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

Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

notmyplate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 268 posts

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#251

Post by vishnugupta »

yosito wrote: post #239
vishnugupta wrote: post #4

At this point I’m carrying so many electronic devices with me or at home that I’ve give up on going out of my way to prevent getting tracked. My best effort is to trust Apple doesn’t sell me out.

I was a bit bored in 2021 and going out a lot less than normal, so I had time to experiment with an Android phone using all open source privacy respecting apps. I managed to make it work, but it took quite a lot of my time and resources and definitely meant sacrificing some conveniences. Eventually, when I started going out and being more socially active again, it got to be too inconvenient for me, and I decided to s…

Thank you for elucidating my two liner. I was writing from a similar experience as yours. Now I believe I've reached a reasonable compromise between inconvenience and privacy. Minimise my data footprint in the private corporation space which means no Google (almost, YouTube and Maps are still hard to replace), Apple ecosystem with all sorts of anti-tracking setting turned on (Privacy relay, hide-my-email, and what not), nextdns, own my email domain + Fastmail.

Which means Apple has just about all the data about me over last ~3 years and so far they seem to be doing a good job of holding fort. Obviously if a state actor wants to screw me then well, all bets are off so I'm not going to guard myself against that as it's way too more inconvenient as you stated.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#252

Post by rnk »

schainks wrote: post #186
conradev wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What state is that, California? I'd love to have a way to block ubiquitous surveillance, also places taking your picture when you walk into a drugstore or restaurant, uploading it. If it hasn't happened yet, we will be tracked all the time.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#254

Post by brokenmachine »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #218
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.

A random solar powered android phone is found fastened to a bridge and you can be sure the police are going to look into it and take it down.

Put a police sticker on it and they will think it's theirs and leave it alone.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#255

Post by carlob »

myself248 wrote: post #246
carlob wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It is possible to cycle with less effort than walking, even with a bike with no electrical assist, what I was saying is that you don't need to exert yourself. Maybe you consider that being a pariah, but that's how in cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen you see people cycling well into their 70s and 80s.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#256

Post by bradlys »

samstave wrote: post #143
Rygian wrote: post #2

The gist of it: I can subscribe to location updates for any license plate that I want, without knowledge or consent from the owner of that car.

did you know that the city of Menlo Park california requires companies to have cameras which can see for miles and track and report all vehicles that drive by them.... look up the largest company in menlo park...

I wouldn't be surprised if this is because of the trip cap thing that Menlo Park has - which seems purely aimed at Facebook to collect tax revenue. https://almanacnews.com/news/2019/05/01/facing-trip-cap-slip...

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#257

Post by arethuza »

londons_explore wrote: post #211
arethuza wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point, you can almost read number plates on some of the cameras that are close to roads. Presumably the cameras are capturing data at a higher resolution than those public images?

I'd bet with a bit of data processing on that video feed (subpixel aligning and stacking all the frames, using the prior knowledge that you know the numberplate isn't changing as the car drives down the road), you'd be able to read them.

Yeah - I was squinting at some of them thinking that the appropriate tech could probably read them.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#258

Post by sneak »

vishnugupta wrote: post #251
yosito wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a bit bored in 2021 and going out a lot less than normal, so I had time to experiment with an Android phone using all open source privacy respecting apps. I managed to make it work, but it took quite a lot of my time and resources and definitely meant sacrificing some conveniences. Eventually, when I started going out and being more socially active again, it got to be too inconvenient for me, and I decided to s…

Thank you for elucidating my two liner. I was writing from a similar experience as yours. Now I believe I've reached a reasonable compromise between inconvenience and privacy. Minimise my data footprint in the private corporation space which means no Google (almost, YouTube and Maps are still hard to replace), Apple ecosystem with all sorts of anti-tracking setting turned on (Privacy relay, hide-my-email, and what no…

> Apple ecosystem with all sorts of anti-tracking setting turned on (Privacy relay, hide-my-email, and what not), nextdns, own my email domain + Fastmail.

The best way to increase privacy in the Apple ecosystem is to not use iCloud at all. Most of it (including your photos and backups, which contain endpoint keys and chat history) is effectively unencrypted and Apple can read all of it at any time without your device. Apple intentionally preserves this encryption backdoor in iMessage/Photos/iCloud for the US federal government, who can then access this information without a search warrant or probable cause.

This means creating a burner phone number, using that to create a burner Apple ID that is used only for installing apps, using only free apps (because the moment you put your payment card information in, you're deanonymized) and only using devices bought for cash.

Then Apple has a fair amount of information about you, but it's not linked to your identity.

Apple turns over customer data to the US federal authorities without a warrant over 30,000 times per year per their own transparency report. This is in addition to the normal legal process stuff that involves subpoenas or probable cause-based search warrants.

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#259

Post by tluyben2 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #249
tluyben2 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fair enough!

Re: Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

#260

Post by InitialLastName »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #35
mongol wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I start to think that in an ordinary human lifetime it is more likely than not to experience disaster. If you were born in 1945 and are still alive today, you may have picked the most lucky period to have lived through of all possible. I am not concvinced the next 75 years will be as peaceful as the past 75.

Quoted post unavailable.

> /or made to wear a mask

Just having to wear a mask for a year is "generational trauma" level horrific? Being a surgeon must be unbearable (that or you had a truly cushy life).

Post reply on HN