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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

#301

Post by deaux »

Manuel_D wrote: post #183
aquir wrote: post #27

I don't get why any of these devices are still intact...

Because most of the American public is not as reflexively anti-Flock as HN would lead you to believe. People acting like cameras recording their activities in public is some sort of grave privacy violation are not the norm. Cameras recording tour activity in malls, and on public roads has been the case since the 90s. Flock became a lightning rod of attention due to ICE, but they don't actually represent any change fr…

Can you find a dozen cases of cops using these to stalk people in the 90s? If not, that's a large change in the status quo, as that's what's been happening with Flock.

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

#302

Post by deaux »

neilv wrote: post #190
nilamo wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a great point. We should build a network that tracks all cops to make sure they don't get up to no good while off duty.

The police where I live are generally good, and I imagine that's the case many places. Treating police as the enemy, or a punching bag, is unfair and counterproductive. (I can't speak to any places that might have a lot of corruption or ill intent.) Places that aren't too corrupt, you'd be better off encouraging a partnership among citizens, police, lawmakers, and other officials. Which is how it's supposed to be. Ev…

The citizens where I live are generally good, and I image that's the case in many places. Treating them as the enemy, or a punching bag, is unfair and counterproductive.

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

#303

Post by AlexeyBelov »

pack_stimulus wrote: post #216
hombre_fatal wrote: post #14

Meanwhile in Texas we can’t even have red light cameras to automatically ticket people willing to kill you just to catch a light.

That is ridiculous. Some level of surveillance is necessary to bring the society closer to the optimal state.

Americans don't want to be optimal, they want to be free.

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

#304

Post by chaps »

tptacek wrote: post #254
chaps wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're matching specific descriptions of cars to incidents, like, "this vehicle has been present at the site of 5 previous package thefts". You're hand-waving a hell of a lot of things away and you expect that everyone knows what you're talking about. Please stop doing that. - Who is "They"? - Why do you say "nobody has time for that"? What is "that"? - Why are you dismissing genuine concerns through unhelpful langu…

Hey, Chaps! Sorry, I write the way I write. "They" are public bodies operating ALPR devices; in the main, municipal police forces, though obviously other public bodies (like the Illinois State Police) operate them as well. The antecedent of the first "that" was "the use of cameras to detect cars with politically disfavored bumper stickers". I am, yes, dismissing the concern that ALPRs are being used to detect cars wi…

Please actually just look at any audit log and just search yourself. If you think there's no signal, then you clearly haven't looked. If you're going to continue to be lazy in your analysis, then ask a damn LLM. There are 528 agencies who used "suspicious". This is not a bloomingdale problem; it's much larger. Just fucking look, man.

  select count(*),org_name from flock_bloomingdale where reason = 'suspicious' group by org_name order by count desc;


   count |                     org_name
  -------+--------------------------------------------------
  2678 | Skokie IL PD
   828 | Joliet IL PD
   678 | Houston TX PD
   391 | Fayette County IL SO
   309 | Chicago IL PD
   256 | Katy TX PD
   245 | Itasca IL PD
   244 | Steger IL PD
   229 | Athens-Clarke County GA PD
   215 | Lucas County OH SO
   209 | Oak Lawn IL PD
   208 | Westmont IL PD
   199 | La Salle County IL PD - OLD
   194 | Zion IL PD
   191 | La Grange Park IL PD
   174 | Kenosha County WI SO
   173 | Champaign County IL SO
   170 | Roselle IL PD
   160 | Lake Villa IL PD
   152 | Bradley IL PD
   152 | Madison County IN SO
   143 | LaSalle Co. IL SO - New
   135 | Flossmoor IL PD
   132 | Sauk Village IL PD
   116 | Oak Brook IL PD
   106 | Crete IL PD
   104 | Villa Park IL PD
   101 | Darien IL PD
    97 | Cicero IL PD
    94 | Wilmington IL PD
    89 | Rockford IL PD
    80 | Lake County IL SO
    80 | Dolton IL PD
    79 | Texas Department of Public Safety
    76 | Will County IL SO
    75 | Naperville IL PD
    72 | Minooka IL PD
    68 | Hillside IL PD
    63 | Carpentersville IL PD
    55 | Kent County MI SO
    55 | Zanesville OH PD
    54 | Winnebago County IL SO
    51 | Logan County NE SO
    46 | Romeoville IL PD
    46 | Menomonee Falls WI PD
    46 | Homewood IL PD
    44 | Burnham IL PD
    44 | Baldwin County GA SO
    43 | Venice FL PD
    39 | Elmwood Park IL PD
    37 | DuPage County IL SO
    36 | Greensboro NC PD
    34 | Lowndes County GA SO
    34 | Henry County GA PD
    34 | Tinley Park IL PD

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

#305

Post by abalashov »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #83
abalashov wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was both, of course, but it's not an accident they were placed there at scale.

My Home Depot, on the north coast, was selling off cases of Jarritos a few months ago. They very much cater to the day laborers.

I hear you, but a little foray into history may convince you that this kind of two-facedness and speaking out of both sides of one's mouth is actually quite common.

This is particularly true when the decisionmakers for the one (ICE cooperation) and the other (selling Jarritos and catering to day labourers more generally), and all the more true if there's revenue attached to doing both.

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

#306

Post by abalashov »

kamma4434 wrote: post #150
christoph wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.” - Benito Mussolini

Fascism was corporative, but in Italian the word has a very different meaning compared to the English one.

This is an underrated comment. "Corporate" power did not mean, in 1920s-30s Italy, what Americans think it means.

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

#307

Post by abalashov »

explodes wrote: post #275
ibejoeb wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flock is a YC company, right? https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety

How many people here are YC people? Using Google doesn't make you a Google employee.

I think the intended point is that there's going to be a certain amount of natural partisanship--from at least some users--to YC companies in a YC-run forum with a YC origin story, and that YC and those aligned with YC in a fiduciary way certainly aren't going to militate against Flock.

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

#308

Post by abalashov »

sublinear wrote: post #175
assimpleaspossi wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely correct but you won't get anywhere here. I have relatives who are cops and lawyers and city councilmen. No cop is sitting in a back room somewhere tracking all the cars on every street trying to do, uh, whatever it is people here are claiming they are going to do to them.

I also wonder what makes people think the cops are going to trust AI any more than anyone else. A mistake on bad information is even more dangerous for them and often makes national news.

Judging by the number of news stories in which they have done just that, they will happily trust AI. A certain relatively small percentage will generate national news and that kind of blowback, but by and large, they have the guns, the SWAT teams, and the local prosecutors, and the consequences are minimal.

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

#309

Post by abalashov »

rigrassm wrote: post #289
kodablah wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're all basically turned off by law, just not removed

Go visit Harris County where Houston is, they are definitely active and more are getting deployed constantly. More commercial businesses are also installing them in their parking lots. It's not just Lowe's/Home Depot, I've seen new ones popping up at grocery stores and storage unit businesses. To go from my house to the grocery store 4 miles away, I have to drive by 6 flock camera deployments. Hardware store 6 miles…

> if people would look up from their phones for 10 minutes and pay attention.

Ah, that's a big ask in 2026...

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

#310

Post by sarchertech »

nailer wrote: post #298
sarchertech wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Miami is more ambitious My wife grew up there, and I worked for a company based there for years, and I can’t really even come up with a good educated guess for that that means. You could argue that London is past its prime, but you could have made that argument 75 years ago. It still retains its alpha++ designation and it’s the top ranking in the global financial centers index. But regardless neither Lisbon nor Mia…

It means more people in Miami are likely to be starting businesses than people here in NYC are. I’m surprised you couldn’t come up with a guess about that.

Because that’s such a roundabout way of saying it had a higher startup rate. Why wouldn’t you just say that? Ambitious could mean so many things.

Also it’s not relevant. Miami maybe a peer to NYC in 50-100 years, but it’s definitely not today. In the GaWC rankings it’s 4 tiers behind NYC.

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