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Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves

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Re: Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves

#121

Post by mikkupikku »

afavour wrote: post #112
leeoniya wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're thinking Chinese surveillance the big irony, of course, is that i'm much more comfortable with China surveilling me than the US, since the latter can throw me in jail, seize my assets, and ruin my family's life, while the former cannot.

The US government is a democracy and can be replaced should it exceed people’s limits. The CCP… uh, not so much. I’m not trying to say the US government is faultless but it amazes me how often I see this kind of anti-democratic institition sentiment.

> it amazes me how often I see this kind of anti-democratic institition sentiment.

leeoniya didn't say anything about democracy. The practical reality is that regardless of what forms of government are involved, whichever government has the ability to arrest you is the government which is the greatest threat in your day-to-day life.

Re: Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves

#122

Post by embedding-shape »

jandrese wrote: post #75
embedding-shape wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, which costs money, which is exactly my original point. It's not because "Oh I'm so hassled because customers are dumb", it's "No, hiring people to do support would cost us money, which we don't want". > Remember that ISPs often have people who come to your home to hook stuff up. I can't recall a single time a technician wasn't required to come to my flat/house to install a new router. I'm based in Spain, maybe i…

Last time I moved I opted for the "self install" kit, which was fine because I'm technical and the previous owners already had the service so there was nothing that needed to be done except hooking up the pre-configured modem. Saved me $200 in truck roll fees.

Interesting stuff, I've asked if I could do the installation myself every single time I've moved to a new place, and never has the ISP (three different ones) said yes. There isn't any installation fee place(probably by law?) so that isn't an issue here, just a hassle to coordinate having to meet between 12:00 and 18:00 or some super wide range of time for them to come and install it.

Re: Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves

#123

Post by fecal_henge »

cm2187 wrote: post #69

[flagged]

Am I right to understand that all those cams are pointed to the street / public places?

- I think you would be wrong to understand that. How on earth did you reach that conclusion?

But how is that different from the thousands of live cams over youtube or the wider internet? Or the poorly secured CCTV watching every angle of any street in most big cities.

- More than one thing can be wrong at once. Requires nuanced thought I accept.

The author then uses face search engines to find personal information on the individuals. That is the creepy part.

- I think he is demonstrating the creepy opportinities. Did he share any of that information? I think anyone with bad intent probably probably not make a video explaining what they did.

Re: Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves

#124

Post by LocalH »

afavour wrote: post #112
leeoniya wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're thinking Chinese surveillance the big irony, of course, is that i'm much more comfortable with China surveilling me than the US, since the latter can throw me in jail, seize my assets, and ruin my family's life, while the former cannot.

The US government is a democracy and can be replaced should it exceed people’s limits. The CCP… uh, not so much. I’m not trying to say the US government is faultless but it amazes me how often I see this kind of anti-democratic institition sentiment.

> The US government is a democracy and can be replaced

I'm not sure this is as axiomatic as many think, in 2025

Re: Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves

#125

Post by jchip303 »

afavour wrote: post #112
leeoniya wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're thinking Chinese surveillance the big irony, of course, is that i'm much more comfortable with China surveilling me than the US, since the latter can throw me in jail, seize my assets, and ruin my family's life, while the former cannot.

The US government is a democracy and can be replaced should it exceed people’s limits. The CCP… uh, not so much. I’m not trying to say the US government is faultless but it amazes me how often I see this kind of anti-democratic institition sentiment.

[dead]

Re: Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves

#126

Post by array_key_first »

afavour wrote: post #112
leeoniya wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're thinking Chinese surveillance the big irony, of course, is that i'm much more comfortable with China surveilling me than the US, since the latter can throw me in jail, seize my assets, and ruin my family's life, while the former cannot.

The US government is a democracy and can be replaced should it exceed people’s limits. The CCP… uh, not so much. I’m not trying to say the US government is faultless but it amazes me how often I see this kind of anti-democratic institition sentiment.

It's not anti-democratic, it's just pragmatic.

Yes the US is a democracy, but a lot of our systems suck ass and are also close in proximity. You DO NOT want to get into legal trouble in the US. Our justice system is beyond fucked. If there's one way to permanently ruin your life in the US, it's getting into legal trouble. You're better off smoking crack cocaine, that's probably healthier for your livelihood.

I don't know about China's legal system, but even assuming it's more fucked, it's all the way over there. Not here.

The main trouble with Flock and companies like them is that they attach to our broken systems like a tumor. If the system fails, which it often does, these accelerate it and make it worse. If you get falsely accused of something or piss off the wrong PD, this shit can ruin your life. Permanently and expeditiously.

Even if you are the most Moral Orel you should be skeptical of these crime reduction claims. They don't just beat down crime, they beat down regular people, too. And if you ask them, they don't know the difference.

Re: Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves

#127

Post by embedding-shape »

gruez wrote: post #87
embedding-shape wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard about this Tan guy before, I don't keep up with politics/corporatism anymore, but is that possibly sarcasm? It sure feels like it to me. But again, I don't know this person, but if I came across that by itself I feel like it's pretty clearly sarcastic, as Twitter tends to be. Maybe I'm just tone deaf myself to how tone deaf others could be?

He probably being sincere. If you're logged in (or use something like xcancel), you can see the full thread, where he starts off with > Flock Safety currently solves 700,000 reported cases of crime per year, which is about 10% of reported crime nationwide > And they're just getting started His profile also says: >President & CEO @ycombinator —Founder @Initialized—designer/engineer who helps founders—SF Dem accelerati…

It's really interesting the different cultures "YCombinator the startup incubator" and "Ycombinator/HN the internet forum has". A comment being so oblivious about surveillance would probably be flagged here, at least heavily downvoted, while this guy is actively the president and CEO of Ycombinator today?

pg, what happened? Ycombinator used to be a beacon of sense in a sea of uselessness, but now uselessness is running Ycombinator?

Re: Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves

#129

Post by [deleted] »

kklisura wrote: post #58
kklisura wrote: post #46

For more context here Flock Safety is a YC-backed company [1][2] [1] https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety [2] https://x.com/garrytan/status/1856016868580151615

And let me share this reply by Garry Tan, CEO of YC, after someone made a comment that Flock might be _pretty dystopian_ [1][2]: > You're thinking Chinese surveillance > US-based surveillance helps victims and prevents more victims [1] https://x.com/neurajordan/status/1963303084609966288 [2] https://x.com/garrytan/status/1963310592615485955

[deleted]

Re: Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves

#130

Post by therobots927 »

gruez wrote: post #87
embedding-shape wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard about this Tan guy before, I don't keep up with politics/corporatism anymore, but is that possibly sarcasm? It sure feels like it to me. But again, I don't know this person, but if I came across that by itself I feel like it's pretty clearly sarcastic, as Twitter tends to be. Maybe I'm just tone deaf myself to how tone deaf others could be?

He probably being sincere. If you're logged in (or use something like xcancel), you can see the full thread, where he starts off with > Flock Safety currently solves 700,000 reported cases of crime per year, which is about 10% of reported crime nationwide > And they're just getting started His profile also says: >President & CEO @ycombinator —Founder @Initialized—designer/engineer who helps founders—SF Dem accelerati…

He’s being sincerely greedy and nihilistic, if that’s what you mean by “sincere”
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