is a tiny drone with a stick attached, and at the end of that stick is a tiny sponge soaked with tempera paint.
This must be the most hi-tech solution to a low tech problem I've seen this week ;)
vorpalhex•about 18 hours ago
You want to fly a multi-hundred dollar device loaded with radios that constantly broadcasts out a unique ID and possibly your FAA ID and use it for crime?
Or even better yet, get arrested halfway to trying to dip your drone into paint on a sidewalk?
Just throw a rock at the stupid thing.
jimnotgym•about 9 hours ago
In 1950s UK every country kid had a catapult in their pocket. Maybe that is what we should do. Give the kids catapults and tell them not to use them on Flock cameras. That is usually effective at making kids so stuff
mock-possum•41 minutes ago
You mean a slingshot?
(Or a trebuchet?)
logankeenan•about 18 hours ago
Do all drones do this now? Is this required by law for manufacturers to implement?
Drones over 250 grams or for any drone operated commercially under part 107 registration is required. But, its easy to just build your own or desolder the id chip if you dont want it.
wolvoleo•about 12 hours ago
Shooting them with a paintball gun might be a lot simpler and has the same effect. Just needs paint that's a bit harder to remove
Rapzid•about 13 hours ago
The should disable them all in an area and pile them on a platter in a public space. Like a CiCi's takeover.
mzi•about 12 hours ago
> soaked with tempera paint
Or even etching liquid, then you need to replace the lens.
tiagod•about 19 hours ago
Goring them is about sending a message.
dyauspitr•about 18 hours ago
Why wouldn’t you advocate it? A much easier way of doing this is using paintballs with the appropriate paint.
martin-t•about 18 hours ago
> Why wouldn’t you advocate it?
Because advocating things which are moral/ethical but illegal is often against the TOS :(
We need laws which are explicitly based on moral principles. Barring that, we should at least have laws which treat sufficiently large platforms as utilities and forbid them from performing censorship without due process.
michaelmrose•about 14 hours ago
You think we should give people being moderated on a forum due process? How would we ever run forums if every contentious and necessary moderation action could lead to a 5k-50k legal bill.
SoftTalker•about 16 hours ago
The point of civil disobedience is to get arrested. That's what calls attention to the injustice of the thing being protested against.
michaelmrose•about 14 hours ago
The point of resistance is commonly to harm the counterparty in a fashion that the perpetrator finds morally acceptable such as to disincentivize them not convince them.
Vietnamese vs US Grunts not cute useless protestors holding signs that threaten to hold different signs longer.
api•about 17 hours ago
In Minecraft it’s well known that lasers of even moderate power can ruin camera sensors. Only in Minecraft though.
uoaei•about 15 hours ago
Reflections are a concern regarding bystanders' eye safety, be safe.
michaelmrose•about 14 hours ago
What is the threshold for eye vs sensor damage and am I correct in assuming that duration is a factor. Basically less juice for a longer duration ruins a sensor but humans blink? For science.
dsl•about 14 hours ago
LIDAR has been screwing up traffic cameras.
toomuchtodo•about 18 hours ago
You can put a garbage bag over them if you don’t want to sawzall the pole and dispose of the hardware.
jimnotgym•about 9 hours ago
What you want is for this to become a Tiktok craze.
kotaKat•about 10 hours ago
Silly string is fast, cheap, easy, and fun when it freezes onto the camera in colder environments.
Maybe some spray foam?
rationalist•about 5 hours ago
Seems like it would produce a lot of litter on the ground before covering up the lens adequately.
tamimio•about 12 hours ago
I wouldn’t suggest doing that, it will result in more regulation restricting drones. I joined before few workshops that included the government too, and there were discussions about requiring a whole license every time you modify the drone, not limited to the airframe, but the flight purpose and payload. So you can imagine in the future, modding or repurposing your drone could be a “federal crime” if you don’t go and re-license the drone every time you change the payload.
petre•about 15 hours ago
Because destroying them sends a different message. People want them gone, not merely disabled. They're not joking or messing around with drones and tempera about it. Using a firearm to wreck the camera lens before tearing the whole thing down would be nice though.
uoaei•about 15 hours ago
That would be detectable by the FAA and they would send the FBI after you, unless you used a junk toy drone but that would not cover much distance between charges.
soulofmischief•about 18 hours ago
> A handful of enterprising activists could blind all the flock cameras in a region in a day or two, and without destroying them, which makes it less of an overtly criminal act
No, that would likely end in a RICO or terrorism case if it continued. Just because the cameras aren't destroyed doesn't mean CorpGov won't want to teach a lesson.
cheonn638•about 19 hours ago
>All it takes is a tiny drone with a stick attached, and at the end of that stick is a tiny sponge soaked with tempera paint. Drone goes 'boop' on the camera lens, and the entire system is disabled until an expensive technician drives out with a ladder and cleans the lens at non-trivial expense
Americans don’t care enough
Too busy enjoying S&P500 near 7,000 and US$84,000/year median household income
JumpCrisscross•about 17 hours ago
> All it takes is a tiny drone with a stick attached, and at the end of that stick is a tiny sponge soaked with tempera paint
I (EDIT: hate) Flock Safety cameras. If someone did this in my town, I’d want them arrested.
They’re muddying the moral clarity of the anti-Flock messaging, the ultimate goal in any protest. And if they’re willing to damage that property, I’m not convinced they understand why they shouldn’t damage other property. (More confidently, I’m not convinced others believe they can tell the difference.)
Flock Safety messages on security. Undermining that pitch is helpful. Underwriting it with random acts of performative chaos plays into their appeal.
> flock is very vulnerable to this very simple attack
We live in a free society, i.e. one with significant individual autonomy. We’re all always very vulnerable. That’s the social contract. (The fact that folks actually contemplating violent attacks tend to be idiots helps, too.)
jbxntuehineoh•about 16 hours ago
Oh no! Not property damage! We can't possibly go that far!
JumpCrisscross•about 15 hours ago
> Not property damage! We can't possibly go that far!
Anyone can go that far. The question is if it’s smart. The answer is it’s not. Acting out one’s need for machismo on a good cause is just selfish.
If I were a Flock PR person, I’d be waiting for someone to pull a stunt like this. (Better: they shoot it.)
encrypted_bird•about 17 hours ago
> I haste Flock Safety cameras.
Was this a typo? If not, what does "haste" mean in this context? (I'm not messing with you; I'm genuinely wondering.)
JumpCrisscross•about 16 hours ago
It was a typo. Fixed.
malfist•about 16 hours ago
Oh please. Its tempera paint. It'll probably wash off in the next rain.
JumpCrisscross•about 16 hours ago
> Its tempera paint. It'll probably wash off in the next rain
If they do it right. If they don’t, it doesn’t. And between the action and the next rain, Flock Safety gets to message about vandalism.
odie5533•about 17 hours ago
Flock cameras are assisted suicide for dying neighborhoods. They don't prevent crime, they record crime. Cleaning up vacant lots, planting trees, street lighting, trash removal, and traffic calming like adding planters and crosswalks reduce crime.
monero-xmr•about 17 hours ago
The vast majority of crimes are committed by a small percentage of people. The real issue is prosecutors who refuse to incarcerate repeat offenders. But having video evidence is a powerful tool for a motivated prosecutor to actually take criminals off the streets
odie5533•about 14 hours ago
We spend $80 billion a year on incarceration in the US, and have the highest incarceration rate in the world. Your plan increases both. Do you honestly think that if we spend $160 billion or $240 billion a year and double or triple our incarcerated population that we'd solve crime?
Look at places and countries with low crime. They don't have the most Flock cameras, the most prisoners, or the most powerful surveillance evidence because while those may solve a crime, they don't solve crime as a whole.
culi•about 14 hours ago
It's wild that you think the problem with the US is too low of an incarceration rate. 25% of all prisoners in the world are in the US
co_king_5•about 13 hours ago
You have to understand that the people who want mass incarceration/neo slavery are never going to want to stop locking people up.
Of course he thinks the incarceration rate is too low; people who express this opinion are at some level a justification for incarceration rates continuing to rise.
barnabee•about 9 hours ago
It can be true (and likely is) that both:
a) much more time and effort should be focused on catching and stopping the most persistent repeat offenders (sometimes by locking them up); and
b) orders of magnitude too many Americans are currently in prison.
roysting•about 9 hours ago
Who do you think those people are that are incarcerated in the USA?
I come across this rather frequently among people from sheltered backgrounds like those who graduated from mom and dad taking care of them, all the way through to Mega Corp/university taking care of them, and absolutely cannot fathom why everyone doesn’t just eat cake.
I have a working theory that this effect, whatever one wants to call it, of people being too abstracted from reality, is ultimately the source of collapse of all kinds of organizations of humans… including civilizations.
It is, for example also why America can have so many vile warmongering people, because not only do they not have to lead troops into battle, have their children drafted into the front lines, or pay for the invariable disaster and murder they perpetrated and orchestrated; but in the most grotesque way, they profit from it and immensely; usually also combining it with other types of fraud like “money printing”, i.e., counterfeiting, which they use to plunder the wealth they accumulated through murder, mayhem, and fraud.
loeg•about 17 hours ago
> The real issue is prosecutors who refuse to incarcerate repeat offenders.
Sometimes judges contribute as well.
NoMoreNicksLeft•about 12 hours ago
The real problem with prosecutors is that they don't want to prosecute. When I was on the grand jury in my city a couple of years ago, there was a slow morning and the assistant DA said that there were about 4000 cases per year and that they brought 30 of those to trial. He didn't think anything of it, for him it was a story about how they loved trials because "they were so much fun". But if they were so much fun, why are less than 1% of cases going to trial?
Plea deals.
Plea deals subvert justice for both those innocent who are bullied into pleading out, and for those who are wickedly guilty and get a big discount on the penalty exacted. Plea deals give the system extra capacity for prosecution, encouraging the justice system to fill the excess capacity, while simultaneously giving an underfunded system that doesn't have enough capacity the appearance of being able to handle the load. Bad all around.
dyauspitr•about 3 hours ago
I agree. There needs to be a non racist president that just sweeps in and does a El Salvador type cleanup of the streets. I bet the 80%+ of normal black people in crime ridden cities like Baltimore, St. Louis, Memphis, Detroit, New Orleans would be in full support. Let’s be honest, young black gangsters are the main criminal element in these places. Trump can’t do this because he is a piece of shit with no integrity.
bean469•about 1 hour ago
> There needs to be a non racist president that just sweeps in and does a El Salvador type cleanup of the streets.
Sounds like a certain, controversial federal law enforcement agency in the US
FpUser•about 17 hours ago
>"The real issue is prosecutors who refuse to incarcerate repeat offenders"
Sure. US prosecutors are so lenient that the US is the capital of incarceration
Izikiel43•about 15 hours ago
Depends a lot on the city/state.
Check super blue cities like Seattle or San Francisco, and the people there complain that the justice system doesn't work as repeat offenders are let go, for one reason or another.
The big incarceration states are most likely deep red states.
bpodgursky•about 17 hours ago
This is literally true and you think you are being snarky but just look ignorant.
thrance•about 17 hours ago
Any evidence of what you're saying about prosecutors and video surveillance?
Aeglaecia•about 16 hours ago
there exists evidence proving that a fraction of individuals commit the majority of violent crime. thus, incarcerating those particular individuals would inherently reduce the majority of violent crime. is something missing from this equation?
leoh•about 15 hours ago
What is crime anymore when a felon is the president?
NoMoreNicksLeft•about 12 hours ago
What is a felony anymore when the felony is "submitted bad paperwork"?
wesleywt•about 12 hours ago
I love how we in Africa can finally see open corruption in US. You guys can't be high and mighty anymore. You are one of us now.
kdogkshd•about 19 hours ago
If you're in the bay area, on Monday at 6:30 there's a mountain view city council meeting where flock is on the agenda. If this surveillance bothers you, show up!!
TheBicPen•about 15 hours ago
Do you have a link to the agenda? The only Monday meeting I see on the mountain view site is a Board of Library Trustees meeting
Doesn’t even bother me enough to send an email quite frankly
c22•about 11 hours ago
What bothered you to make this comment?
soulofmischief•about 18 hours ago
Political apathy is not an aspiration. It's the reason we're in this mess.
burnt-resistor•about 16 hours ago
Learned helplessness is contagious. So is hope.
grensley•about 18 hours ago
Here's a list of Flock's investors:
- Andreessen Horowitz
- Greenoaks Capital
- Bedrock Capital
- Meritech Capital
- Matrix Partners
- Sands Capital
- Founders Fund
- Kleiner Perkins
- Tiger Global
- Y Combinator
Cipater•about 15 hours ago
Y Combinator's CEO promotes and praises them almost every day.
camillomiller•about 12 hours ago
Pretty clear already that Ycombinator runs this very site as a community fueled decoy for their actual values (or complete lack thereof).
lionkor•about 10 hours ago
Id argue they run this site as a forum for tech discussions, because that alone gives them a huge boost to their image and name recognition, without any need for meddling.
maximinus_thrax•about 18 hours ago
I am absolutely shocked
globalnode•about 15 hours ago
flock safety were in one of y combinators incubator programs but to be fair, saying you want to make a camera company to improve public safety but then being used in a dystopian way... well it should have been foreseeable shouldn't it? Im conflicted in this, I love camera tech and its probably not going away any time soon, but wonder how it could be used responsibly for public safety only.
Cipater•about 14 hours ago
They actively WANT the dystopian surveillance state.
flatline_•about 2 hours ago
Source? That’s a substantial claim on a platform run by Y Combinator.
cucumber3732842•about 7 hours ago
Lot of money to be made for anyone who gets to pull the strings in such a state.
asadotzler•about 18 hours ago
Good. Throw a monkey wrench into their gears at every opportunity you're comfortable with. Don't let them get away with tearing down our basic needs for privacy and safety. We don't have to give in to Big Tech and its surveillance for profit goals.
> The explosion damaged a van opposite and blew out the tyre of a car as well as damaging a wall, front porch, shed and a Wendy house.
> Shrapnel also shot through a passing car into a passenger seat, while another piece of metal damaged the window frame of a child's bedroom.
Wtf. That was a “homemade” bomb to bring down one camera.
ifwinterco•about 10 hours ago
Is funny reading this from the UK because this ship sailed here years ago, you just have to assume if you drive a car anywhere except small roads in the countryside you are potentially being tracked by ANPR.
Of course, actual serious criminals who are actively committing serious crimes just use fake plates so they aren't affected, it only really helps catch people who commit crimes on the spur of the moment (while also obviously eroding every "normal" person's privacy)
macki0•about 4 hours ago
Big difference though is that in the UK these cameras are publically owned, and the data feeds into a publically owned ANPR database. Whereas Flock cameras are owned by flock and all the ANPR records are stored on their own infrastructure
tetris11•about 9 hours ago
It also encourages councils to regularly change their road signs for side roads, to catch suddenly new trespassers in real time.
jimnotgym•about 9 hours ago
> except small roads in the countryside you are potentially being tracked by ANPR.
They do put them specifically whereever those roads join major roads though. Meanwhile the crime stats in the UK make chilling reading, as the focus on replacing Police officers with cameras, replacing courts with... nothing has lead to many crimes skyrocketing, especially those that are not associated with driving a car.
Yep, I mean "proper" countryside - I grew up out in the villages (all little B roads and unclassified roads) and it's still like the Wild West out there really.
A lot of people still habitually drink drive (not getting completely smashed, but a few pints at a country pub then drive home) and realistically as long as you don't crash you could do that for decades and probably get away with it.
There's almost no cameras and also almost no actual police
sli•about 17 hours ago
This will start happening to Ring cameras as well soon if it's not already.
floren•about 15 hours ago
Hello! You are being recor--hey what are you doing stop that, I'm afraid, Dave, I'm afraid...
jimnotgym•about 9 hours ago
In the UK these cameras are everywhere.
We have (a relatively recent phenomenon) elected Police and Crime Commissioners. They are elected with a tiny turnout. Next election in your area see if a candidate is anti-surveillance and run a campaign to support them. 10,000 extra votes to any of the mainstream candidates will get them elected.
Another addition to this thread of things that will never happen.
macki0•about 4 hours ago
I don’t believe Flock cameras are used anywhere in the UK?
Pretty much all public cctv cameras that are installed on the side of public roads, like Flock are in the US, are publically owned, either by Police forces, Local Councils or National highways.
hdgvhicv•about 9 hours ago
PCCs are being scrapped and their role reverted to national government
Party because people haven’t got a clue what they do, partly as they have very little power, and party as it’s just a popularity vote on the rosette.
Personally I’m more worried about ring door bells, but I’ve spent years being told I’m paranoid.
tonyedgecombe•about 7 hours ago
> In the UK these cameras are everywhere.
We don’t have as many (per capita) as the US.
landl0rd•about 16 hours ago
This is cool and all but Ring is the vastly more important target.
I don't think we can pretend the definition of "public" didn't change, now that it means "something is likely recorded for all time and you have no control over where it goes and literally everyone in the world can see it."
burnt-resistor•about 16 hours ago
False dichotomy. Both are bad.
diego_moita•about 19 hours ago
Meanwhile, in Brazil, a market is growing for stolen surveillance cameras. Just think how lovely: a technology created to restrict crime is actually feeding it.
givemeethekeys•about 19 hours ago
Why is the market growing for stolen surveillance cameras in Brazil?
diego_moita•about 18 hours ago
Because they're easy to steal.
givemeethekeys•about 3 hours ago
Who is buying?
culi•about 14 hours ago
That's honestly kinda beautiful. If they want more useful/advanced cameras, it just makes them more worth stealing
Advertisement
pmarreck•about 14 hours ago
Next they can work on the Adhan speakers
cucumber3732842•about 20 hours ago
People always hated the cameras. It's just that now that people feel comfortable that the government won't move heaven and earth to come after them for daring to vandalize it's infrastructure they're finally acting up. But they wanted to all along.
> In Chicago, where speed cameras are abundant, the camera program improperly gave out over $2.4 million in fines from 2013 to 2015. Using a random sample analysis, the Chicago Tribune estimated the number of bad tickets to be somewhere around 110,000. The erroneous fines were issued in areas without proper speed limit signs or during times when the cameras should have been turned off. (Cameras near parks and schools operate within a specific timeframe.) The Chicago Tribune found that over half the cameras in use were giving out faulty speeding tickets.
> Unsurprisingly, the misuse of speed cameras has also become a massive source of revenue for local government. In Chicago, 300 of the city's speed cameras would bring in about $15 million each year.
> In March, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot lowered the speed limit threshold for speed cameras to trigger a citation. Cameras now trigger when a driver goes over the limit by 6 miles per hour, rather than 10 miles per hour, the previous threshold.
I think we need to make it easier for people to fight back against automatic tickets like this. The onus should be on the state not the individual. And individuals should still be entitled to their data
jimnotgym•about 9 hours ago
In US law, if the camera is doing something unconstitutional, is damaging it a crime? Genuine question.
nkrisc•about 9 hours ago
Almost certainly. Random people are not the legal arbiters of what’s unconstitutional.
I can’t say I disagree with what they’re doing, but it’s absolutely vigilante justice, not legal.
jimnotgym•about 8 hours ago
It seems odd though. Don't you have the right to bear arms, with some idea that it is needed to prevent the government from exercising excessive powers over you, yet actually doing anything with those guns to protect yourself from tyranny is a crime?
I remember hearing once that the constitution, having been written by a bunch of insurrectionists, intended people to have the power to keep the government out of their business. It seems they have lost that?
nkrisc•about 6 hours ago
> Don't you have the right to bear arms, with some idea that it is needed to prevent the government from exercising excessive powers over you, yet actually doing anything with those guns to protect yourself from tyranny is a crime?
Because when it comes to that, the government is a failed state and no one will be worried about what’s legal.
It’s not meant to be a means of legal recourse, it’s a last resort.
tl2do•about 20 hours ago
I have similar and deep privacy concerns. But I also know that cameras have helped find criminals and assist crime victims. I don't want to let fugitives go without punishment. In fact, I must admit that cameras are a realistic choice given the current technology.
Flock Safety must be under public evaluation. Tech companies tend to hide technical specs, calling them trade secrets. But most internet security standards are public. What should be private is the encryption key. The measure to protect development effort is patents, which are public in the registry.
lich_king•about 20 hours ago
Why are tech specs relevant here? The problem with Flock is that once the data is collected, and once it's made accessible to law enforcement without any legal review, it's going to be used for solving heinous crimes, for keeping tabs on a vocal critic of the police commissioner, and for checking what the officer's ex-wife is up to.
If the cameras were installed and operated by the DHS or by the local PD, would that make you feel better? The data should not exist, or if it must, it shouldn't be accessible without court approval. The model you're proposing doesn't ensure that; in fact, it moves it closer to the parties most likely to misuse it.
tadfisher•about 19 hours ago
> I don't want to let fugitives go without punishment.
There is a famous quote about this that needs to be updated for the modern age.
"I'd rather let ten fugitives go unsurveilled, than to surveil one innocent person."
lm28469•about 20 hours ago
The cameras aren't the problem, it's the companies behind them.
Everybody wants murderers and rapists in jail, nobody wants to 24/7 share their location and upload their every thoughts to palantir and other companies operated by degenerates like Thiel
loeg•about 17 hours ago
A significant number of people do not seem to want copper thieves, porch pirates, and organized retail thieves in jail.
DangitBobby•about 16 hours ago
If it requires constant public surveillance to catch them then yeah they can stay out of jail.
jimnotgym•about 9 hours ago
Was porch piracy, copper theft and shoplifting impossible to catch pre-flock?
plagiarist•about 19 hours ago
> 24/7 share their location and upload their every thoughts to palantir and other companies operated by degenerates like Thiel
It's so funny though that the majority of all people are doing exactly this, 24/7.
vorpalhex•about 18 hours ago
Follow the money.
There's no money to be made arresting criminals. Sure you get a few police contracts, and you need to show enough results to keep them.. but your moat is mostly how hard it is to even submit bids.
There's a lot more money to be made knowing that Accountant Mary's Lexis is looking kind of banged up and she could be sold on a new one.
fzeroracer•about 19 hours ago
This has nothing to do with the actual problem, which is Flock itself.
The fact that Flock controls all of the cameras, all of the data and said data is easily accessible means police and the state have access to information that they should only get with a warrant. A business having a camera storing video data that's completely local isn't an issue. A business having a camera which is connected to every other business that has a camera is.
Manuel_D•about 14 hours ago
Since when are warrants required for footage of people in public? Does a red light camera need a judge's warrant before it snaps a photos of a car running the light?
Discussion (241 Comments)
All it takes is a tiny drone with a stick attached, and at the end of that stick is a tiny sponge soaked with tempera paint. Drone goes 'boop' on the camera lens, and the entire system is disabled until an expensive technician drives out with a ladder and cleans the lens at non-trivial expense.
A handful of enterprising activists could blind all the flock cameras in a region in a day or two, and without destroying them, which makes it less of an overtly criminal act.
Obviously not advocating this, just pointing out that flock is very vulnerable to this very simple attack from activists.
You want to evoke the people and not the state.
One or two cameras getting bashed is basically a fart in the wind for flock, and I'd argue that it doesn't actually move the needle in any direction as far as public opinion goes. Those who dislike them don't need further convincing, those who support them are not going to have their opinion changed by property destruction (it might make them support surveillance more, in fact).
But hey, it's provocative I guess.
On the other hand flock losing their entire fleet is an existential problem for them, and for all the customers they're charging for the use of that fleet. Their BoD will want answers about why the officers of the company are harming shareholders with the way they're operating the business. Cities that have contracts with them may have grounds to terminate them, etc etc.
Seems to be getting more popular [https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/antiulez-campaigners-v...].
Though you either need a laser powerful enough to harm human eyes or lots of patience. Hong Kong protesters innovated a lot of these sort of resistance using lasers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV-B-Gone
Realistically that’s going to attract a lot of negative attention.
Must less recoil too.
On the list of "laws you don't want to screw with", National Firearms Act violations are high on my list. Regardless of whether something is or isn't a violation, I'm certainly not interested in paying expensive lawyers to argue they're not.
Alright you buy one for me and I’ll consider it
This must be the most hi-tech solution to a low tech problem I've seen this week ;)
Or even better yet, get arrested halfway to trying to dip your drone into paint on a sidewalk?
Just throw a rock at the stupid thing.
(Or a trebuchet?)
Because advocating things which are moral/ethical but illegal is often against the TOS :(
We need laws which are explicitly based on moral principles. Barring that, we should at least have laws which treat sufficiently large platforms as utilities and forbid them from performing censorship without due process.
Vietnamese vs US Grunts not cute useless protestors holding signs that threaten to hold different signs longer.
Maybe some spray foam?
No, that would likely end in a RICO or terrorism case if it continued. Just because the cameras aren't destroyed doesn't mean CorpGov won't want to teach a lesson.
Americans don’t care enough
Too busy enjoying S&P500 near 7,000 and US$84,000/year median household income
I (EDIT: hate) Flock Safety cameras. If someone did this in my town, I’d want them arrested.
They’re muddying the moral clarity of the anti-Flock messaging, the ultimate goal in any protest. And if they’re willing to damage that property, I’m not convinced they understand why they shouldn’t damage other property. (More confidently, I’m not convinced others believe they can tell the difference.)
Flock Safety messages on security. Undermining that pitch is helpful. Underwriting it with random acts of performative chaos plays into their appeal.
> flock is very vulnerable to this very simple attack
We live in a free society, i.e. one with significant individual autonomy. We’re all always very vulnerable. That’s the social contract. (The fact that folks actually contemplating violent attacks tend to be idiots helps, too.)
Anyone can go that far. The question is if it’s smart. The answer is it’s not. Acting out one’s need for machismo on a good cause is just selfish.
If I were a Flock PR person, I’d be waiting for someone to pull a stunt like this. (Better: they shoot it.)
Was this a typo? If not, what does "haste" mean in this context? (I'm not messing with you; I'm genuinely wondering.)
If they do it right. If they don’t, it doesn’t. And between the action and the next rain, Flock Safety gets to message about vandalism.
Look at places and countries with low crime. They don't have the most Flock cameras, the most prisoners, or the most powerful surveillance evidence because while those may solve a crime, they don't solve crime as a whole.
Of course he thinks the incarceration rate is too low; people who express this opinion are at some level a justification for incarceration rates continuing to rise.
a) much more time and effort should be focused on catching and stopping the most persistent repeat offenders (sometimes by locking them up); and
b) orders of magnitude too many Americans are currently in prison.
I come across this rather frequently among people from sheltered backgrounds like those who graduated from mom and dad taking care of them, all the way through to Mega Corp/university taking care of them, and absolutely cannot fathom why everyone doesn’t just eat cake.
I have a working theory that this effect, whatever one wants to call it, of people being too abstracted from reality, is ultimately the source of collapse of all kinds of organizations of humans… including civilizations.
It is, for example also why America can have so many vile warmongering people, because not only do they not have to lead troops into battle, have their children drafted into the front lines, or pay for the invariable disaster and murder they perpetrated and orchestrated; but in the most grotesque way, they profit from it and immensely; usually also combining it with other types of fraud like “money printing”, i.e., counterfeiting, which they use to plunder the wealth they accumulated through murder, mayhem, and fraud.
Sometimes judges contribute as well.
Plea deals.
Plea deals subvert justice for both those innocent who are bullied into pleading out, and for those who are wickedly guilty and get a big discount on the penalty exacted. Plea deals give the system extra capacity for prosecution, encouraging the justice system to fill the excess capacity, while simultaneously giving an underfunded system that doesn't have enough capacity the appearance of being able to handle the load. Bad all around.
Sounds like a certain, controversial federal law enforcement agency in the US
Sure. US prosecutors are so lenient that the US is the capital of incarceration
The big incarceration states are most likely deep red states.
Bothers me, but not enough to drive to city hall
Doesn’t even bother me enough to send an email quite frankly
- Andreessen Horowitz
- Greenoaks Capital
- Bedrock Capital
- Meritech Capital
- Matrix Partners
- Sands Capital
- Founders Fund
- Kleiner Perkins
- Tiger Global
- Y Combinator
> Shrapnel also shot through a passing car into a passenger seat, while another piece of metal damaged the window frame of a child's bedroom.
Wtf. That was a “homemade” bomb to bring down one camera.
Of course, actual serious criminals who are actively committing serious crimes just use fake plates so they aren't affected, it only really helps catch people who commit crimes on the spur of the moment (while also obviously eroding every "normal" person's privacy)
They do put them specifically whereever those roads join major roads though. Meanwhile the crime stats in the UK make chilling reading, as the focus on replacing Police officers with cameras, replacing courts with... nothing has lead to many crimes skyrocketing, especially those that are not associated with driving a car.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeand...
A lot of people still habitually drink drive (not getting completely smashed, but a few pints at a country pub then drive home) and realistically as long as you don't crash you could do that for decades and probably get away with it.
There's almost no cameras and also almost no actual police
We have (a relatively recent phenomenon) elected Police and Crime Commissioners. They are elected with a tiny turnout. Next election in your area see if a candidate is anti-surveillance and run a campaign to support them. 10,000 extra votes to any of the mainstream candidates will get them elected.
Another addition to this thread of things that will never happen.
Pretty much all public cctv cameras that are installed on the side of public roads, like Flock are in the US, are publically owned, either by Police forces, Local Councils or National highways.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93d4dd3l3lo
Party because people haven’t got a clue what they do, partly as they have very little power, and party as it’s just a popularity vote on the rosette.
Personally I’m more worried about ring door bells, but I’ve spent years being told I’m paranoid.
We don’t have as many (per capita) as the US.
I don't think we can pretend the definition of "public" didn't change, now that it means "something is likely recorded for all time and you have no control over where it goes and literally everyone in the world can see it."
https://reason.com/2022/02/03/unreliable-speed-cameras-line-...
> In Chicago, where speed cameras are abundant, the camera program improperly gave out over $2.4 million in fines from 2013 to 2015. Using a random sample analysis, the Chicago Tribune estimated the number of bad tickets to be somewhere around 110,000. The erroneous fines were issued in areas without proper speed limit signs or during times when the cameras should have been turned off. (Cameras near parks and schools operate within a specific timeframe.) The Chicago Tribune found that over half the cameras in use were giving out faulty speeding tickets.
> Unsurprisingly, the misuse of speed cameras has also become a massive source of revenue for local government. In Chicago, 300 of the city's speed cameras would bring in about $15 million each year.
> In March, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot lowered the speed limit threshold for speed cameras to trigger a citation. Cameras now trigger when a driver goes over the limit by 6 miles per hour, rather than 10 miles per hour, the previous threshold.
I think we need to make it easier for people to fight back against automatic tickets like this. The onus should be on the state not the individual. And individuals should still be entitled to their data
I can’t say I disagree with what they’re doing, but it’s absolutely vigilante justice, not legal.
I remember hearing once that the constitution, having been written by a bunch of insurrectionists, intended people to have the power to keep the government out of their business. It seems they have lost that?
Because when it comes to that, the government is a failed state and no one will be worried about what’s legal.
It’s not meant to be a means of legal recourse, it’s a last resort.
Flock Safety must be under public evaluation. Tech companies tend to hide technical specs, calling them trade secrets. But most internet security standards are public. What should be private is the encryption key. The measure to protect development effort is patents, which are public in the registry.
If the cameras were installed and operated by the DHS or by the local PD, would that make you feel better? The data should not exist, or if it must, it shouldn't be accessible without court approval. The model you're proposing doesn't ensure that; in fact, it moves it closer to the parties most likely to misuse it.
There is a famous quote about this that needs to be updated for the modern age.
"I'd rather let ten fugitives go unsurveilled, than to surveil one innocent person."
Everybody wants murderers and rapists in jail, nobody wants to 24/7 share their location and upload their every thoughts to palantir and other companies operated by degenerates like Thiel
It's so funny though that the majority of all people are doing exactly this, 24/7.
There's no money to be made arresting criminals. Sure you get a few police contracts, and you need to show enough results to keep them.. but your moat is mostly how hard it is to even submit bids.
There's a lot more money to be made knowing that Accountant Mary's Lexis is looking kind of banged up and she could be sold on a new one.
The fact that Flock controls all of the cameras, all of the data and said data is easily accessible means police and the state have access to information that they should only get with a warrant. A business having a camera storing video data that's completely local isn't an issue. A business having a camera which is connected to every other business that has a camera is.