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Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

notmyplate.com

241–250 of 268 posts

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will place and maintain road cameras for $50/yr, including data connectivity for plates. Minimum 1,000 cameras. 75% uptime/scan rate guarantee.

For reference: Speed cameras have an annual operating cost of ~$30,000/year.[1] [1]: https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news...

$1000 per yr in actual op cost. $29000 p/y to pay the contracted company to say it's $30k.

Of course I'm exaggerating. But at the same time gov is not known for being efficient + effective.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#242
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, choice is good - my point was simply that the vast majority of American vehicle miles traveled are not doing things which can only be done by a large, expensive car or truck. I suspect in the future we’re going so see a lot more electric LSVs, too, since an awful lot of trips don’t need to go over 30mph and saving $20-30k plus maintenance is appealing to a lot of people.

> the vast majority of American vehicle miles traveled are not doing things which can only be done by a large, expensive car or truck. Source? People get cars because they need one. The first big thing you get for yourself is a car, because it's so useful. I believe the opposite of your statement is true, biking is only really practical in a very limited bubble.

In North America in September of 2022, your statement is not wholly wrong. Building cities around the car is a privilege that NA cities have enjoyed in the decades of unparalleled prosperity and abundance that followed WWII.

However, we saw in just the past year the consequences of even a moderate increase in the cost of gas for the average American, how they reacted to it, and how they learned from it. From that, I think I can say with fair certainty that the American brand of city will not cope well with any meaningful shortage. There are other, longer term problems that will begin to show themselves as abundance wanes as well.

A car can only ever be as useful as the roads it drives on, and the same with a cargo bike. If there are copious protected bike lanes that go everywhere you want to go, you would bike everywhere in just the same way you drive everywhere today. The only difference between them is how they deal with black swan events that threaten the abundance that drives driving.

I'm not trying to be a doomer here, but most places can't (and likely none should) build expecting that they're always going to have the resources to sustain excess. This isn't a knock against you either, you don't always have a choice as to where you live and the means available to you to get around. However, it is worth being aware of the narrowness of this perspective.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#243
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally other people shouldn't care what you do. But reality is sad

Even beyond nosyness, you might want your elderly parents to stay unaware that you’re checking retirement homes in their area. Or not let your son know you’re working a second job while he’s in college. Privacy is just so important from any angle we put it.

I think the point is if this were public, we would end up with appropriate controls.

As it stands today, the only privacy that you have today in a vehicle is the amount of money it takes to get information from someone who runs a tow truck.

The police are mum, as the ever present LPR makes it trivial to track anyone. My buddy owns a local pizza place and has a bunch of cameras with LPR. He routinely provides data to the local PD. There’s no rule about it - he can give that info to me.

You can be sure that this information is collected and aggregated by many commercial entities and used to correlate where shoppers shop, where fleet cars go, etc.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#244
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When needed, pay taxis with cash, and use public transport with rotating bus cards. Only activate the burner SIM on your phone when really needed.

Do you call your taxi with an app? Or by a phone?

Flag them down in many places. If I need to call them, I activate the burner SIM and call with VOIP.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even beyond nosyness, you might want your elderly parents to stay unaware that you’re checking retirement homes in their area. Or not let your son know you’re working a second job while he’s in college. Privacy is just so important from any angle we put it.

I think the point is if this were public, we would end up with appropriate controls. As it stands today, the only privacy that you have today in a vehicle is the amount of money it takes to get information from someone who runs a tow truck. The police are mum, as the ever present LPR makes it trivial to track anyone. My buddy owns a local pizza place and has a bunch of cameras with LPR. He routinely provides data to…

I am not as optimistic.

Beyond individual camera data, there’s already huge amount of behavioral data you can legally buy (usually from tracking apps the users either willingly chose to use as such, or didn’t fully understand it what it would do) and probably associate with other databases to get individual profiles.

Even full on data breaches associated with complete identifying data have had very little impact on the control we have on them. The companies leaking millions of records didn’t get much more than a stern look and a slap on the wrist from regulators around the globe, and the EU is the only entity starting to take it seriously at this point.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#246
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or people with asthma or any number of other disabilities. Bike-centric design is transparently ableist.

Bullshit: a city designed around bikes is a city designed around wheelchairs. Not to mention asthma never prevented anyone from cycling. Maybe you won't win the Tour, but you can definitely commute cycling with asthma if your city is designed around humans and not cars.

Speak for yourself, if you can bike with asthma I'm happy for you. Mine is exercise-triggered and anything above a walk lays me right out. Being anything other than a pariah on a bike path requires a minimum level of energy output beyond what I can sustain. Or are you my doctor now?

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not supposed to ask on HN but why the downvotes? It’s just an observation from the past (Over 20 years ago)?

It's self-contradictory and hard to understand.

How self contradictory? Most people believed it worked and slowed down, but driving too fast never got you fined because it didn’t actually recognise your number plate. Unlike normal speed cams which were manual at the time.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they were mostly peaceful mountains. Right?

You seem to be strangely emotionally invested in this issue. Did you witness these events yourself?

They were live streamed. I watched hundreds of hours of live feeds showing wide-spread violence, looting and burning down buildings.

Have there been worse conditions in the world? Obviously. But this isn't a competition for who had the worst things happen to them in all of history.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's self-contradictory and hard to understand.

How self contradictory? Most people believed it worked and slowed down, but driving too fast never got you fined because it didn’t actually recognise your number plate. Unlike normal speed cams which were manual at the time.

> it didn’t work; it started working years after installing it.

Nothing personal, it is just not very well phrased and I think you confused a lot of people with the first version.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#250
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.”

That man deserves a medal for keeping that 1993 Geo Metro going.
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