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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

#491

Post by _DeadFred_ »

SamInTheShell wrote: post #300
kirykl wrote: post #54

If the cameras are recoding public areas, isn’t it better the recorded footage stays public

This is pretty naive. What happens when you develop and extend such a system in a way that it can track who you interact with? What about social credit scores? You might go out to a social event with a very distinguished social credit score of 820 and get knocked down to 69 just because you were in proximity to Bob and Alice, who happen to be on some blacklists for their work in cryptography. What you're staring at i…

I mean public venues in the US use this stuff to kick out people that they don't like, or that work for firms that have been involved in lawsuits. That is no different than the start of a social credit score and it's happening already.

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

#492

Post by ck2 »

gruez wrote: post #285
vatsachak wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly, the tracking has to happen and there's no law to discard the data ever

It's how we know even YEARS later EVERYONE who went to Epstein Island

They didn't even have smartphones then, just regular cellphones

Wired just bought all the tracking from a databroker, no warrant needed

https://www.wired.com/video/watch/we-tracked-every-visitor-t...

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

#493

Post by NoGravitas »

snazz wrote: post #275
fooqux wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From what I understand these systems are legal because there is no expectation of privacy in public. Not quite. There's been precedent set that seems to imply flock and other mass surveillance drag net operations such as this do violate the forth.

Defendants trying to exclude ALPR evidence often invoke Carpenter v. U.S. (or U.S. v. Jones , but that’s questionable because the majority decision is based on the trespass interpretation of the 4th Amendment rather than the Katz test). Judges have not generally agreed with defendants that ALPR (either the license plate capture itself or the database lookup) resembles the CSLI in Carpenter or the GPS tracker in Jones…

Yeah, I don't think capturing your license plate at a light falls afoul of Carpenter, but aggregating timestamped records of your license plate all over town to build a complete picture of your movements probably does.

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

#494

Post by braingravy »

eightysixfour wrote: post #312
braingravy wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s anonymity of the viewers combined with mass open-access surveillance that enables an unheard of level of stalking capacity. Most people don’t like the idea that strangers could easily stalk their child remotely. It’s the easy of access to surveillance technology that is different. Has nothing to do with the park being safe or not. Try to think like an evil person with no life and very specific and demonic aims i…

> Try to think like an evil person with no life and very specific and demonic aims if you’re still having trouble seeing why this would be an issue. That person already has incredible power to stalk and ruin someone's life. Making Flock cameras public would change almost nothing for that person. It fascinates me how fast people jump to "imagine the worst person" when we talk about making data public. We have the wors…

“almost nothing” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

Stalking someone from your desk vs. IRL is a whole different ball game. Not sure why this needs explanation… anyways, the main difference is how easy it do things from your desk. For example, no one see you when you’re stalking someone from your desk. Think of the success of 4chan investigations vs. those in authority to actually do so. It’s empowering.

We live in a world of strangers, and unfortunately a % of those are the type to kill/rape other strangers. Why enable them?

Not sure who else would be empowered by making all public camera accessible at the click of a button, but I’m interested in who you think that population is.

Certainly we can agree most normal folks will not spend their time looking camera feeds of strangers?

I’m fascinated by people who stick to their theoretical principles (‘all data should be public’, etc.) no matter the real world implications, but we all have our own interests :).

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

#495

Post by freeone3000 »

autoexec wrote: post #352
freeone3000 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not anti-democratic, it’s simply a matter of exposure. China can WANT to do whatever they want to me, but I have no assets in China, no trade in China, and neither me nor anyone close to me will ever go to China. So it simply matters a lot less what China has on me than the country where I have friends, loved ones, financial assets, property, and frequently visit.

Generally I'd agree. The threats here are larger. That said China isn't powerless to hurt you either. I haven't seen much of it happening, but in theory China could blackmail you. They can manipulate and influence you and your children through social media and advertising, even encouraging kids to harm themselves/others. They can also fill the products they make for us with heavy metals and other poisons while buildi…

And the united states can also do those things. We’ve been fighting against the hormone-filled milk for decades, and half of the ingredients are banned by smarter countries, but more than half of our food is still imported poison.

But none of that has to do with who is surveilling me online.

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

#496

Post by pandaman »

nullc wrote: post #481
pandaman wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain in more detail how the repeat criminals get caught in your scheme? I can see how surveillance could help in identifying the criminal, finding him or her, and as evidence of crime in the trial, but what exactly happens without it that gets them identified, found and convicted? As of now clearance rate of property crimes is <15% according to a quick search.

There is already lots of surveillance and was even before modern technology. I'd agree that having some at all is of value, my argument was that you don't need much past that to get what we need and certainly don't need the kind of pervasive surveillance that some want: It won't move the needle on crime much past a baseline level but it will enable abuses that are much worse than the level of property crime we see to…

>There is already lots of surveillance and was even before modern technology.

Do you mean that all the people who are installing Flock cameras now do that not because they think there is not enough surveillance but for some other reason? Like help a YC company to raise more money? Or help LEOs to stalk their exes? Or some other crazy reason mentioned in these threads?

Do you have a neighborhood social network (NextDoor and its kind)? If you do, check out reports of theft, they rarely have any surveillance and ones that have are very poor quality, usually not showing the perp enough to ID.

> But in any case to more directly answer your question: If the clearance rate is 15% then they have a 90% chance of being caught after ~14 crimes.

This does not follow. If your math had been valid we'd have to agree that hunting elk in a forest where 15% of animals are bears would result in 90% chance that every 15th elk would turn out to be a bear.

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

#497

Post by Ajedi32 »

docjay wrote: post #483
Ajedi32 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is it your position, based on what you just said, that people who have committed murder but have not yet been caught are no more likely to commit murder a second time than the average person? I think my example of helping police catch a murderer "before they kill again" is not only "grounded in reality" but has, in fact, quite plausibly already happened thousands of times throughout the course of Flock's existence…

My friend, I've said only what I've said. Past my casual "that's not really how murders play out", through the comma, sits "special name”, which isn't "the general population." Serial killer, serial murderer, and spree killer aren't synonyms for general population. The mere existence of those terms gave you all the information you needed to determine that they’re distinct from the general population and simple “murde…

Okay, dozens, not thousands. My point still stands.

If you really want to split hairs over the exact number, maybe also consider the number of murderers who committed other crimes prior to their first murder, and whether getting caught sooner in their criminal career might have prevented such escalations, plus the larger society-wide deterrent effect of the increased clearance rates of crimes in all categories.

You don't need to run any numbers to see my original comment was obviously correct, I'm not sure why you're contesting this so hard.

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

#498

Post by culi »

tomhow wrote: post #381
culi wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dang won't like me sharing this repo ( sorry !) but hn-undocumented has a relevant section on this: https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented?tab=re... > Currently, there is no evidence that non-job submissions about a YC startup receive preferential treatment on the front page, or kill submissions critical of a YC startup. In fact, the moderators have stated that they explicitly avoid killing controversi…

We’re fine with people sharing that doc. It’s been on the front page multiple times and Dan has provided information/corrections to Max.

Got it, thanks

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

#499

Post by [deleted] »

amrocha wrote: post #433
dghlsakjg wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wondering what the people who created the government think of the current government is massively different than wondering what either of two French philosophers who never participated in statecraft born 150 years later thinks. It is perfectly normal to wonder what the architect of a system thinks of the current system, and entirely separate from wondering what a pair of unrelated Frenchman think of that system. Even…

These guys made a constitution that says all men are free, except for slaves and women because they’re obviously not men. This led to a civil war just a couple decades later. I think it’s pretty clear that they didn’t really know what they were doing. In fact, that’s why they gave you the tools to change the laws of the country.

[deleted]

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

#500

Post by dogman144 »

Barathkanna wrote: post #428
dogman144 wrote: post #311

Was fortunate to talk to a security lead who built the data-driven policing network for a major American city that was an early adopter. ALPR vendors like Flock either heavily augment and/or anchor the tech setups. What was notable to me is the following, and it’s why I think a career spent on either security researching, or going to law school and suing, these vendors into the ground over 20 years would be the ultim…

This is the part that doesn’t get enough attention. The real risk isn’t any single vendor, it’s the aggregation layer. Once ALPR, retail cams, traffic cams, ISP data, and vehicle telematics all land in one searchable system, the idea that this will be perfectly RBAC’d and jurisdictionally contained is fantasy. At that point it’s not policing tech, it’s a nationwide surveillance substrate held together by policy promi…

I’ve been in security for a while and I increasingly think understanding what the future looks like under this threat model is about the only security research that really matters fully above the rest (many topics also very important in their own ways).

The state change is just so significant and so under discussed because you learn about it via making an effort in a cybersec career, hitting conferences very years, eventually lucking out with who you met for a beer, and so on.

So how do policy leaders trying to understand this stand a chance at understanding it? How do local PD chiefs understand what they’re bringing in, who I really do believe deserve the benefit of the doubt wrt positive intentions?

There is really no counter-voice to an incredibly capable nationwide surveillance network that’s been around for at least 10-15 years. The EFF doesn’t really count because the EFF complains about these things, SEN Wyden writes a memo, and that seems to be the accepted scope of the work..

Just like man… the bill of rights… it’s a thing! Insane technology.

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