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We put Flock under surveillance: Go make them behave differently [video]

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Re: We put Flock under surveillance: Go make them behave differently [video]

#31

Post by dole »

reaperducer wrote: post #28
arrowleaf wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. All the Flock cameras around me are stationed around the entrances to Lowe's parking lots.

All the Flock cameras around me are stationed around the entrances to Lowe's parking lots. Most of the ones in my neighborhood are pointed at parks, playgrounds, and the big transit center. Which makes no sense to me since there's a ton of government buildings around that you'd think would be under Flock surveillance for "safety."

All of the ones I've noticed have been pointed directly towards streets for mostly license recognition but it's notable that they record whatever objects a typical real world AI image model could. In my area, we have Flock, Shotspotter, Stingray devices, free Ring camera programs from law enforcement departments.

Our Lowe's have the mobile parking lot camera/light units, I wasn't aware if these were Flock but either wouldn't be surprised if they were, had access or plans to buy in.

Re: We put Flock under surveillance: Go make them behave differently [video]

#32

Post by gorgoiler »

It feels like there’s a big vacuum of a federal level privacy judgement waiting to be filled. SCOTUS abhors a vacuum, though you could argue it’s already been filled in that the past two decades of rulings on cell phone records (phone=you) are directly applicable to photos of your car (car=you).

Maybe the argument against is that ALPR can’t constantly track you like cell towers can?

Re: We put Flock under surveillance: Go make them behave differently [video]

#33

Post by FireBeyond »

nceqs3 wrote: post #30

The anti ALPR narrative is not based in reality. I for one support using tech to automatically flag when a stolen car is spotted. With the sky high cost of car insurance in CA, which disproportionately impacts low income drivers, you would think liberal legislators would be in favor of reducing one of the largest reasons insurance is expensive. Restricting tech used by police just means more LE time spent on easily a…

I can't wait for the day when Flock's "proactive AI" flags the way you are driving or your vehicle movements as suspicious and alerts LE to just ... "check in on you".

Or when they enable the mics in their devices to just start recording your conversations with your friend in a public place and does the same. "AI didn't like what you were talking about, so alerted the local PD".

Re: We put Flock under surveillance: Go make them behave differently [video]

#34

Post by ViscountPenguin »

tptacek wrote: post #16
pavel_lishin wrote: post #2

If you want to save yourself six minutes' of video, this is about https://alpr.watch/ and their new feature that can alert you by email if your local municipal officials are going to be discussing Flock in upcoming meetings, based on published meeting agendas. The video also links you to a wiki with some nice counter-arguments to the standard pro-Flock arguments: https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Common_Questions,_Argume…

Even in my local community, which is likely among the 10 most progressive in the country (we're either the first or second most progressive in Chicagoland, itself one of the most reliably blue major metros in the country), support for Flock was pretty evenly divided. I think it's good to engage this way, but I have a lot of thoughts on things to do that are more effective than giving public comment, and a caution tha…

I strongly suspect that opposition to surveillance technology doesn't manifest along a simple progressive-conservative divide.

In my experience, a sizable chunk of people who are anti-surveilance are pretty staunchly rightwing.

This is bad news in that it means that there isn't a pre-formed anti surveillance coalition, but good news in every other way imo.

Re: We put Flock under surveillance: Go make them behave differently [video]

#35

Post by foxyv »

I wonder what would happen to these if you put a bunch of TV screens showing random faces at various camera locations. Essentially creating 10s of thousands of face scans per minute at each location until their database fills up and their facial recognition runs out of CPU cycles. Also maybe throw in some randomized license plate numbers and a TPMS transmitter to make it even worse. Nothing illegal, just putting some noise out there.

Re: We put Flock under surveillance: Go make them behave differently [video]

#36

Post by tptacek »

foxyv wrote: post #35

I wonder what would happen to these if you put a bunch of TV screens showing random faces at various camera locations. Essentially creating 10s of thousands of face scans per minute at each location until their database fills up and their facial recognition runs out of CPU cycles. Also maybe throw in some randomized license plate numbers and a TPMS transmitter to make it even worse. Nothing illegal, just putting some…

Flock doesn't do facial recognition.

Re: We put Flock under surveillance: Go make them behave differently [video]

#37

Post by therobots927 »

tptacek wrote: post #36
foxyv wrote: post #35

I wonder what would happen to these if you put a bunch of TV screens showing random faces at various camera locations. Essentially creating 10s of thousands of face scans per minute at each location until their database fills up and their facial recognition runs out of CPU cycles. Also maybe throw in some randomized license plate numbers and a TPMS transmitter to make it even worse. Nothing illegal, just putting some…

Flock doesn't do facial recognition.

Even if you’re technically correct, that doesn’t mean they never will, or that downstream consumers of their data never will. They’re easy enough to hack and I’m sure it would be trivial for the NSA to siphon off the raw feed in real time if they wanted to and send it to a datacenter in Utah.

Re: We put Flock under surveillance: Go make them behave differently [video]

#38

Post by foxyv »

tptacek wrote: post #36
foxyv wrote: post #35

I wonder what would happen to these if you put a bunch of TV screens showing random faces at various camera locations. Essentially creating 10s of thousands of face scans per minute at each location until their database fills up and their facial recognition runs out of CPU cycles. Also maybe throw in some randomized license plate numbers and a TPMS transmitter to make it even worse. Nothing illegal, just putting some…

Flock doesn't do facial recognition.

Oh, yeah, looks like they only do general description on pedestrians. Stuff like orange sweater and black pants.

Re: We put Flock under surveillance: Go make them behave differently [video]

#39

Post by tptacek »

therobots927 wrote: post #37
tptacek wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flock doesn't do facial recognition.

Even if you’re technically correct, that doesn’t mean they never will, or that downstream consumers of their data never will. They’re easy enough to hack and I’m sure it would be trivial for the NSA to siphon off the raw feed in real time if they wanted to and send it to a datacenter in Utah.

I was answering the parent commenter's question about what would happen if you confronted a Flock camera with a lot of faces. Answer: nothing.

Re: We put Flock under surveillance: Go make them behave differently [video]

#40

Post by vablings »

nceqs3 wrote: post #30

The anti ALPR narrative is not based in reality. I for one support using tech to automatically flag when a stolen car is spotted. With the sky high cost of car insurance in CA, which disproportionately impacts low income drivers, you would think liberal legislators would be in favor of reducing one of the largest reasons insurance is expensive. Restricting tech used by police just means more LE time spent on easily a…

I am not anti ALPR. They do have merits on flagging things like stolen vehicles and human trafficking. What I do dislike is a private company owning up the entire market share and has little to no obligation to behave.

Why can't cities hire good software developers to create custom solutions that are safe and secure rather than paying a startup thousands of dollars in taxpayer money. Austin City Council spent 1.2 MILLION dollars on just a handful of cameras. Texas already ruled that red-light cameras cannot issue tickets or citations so why are we allowing cameras to creep into the same space. It's just another tax on people

>The ACLU is fighting DUI laws in CA right now for instance. SF is a hell-hole because of these crime loving activist groups.

Not sure what you are referring to here but if you do find the news stories be sure to post the article and I will read the cases on PACER to see what its all about

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