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Flock CEO's Address Spread Online as Surveillance Backlash Explodes

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Re: Flock CEO's Address Spread Online as Surveillance Backlash Explodes

#21
I have to say, I wish we lived in a society where tools like Flock were not problematic, due to abuse and other factors.

However, if we lived in such a society, we wouldn't want tools like Flock to begin with.

edit: to be clear, we are far too corrupt a society to have things like Flock. The point of my comment was this irony.

Re: Flock CEO's Address Spread Online as Surveillance Backlash Explodes

#22

I know this is an extremely hot take, but it's not the license plate reading service that bothers me. A license plate is specifically a tracking number to identify a registered vehicle on a public road. The 4th Amendment gives you privacy inside of your car , but your car is not itself guaranteed privacy. Before Flock, police departments already had informally aggregated data from speed cameras, red light cameras, an…

Recent WIRED[1] article goes in depth on this exact problem: > Another prompt instructs the system to list everyone arrested more than twice in two years for “any offense,” exempting only narcotics arrests, and then says to map where those people live, retrieve the calls for service at their homes, and “do a workup on the top three individuals.” The prompt begins with everyone in the area who has an arrest record and…

> This stuff is beyond the wildest fantasies of East Germany's Stasi

I feel like that's a bit of a false equivalency. The soviet secret police had surprisingly little hard evidence on anyone - part of the terror of these regimes is that they could act decisively with little more than a rumor or gossip and be free from scrutiny for any mistakes.

Re: Flock CEO's Address Spread Online as Surveillance Backlash Explodes

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they will absolutely be legalized on some party line vote in the middle of the night. Or they'll be legalized piecemeal and you'll get sneered at by the useful idiots for opposing each incremental step based on principal.

they'll find a particularly violent crime and use that as the strawman... "Oh you dont want this? well i guess you support violent immigrant mass murderers then!" and then before you know it the state has implemented its mass surveillance apparatus across the entire country. And we though china's social credits were bad? just IMAGINE what those predatory tech bros are cookin up.

I mean, is that even a strawman? You can oppose mass AI surveillance and acknowledge the price of that is more crime.

Re: Flock CEO's Address Spread Online as Surveillance Backlash Explodes

#24

I have to say, I wish we lived in a society where tools like Flock were not problematic, due to abuse and other factors. However, if we lived in such a society, we wouldn't want tools like Flock to begin with. edit: to be clear, we are far too corrupt a society to have things like Flock. The point of my comment was this irony.

We do not need Flock in this current iteration of society.

In utopia, we would also not need Flock.

Privacy should be a human right.

Re: Flock CEO's Address Spread Online as Surveillance Backlash Explodes

#25

I have to say, I wish we lived in a society where tools like Flock were not problematic, due to abuse and other factors. However, if we lived in such a society, we wouldn't want tools like Flock to begin with. edit: to be clear, we are far too corrupt a society to have things like Flock. The point of my comment was this irony.

We do not need Flock in this current iteration of society. In utopia, we would also not need Flock. Privacy should be a human right.

Agreed. I now realize that my initial comment did not make my position clear.

Re: Flock CEO's Address Spread Online as Surveillance Backlash Explodes

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recent WIRED[1] article goes in depth on this exact problem: > Another prompt instructs the system to list everyone arrested more than twice in two years for “any offense,” exempting only narcotics arrests, and then says to map where those people live, retrieve the calls for service at their homes, and “do a workup on the top three individuals.” The prompt begins with everyone in the area who has an arrest record and…

> This stuff is beyond the wildest fantasies of East Germany's Stasi I feel like that's a bit of a false equivalency. The soviet secret police had surprisingly little hard evidence on anyone - part of the terror of these regimes is that they could act decisively with little more than a rumor or gossip and be free from scrutiny for any mistakes.

You're right: the current US regime has been gleefully weaponizing the legal system against political enemies, and the difference is that they don't care about scrutiny for mistakes because there have been zero consequences for anyone involved. The Soviets were at least somewhat worried about bad PR.

My thinking is if we can stop pervasive AI-driven surveillance we might be saved from a totalitarian regime who views The Handmaid's Tale as an instruction manual, and instead be able to settle for a run-of-the-mill corrupt authoritarian one.

Re: Flock CEO's Address Spread Online as Surveillance Backlash Explodes

#27

I know this is an extremely hot take, but it's not the license plate reading service that bothers me. A license plate is specifically a tracking number to identify a registered vehicle on a public road. The 4th Amendment gives you privacy inside of your car , but your car is not itself guaranteed privacy. Before Flock, police departments already had informally aggregated data from speed cameras, red light cameras, an…

Recent WIRED[1] article goes in depth on this exact problem: > Another prompt instructs the system to list everyone arrested more than twice in two years for “any offense,” exempting only narcotics arrests, and then says to map where those people live, retrieve the calls for service at their homes, and “do a workup on the top three individuals.” The prompt begins with everyone in the area who has an arrest record and…

> everyone arrested more than twice in two years

Purely statistically, this is a good first-pass filter if you are looking for perps. Chance a random adult is arrested in a 8-year window: ~5%. Chance a former convict gets arrested in an 8-year window: ~49%. So, it is ~10x the rate. Makes sense, statistically, to start there.

https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/recidivism-am...

Re: Flock CEO's Address Spread Online as Surveillance Backlash Explodes

#28

I know this is an extremely hot take, but it's not the license plate reading service that bothers me. A license plate is specifically a tracking number to identify a registered vehicle on a public road. The 4th Amendment gives you privacy inside of your car , but your car is not itself guaranteed privacy. Before Flock, police departments already had informally aggregated data from speed cameras, red light cameras, an…

They aren't just tracking license plates though. They're tracking people - let me explain. Their 'ALPR' cameras (purposefully misleading to call them ALPR btw) capture the footage and send it off to their servers where it's retained - building a long-term historical location history on every vehicle. Advanced analysis is performed on the data to provide features to their customers such as the ability to search for vehicles based on a description of its characteristics (no plate needed), real-time route prediction, location heatmaps, and identifying vehicles that travel together (convoy search). Here's the important part - data is also ingested into another service they run called 'Nova', which is essentially a people search tool that connects the vehicles they capture directly to people and their PII. Access to their platforms (Flock OS, Nova, etc.) is sold via a subscription to law enforcement where they can perform searches for individuals or vehicle whereabouts for any reason, without a warrant, and practically no oversight or regulations.

Re: Flock CEO's Address Spread Online as Surveillance Backlash Explodes

#29
post #2

[flagged]

Who said violence?

We just need a ton of people to film his house and whereabouts 24x7 for a while so he gets a taste of his own medicine.

It would be horrible if he didn’t like it.

Note celebrities have to put up with the paparazzi. At this point he’s a celebrity.

Re: Flock CEO's Address Spread Online as Surveillance Backlash Explodes

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they will absolutely be legalized on some party line vote in the middle of the night. Or they'll be legalized piecemeal and you'll get sneered at by the useful idiots for opposing each incremental step based on principal.

they'll find a particularly violent crime and use that as the strawman... "Oh you dont want this? well i guess you support violent immigrant mass murderers then!" and then before you know it the state has implemented its mass surveillance apparatus across the entire country. And we though china's social credits were bad? just IMAGINE what those predatory tech bros are cookin up.

They could even start identifying "pre-crime" :)

Not as far fetched as it sounds even. Plenty of not-quite-a-crime things they could track if desired.

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