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Flock Safety's controversial CEO just got a taste of his own medicine

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Re: Flock Safety's controversial CEO just got a taste of his own medicine

#51

Post by aceazzameen »

alexjplant wrote: post #38
bamboozled wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is interesting about it ?

Because Flock is the first company to so brazenly violate the post-2011 social contract: if you're going to track somebody you need to give them coupons and content as compensation. They have failed to provide the people whose privacy they are violating with internet drama and buttcheeks videos. Other companies with many times greater reach and market cap collect GPS, cell tower, and 802.11 ESSID data to observe thei…

I agree with the post, despite the sarcasm. But the one thing it's missing is how Flock uses AI to pass user data directly to law enforcement without a warrant. At least (most?) of other companies that comply with the said social contract wait for the warrant.

Re: Flock Safety's controversial CEO just got a taste of his own medicine

#52

Post by pibaker »

totallymike wrote: post #4
CqtGLRGcukpy wrote: post #3

Non-cloudflare link that basically says the same thing: https://mstdn.social/@stux/117186158784673388

Why is cloudflare a problem?

Getting past cloudflare can be a problem if you are from a less reputable country or a VPN or if you use a less conventional browser.

There is also a larger problem of a private entity being the MITM for a large portion of internet traffic. But i don't think this is the point GP was trying to make.

Re: Flock Safety's controversial CEO just got a taste of his own medicine

#53

Post by [deleted] »

lynx97 wrote: post #45
karmakurtisaani wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who downvote could propose how to solve the fraudster problem instead of shooting the messenger.

"We removed the wheelchair ramp because it was used by rodents to enter our building." "Don't shoot the messenger!" Security can't be a reason for discrimination.

[deleted]

Re: Flock Safety's controversial CEO just got a taste of his own medicine

#54

Post by karmakurtisaani »

lynx97 wrote: post #45
karmakurtisaani wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who downvote could propose how to solve the fraudster problem instead of shooting the messenger.

"We removed the wheelchair ramp because it was used by rodents to enter our building." "Don't shoot the messenger!" Security can't be a reason for discrimination.

So keep the ramp then. Now your business is full of rats and even the disabled don't want to shop there. What do you do now?

Edit: The downvotes have spoken! This view is simply wrong with no justification!

Re: Flock Safety's controversial CEO just got a taste of his own medicine

#55

Post by cocacola1 »

bamboozled wrote: post #34
cocacola1 wrote: post #23

It’s been interesting to see this vitriol towards Flock increase over the past couple of months or so.

What is interesting about it ?

The speed of the surge + people feeling strongly enough about it that they destroy the cameras + events like the grand jury that refused the indictment. I usually just see this kind of vitriol remain online. That it’s crossed into the real world like this is interesting to see.

Re: Flock Safety's controversial CEO just got a taste of his own medicine

#56

Post by sroussey »

defrost wrote: post #43
sroussey wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You carry a phone with you broadcasting constantly. Not sure why police just don’t buy your location data from data brokers. Maybe they do…

> You carry a phone with you broadcasting constantly. You know them personally? I can't speak for them but I, for one, don't.

You don’t carry a phone with you?

I aim to get there some day…

Re: Flock Safety's controversial CEO just got a taste of his own medicine

#57

Post by ranger_danger »

totallymike wrote: post #4
CqtGLRGcukpy wrote: post #3

Non-cloudflare link that basically says the same thing: https://mstdn.social/@stux/117186158784673388

Why is cloudflare a problem?

Most CF sites I try to visit only give me an endless captcha loop, so I cannot visit them at all.

I suspect it's simply because my ISP regularly rotates IPs, and so I unfortunately have to share "reputation" with other users who can't behave online.

Re: Flock Safety's controversial CEO just got a taste of his own medicine

#58

Post by nickff »

happymellon wrote: post #40
yetihehe wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your rate limits on adding and removing credit cards? All those requests will appear from different ip's and different browsers, made by someone who can spend months on trying to defraud you. How do you differentiate this from valid customer who happens to try to buy something between 20 tries by bots? > Your input sanitization? All those fraud requests will give you valid credit cards which will work perfectly, bu…

> All those fraud requests will give you valid credit cards which will work perfectly, but then defrauded people or banks will try to chargeback later. How are they getting pass 3D-S? If they are able to get past it, then your liability drops off. Yes it could be designed better, but that is a separate discussion.

It doesn’t matter that they can’t get past 3D-S, because the whole point of what they’re doing is checking what security features are enabled for a card, and whether their address and other validation data will pass. The fact that the scammers are testing so many cards that fail gets you banned from those payments providers, whether or not any payments go through. And this is ignoring all the attackers using bots for other purposes such as taking control of the website to obtain user or client data.

Re: Flock Safety's controversial CEO just got a taste of his own medicine

#59

Post by soulofmischief »

sroussey wrote: post #39
soulofmischief wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unwarranted mass surveillance and dragnet part. We have a thing called the fourth Constitutional amendment here in the United States. We also have the first amendment, which the Supreme Court has ruled in the past must not be subject to a "chilling effect". The Flock camera system, and any dragnet surveillance system, is a direct chilling effect to the rights to freedom of speech, freedom from religious persecuti…

You carry a phone with you broadcasting constantly. Not sure why police just don’t buy your location data from data brokers. Maybe they do…

Two wrongs don't make a right. I have dealt with multiple incidents of police harassment and gross misconduct and I don't trust them with my location data any more than I do a national camera network that pervades neighborhoods and intimate spaces.

Re: Flock Safety's controversial CEO just got a taste of his own medicine

#60

Post by selfhoster1312 »

nickff wrote: post #8
zbrozek wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they slow down and often block access to websites, particularly for people that try to avoid being fingerprinted or otherwise tracked. Pretty evil behavior.

It is very challenging to distinguish individuals interested in privacy from bots acting maliciously or with reckless indifference. If you devise a way to do this more effectively than Cloudflare, you should start a business to sell this as a service.

The technique is simple: don't publicly serve expensive (CPU/RAM-wise) pages. A simple blog like the linked article can be 100% cached and served to anyone without needing CloudFlare.

Performance optimization for website already is a business. It's just that product managers mostly don't care and optimize for other metrics (eyeball retention, SEO, etc).

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