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Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

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Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#231

Post by maccard »

handoflixue wrote: post #102
maccard wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What LLM can I get and feed hundreds of hours of video into that will give me the position of a specific vehicle alongside when that happened? An LLM isn’t going to help you here, but basic Computer Vision and a SQL database has been a solution _if you have the cameras_. I wrote a license plate reader as a university project using OpenCV almost 20 years ago.

If you were able to write one 20 years ago, I dare say an LLM could whip one up super-fast. Or just search the internet and tell you where to find one. One of the risks of LLMs is that a lot of tasks go from "an expert could do this easily given a few weeks" to "anyone who thinks to ask an LLM can do this easily and get results the same day"

> One of the risks of LLMs is that a lot of tasks go from "an expert could do this easily given a few weeks" to "anyone who thinks to ask an LLM can do this easily and get results the same day"

By that logic, all problems are solved with LLMs, though.

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#233

Post by maccard »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #153
maccard wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What LLM can I get and feed hundreds of hours of video into that will give me the position of a specific vehicle alongside when that happened? An LLM isn’t going to help you here, but basic Computer Vision and a SQL database has been a solution _if you have the cameras_. I wrote a license plate reader as a university project using OpenCV almost 20 years ago.

Any competent llm would write a script using opencv to extract the license plates. I did this with Gemini 3, mostly for fun and to test it's capabilities. Teslausb records all dash cam videos and auto syncs it to my nas when in wifi range. Yolo and opencv extracts and does ocr on any defected license plate, and puts it all on a map, along with trip information. Not particularly useful or interesting, and not somethin…

By that logic, all problems are solved by LLMs. If that was true, then there's no reason for any products to exist for anything anymore.

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#234

Post by BobaFloutist »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #229
tptacek wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has plenty of credibility at the task for which it was designed. It wasn't designed as a backend event system for real-time sensors.

Huh? You just said it “isn't reliably updated, and so pings on vehicles that were reported stolen…” are weeks out of date? Even if all ALPRs vanished from the Earth tomorrow, that still indicates a lack of credibility in the pings?

If I had to guess, it's like when an expensive medical test gets more accessible and they have to update their model.

If the cost to get an MRI means everyone that gets one has a combination of symptoms and risk factors raising the pre-test probability, then it makes sense to treat MRI findings aggressively. If they become cheaper and start using them as screenings, they need to update their approach.

Similarly, if license plates are scanned when cops are already pulling someone over for moving violations (or the car is accumulating a ton of parking tickets, having been dumped), it might be ok if their status isn't updated that frequently, and it still might make sense for cops to approach the car with the idea that it might be stolen (something a drivers license check against registration can quickly clear up, which shouldn't matter too much if they were getting pulled over anyway).

If the system is being used to justify pulling people over in the first place, it needs different parameters.

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#235

Post by davisr »

Manuel_D wrote: post #193
dev1ycan wrote: post #71

If a certain group of people think that it should be their right to take others rights away and turn society into a dystopia for perceived security, then for the same reason it should be other individuals rights to assert that their rights should be protected by taking the first group's rights away to install or do whatever they think they can do for convenience/security's sake. This includes "ancestry tests", securi…

What right is being taken away? Nobody ever had the right to not be recorded in public. Furthermore surveillance isn't just an all or nothing thing. For example, the government can record your activities in public without a warrant, but they can't subpoena your phone calls without a warrant. That degree of surveillance has more checks and balances. How you somehow try to go from recording people in public to "ancestr…

Your language is far too kind for the invasion of privacy and our human expectations of what ought to be permissible. It's not just about being "recorded" in public. It's about having all public excursions recorded, cataloged, and analyzed. What this panopticon of private surveillance is, is way more similar to "stalking" than "recording".

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#236

Post by conductr »

tptacek wrote: post #222
guelo wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got caught by an ALPR 20 years ago. I've been confused about 1) what is Flock's innovation 2) why are people up in arm.

The thing that Flock does that's alarming is that it provides operators with a search engine for arbitrary vehicle descriptions which include but are not limited to license plates, with history stretching back; misuse scenarios are obvious, the search histories allow you to track the movements of specific people with fine granularity. The thing that Flock does that is actually immediately problematic is that it opera…

My car was reported stolen mistakenly, long story but was cleared up within a few hours (an officer came out to confirm vehicle was in my possession). Then a few days later Flock identified my vehicle driving and notified the cops. It was me driving my normal commute and I was pulled over at gunpoint. When I finally explained the story, they were like “oh yeah, we see that in the system but sometimes there’s a lag between databases.” Really? Wtf guys

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#237

Post by ButlerianJihad »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #139
ButlerianJihad wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

There's this insidious tendency among HNers to make this argument and ones like it. Yeah, if you live in a tiny medieval village or a small town in the middle of nowhere in 1980 there was little "privacy" but Jeffrey Dahmer was fucking dudes (back when that wasn't ok) and eating people in his apartment for years before anyone caught on. In more suburban settings there truly was privacy to a large practical extent. Fu…

Have you ever seen "Wings of Desire" (der Himmel über Berlin)? for anyone who's paranoid about "surveillance states" it's an eye-opener, about how things really work: about how overseers and spiritual beings really may perceive human activity, and if you really think about it, perhaps there is good that can come from this.

There's this insidious HN tendency to believe that "The Government" (whatever that means) is 100% malicious and Out To Get Us. The reality is far more nuanced, my friend. if "The Government" was truly out to get so many people, they would get them, and society wouldn't actually functoin. "The Government" wants people to work, and raise children and stimulate the economy; The Government likes when people are abled and working/supporting others, and paying taxes, and HNers seem to think "The Government" wants to perpetually interfere and intervene and trip us up. Just reading HN and /. and the other paranoia boards, I'd think that there are swat teams on every corner and black helicopters pouncing on every third hacker on a weekly basis, man.

The crazy thing is that this administration in the USA is gutting governmental apparatus, makign a "small government" and "drainining the swamp" that leftists love to hate on, but honestly a "smaller government" definitely for sure won't have enough ability to screw with the common man like y'all believe it would.

Sure, gov't can privatize a lot of stuff like handing over to Flock, but still, Flock's aligned with them, and (see Wings of Desire again) this is not malice and not naked malevolence. Sorry.

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#238

Post by motbus3 »

Both flck and pltr uses a loophole on the law that if no one holds data no one is doing anything wrong. This needs to be fixed. Holding information about people should have a maximum time limit and should be treated respectfully. Given it is impossible to make them stop, it should be easy to see what's on you and anything else is illegally obtained.

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#239

Post by motbus3 »

Cider9986 wrote: post #105

They're also getting banned fast. The city level should be the most accessible government for change. There's been over 70[1] documented wins. Don't feel like this is a lost cause, it clearly isn't. If everyone who was going to comment on this thread instead or additionally got involved by going to a city council meeting and explaining the problems to friends/family, many more cities could reject them. [1] https://de…

Nothing is blocking them to spread their tech on other brands and vendors, making ghost data operator companies and aggregating it on complex layers that only produces information without the whole data.

The law that regulates it and all the validation process is flawed and they know it.

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