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U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

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111–120 of 262 posts

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#111
post #34
post #4

> The law-enforcement scanners are different from those used to collect tolls. Much to the chagrin of our rent-seeking overlords, whom see speed traps and red-light cameras as a means of revenue generation rather than safety measure.

Speed traps I'll grant you, but how are red light cameras not a safety measure?

The part about how they are a complete scam? http://blog.motorists.org/illinois-red-light-cameras-scam/

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#112
post #103

Can we please stop acting like the USA is somehow a "good guy" anymore? We have to realize that the authoritarian demons have the battering ram at the door and I really don't want to find out what happens when the USA turns into an authoritarian militaristic regime. We're way more than half way there already and people support it. Our very own government is a threat to us all, or at least those who will find themselv…

I think it's also naive to think of the government as the "bad guy" as well. Classifying the government as bad or good is basically trying to assign a singular attribute to the aggregate actions of thousands of people in politics and government agencies. The truth is neither black or white, and extremely complicated.

+bump

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#113
post #103

Can we please stop acting like the USA is somehow a "good guy" anymore? We have to realize that the authoritarian demons have the battering ram at the door and I really don't want to find out what happens when the USA turns into an authoritarian militaristic regime. We're way more than half way there already and people support it. Our very own government is a threat to us all, or at least those who will find themselv…

You're such a moron it hurts.

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#114

I've been mulling ideas to defeat ANPR without breaking state laws. The simplest may be to use a tilted/warped surrounding frame that interferes with the skew correction of the captured plate. Another thought is to project bright infrared patterns to disrupt unfiltered B&W cameras.

One could potentially try to exploit the high framerate of such cameras.

(For example, imagine 10 LEDs arranged so that each LED illuminates 1/10th of the license plate, where 1 LED is on at a time. If the frequency is high enough, to human eyes it'll appear as though the entire plate is illuminated equally, but any photo will have one spot (or two spots) illuminated much more than the others.)

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#115
post #103

Can we please stop acting like the USA is somehow a "good guy" anymore? We have to realize that the authoritarian demons have the battering ram at the door and I really don't want to find out what happens when the USA turns into an authoritarian militaristic regime. We're way more than half way there already and people support it. Our very own government is a threat to us all, or at least those who will find themselv…

I think it's also naive to think of the government as the "bad guy" as well. Classifying the government as bad or good is basically trying to assign a singular attribute to the aggregate actions of thousands of people in politics and government agencies. The truth is neither black or white, and extremely complicated.

It depends on whether you're classifying based on intentions or on results. When you're using the word "bad guy", it implied the intentions to be bad/evil. However, it's easy to see that a complex system can't (normally) be assigned an intention. But even if every actors within the system is acting in good faith, the emergent behaviour can still have bad result.

In the case of government, it's definitely not complicated to classify the aggregate behaviour as unqualified bad (in term of result), regardless of the intention of the individuals working within the systems.

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#116
post #103

Can we please stop acting like the USA is somehow a "good guy" anymore? We have to realize that the authoritarian demons have the battering ram at the door and I really don't want to find out what happens when the USA turns into an authoritarian militaristic regime. We're way more than half way there already and people support it. Our very own government is a threat to us all, or at least those who will find themselv…

You're such a moron it hurts.

Please don't be insulting. Debate this. It's important.

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#117
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way to reverse this. Trying to cage this with paperwork will just lead to more of the same creative interpretations à la NSA. So the rulers don't feel the rules apply to them, big surprise. With that in mind, the futility of fighting the tide, what is the next step? As the ideal solution of reversal is unavailable, we need to go with harm reduction - but what is the harm that we would reduce? Most would s…

America has a gum problem, we can all agree. That said, I feel like the right to bare arms was included specifically for overthrowing oppressive governments (and in case the British came back?). At what point does a government become sufficiently oppressive as to be overthrown by the people? Without defining that, I feel like government can just keep employing the "but terrorists" excuse and the overton window to kee…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#118

The USA is automatically photographing millions of cars and putting the data in a giant database used by all law-enforcement. It reads like the premise of a dystopian science fiction novel. I can't help but guess that the reaction is going to be a big shoulder shrug, because, to but it bluntly, things aren't that bad for most people. If you are white, have a good job, follow the law, and make sure to richly kiss ass…

To put it even more bluntly, automatic license plate scanning doesn't really seem to have been bad for anybody , aside from people on the lam. Though I am open to examples to the contrary.

This would seem to be a great database for the police to watch for juicy civil forfeiture targets to stumble through their jurisdiction, to seize a car or its possible contents.

How would they know that you have good stuff inside the car? Other databases.

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#119
post #103

Can we please stop acting like the USA is somehow a "good guy" anymore? We have to realize that the authoritarian demons have the battering ram at the door and I really don't want to find out what happens when the USA turns into an authoritarian militaristic regime. We're way more than half way there already and people support it. Our very own government is a threat to us all, or at least those who will find themselv…

You're such a moron it hurts.

This is not a constructive comment. If he is wrong, explain why.

Re: U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars

#120
post #103

Can we please stop acting like the USA is somehow a "good guy" anymore? We have to realize that the authoritarian demons have the battering ram at the door and I really don't want to find out what happens when the USA turns into an authoritarian militaristic regime. We're way more than half way there already and people support it. Our very own government is a threat to us all, or at least those who will find themselv…

I think it's also naive to think of the government as the "bad guy" as well. Classifying the government as bad or good is basically trying to assign a singular attribute to the aggregate actions of thousands of people in politics and government agencies. The truth is neither black or white, and extremely complicated.

Can we all agree that a minimum, they are intentionally misleading their citizens?
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