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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

#231

Post by tptacek »

phyzome wrote: post #229
tptacek wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way this is an illustration of Flock's "flagrancy"? I'm seriously asking. I'm not a Flock supporter. My point is that cameras just as sensitive as the ones he shows here are deliberately public on the Internet.

His other two (much longer) videos go into those details. This one is more of a quick update. Just to give you a sense of the kind of company we're dealing with, the CEO of Flock called the guy who made a Flock camera map an "antifa terrorist". He's unhinged.

Thanks! I know it's a big ask, but can you give me pointers (rough timestamps, whatever). A friend told me to watch this video for the distinctive Flock badness, and the time I spent on that was not rewarded.

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

#232

Post by mikkupikku »

embedding-shape wrote: post #143
mikkupikku wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> government has the ability to arrest you is the government which is the greatest threat in your day-to-day life Assuming every government is the same, which I'm not so sure about. I rather be arrested by the German government than the US government, mainly because I don't want to disappear to black site and be made to disappear for years while I'm t̶o̶r̶t̶u̶r̶e̶d̶ receiving enhanced discussion techniques. At least…

> Assuming every government is the same

Wrong. The American government is much better than the Russian government, but the Russian government cannot arrest me while the American government can, therefore the American government is a much more serious threat to me than the Russian government. No equivalence between the two governments is assumed or implied.

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

#233

Post by therobots927 »

mikkupikku wrote: post #228
therobots927 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know you don’t have to say it in so many words, “rural working class America” = poor white people. Of course they love the racist police (who used to catch slaves and enforce Jim Crow). And I say that as someone who grew up in rural America. I just happen to have read a few history books.

Half the people I work with in rural PA aren't white, you're just showing off your own racial bias with such an assumption. They still overwhelmingly support the police.

Thanks for the anecdote. Now let’s look at the numbers, where you will see a strong correlation between both income AND race and support for the police: https://www.cato.org/survey-reports/policing-america-underst...

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

#234

Post by gruez »

Terr_ wrote: post #200
gruez wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Group A: "Mandatory masks in crowds during an airborne pandemic is fascism! Watch out!" >You: "Group A was foolish, therefore Group B is foolish, because all warnings against fascism are equally un-grounded and meritless for some reason." So it's only "fascism" if it's not for a Good Reason? Who decides whether something is a good reason? Is it us, because we're obviously the Good Guys? Doesn't this seem suspiciousl…

> Good Guys [...] Our authoritarianism helps granny That's quite a *whooooosh* of missing-the-point. Perhaps because you've confused me with another poster, and you're smushing a bunch of unfinished tu-quoque accusations together? I'll simplify it further, you're acting like these are equivalent: 1. Yelling "Wolf! Danger!" ... because you were in downtown Chicago and saw a fur hoodie. 2. Yelling "Wolf! Danger!" ... b…

>That's quite a whooooosh of missing-the-point. I'll simplify it even further. You're acting like these are equivalent: [...]

No, you're missing the point. You're just doubling down on "our claims of fascism is so obviously correct, whereas their claims of fascism is so obliviously meritless and hyperbolic!". Yes. The person yelling "fascism!" obviously belies it's so obviously correct, otherwise he wouldn't be yelling it.

>Well, seeing a fur hoodie downtown is a bad reason, and seeing a pawprint in the forest is a less-bad reason. I can comfortably declare it so and the vast majority of people will agree.

"vast majority"? If only things were so obvious. Otherwise Trump wouldn't have gotten elected in both 2016 and 2024, despite exasperated cries of "fascism!" for 8+ years.

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

#236

Post by ribosometronome »

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

I wonder if that's why this post, with more upvotes than a number of the other ones on the front page, has seemingly vanished from it.

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

#237

Post by xyzzy123 »

eightysixfour wrote: post #70
hrimfaxi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they are similar. Public feeds would enable someone to document and sell people's whereabouts in real time. The fact that I could do the same or go back and look later is no defense.

This is a different argument than what I was responding to. > I know in theory we all can continuously download and datamine these video feeds but can everyone really? To which my response is "this is like OSS." What I mean by that is that, in theory, people audit and review code submitted to OSS software, in reality most people trust that there are other people who do it. > Public feeds would enable someone to docum…

Open cameras make information that was previously local and difficult to collect global and easier to collect. Relatively, it reduces the privacy and power of people on the ground in your neighbourhood and increases the power of more distant actors. It doesn't seem very socially desirable as an outcome. It also increases the relative power of people with technical capacity and capital for storage and processing etc.

I do buy your argument that open access could help check the worst abuses. But, if widespread, it'd be so catastrophic for national security that I can't see how it would ever fly.

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

#238

Post by mikkupikku »

embedding-shape wrote: post #141
LocalH wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US government is a democracy and can be replaced I'm not sure this is as axiomatic as many think, in 2025

I've already placed my bets that current president will be the first to serve at least three terms since the two-term limit was introduced. Judging by what's happening, seems like a safer and safer bet every day.

Shitty bet tbqh, but it's your money. Trump promises his supporters much but delivers very little. If J6 is the sort of insurrection his base can muster, there's no chance in hell of him getting another term.

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

#239

Post by eastbound »

overfeed wrote: post #189
embedding-shape wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 runni…

> pg, what happened? Don't look to pg for anything that can be seen as "woke" - he wants that mind-virus eliminated forever[0]. Many billionaires revealed their true colors after November 2024, remember this when they adjust their public posture to follow the political winds. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42780223

This is not woke, no matter how large you define woke. You can see links with the ACLU or various human rights defense groups, but those groups may have become woke, without “global surveillance” becoming a woke topic.

Wokism is about making racist accusations of dominance over an audience who didn’t do it. It’s about unfairness and hyping factions against each other. The global surveillance is not about pitting groups against each other. To wit, 1984 has always been a very right-wing torpe.

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

#240

Post by embedding-shape »

tchalla wrote: post #172
embedding-shape wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've already placed my bets that current president will be the first to serve at least three terms since the two-term limit was introduced. Judging by what's happening, seems like a safer and safer bet every day.

Hasn’t Trump already said he won’t do another term?

He has said that he cannot do more than two terms, but also there are ways to do more terms. Then he said it's too early to think about, then that he is joking, then that he wasn't joking, then that he isn't looking into it, but that they're "probably entitled to another four after that" (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-trump-has-said-about-pursu...), whatever the fuck that means.

Ultimately, I don't think it matters much what he says or has said, he won't clearly say what he/they are planning, obviously.

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