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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

#281

Post by eightysixfour »

rsync wrote: post #245
eightysixfour wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so any pedo can see when kids are there and not attended? Sure. It also lets parents watch. Or others see when parents are repeatedly leaving their kids unattended. Or lets you see some person that keeps showing up unattended and watching the kids. > Or how it has become increasingly trivial to identify by face or license plate such that combining tools reaches "movie Interpol" levels, without any warrant or securi…

"Or others see when parents are repeatedly leaving their kids unattended." ... which is the expected, default use-case for a playground ...

I didn't want to get into an argument over whether kids should be unattended at playgrounds or not - I don't know where the other poster is front and it seems to be based on age, density, region, etc. Where I grew up it would be weird to stay, in the city I am in it would be weird to leave them.

If you leave your kids unattended at a playground I don't see how the camera changes the risk factor in any meaningful way. Either a pedophile can expect there to be unattended children or not.

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

#282

Post by eightysixfour »

overfeed wrote: post #259
eightysixfour wrote: post #13

I don't want these cameras to exist but, if they're going to , might we be better off if they are openly accessible? At the very least, that would make the power they grant more diffuse and people would be more cognizant of their existence and capabilities.

> I don't want these cameras to exist but, if they're going to, might we be better off if they are openly accessible? Cities will remove Flock cameras at the first council meeting that sits after council-members learn their families can be stalked.

Seems like a positive side effect. The Seattle area is delaying it after the open records request case.

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

#283

Post by brendoelfrendo »

whycombinetor wrote: post #209
jjwiseman wrote: post #160

The CEO of Flock, Garrett Langley, called Deflock a terrorist group. It's unhinged. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-kZGrDz7PU

[flagged]

As another commenter said, it's a criminal conspiracy or something to that effect. If terrorism is supposed to be the use of violence against non-combatants to attain a political or ideological goal... then would de-Flock be anti-terrorism? Removing Flock cameras makes me feel less terrorized.

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

#284

Post by Spooky23 »

edot wrote: post #6

Flock or their defenders will lock in on the excuse that “oh these are misconfigured” or “yeah hacking is illegal, only cops should have this data”. The issue is neither of the above. The issue is the collection and collation of this footage in the first place! I don’t want hackers watching me all the time, sure, but I DEFINITELY don’t trust the state or megacorps to watch me all the time. Hackers concern me less, ac…

Was it misconfigured? Or “misconfigured” so people in the know can bypass the minimal controls that are in place?

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

#285

Post by gruez »

vatsachak wrote: post #220
gruez wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does using GrapheneOS prevent license plate readers from tracking where you are, or from you being groped at the airport?

I responded to the last point of the parent comment

Grapheneos doesn't stop cellphone tracking either. Cell carriers keeping track of where you are (or at least which cell you're in) is fundamental to how cell phone networks work, so a privacy focused android distribution can't fix that.

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

#286

Post by candiddevmike »

dvtkrlbs wrote: post #7
edot wrote: post #6

Flock or their defenders will lock in on the excuse that “oh these are misconfigured” or “yeah hacking is illegal, only cops should have this data”. The issue is neither of the above. The issue is the collection and collation of this footage in the first place! I don’t want hackers watching me all the time, sure, but I DEFINITELY don’t trust the state or megacorps to watch me all the time. Hackers concern me less, ac…

Yes and the biggest problem with this kind of ALPRs are they bypass the due process. Most of the time police can just pull up data without any warrant and there has been instances where this was abused (I think some cops used this for stalking their exes [1]) and also the most worrying Flock seems to really okay with giving ICE unlimited access to this data [2] [3] (which I speculate for loose regulations). [1]: http…

Maybe with these systems we should require them TO be open for anyone to query against. Maybe then people would care more about how they impact their privacy.

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

#287

Post by amrocha »

fusslo wrote: post #131

I wonder what our founders would think about tools like Flock. From what I understand these systems are legal because there is no expectation of privacy in public. Therefore any time you go in public you cannot expect NOT to be tracked, photographed, and entered into a database (which may now outlive us). I think the argument comes from the 1st amendment. Weaponizing the Bill of Rights (BoR) for the government agains…

I think you should try to decide for yourself what to make of the situation instead of wondering what some ancient dead old dudes would think.

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

#288

Post by itishappy »

LexiMax wrote: post #280
dang wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's the other way around. This post is ranked higher on the frontpage than it would be if it weren't YC-related. (In fact, it probably wouldn't be on the frontpage at all in that case.) A core principle is that we moderate less, not more, when YC or a YC-funded startup is part of the story. Many past explanations: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

I believe you when you say that nobody at YC put their thumb on the scale for this story in particular. However, YC very much has control over the algorithm used to rank stories on the Hacker News front page, and this algorithm very commonly downranks threads which are detected as being "controversial." If the algorithm "working as intended" consistently downranks stories that cast a bad light on YCombinator, the sor…

> If the algorithm "working as intended" consistently downranks stories that cast a bad light on YCombinator, the sorts of people y'all mingle with, or the tech industry in general...is that any better than putting your thumb on the scale?

That's the exact opposite of what Dan stated, what this thread (and your link) demonstrate, and my own lived experience here.

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

#289

Post by reed1234 »

amrocha wrote: post #287
fusslo wrote: post #131

I wonder what our founders would think about tools like Flock. From what I understand these systems are legal because there is no expectation of privacy in public. Therefore any time you go in public you cannot expect NOT to be tracked, photographed, and entered into a database (which may now outlive us). I think the argument comes from the 1st amendment. Weaponizing the Bill of Rights (BoR) for the government agains…

I think you should try to decide for yourself what to make of the situation instead of wondering what some ancient dead old dudes would think.

Both perspectives could be informative.

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

#290

Post by kcatskcolbdi »

hugo1789 wrote: post #64
throwway120385 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you give access to any system that collects the personal information including location data for people in the US to the police, a percentage of the police will always use those systems for stalking their exes.

What is not only true for police but for every sufficiently big group of people.

Cops do have some unique tendencies but I think the real issue is the cops are able to leverage the power of the government in ways other large groups cannot.
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