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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

#371

Post by autoexec »

appreciatorBus wrote: post #366
mothballed wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'd have not forced license plates to be displayed at all times to begin with, as they are a search of your papers without probable cause your vehicle is unregistered. Private ships in those days (probably the closest equivalent of something big and dangerous that could do tons of damage quickly on the public right of way) did not have required hull numbers or anything like that. Of course that doesn't totally sol…

The comparison to private ships doesn't quite land, IMO. Ships - ships big enough to do material damage would be very small in # - ships big enough to do material damage would have a (somewhat?) professional crew - whatever damage they could do would always be limited to tiny areas - only where water & land meet, only where substantial public or private investment had been made in docks/etc - operators have strong fi…

> I don't love flock but IMO the only realistic way to get rid of license plates would be mandatory speed governors that keep vehicles from going more than like 15mph.

I don't understand this reasoning. License plates don't stop speeding from happening. Removing license plates wouldn't prevent enforcement of speed limits either. A cop can pull over and ticket someone without a license plate just as easily as they do now.

At best they're good for a small number of situations where they help identify a car used in a crime (say a hit and run) but even then plenty of crimes are committed using cars that can't be linked back to the driver (stolen for example) or where the plates have been removed/obscured.

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

#372

Post by bakies »

mysterydip wrote: post #362
tehlike wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you have scale with ai hardware becoming cheaper and software incentives aligning.

I always thought that show "person of interest" was a bit far fetched. how could one system have access to that much data? privacy concerns would surely stop it.

Along with all the cop shows I'm thinking it's almost intentional at this point to normalize things.

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

#373

Post by djtango »

kcatskcolbdi wrote: post #290
hugo1789 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem with police is a) that police have to deal with bad people and it is very hard to stay untainted when you constantly deal with bad people, and b) being a cop is no longer a desirable or rewarding job which not only causes applicant pool issues but also polarises the job and police force itself. Then the nature of polarisation is that it is self reinforcing. So if your job isn't rewarding financially or socially, the "perks" must come from somewhere and so it attracts people who seek to abuse power etc

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

#374

Post by crazygringo »

torben-friis wrote: post #337
superultra wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in an Atlanta neighborhood where one of the founders lived. A prototype for Flock Camera was designed by three Georgia Tech grads because someone kept breaking into their car (not uncommon in our neighborhood tbh). The trick is that the camera was pointed towards a middle school. Which means they were constantly recording kids without adult consent. Now, years later, Atlanta is the most surveilled city in Nort…

>There are 124 cameras for every 1,000 people How does that make any kind of economic sense? Morals aside, that’s a ridiculous amount of devices, data collected and transmitted, and so on.

Honestly, not really. If you actually want to have decent coverage to observe crimes and track criminals, that's a ballpark reasonable figure.

And it's not really that expensive, and the idea is that it ultimately saves money in terms of the crime it prevents and fewer police and detectives needed.

I'm not defending it, but in terms of economic sense it's quite well justified. Opposition to it is moral/ideological around privacy/freedom, not economic.

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

#375

Post by argomo »

mmaunder wrote: post #181

Really valuable research. A benefit to public safety, and drawing attention to a sloppy vendor in the security space, claiming to secure the public, but instead putting the public at risk. However I'm deeply concerned for the researcher and all involved because this may be a criminal violation under the CFAA - accessing these systems without authorization, even if they don't have authentication.

They should have gone all in and published the travel history of elite politicians, CEOs, and celebrities. That'd get a lot more media attention and potential for consequential legislation.

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

#376

Post by 15155 »

superultra wrote: post #306
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

I live in an Atlanta neighborhood where one of the founders lived. A prototype for Flock Camera was designed by three Georgia Tech grads because someone kept breaking into their car (not uncommon in our neighborhood tbh). The trick is that the camera was pointed towards a middle school. Which means they were constantly recording kids without adult consent. Now, years later, Atlanta is the most surveilled city in Nort…

> constantly recording kids without adult consent

Why do they need consent in a public place? Children vandalize, steal, etc. as well - should they just be immune from detection because they are below some arbitrary age?

Do banks just shut off all surveillance when a child walks past their front door?

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

#377

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

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…

I’m glad Benn has gone into the YouTube space. He has demonstrated a great balanced view on how to sell your soul for advertisement money in YouTube land.

I’ve known of him a long time simply because of his extremely progressive views towards releasing his own music. In other words, I would not care about Benn Jordan but for the fact that he was releasing his own torrented music on WCD 15 years ago

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

#378

Post by 15155 »

mothballed wrote: post #349
autoexec wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder what our founders would think about tools like Flock. I suspect they'd make a distinction between private individuals engaging in first amendment protected activity like public photography and corporations or the state doing the same in order to violate people's 4th amendment rights. We certainly don't have to allow for both cases.

They'd have not forced license plates to be displayed at all times to begin with, as they are a search of your papers without probable cause your vehicle is unregistered. Private ships in those days (probably the closest equivalent of something big and dangerous that could do tons of damage quickly on the public right of way) did not have required hull numbers or anything like that. Of course that doesn't totally sol…

> Private ships

Often, the same people crying about Flock will decry private arms ownership through mental gymnastics.

These very same ships you speak of that could do "tons of damage" had actual cannonry - with no registration or restrictions on ownership or purchase, either.

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

#379

Post by jjulius »

torben-friis wrote: post #337
superultra wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in an Atlanta neighborhood where one of the founders lived. A prototype for Flock Camera was designed by three Georgia Tech grads because someone kept breaking into their car (not uncommon in our neighborhood tbh). The trick is that the camera was pointed towards a middle school. Which means they were constantly recording kids without adult consent. Now, years later, Atlanta is the most surveilled city in Nort…

>There are 124 cameras for every 1,000 people How does that make any kind of economic sense? Morals aside, that’s a ridiculous amount of devices, data collected and transmitted, and so on.

>How does that make any kind of economic sense?

It's not about economics, it's about control.

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

#380

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

djtango wrote: post #373
kcatskcolbdi wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem with police is a) that police have to deal with bad people and it is very hard to stay untainted when you constantly deal with bad people, and b) being a cop is no longer a desirable or rewarding job which not only causes applicant pool issues but also polarises the job and police force itself. Then the nature of polarisation is that it is self reinforcing. So if your job isn't rewarding financially or so…

I believe strongly that people have zero problem paying their knuckle dragging police fuckwad of the day $150k if they would actually do the job they signed up for. It’s the fact that 99% of them can’t handle it that pisses people off
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