Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

honeypot.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 276 posts

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#181

Post by chaps »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #162
valeriozen wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The AWS analogy breaks down because AWS doesn't encourage customers to pool their S3 buckets into a nationwide searchable index. Flock operates a federated network. If you drive past an unmarked camera, you have absolutely no way of knowing which specific HOA or town leased it so how are you realistically supposed to know who the "data controller" is to send your ccpa or deletion request to?

Start standing in front of the cameras looking sketchy long enough till police are sent out to ya, then ask the cop who called.

Someone once dropped some fireworks not too far from me at 3am a few years back. They were loud and, yeah, cops were called. A few minutes later about five cars drive past me about 30mph over the limit. Not sure how they didn't see me or try to see me. But I know they didn't catch the BRIGHT orange and lifted care.

Me being me, I submitted a FOIA request for the dashcam footage of the five cop cars and the dispatch logs.

Instead of pulling over the easily identifiable car, they pulled over some random guy. They were behind him the whole time but five cop cars pulled behind him thinking that he fired a gun a few minutes back.

He was let go without a citation, but the official reason, despite being paired with the dispatch for the firecracker, was a broken headlamp.

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#182

Post by BobaFloutist »

halJordan wrote: post #53
carefree-bob wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were saying "don't write to us, talk to the people who own the cameras and ask them to delete the data". A company that manufactures video cameras is not the one to talk to when someone records you, talk to the person who recorded you. But a reasonable person would say -- the data is stored on Flock servers, not with the camera owners. And Flock would say, just because we sell data storage functionality to camer…

It easily goes both ways. But we do sue American gun makers for deaths caused by lunatics. We sue drug makers for drugs prescribed by a doctor. We sue cloud providers for not reporting illegal photos. Printers are forced to id every printed page to combat counterfeiting. Banks are forced to do close accounts even though it's not their dirty money

> But we do sue American gun makers for deaths caused by lunatics.

No we don't, there's a federal law explicitly protecting gun manufacturers from liability for gun crime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Lawful_Commerce_...

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#183

Post by AlotOfReading »

gguncth wrote: post #172

It’s fascinating how America could completely get rid of Flock cameras by sending criminals to prison and leaving them there, but we won’t do that so we have these endless arguments about these cameras.

I'm trying to understand the argument here. Are you saying that never releasing convicted criminals would completely eliminate crime?

That doesn't seem correct, even leaving aside the obvious moral issues with that.

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#184

Post by AlBugdy »

kstrauser wrote: post #2

I wrote this. I had/have absolutely no expectation that Flock would comply with my request, but figured I should try anyway For Science. Their reply rubbed me wrong, though. They seem to claim that there are no restrictions on their collection and processing of PII because other people pay them for it. They say: > Flock Safety’s customers own the data and make all decisions around how such data is used and shared. wh…

Read a few of your posts. Just wanted to comment on how I like your to-the-point succinct style and how you care about privacy. :)

As a suggestion, I saw you have RSS:

https://honeypot.net/feed.xml

I didn't see it mentioned in the main page or About or Archive. Maybe add it to a more visible place?

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#185

Post by thangalin »

Sent to Benn Jordan:

https://i.ibb.co/WWWYznHX/flock-future.png

See also a poster from IBM’s German subsidiary, circa 1934. The approximate translation: “See everything with Hollerith punch cards.”

https://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/opinion/op-eds/new-detai...

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#186

Post by kstrauser »

AlBugdy wrote: post #184
kstrauser wrote: post #2

I wrote this. I had/have absolutely no expectation that Flock would comply with my request, but figured I should try anyway For Science. Their reply rubbed me wrong, though. They seem to claim that there are no restrictions on their collection and processing of PII because other people pay them for it. They say: > Flock Safety’s customers own the data and make all decisions around how such data is used and shared. wh…

Read a few of your posts. Just wanted to comment on how I like your to-the-point succinct style and how you care about privacy. :) As a suggestion, I saw you have RSS: https://honeypot.net/feed.xml I didn't see it mentioned in the main page or About or Archive. Maybe add it to a more visible place?

Aww, thanks! I appreciate that.

And that's a good point. I'll look at that when I get home.

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#187

Post by eagleinparadise »

ldoughty wrote: post #24
fudgy73 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK Flock owns the cameras and leases them out [0]. [0] https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-safety-does-my-neighb...

But the data collected is property of the government and flock is not allowed to use that data for additional business gain (according to their statements)... So they can't sell the fact that you're at Target at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday to anybody... Nor build profiles to sell to advertisers... And if that's the case that's very similar to cloud storage vendors. If I access hacker news, and the record of my visit is sto…

If I lease out a property to a tenant (apartment, retail, industrial use, whatever) and that tenant is committing an illegal activity on the property. Would the landlord be liable for knowing it? Or not?

"Sorry FBI, the tenant renting my warehouse out to manufacturing cocaine is not my responsibility. I won't do anything about it. You deal with them."

Nope, that's a failure of a duty to act and aiding and abetting a criminal activity if you hace constructive knowledge.

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#188

Post by kstrauser »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #183
gguncth wrote: post #172

It’s fascinating how America could completely get rid of Flock cameras by sending criminals to prison and leaving them there, but we won’t do that so we have these endless arguments about these cameras.

I'm trying to understand the argument here. Are you saying that never releasing convicted criminals would completely eliminate crime? That doesn't seem correct, even leaving aside the obvious moral issues with that.

My interpretation was that they were saying Flock were criminals who should be sent away for good. I don't know if that's right but it would be consistent that way.

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#189

Post by yabutlivnWoods »

tptacek wrote: post #38
yabutlivnWoods wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your example is apples and oranges. Flock maintains private infrastructure that stores data. If the DSLR uploaded them to Rent-A-Center owned/leased servers it would in fact require Rent-A-Center to take the necessary steps. As Rent-A-Center would be the only group with proper access to data storage they would have inserted themselves into the chain of custody, and thereby have such obligation to ensure others data i…

AWS also maintains private infrastructure that stores data. Go write them asking to purge data pertaining to you from S3 and see how that goes.

I don't live in a state with a law like California's so your "gotcha" isn't relevant.

Californians would have standing under the law but need expensive lawyers to litigate.

AWS has employed expensive lawyers to argue semantics; they host OS VMs and databases. This provides them legal cover for what AWS customers store.

Amazon the retailer stores customer data. A non-customer would have standing under California law to litigate removal of PII should they decide to hire lawyers.

Your reductionism is to law what a Linux beige box on a routable IP, no firewall, hosting a production health database with creds set to admin/pwd1234 is to software engineering.

Coincidentally 1234 happens to be the code to my luggage.

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#190

Post by beambot »

carefree-bob wrote: post #8
kstrauser wrote: post #2

I wrote this. I had/have absolutely no expectation that Flock would comply with my request, but figured I should try anyway For Science. Their reply rubbed me wrong, though. They seem to claim that there are no restrictions on their collection and processing of PII because other people pay them for it. They say: > Flock Safety’s customers own the data and make all decisions around how such data is used and shared. wh…

They were saying "don't write to us, talk to the people who own the cameras and ask them to delete the data". A company that manufactures video cameras is not the one to talk to when someone records you, talk to the person who recorded you. But a reasonable person would say -- the data is stored on Flock servers, not with the camera owners. And Flock would say, just because we sell data storage functionality to camer…

Isn't this the equivalent of asking Google to delete your image off every Android phone (not just yours)?
Post reply on HN