Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public

aclu.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 184 posts

Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public

#71

Post by forrestthewoods »

vuurmot wrote: post #69
urams wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, once the cameras go up, you will never ever create one there. This is directly refuted by Singapore, Japan, arguably the UK, and others. Singapore is very interesting to visit. Externally there's somewhat of a narrative of a harsh police state but when I visited I almost never saw a single police officer and they don't have particularly many police officers on a per capita basis (170/100k vs 440/100k in NY…

In Singapore, policing does not have the dystopian surveillance thing attached to it, because a large number of police are civilian conscripts. It takes the edge off, when you know that your neighbor's 18 year old kid is working in the police force, rather than some mercenary force On top of that, the majority of the military consists of civilian conscripts, which arguably holds more power if the system ever goes bad…

This is all true.

But it’s still a counter-example to “once cameras go up all trust is lost”. Clearly cameras are not the sole issue that makes trust achievable. As demonstrated by high-trust societies with cameras!

Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public

#72

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

daymanstep wrote: post #67
pclowes wrote: post #45

People always want high trust societies. They are incredibly hard to create and incredibly easy to destroy. However, once the cameras go up, you will never ever create one there. High trust requires, well, actual trust. You can’t build real trust in a panopticon just a sickly police state facsimile of it. Society and progress moves at the speed of trust. Without it many uniquely human and beautiful things disappear.

My counter argument is that you only need 1% of the population to be bad apples in order to destroy a high trust society. Hell, even a single serial killer on the loose will make a lot of people too afraid to walk alone at night. One or two burglars can be responsible for 50% of the burglaries in a town. And so in and so forth. The other problem you have is that a lot of crime tends to be financially rewarding, so if…

The thing is I think if you give people the choice between a 0.001% chance of getting murdered on the street or a 100% chance of being surveilled 24/7 you will find that people will take their chances with the murderers

Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public

#73

Post by urams »

vuurmot wrote: post #69
urams wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, once the cameras go up, you will never ever create one there. This is directly refuted by Singapore, Japan, arguably the UK, and others. Singapore is very interesting to visit. Externally there's somewhat of a narrative of a harsh police state but when I visited I almost never saw a single police officer and they don't have particularly many police officers on a per capita basis (170/100k vs 440/100k in NY…

In Singapore, policing does not have the dystopian surveillance thing attached to it, because a large number of police are civilian conscripts. It takes the edge off, when you know that your neighbor's 18 year old kid is working in the police force, rather than some mercenary force On top of that, the majority of the military consists of civilian conscripts, which arguably holds more power if the system ever goes bad…

> In Singapore, policing does not have the dystopian surveillance thing attached to it, because a large number of police are civilian conscripts.

I would not have guessed in a million years that someone would argue that country's surveillance doesn't have a dystopian vibe because the country conscripts people into service.

Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public

#74

Post by fodkodrasz »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #72
daymanstep wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My counter argument is that you only need 1% of the population to be bad apples in order to destroy a high trust society. Hell, even a single serial killer on the loose will make a lot of people too afraid to walk alone at night. One or two burglars can be responsible for 50% of the burglaries in a town. And so in and so forth. The other problem you have is that a lot of crime tends to be financially rewarding, so if…

The thing is I think if you give people the choice between a 0.001% chance of getting murdered on the street or a 100% chance of being surveilled 24/7 you will find that people will take their chances with the murderers

Reality shows otherwise. Take a look at Google and free-for-ads-and-surveillance everything. People are willing to make compromises on privacy for less important things than the change of them or their loved ones getting murdered, as mentioned as an example.

But back to Flock: public cameras are not 24/7 surveillance, as those don't surveil people at home.

ps: I'm not for a panopticon, enforcement needs to come with surveillance also, otherwise it will just be an anarcho-tyranny. So common in the developed world. And enforcement of law must also apply to companies, even (and especially) to vendors of the law-enforcement.

Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public

#76

Post by watwut »

daymanstep wrote: post #67
pclowes wrote: post #45

People always want high trust societies. They are incredibly hard to create and incredibly easy to destroy. However, once the cameras go up, you will never ever create one there. High trust requires, well, actual trust. You can’t build real trust in a panopticon just a sickly police state facsimile of it. Society and progress moves at the speed of trust. Without it many uniquely human and beautiful things disappear.

My counter argument is that you only need 1% of the population to be bad apples in order to destroy a high trust society. Hell, even a single serial killer on the loose will make a lot of people too afraid to walk alone at night. One or two burglars can be responsible for 50% of the burglaries in a town. And so in and so forth. The other problem you have is that a lot of crime tends to be financially rewarding, so if…

It is not about percentage of the population, but about whether the bad actor rise to the top.

> The other problem you have is that a lot of crime tends to be financially rewarding, so if left unchecked it will tend to grow over time as the criminals get richer and expand their operations.

It already happened. The president, Miller, Karp, Thiel, Zuckerberg, Musk, hell the company named Flock are all bad actors who got richer over time and expanded their operations.

Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public

#77

Post by watwut »

moate wrote: post #48
pclowes wrote: post #45

People always want high trust societies. They are incredibly hard to create and incredibly easy to destroy. However, once the cameras go up, you will never ever create one there. High trust requires, well, actual trust. You can’t build real trust in a panopticon just a sickly police state facsimile of it. Society and progress moves at the speed of trust. Without it many uniquely human and beautiful things disappear.

Sadly, many people just want to be highly trusted in society (whilst themselves fearing most of the rest of it). It's why we flirt with/fall face first into authoritarianism every few decades.

Authoritarian are not high trust. And people who call for authoritarian societies are not calling for high trust. They call for control and subjugation.

Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public

#78

Post by [deleted] »

daymanstep wrote: post #67
pclowes wrote: post #45

People always want high trust societies. They are incredibly hard to create and incredibly easy to destroy. However, once the cameras go up, you will never ever create one there. High trust requires, well, actual trust. You can’t build real trust in a panopticon just a sickly police state facsimile of it. Society and progress moves at the speed of trust. Without it many uniquely human and beautiful things disappear.

My counter argument is that you only need 1% of the population to be bad apples in order to destroy a high trust society. Hell, even a single serial killer on the loose will make a lot of people too afraid to walk alone at night. One or two burglars can be responsible for 50% of the burglaries in a town. And so in and so forth. The other problem you have is that a lot of crime tends to be financially rewarding, so if…

[deleted]

Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public

#79

Post by [deleted] »

nikkwong wrote: post #57
OsrsNeedsf2P wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent 3 years in Korea, and that's probably where I will go back to retire after I exit. Crime there is extremely low - partially because of the cameras, but mainly because they're on top of it. They're able to spend time on every criminal, which deters anyone from breaking the law. Contrary to SF, where I've called the police and provided evidence for an open and shut case, and the cops shrugged their shoulders. F…

I used to live in china, which is by all means the dystopian surveillance state that we're all afraid that this could lead to. Don't misinterpret this as an advocation for that type of living; but it's simply interesting to note that when you ask any chinese if they would like to go back to the world of 30 years ago in terms of surveillance, essentially 100% of them will say no; they like it the way things are and no…

[deleted]

Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public

#80

Post by SXX »

fodkodrasz wrote: post #74
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is I think if you give people the choice between a 0.001% chance of getting murdered on the street or a 100% chance of being surveilled 24/7 you will find that people will take their chances with the murderers

Reality shows otherwise. Take a look at Google and free-for-ads-and-surveillance everything. People are willing to make compromises on privacy for less important things than the change of them or their loved ones getting murdered, as mentioned as an example. But back to Flock: public cameras are not 24/7 surveillance, as those don't surveil people at home. ps: I'm not for a panopticon, enforcement needs to come with…

  > But back to Flock: public cameras are not 24/7 surveillance, as those don't surveil people at home.
Fortunatelly for that they can have Amazon partnership. It only got backlash because they been stupid enough to advertise it as superbowl ad.

And backlash its got is the real proof that people not protest against it only because they are not really aware of how bad it is.

Post reply on HN