Live data from Hacker News

Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

techcrunch.com

261–270 of 534 posts

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#261
post #192
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm not a fan of lawlessness but on the other hand, i'm 100% ok with the government living in fear of the governed.

In a country like the US with a fairly democratic process at various levels of government, this just means that people with some strong opinions can subject the rest of the citizens to their desires. This is the universal veto on societal order. We can see that the desire for governments to "live in fear of the governed" usually rapidly disappears when people start destroying water lines and power lines. After all, '…

> In a country like the US with a fairly democratic process at various levels of government

How can you look at the current state of affair and say this with a straight face... It's a mafia, they're all millionaires, they're all friends, thay all go to the same schools, they all work for the government and instantly bounce to lobby for the private sector, they all use their insider knowledge to profit, &c. Only someone who went through the American education system can believe the US is anywhere close to what you described, it's a farce

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Badger your city council, work with like-minded residents in a way that can credibly threaten their re-elections, find and support privacy-conscious candidates who won't sign-onto Flock's agenda, create ads based on council meetings when councilors support surveillance in a way most voters will reject. Put their quotes on billboard with their picture, etc

Ok, you do all that work at home and manage to block flock in your area. It doesn’t matter because the next city over where you work installed them so you get tracked anyway. Then 2 years later a new city council gets elected and they install flock cameras in your city too. You can never get rid of them because it already passed and nobody wants to relitigate the same thing every couple of years. Local politics does…

> You can never get rid of them because it already passed and nobody wants to relitigate the same thing every couple of years.

Those who care about their privacy should relitigate at every opportunity. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance"; if you're not willing to fight for it, you will lose it, and deservedly so. Those who give up in advance are beyond fucked, because they'll have to take whatever is sent their way.

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#263

The easier fix seems like doxxing politicians and embarrassing them until they protect all of their constituents against things like this. We got a small modicum of privacy with the Video Privacy Protection Act [0] after Bork's video rental history was going to be released. [0] https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=video+r...

I imagine there is a process in place to allow cities / states / communities to place the cameras on polls. If Vegas somehow got around public comment process to put these on poles, then what would stop any random company from requesting to put their own camera there? Like lets say a motivated individual went through some process to put a camera on a pole someplace near somebody that would definitely make the govt official / flock exec etc nervous, what is stopping them? It sounds an awful lot like Flock is basically going to town's and saying "we will put up a bunch of cameras in a bunch of places" probably based upon algorithm's etc. How do they decide where these get put, who gets to decide that? Why can't any random company request to put up a camera on a random power pole? After they give the map to the govt officials, do they get a chance to say "oh this one by my house, can you move that?"

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#265
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cellular modem is usually on a dedicated fuse. No need for violence unless smashing it would be satisfying.

I took a look at the schematics for the two fuse boxes in my 2023 Chevrolet and _could not tell which/if any_ fuse was dedicated to a cellular modem. This was in regards to: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/...

Same here. I am driving a 25 Kia and have tried to little success to find that modem.

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#266
post #254

This breakdown in rule of law is unfortunate. Ideally, this would be handled by, in order of desirability: - Flock decision-makers and customers holding ethics as a priority, and not taking the actions they are due to sense of duty, community, morals etc - Peer pressure resulting in ostracization of Flock execs and decision makers until they stop the unethical behavior - Governments using legislation and law enforcem…

> It is not ideal, but it is necessary when the higher-desirability options are not working. You are simply imposing your own views on others. Just because you disagree with Flock doesn't give you the right to destroy license plate readers that my tax dollars paid for. Who appointed you king?

Who appointed anyone king? Neither Trump nor Flock are kings, both should be challenged, violently if necessary.

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#267
post #53

Kind of weird all of those people weren't all up in arms about it before the whole ice thing, why would you be mad that they're tracking somebody else but not mad that they have been slurping up data about your movements and habits this whole time, then monetizing said data by selling it to industries like insurance companies etc.

how is it weird for you exactly? we didn't have masked gestapo thugs before.

It's weird due to the complete lack of second order thinking the majority of people seem to have.

You can scream up and down about how building such things is a horrible idea because it can one day be used for evil, and folks will either yawn or call you paranoid or worse.

Then the thing actually gets (very lightly) abused/used for something folks don't like and omg it's an emergency no one could have ever predicted! And oh look - it's often times far too late to do a damn thing about it other than surface level 'fixes' that are nothing of the sort.

It gets very frustrating living in such a society, but it might simply be the way humans are wired. If it's not in your face and actively a major problem to you in the moment, it's simply not a concern.

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The American Revolution was rare in that it didn't need to happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_Rebellion Interestingly y'all Americans pay much more tax now than you did to England back in the day. Turns out King George was right, and it was just about changing who the tax was paid to.

Back then most taxes went to Britain.

Now they go to Bezos

Where there’s an opportunity to be the 1%, folks will find a way to be the 1%

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you wouldn't consider someone vandalizing your home or the infrastructure in your neighborhood to be violence? Very obviously not. Words have meaning. You are misusing words to garner emotional support for your preferred political position. Burning down anything (including a business) is arson. Not violence. It only becomes violence if people are present and at imminent risk of physical harm. Financial damage is no…

how did you jump from property damage and arson to speech? non sequitur much? financial damage absolutely can be violence, you can ruin someone's life if you take away their job by burning down the place they work at and it could lead to something horrific like them taking their own lives or not being able to pay for their medication or not be able to pay for their child's education, etc as a direct consequence of yo…

> how did you jump from property damage and arson to speech?

I included speech as an example, the same as your bringing up property damage, arson, and financial damage. It seemed relevant given the general shape of what you were expressing.

Someone being driven to suicide or unable to pay for medication is not an example of violence. It might be many things but violence is most certainly not one of them.

> you cannot pretend that disrupting someone's livelihood is not at all related to attacking their liberty and/or life

Indeed it is _related_ but that does not magically make it "violence". Violence is direct physical harm. Not indirect and not anything other than physical.

> a case where you can argue speech can be violence

Speech is _never_ violence. That's about as close to definitionally impossible as you can get. (Here's a fun related observation: violent rhetoric is not itself violent.)

Respectfully, you seem to be having extreme difficulty comprehending the fact that words have meaning. It's impossible to engage in meaningful discussion with someone who either can't or won't conduct themselves in accordance with that fact.

Post reply on HN