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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

#51

Post by Manuel_D »

rc5150 wrote: post #47
Manuel_D wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they will absolutely be legalized on some party line vote in the middle of the night. What would be legalized? You realize that recording people in public is already legal, right? I'm puzzled where people are getting the idea that Flock is doing something illegal.

you're being deliberately daft. Its not the recording, its the surveillance dragnet with zero regulation or oversight that creates an instant dossier on whatever datapoints are searched for, by whomever decides to search for them who has paid for access. Honestly the nuance isn't that intellectually taxing and having to explain it to people in the tech space is tiresome.

You're calling me daft yet you couldn't be bothered to answer the question. What is going the be legalized, as the above commenter wrote? What law is Flock breaking presently?

Like it or not recording and photographing people in public, then selling that information is not illegal. Paparazzi do it all the time. You can point a webcam out your window, run ALPR software on the video feed, and sell access to query that information. Nothing about that is illegal. If it is, then please reference the laws that prohibit this.

People talk about privacy laws being violated, but in general privacy laws do not cover public activity. Privacy laws mostly focus on protecting communications and activities carried out in private.

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

#52

Post by [deleted] »

amazingamazing wrote: post #44
m4ck_ wrote: post #32

Doxxing is bad of course but does "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" apply here? Or is that only for us working folk?

Do you believe anyone with a surveillance camera should have the owners name and address published if in any way a “public” area is recorded? I suppose we can start with all Blink, Ring and Nest Cams. Then we will continue with dash cam owners.

[deleted]

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

#53

Post by sigmarule »

amazingamazing wrote: post #44
m4ck_ wrote: post #32

Doxxing is bad of course but does "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" apply here? Or is that only for us working folk?

Do you believe anyone with a surveillance camera should have the owners name and address published if in any way a “public” area is recorded? I suppose we can start with all Blink, Ring and Nest Cams. Then we will continue with dash cam owners.

Context matters. Without it, very foolish things can be said.

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

#54

Post by frogperson »

consumer451 wrote: post #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.

i have a RIGHT to privacy, and so does everyone on American soil. end of argument.

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

#55

Post by 8note »

m4ck_ wrote: post #32

Doxxing is bad of course but does "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" apply here? Or is that only for us working folk?

doxxing is about pseudonymous internet accounts, not people who are very public with their real name and lobbying the government.

this is whitepages reverse lookup

if he was just a guy chatting on the internet about cameras, sure, it would be doxxing, but he isnt. paparazzi have existed sonce forever

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

#56

Post by schiffern »

amazingamazing wrote: post #44
m4ck_ wrote: post #32

Doxxing is bad of course but does "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" apply here? Or is that only for us working folk?

Do you believe anyone with a surveillance camera should have the owners name and address published if in any way a “public” area is recorded? I suppose we can start with all Blink, Ring and Nest Cams. Then we will continue with dash cam owners.

1. Installing a yard camera.

2. Building a mass surveillance dragnet and purpose-built tracking software and marketing it heavily to random local authorities.

Yep, totally the same thing...

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

#57

Post by 8note »

Dezvous wrote: post #28
legitster wrote: post #17

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 ve…

retained data means they arent just tracking vehicles

as the ml improves, its tracking absolutely everything. they could rwll you the migration paths of the local racoons and coyotes, for instance

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

#58

Post by folkrav »

amazingamazing wrote: post #44
m4ck_ wrote: post #32

Doxxing is bad of course but does "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" apply here? Or is that only for us working folk?

Do you believe anyone with a surveillance camera should have the owners name and address published if in any way a “public” area is recorded? I suppose we can start with all Blink, Ring and Nest Cams. Then we will continue with dash cam owners.

You are equating installing personal security camera(s) to knowingly selling extra-judiciary mass-surveillance hardware and software to law enforcement. What's the point you're trying to make with this, exactly?

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

#59

Post by stonogo »

nancyminusone wrote: post #9
mullingitover wrote: post #6

I worry that Flock is going to take the fall, and some other bad actor with political connections (my money would be on Palantir) will just quietly pick up where they left off while everyone's patting themselves on the back for defeating Flock. The stuff Flock is doing is going to be standard AI-driven surveillance in the future, and unless the actual practices are made into political third rails and made into crimin…

My money would be on Axon. They at least have a claim to the "hold police accountable" angle with bodycams and less-lethal weapons. Compared with Flock's "we'll watch you and what're you gonna do about it"

Axon's had ALPRs long before Flock existed, and the data management story is completely different. Flock was essentially a data warehouse with dark patterns around sharing settings that led to a lot of places defaulting open. Axon started out in bodycams and other direct-investigative tools, and their data management is very much focused on "the agency keeps its data" -- by default, data sharing requests have to be individually approved. You can't just type a plate number in and get hits nationwide.

The question is: will Axon enshittify their mature products in order to pursue that panopticon money?

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

#60

Post by BatFastard »

m4ck_ wrote: post #32

Doxxing is bad of course but does "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" apply here? Or is that only for us working folk?

Question for me is "Will something you can do free now, be suspicious in the future?" Like voting, or taking your kids to a private school, or going to an EFF meeting?

As long as you feel fine having the government know absolutely everything you do, then keep supporting surveillance. I personally have nothing to fear, but I hate the idea that I am being surveilled by a private company.

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