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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

#181

Post by beambot »

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…

Partner with roadside billboard providers. Sell it to them on the cheap as "analytics", and then just re-sell the LPR data.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#182

Post by orangepurple »

bobthepanda wrote: post #160
kube-system wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcibly moving living people and removing unattended property are entirely different scenarios.

Yeah, the issue with those who are homeless is that it essentially criminalizes living for people who cannot rent or own, and thus infringes on their liberties. There’s no right to hang up privately owned cameras in public.

I am imagining an army of homeless sitting at every intersection in the US holding surveillance cameras and getting paid by # of unique plates scanned per minute

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#183

Post by s1artibartfast »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #34
someweirdperson wrote: post #32

Finally. Publish it all. Tracking of every vehicle, visible for everyone. It has been that way with aircraft for a long time. Pilots, however, are such a minority that noone really cares. Now that everyone is impacted, regulation might get updated (or someone might spend the time to identify existing regulation that prohibits this), and that would extend to other vehicles than those with wheels.

yep! There are so many people thinking "I did nothing wrong, who cares if I get tracked".... publish it all, and then have all the neighbours have access to that, the wife can see when you left the bar, your boss can see when you left, etc... only then will people be aware that it's not ok to do that. There are also laws (not sure if accepted yet) that all cars should have remote shutdowns/blocks.. for "security reas…

This only holds true until you realize that crazy road rager on the highway can look up where you live and your children go to school

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#184

Post by samstave »

scrumbledober wrote: post #171
m463 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a friend of mine told me - a few years ago - that BART had >4k cameras everywhere. He thought it might be enough to see fingerprints.

If only they put that effort towards... any other aspect of BART...

No post body was provided.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#185

Post by hedora »

pstuart wrote: post #150
hedora wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We tried and failed, but it was not ALPR data. I came to the conclusion that the data is only available to defend the well connected, or to persecute their enemies (at least in the US). I think the creation of mass tracking databases should be illegal. Barring that, every single person should have equal access to it. (Perhaps gated behind filing a police report and swearing it is correct under penalty of perjury.)

Yeah, the thought was that after filing a police report one could track just the related vehicle. Agreed on the dismal assessments, but those DBs are going to be created and we might as well extract some value as citizens. Would you mind summarizing your attempt and any lessons learned (other than the disappointment mentioned)?

The details are kind of boring and out of date.

We were repeated victims of minor property crimes. The police spent maybe 5-10 officer hours investigating, which is more than I expected.

However, they failed to run a (unusual for them, but legal) database search that would have almost certainly identified the culprits.

I think they would have done it if the crime was higher priority for them, but ultimately, they need to prioritize their resources on serious crimes and things that make for good public relations / internal politics (like if we were friends with the mayor or something).

As the victims, we had every incentive to pursue the investigation, but no legal ability to do so.

I'm well aware that our experience was far, far better than is typical in, say SF or Oakland. In our case, they probably would have made an arrest if we had a positive identification of the criminal.

That's not really the case everywhere, which is a separate issue.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#186

Post by schainks »

conradev wrote: post #40
londons_explore wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something you could do anyway with a network of $50 android phones mounted on bridges over freeways. But this way you don't have to pay for the cameras - someone else has done it for you.

Not sure why this is being downvoted, it is an actual thing: “Several companies operate independent, non-law enforcement ALPR databases, contracting with drivers to put cameras on private vehicles to collect the information.” https://www.eff.org/pages/automated-license-plate-readers-al... Motherboard did a deeper dive on one of them: “DRN is a private surveillance system crowdsourced by hundreds of repo men who have…

Wow, this sounds very illegal in my state. I wonder if DRN even respects my state's laws about storing my personal information.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#187

Post by Stupulous »

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?

If nobody cares where a Cessna is, why is it mandatory that everyone can find out? You could count on a fingerless glove the number of people who care where my car is, but I'd prefer not to stick that information in a public database. Some percentage of Cessna pilots prefer to keep that information private, and the rest can continue sharing that information regardless, so it would be a strictly positive-utility change. For what reason, other than the fact that Cessna pilots are a tiny minority, has this not been changed yet?

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#188

Post by _whiteCaps_ »

remus wrote: post #169
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?

I remember a story of a guy who had his license plate on a hinge with a little cable attached to the cigarette lighter in the car. When he wanted to speed in an area with cameras he'd pull out the cigarette lighter to fold the plate up, then pop it back in to fold the plate down when he was finished. This struck me as a very neat solution, and nicely disguised too.

https://www.surreynowleader.com/news/golden-ears-toll-evader...

“Officers are always looking for uninsured vehicles,” said Surrey RCMP spokesman Cpl. Scotty Schumann. “The officer was very surprised when he saw a valid B.C. license plate magically lift into place after they had passed the toll cameras.”

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#189

Post by notch656a »

Stupulous wrote: post #187
pc86 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If nobody cares where a Cessna is, why is it mandatory that everyone can find out? You could count on a fingerless glove the number of people who care where my car is, but I'd prefer not to stick that information in a public database. Some percentage of Cessna pilots prefer to keep that information private, and the rest can continue sharing that information regardless, so it would be a strictly positive-utility chang…

"flying is a privilege not a right", "you have no expectation of privacy in public," and "but we're safer from aircraft collisions etc and that justifies the reduced privacy" are what it boils down to. I'd be shocked if anything you here isn't a nuanced or refined way of saying one of those.

Life is a lot safer now, so ever more 'safe' things start to look dangerous. If you prefer liberty/privacy to safety you're quickly becoming a dinosaur and if necessary society will imprison you to make sure you don't interfere with democratic process of the majority.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#190

Post by 0xfeba »

gernb wrote: post #178
someweirdperson wrote: post #32

Finally. Publish it all. Tracking of every vehicle, visible for everyone. It has been that way with aircraft for a long time. Pilots, however, are such a minority that noone really cares. Now that everyone is impacted, regulation might get updated (or someone might spend the time to identify existing regulation that prohibits this), and that would extend to other vehicles than those with wheels.

My current feeling is that, at least in SF, no one cares about traffic laws. The roads are public and traffic laws exist to organize sharing of the roads. I think I'd prefer the roads to be surveilled and more fines be levied. I'm sick of watching people just run red lights, turn right on no-right-on-red lights, block lanes that are illegal to block, stop in places marked "no-stopping", drive down bus only lanes, cro…

I'm inclined to agree. They could enforce many more laws with automation, today. Car has distance sensors for cruise control? Monitor and report following distance. Speeding. Changing lanes without signaling. Etc.
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