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Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

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451–460 of 575 posts

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#451

A bit concerning how some people in this thread will bend over backwards to defend mass surveillance. Not surprising given who owns the board, but still.

Yeah, there is a suspicious amount of down-voting of anti-surveillance comments in here. I'd say there's about a 99% chance Flock is paying astroturfers.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#452
post #389

A bit concerning how some people in this thread will bend over backwards to defend mass surveillance. Not surprising given who owns the board, but still.

A lot of techies have lived in China and seen how that country has stronger social harmony than the West and is gradually outpacing it, so mass surveillance clearly isn't an obstacle to the general prosperity. The problem with mass surveillance rollouts in the West is that they are incomplete: the cameras might go up, but not all infractions caught on camera are actually punished. Meanwhile, in China vandals and othe…

What the actual fuck is this opinion? We wouldn't be so up in arms if the grip were tighter?

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiple things can be true at the same time... do you think the seller doesn't want a closely surveilled world with no exits? Besides, money keeps businesses in the economy afloat, it's an artificial good with (more or less) constant value. Money's a systematic means to an end and rarely an end goal, its purpose is the transportation of value, and not the communication of value.

> do you think the seller doesn't want a closely surveilled world with no exits? I don't think they care beyond being rich. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower

Debatable, but I think that Flock sells a product that does actively more harm to society than anything from Oracle ever has.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's for a good cause! This has enabled the DEA to keep all dangerous drugs out of the country and avoid any sort of drug abuse epidemics! Think of the children!

I'm guessing this was /s sarcasm given the "think of the children" reference. Just saying so in case others didn't get the reference and thought you were being sincere...

Yes, it was entirely sarcasm. The DEA should be abolished, period. Not only is the War on Drugs a war of oppression on the citizenry, it has funded the cartels and promoted crime throughout the world.

Secondly, the DEA controls what my doctor can prescribe me (I am "blessed" with chronic pain), and those fuckwits have no business in the doctor-patient relationship.

And this will go on forever, because propaganda has brainwashed the populace that people need to be "protected" from dangerous drugs. Sure, drugs can be dangerous but the way it's being done now is beyond stupid, it is inherently evil.

Do I sound angry? Perhaps it's because I am. There's so much needless death and suffering and people just shrug their shoulders.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they do that? Venture capital isn't there to serve people like us or to protect any kind of common interest. There is only one thing they know - money.

Sure, but YC can enforce it if they want to. VC after all is a private body governed by private individuals, they can make moral choices. VCs could even support this by offering terms to offset the costs. I cannot believe that a company cannot be profitable but at the same time not build for at least some better privacy guarantees.

[dead]

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surreal in the way that your constitutional rights are being casually violated?

The Constitution does not prohibit government (or anyone for that matter) from recording people in public spaces. ALPRs have been in widespread use since the 90s, I am continuously puzzled where people get the idea that this is new technology.

Notice that the person I responded to was speaking about a military checkpoint near the border. Do you know what that is?

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its not a legislation issue

Except it is? If the traffic light timings are controlled by law then they can't be manipulated in that way.

the ones we want to prevent abuse from are the ones making the laws. police and governments break existing laws all the time.

>they can't be manipulated

if you want something that cant be manipulated or abused, the solution is technical, not legislative.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other thing that's going on is that Flock is essentially an always-on "dragnet." A "dragnet" is when you set up police checkpoints everywhere and essentially put entire cities under watch to find a fugitive. This happened in Boston after the bombings. "Dragnets" are illegal except in extreme circumstances (like a bombing). Flock is a "dragnet on demand." You have a digital dragnet in place not just in one city bu…

The difference is that your example involves physically stopping and searching people. This is not the case with Flock, which records images in public. The government does not and never did require any warrant or justification to record people in public spaces. Not just the government, but normal people too: you can whip out four phone and start recording people in public any time you want.

Recording equipment didn’t exist when the constitution was written.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#459
post #30

I've been very pleased to see the reaction to Flock in the US. I was talking to a younger guy, very normal kid who keeps his nose clean, studying criminal justice in his junior year at college. I jokingly mentioned to him that maybe he could bring some anti-surveillance awareness to whatever law enforcement agency he goes to work for and he said, very seriously, "oh yeah, definitely. I've only gotten two cameras so f…

Do you have any idea what it would mean for society if people routinely resolved political disagreements by destroying each other's property? I think celebrating that kind of behavior is deeply wrong.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#460
post #421

A bit concerning how some people in this thread will bend over backwards to defend mass surveillance. Not surprising given who owns the board, but still.

I still am opposed to anything capable of mass surveillance because of how easily it is abused. But living in Seattle, my car has been broken into 4 times this summer alone (with nothing taken, because we leave nothing there), thiefs dug up the side of my house to steel copper wires, on my block someone dumped gasoline all over a tree and lit it on fire just because, people went around the neighborhood smashing front…

> I wouldn’t mind a patrol car circling the area, like a damn police state.

Very strange that Americans now view a patrolling policeman as a "police state". After all, a strolling constabulary (which would drive in the US since no one walks) was part of even the 19th-century progressive "policing by consent" model that is still well regarded today.

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