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Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

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Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#121

Post by n4r9 »

londons_explore wrote: post #104
arethuza wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the computing and communication parts of a project like this are by far the easiest bits. Weatherproofing the camera and solar panels, getting permission to get them installed, actually installing them (working at heights over busy roads) and then maintaining them would be pretty expensive. You might also have to pay rent to whoever owns gantries, and what about locations where there aren't any existing gan…

You wouldn't get permission. Just walk with a phone+solar panel in a weatherproof box. Either use magnets or zip ties to tie to the the pedestrian rail of a bridge overlooking a freeway. Done. I would likely order some chinaphone motherboards only - for example[1] - without the screen+case+accessories you save ~50% on the retail price. They're then not valuable enough to be worth stealing either. If it's a small road…

How much power do you need to be continuously running video/snapshots, OCR software, and comms? How expensive a solar panel is needed to generate that power, will it work overnight and through the winter, and will it also be theft-resistant? What's the cost of petrol for driving 4+ hours per day? How will you get coverage in parts of the country that aren't near your home/office?

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#122

Post by is_true »

makeitdouble wrote: post #53
is_true wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally other people shouldn't care what you do. But reality is sad

Even beyond nosyness, you might want your elderly parents to stay unaware that you’re checking retirement homes in their area. Or not let your son know you’re working a second job while he’s in college. Privacy is just so important from any angle we put it.

I don't particularly agree with both of your examples, but I share your opinion on the importance of privacy.

Citizen surveillance and corruption was the reason I started disliking cameras on public places.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#124

Post by pc86 »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #101
pc86 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even that pilots are a minority and that's why no one cares. It's that most air travel is commercial, and nobody cares if someone can see where exact UAL123 is at this moment. Nobody feels bad for some millionaire's private jet getting tracked, nobody feels bad for some expensive charter plane with $15k tickets getting tracked, and the only thing left is small GA aircraft, which nobody care about at all. The…

> the only thing left is small GA aircraft, which nobody care about at all Why does nobody care about those? Is it because they're a minority? Seems like you might be contradicting yourself?

You can probably count on one hand the number of people who care where a specific Cessna 172 is at any given point in time. What's contradictory about that?

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#125

Post by dagw »

cronix wrote: post #117
dagw wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll either have to do this guerrilla style, in which case solar panels will be far too obvious. Or you'll have to apply for all relevant permits, in which case you'll never get them.

Permits? We're not talking a solar farm to power a small device. There are a lot of trail cams that have solar built in, are very small, camouflaged, and motion activated with 20MP cameras for under $200.

We're talking about filming major roads here. "Motion activated" effectively means running 24/7. No way a built in solar panel in a camouflaged trail camera will manage that. Also it doesn't matter how small the device is, if you legally want to attach a camera to any sort of infrastructure overlooking a road, then yes you need permits you almost certainly will not get. You could possibly attach it to a pole on private land next to the road, but even then you'd need the permission of the land owner.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#126

Post by cjrp »

pc86 wrote: post #124
Ajedi32 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only thing left is small GA aircraft, which nobody care about at all Why does nobody care about those? Is it because they're a minority? Seems like you might be contradicting yourself?

You can probably count on one hand the number of people who care where a specific Cessna 172 is at any given point in time. What's contradictory about that?

In the UK, people who are annoyed by GA plane noise will look up the owner’s details (these are held in a mandatory, public database by the CAA, equivalent to the FAA) and contact them directly.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#127

Post by KoftaBob »

r2_pilot wrote: post #73
KoftaBob wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Several cities in the US were firebombed nightly for months in 2020. What? What is this referring to?

From the general tone of the rest of the comment, it's likely they're referring to actions taken adjacent to the Black Lives Matter protests which were depicted in some news media as being like a war zone. Oddly, none of the cities today look like, I don't know, Ukraine. But some people will make mountains from molehills.

I was under the impression that “firebombing” exclusively referred to aerial firebombing during war, so it sounded super strange.

Now that i looked up the term, i see that it can mean “any act in which an incendiary device is used to initiate a fire”.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#128

Post by bjacobt »

bambax wrote: post #70

The DB5 in Goldfinger (1964) had revolving licence plates. A cursory Google search comes up with some shady websites that sell similar tech, but it would be a nice DIY project to make a licence plate screen that can be changed on the fly (e-ink based maybe). Has anyone tried it?

What about https://reviver.com ?

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#129

Post by cronix »

dagw wrote: post #125
cronix wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Permits? We're not talking a solar farm to power a small device. There are a lot of trail cams that have solar built in, are very small, camouflaged, and motion activated with 20MP cameras for under $200.

We're talking about filming major roads here. "Motion activated" effectively means running 24/7. No way a built in solar panel in a camouflaged trail camera will manage that. Also it doesn't matter how small the device is, if you legally want to attach a camera to any sort of infrastructure overlooking a road, then yes you need permits you almost certainly will not get. You could possibly attach it to a pole on priva…

I suppose it depends on the jurisdiction. For instance, some courts, like the 9th District Court of Appeals have ruled that cities can't remove homeless camping on public property. Public forests are public, and there's lots of trail cams.

https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/court-ruling-homless...

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#130

Post by mig39 »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #15

> Certain tollroad systems, such as France's Bip & Go télépéage, require a physical Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag to be present in the car for authentication purposes. Only if you want to pass the toll / "télépéage" without having to stop for paying "manually" (using a credit card of whatever). I've got one and now you can pass most tolls without stopping (but you need to slow down to about 30 km/h // 20…

I recently took a Spanish rental car to Portugal for more than a month. I registered the license plate number and a credit card on the Portuguese tolls website.

I then used a bunch of toll highways that were "electronic only" and received the appropriate charges on my credit card a few days later.

I think if you're going to set up a toll system in the future, then this is the tech you're going to use. Not RFID or transponders. Just read the license plate and charge the user.

There were options, BTW, to pay in cash, with pre-paid cards, etc, that didn't directly tie your identity to the plate. But I assume the rental agency will tie me to the plate, so used my credit card anyway.

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