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Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

newyorker.com

281–290 of 567 posts

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#281
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reasonable regulation, focusing on personal freedom, would just forbid building such a network in the first place.

You just need to reasonably predict the future 20 years ago.

The history of human civilization is quite telling, no?

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#282

Perhaps its time that YC mentioned explicitly that if they are going to fund a company which holds specific PII data(i would include precise location history to start with) they would have to guarantee: 1. An erase-me feature if they gained over say some X unique/active users. 2. Disclose to their best legal abilities on warrants served in the countries that allow such disclosure. Allow for strong whistle blower prot…

You can’t even do that with your HN account..you think Flock, with its lucrative gov contracts…would ever?

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quickest way to get dragnet surveillance banned would be for citizens to collaborate and create a massive publicly-available surveillance network.

Yes. Once the application of force happens outside the state's monopoly, they'll shut that shit down so fast.

I loathe surveillance networks. As much as I loathe them, I'm sadly forced to concede that probably citizens setting up a trivially join-able, anonymous, open source surveillance network is probably the only way to get the powerful to think about what they're doing.

Every door man, every hotel employee, every uber driver, every concert-goer, every grocery shopper, every student, and on and on and on. Anonymously streaming their encrypted feeds. Have them turn their cameras onto the street. Especially, say, in front of hotels or at certain restaurants and resorts. Ohhh, and at convention centers as well. Just to show it can pick out subjects at busy places and track them around any city reliably.

Naturally, we'd need some sample facial recognition queries just to show how to use the system. We could start with, say, public figures like Representatives, and Senators? And just to prove it works for less famous people, maybe we could have some example names of regular, everyday employees. Like employees at, I don't know?? Palantir, Flock and Clearview maybe? Just to demonstrate the value and effectiveness of public surveillance networks.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#284
post #46

It's pretty clear to be that governments shouldn't be able to 'subcontract' their way out of the limits placed on them via the constitution. Thankfully the supreme court seems to agree here in two ways: 1) Just because a third party (Google in Chatrie case but Flock here) collects the data and the government requests it from them, doesn't mean that that isn't a 'search' which requires a warrant ("obtaining someone's…

There is not generally an expectation of privacy in public. Things in public can be recorded without consent. Filming a car on a street and giving that video to the government is not the same as me giving private information to a third party, and then them giving it to the government such as Carpenter v United states covers. Edit: Note that this is not an endorsement, rather stating that recent supreme court cases ma…

In human terms, frequency, impact, and scale matter. If my little dog puts a few ounces of pee in some random person's front yard, it's seen as a micro-infraction at best. Vs. Flock's ideal is more like a factory farm just up the hill, with ever-leaking urine retention ponds.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#285
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US isn't the UK or China and different cultures deem different things as acceptable. The UK for example is also a monarchy, which would rial up people in the US if proposed there. Additionally the trust that the government uses these cameras as intended is apparently higher in the UK than the trust of Americans that Flock will not misuse their surveillance technology.

Doesn't UK arrest a few thousand people a year for social media posts? What are you basing this high degree of trust on?

No, it arrests several thousands of people every year for breaches of the communications act(s) - this could be for online harassment, stalking or trying to defraud people over Facebook messenger.

It's the equivalent of 'wire fraud' in the US.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#286
post #60
post #46

It's pretty clear to be that governments shouldn't be able to 'subcontract' their way out of the limits placed on them via the constitution. Thankfully the supreme court seems to agree here in two ways: 1) Just because a third party (Google in Chatrie case but Flock here) collects the data and the government requests it from them, doesn't mean that that isn't a 'search' which requires a warrant ("obtaining someone's…

A reasonable regulation, focusing on personal freedom, would just forbid building such a network in the first place.

Ask YC - they funded Flock

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#287

Flock is YC. HN mods are complicit and are shaping the narrative here. PG, Garry Tan, Dan Gackle, Tom Howard, Aaron Epstein, Jared Friedman, and all YC staff are enemies of the people.

Spamming a thread with new accounts isn't a good tactic to point that out.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not generally an expectation of privacy in public. Things in public can be recorded without consent. Filming a car on a street and giving that video to the government is not the same as me giving private information to a third party, and then them giving it to the government such as Carpenter v United states covers. Edit: Note that this is not an endorsement, rather stating that recent supreme court cases ma…

" The third-party doctrine is a United States legal doctrine that holds that people who voluntarily give information to third parties, such as banks and phone companies, generally have "no reasonable expectation of privacy" in that information. This precedent, established in Supreme Court cases in the 1970s, allows the U.S. government to obtain information from third parties without a legal warrant and without otherw…

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