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Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

haveibeenflocked.com

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Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#181

Post by mikkupikku »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #9
habinero wrote: post #2

I love these kinds of sites, since they're indistinguishable from honeypots. Sure, have my license plate and the information that I'm worried about being watched.

With no other identifying info, though, what can they do with a license plate number in isolation?

Suppose the guy behind this website keeps a log of the requests, even accidentally, and eventually gets bought out by Flock themselves (websites critical of companies selling out is unfortunately common). Now Flock has a list of plates of people alert to flock and this gets added to your Palintir threat matrix, so the next time a cop pulls you over for some minor infraction his computer can prime him to be jumpy and trigger happy by labelling you as a potential dissident.

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#182

Post by FireBeyond »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #11
tptacek wrote: post #10

Besides the obvious privacy concern: at the very least in my state (Illinois), it's not lawful for public bodies to disclose the license plate numbers read from ALPR cameras, so this data set is necessarily incomplete. But, give it a year or two, and you can replace this whole website with a black background and 72 point white bold text "YES".

Flock is a private company, right. That's the whole schtick. Like, Flock can retain records indefinitely for example, they may sell those records to the government but they're a private party.

Yeah, and as an ex-employee, that's something they heavily "rely" on, and push as an end run around laws.

Like in my state, LE can't collect this stuff directly. Then they started saying "Well, we can do this..." and started contracting for private companies to do the collection on their behalf. When _that_ was legislated away, they've now pivoted to "Well, if the company is doing it of their own accord, we can still purchase the data since it wasn't, technically, created for us."

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#183

Post by FireBeyond »

iso1631 wrote: post #92
ifh-hn wrote: post #59

Since the page is currently down and I have no idea what flocked means in the context of license plates, can I assume this is US specific?

ANPR cameras which the rest of the world (and apparently America) have had for decades have recently become big news in America, I believe because they're now being used for immigration purposes? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recogni... I'm not sure why these are so bad but generally everyone loves things like Ring cameras which do the same thing but with people rather than vehicles. I suspect…

> have had for decades have recently become big news in America, I believe because they're now being used for immigration purposes?

That is one aspect.

But they are also now "using AI to analyze vehicle movements for suspicious patterns and proactively alerting police to investigate". What could possibly go wrong with that?

Or that there are microphones in certain Flock devices, and they've discussed their intent to activate those and do that with speech analysis.

Garrett Langley, the CEO, has a disturbingly Minority Report-esque vision for a world with, in his words, "no crime", "thanks to Flock".

And these are all steps towards it. Interesting you mention Ring, because Flock has partnered with Amazon and is opting all Ring footage into Flock's network and analyses.

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#184

Post by [deleted] »

garciasn wrote: post #131
thih9 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All this is assuming one travels exclusively by car. Bikes, public transport, or walking are not as easy to track using this system. Then again, these modes of transport are less popular in the US; I guess such a surveillance system is extra effective in the US because of that.

Less popular because it’s not feasible for many. I live in MN. Biking 20mi to work when it’s -10F and in 6” of fresh snow on top of the 12” received so far this season just isn’t something that’s safe to do. Please don’t make it seem like it’s a “popularity” thing; it’s a necessity thing.

[deleted]

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#185

Post by FireBeyond »

airstrike wrote: post #163
iso1631 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ANPR cameras which the rest of the world (and apparently America) have had for decades have recently become big news in America, I believe because they're now being used for immigration purposes? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recogni... I'm not sure why these are so bad but generally everyone loves things like Ring cameras which do the same thing but with people rather than vehicles. I suspect…

Unless I'm missing something, Ring cameras film people at my doorstep and are for my personal use, so dont know how they're similar at all even if you don't trust Amazon

Well, now Ring has partnered with Flock, so...

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#186

Post by CamperBob2 »

DivingForGold wrote: post #141

A met a guy once whom drives a PU truck, he lowers the tailgate and places an oversized piece of plywood in the bed as an excuse, he also places an opaque plastic cover over his front lic plate, which has been raised to a $300 fine in Texas, if caught. He now intends to place a series of bright strobe lights around his front plate to "bleach out" the sensors of these spy cameras.

How does he plan to trigger the strobe lights?

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#187

Post by FireBeyond »

overfeed wrote: post #63
VoidWhisperer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This unfortunately wouldn't work quite as well in states where cars arent required to have a front facing license plate (like florida)

Flock cameras are oriented to read rear plates. One would need a camera similarly configured + a billboard some distance in front, or perhaps 2 billboards, a 1-2 setup + payoff combo, the camera behind the first billboard, and the dynamic text on the second. Pulling up other public data correlated to the plate - where legal - may make a splash. I'm thinking addressing the car owner by their first name.

Right, but also remember that they're set up to analyze other vehicle traits, including but not limited to: color, make, model, body damage, panels that are a different color to the rest of the body, wheels, decals, bumper stickers, tow hitches, roof racks, etc., so even if they can't read your plate they can try to build a vehicle identity, and when they do get a plate capture, they can retroactively apply that to all other sightings of the vehicle.

It really is fucking dystopian.

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#188

Post by jeroenhd »

hibf wrote: post #172
jeroenhd wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That website is a bit misleading, their "worldwide" map includes ALL ALPR cameras, not just the ones operated by Flock or for-profit surveillance companies. The ones on their map near my location are all for automatic license plate recognition to enter parking garages. Not exactly the dystopian nightmare their homepage warned me about.

You assume those aren't logged and accessible by the government. They are.

Of course they are, that's how they track memberships, payment history, and that kind of stuff. Can't say I really care about a paid parking garage keeping a customer registry.

I trust the government a lot more than some random third party company ("flock"), though.

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#189

Post by nxm »

amelius wrote: post #126

License plate numbers are old fashioned. Can't we get something more secure? E.g. plate numbers that change every hour would be a good start. I don't like to drive around with a giant cookie strapped to my car.

Great, more expensive electronic crap in/on the car to break...

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#190

Post by nxm »

JohnFen wrote: post #100
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With no other identifying info, though, what can they do with a license plate number in isolation?

In many states, car registration data is public information. If you have a license plate number, you can easily look up who the car is registered to, where they live, etc. License plate numbers are PII.

This is simply not true.
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