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Everett shuts down Flock camera network after judge rules footage public record

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Re: Everett shuts down Flock camera network after judge rules footage public record

#141

Post by xethos »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #91
throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is another looming threat of modern day surveilance: previously hidden correlations. The data you found benign sharing in the past might allow unpleasant conclusions in the future and might not even come from you personally . Think about what toys you bought for your kids, or in what college milieu your worldview developed.

This is a myth that continues to be propagated. Using previously unobservable correlations is a bedrock concept in Federal investigations in the US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

And making it easier, better, faster, and more common isn't going to be a good thing. Reminding us that this already happens in smaller scale isn't really adding anything helpful considering the entire goal is to prevent it happening more in the future.

Re: Everett shuts down Flock camera network after judge rules footage public record

#142

Post by CamperBob2 »

nine_k wrote: post #57
egorfine wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another example is road traffic law. Even just speeding offences, I think you probably catch everyone who actually drives in the UK, often enough that after a month the only people left allowed to drive would be people like me who don't even own a car. You don't have to strip the driving licenses. You should impose a fine and not an extremely painful one for starters. And then probably within less than a year the w…

If speeding is not something that happens constantly, then a radar could detect the instances of speeding, and only turn on a camera when a speeding car is nearby. This would keep the majority of passing cars from being recorded, and would record the fewer cars the fewer drivers would be speeding.

If speeding is not something that happens constantly, then a radar could detect the instances of speeding

And if it is, which it generally is, it means the speed limits are not set appropriately. But that point always seems to be overlooked.

Re: Everett shuts down Flock camera network after judge rules footage public record

#143

Post by dredmorbius »

manarth wrote: post #88
Thorrez wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speeding is a special case, because it's unclear what the lawmakers, road designers, and police intend. When the speed limit is 65 mph, do they actually intend for everyone to go no faster? I don't think so. I think the lawmakers, if driving in traffic, want people to go a bit faster. Same with the police. And I think the road designers design the roads knowing most people will speed. I want to follow the law. But wh…

"it's unclear what the lawmakers, road designers, and police intend" In many cases, there's a gap between the original intention and the current need. Many speed limits and policies were established in an era of fewer cars, but also much less capable cars with fewer safety features - many speed limits were established before the adoption of ABS, stability control and airbags, and more recent innovations in lane-keepi…

Counterpoint: with mobile devices, and increasingly, control and information features of automobiles themselves, distracted driving is increasingly a concern.

There's also the point that driving capabilities vary wildly by individual, and often decline drastically with age. Recent case-in-point, an elderly driver in San Francisco who killed a family of four (a mother, father and two daughters, waiting at a bus stop, not in the roadway at all), let off with a minimal sentence, raising much public furore:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/sf-west-portal-cra...>

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/san-francisco-west...>

The driver was speeding (70 mph in a residential area), and possibly driving the wrong way on the street.

Re: Everett shuts down Flock camera network after judge rules footage public record

#144

Post by garyfirestorm »

Gigachad wrote: post #32
neverkn0wsb357 wrote: post #20

I think the person requesting to access the data was doing the right thing and I agree with the judge’s ruling. The fact that they’re gonna shut it down, implies the scale of indiscriminate nature of data capture and the volume of data being captured. These cameras are popping up all over the nation and if people realize how much data is being captured and where that data is going (or who it’s being sold to) and how…

The laws need to be updated. CCTV in public used to be fine because no one was actually watching it unless there was an incident. Now it’s possible to have AI watch every camera and correlate everything everywhere we need new privacy laws to reflect this capability.

When passive monitoring turns into analytics -> public watching turns into stalking.

it’s ok for me to observe a person in public park - it should be ok to watch camera for an activity

But if it’s not ok for me to stalk someone I think it should be illegal for a network of cameras to watch my movements too!

Slapping AI onto stalking is still stalking.

Re: Everett shuts down Flock camera network after judge rules footage public record

#145

Post by fc417fc802 »

speleding wrote: post #140
NetMageSCW wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want to slippery slope your way into Nazi Germany?

Everybody made that exact same "slippery slope to Nazi Germany" argument when euthanasia was legalized here. That was decades ago. There have been several attempts to broaden or narrow the scope of those laws and the democratic institutions did just what they were designed to do, making changes judiciously. If you are worried about the slippery slope, then you are really worried that democracy does not work as intend…

> If you are worried about the slippery slope, then you are really worried that democracy does not work as intended.

Not really. That's a well established failure mode. People's perceptions can gradually shift as they become accustomed to the new way of doing things.

Personally I'd be less concerned about a slippery slope and more concerned about abrupt changes in policy. All infrastructure should be designed with the worst case scenario in mind. It's naive to assume that things will never get worse suddenly or that we will have plenty of warning or even a meaningful opportunity to react.

Re: Everett shuts down Flock camera network after judge rules footage public record

#146

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

bubblewand wrote: post #132
egorfine wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another example is road traffic law. Even just speeding offences, I think you probably catch everyone who actually drives in the UK, often enough that after a month the only people left allowed to drive would be people like me who don't even own a car. You don't have to strip the driving licenses. You should impose a fine and not an extremely painful one for starters. And then probably within less than a year the w…

I dunno. We got car insurance once that had a "put this spy device in your car for a couple weeks for a lower rate" deal and I felt like I was driving a lot less-safely when I was constantly worried about looking like I was driving safely. Like, to pick an example that's specifically speed-limit related, if more people really tried hard to do 25MPH (the marked speed limit on many of them) or under for the entire leng…

I've never seen an interstate off-ramp in the US with a 25MPH speed limit (white sign). I've seen 25MPH advisories (yellow sign), but those aren't a legal limit. Advisory signs are the maximum safe speed for the worst possible conditions (road covered in ice).

I otherwise agree.

Re: Everett shuts down Flock camera network after judge rules footage public record

#147

Post by p0w3n3d »

sonzohan wrote: post #29
p0w3n3d wrote: post #26

Anyone can tell, why were those cameras installed in first place? Some company just said "lol for the fun" or what? Who paid for them?

A mix of public (city councils) and private (think HOAs that then donated access/equipment to the city) contracted with Flock in the past few years. The questions of exactly who, when, and why, are very muddy especially with the HOAs who operate rather privately.

Thanks. I don't live in US and this subject is quite unknown to me

Re: Everett shuts down Flock camera network after judge rules footage public record

#148

Post by pclmulqdq »

saalweachter wrote: post #125
pclmulqdq wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most states ban speed cameras and many ban red light cameras as 4th amendment violations. You cannot face your accuser when your accuser is a robot. As a result, speed camera tickets have always used some legal sleight-of-hand to nail you into confessing, and this has become unpalatable. If we raised speed limits (almost) across the board to the actual safe limits of modern cars, I think a lot more people would be ok…

What are "the actual safe limits of modern cars"? Data from various states raising their limits over the last few decades is that every 5MPH increase in state speed limits brings with it an 8.5% increase in traffic fatalities on freeways. With the 70MPH speed limit common for freeways through most of the US, we're already up 25% on road fatalities over the 55MPH that was chosen for gas mileage during the oil crisis.…

Nobody goes 70 mph on freeways. They go 80 mph on that road because it's the speed of traffic. If you declared a "speed limit reset" and raised the speed limit to 80 mph, people won't be going 90 mph. They will be going the speed limit.

Re: Everett shuts down Flock camera network after judge rules footage public record

#149

Post by mmmlinux »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #107

For reasons I have been unable to articulate, I have believed that if license plate readers are a thing, someone should open-source one that the general public could share. When a comment comes back that someone malicious will use the tech to stalk someone I really have no answer for that. That is indefensibly a bad thing. Of course the tech exists nonetheless (not open source as far as I know) and it could be argued…

Ive wanted to know this for a long time. Why isn't there some package I can download to a raspberry pi with a camera, and contribute to a public website that shows things like, oh I don't know real time positions of government vehicles...

Re: Everett shuts down Flock camera network after judge rules footage public record

#150

Post by saalweachter »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #148
saalweachter wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are "the actual safe limits of modern cars"? Data from various states raising their limits over the last few decades is that every 5MPH increase in state speed limits brings with it an 8.5% increase in traffic fatalities on freeways. With the 70MPH speed limit common for freeways through most of the US, we're already up 25% on road fatalities over the 55MPH that was chosen for gas mileage during the oil crisis.…

Nobody goes 70 mph on freeways. They go 80 mph on that road because it's the speed of traffic. If you declared a "speed limit reset" and raised the speed limit to 80 mph, people won't be going 90 mph. They will be going the speed limit.

So "the actual safe limits of modern cars" just means "the speed everyone is currently driving"?
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