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Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

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Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#491

Post by Kirby64 »

extraduder_ire wrote: post #444
atlgator wrote: post #334

Someone in the thread linked a teardown showing these use a ~$4 OV5647 Arducam sensor on what's essentially a Raspberry Pi. The real vandalism isn't the people with hammers — it's charging municipalities six figures for a trail camera with a cellular modem and a pitch deck.

Where are you finding those sensors for $4? I think the main selling point is that they're set+forget and solar powered, with all the "software magic" happening in the cloud.

The sensors are very cheap:

https://www.arducam.com/arducam-ov5647-standard-raspberry-pi...

If you want a fancy one with a lens and an IR cut filter it'll run you a grand total of $35:

https://www.arducam.com/arducam-ov5647-noir-camera-board-w-m...

Sure, the extra stuff like LTE modem, battery, solar panels, casing, etc, costs a whole lot more money, but these things clearly are built cheap. The optics and imaging sensor is a joke compared to real, proper cameras.

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#492

Post by wrs »

autoexec wrote: post #359
unethical_ban wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is a semi-democracy, notably due to its hyper-polarized two party system that completely forbids (in the 2020s) any crossing of party lines for compromise. The single biggest improvement to American society would be to implement multi-member districts for legislature, OR to implement STAR voting - any kind of system that promotes the existence of more parties, more political candidates, to break the two party…

I think more people would bother with voting if they felt their vote mattered, but between the two party system (where both options suck), the gerrymandered distracting, and other voter suppression tactics people have been conditioned to feel powerless over the outcome of elections. I'm entirely unsurprised if the majority of places taking a stand against flock cameras are liberal. From what I've seen conservatives t…

This argument was viable 20 years ago, but we are way, way beyond “both options suck” at this point. It’s more like “one option sucks and the other option is absolutely catastrophic — also, the second option may be the last choice you ever get”.

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#493

Post by singleshot_ »

mothballed wrote: post #392
singleshot_ wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> weren't on their deathbeds with covid claiming it was a hoax Have you treated many patients with COVID? I’ve heard the opposite of your claim from those who have.

People with first hand experience offering counterpoints like Dr Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi did but unfortunately their videos explaining their side of the story were conveniently removed from places your YouTube -- while conveniently leaving the videos remaining to hear the kind of stories you heard.

Was this a yes or a no?

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#494

Post by nathan_compton »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #431
throwaway85825 wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America ended in 1861 when the era of political bargains transitioned to the era of the government and the subjects.

with 20/20 hindsight it would have been a whole lot better to throw a Constitutional Convention rather than have a civil war. It had already intentionally been forgotten how well that worked the first time.

Throw a constitutional conventions so that the slave owners could get their votes in (not the slaves, of course, though the owners should get to vote FOR them).

I understand that the civil war was about a lot of things, but the precipitating issue was slavery. Slavers should be obliterated by war if they aren't willing to give up their slaves unconditionally.

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#495

Post by mrtesthah »

toomanyrichies wrote: post #446
mrtesthah wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this country has literacy and education problems, and many voters were plainly ignorant of what they were voting for.

They were literally taking tourist photos in front of the "Alligator Alcatraz" sign. [1][2][3] They knew what they were voting for. The cruelty (and the authoritarianism) is the point. 1. https://theday.com/photo-single/1006536/?mode=team 2. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-take-pi... 3. https://www.wusf.org/courts-law/2025-12-22/attorneys-urge-ju...

The best way defeat MAGA is to fracture their coalition, which requires understanding its various constituencies. The “MAGA Hardliners” at the forefront of this fascist movement are only 29% of his support:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/01/trump-roles-sup...

Currently, his approval rating is hovering in the mid to high 30s, which tracks.

We should spend our energy on the people who can be convinced; don’t get discouraged by thinking they’re all the same.

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#496

Post by array_key_first »

tptacek wrote: post #378
array_key_first wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're only popular because people are routinely lied to. We see this same issue time and time again in "free markets". If you tell people this will help stop crime and that's it, everyone and their mama is gonna say yes. If you tell people the truth, that police don't really care to look at the data and this surveillance is going to be used to target innocent people for unrelated "crimes" on the taxpayers dollar, t…

In what way are voters in these municipalities being lied to? We got logs of all the searches, and incident reports of every time they were used to curb another vehicle. We know how well they did (or didn't, in our case) worked. I don't know what "surveys" have to do with this. Voters voted on it; it was a campaign issue in our trustee election.

The lie comes from the intentionality. Voters are told the intention of these tools are to prevent crime, but that's not true. The intention is enrich a select few and expand the surveillance state, chilling dissent and empowering authoritians.

Once again, we look at Adolf Hitler. He told voters his intention behind power was helping the German people, but that was not true. That was just a tool he used to grab said power.

We see this with a lot of things in the US. The intention behind giving ICE tens of billions of dollars and a license to kill and ignore due process is "your protection". But that's not true.

You might say we don't actually know anyone's intention, and that is technically true. But I prefer not to play stupid, and even if you're correct, it's not worth the risk.

These things bring huge amounts of risk with them. Even if everyone involved is perfectly benevolent, which I don't think even a child could believe, there's no guarantee it will stay that way. We are building out infrastructure that practically begs to be abused. And when you say it's okay, you're essentially saying you believe everyone will stay good forever. That's quite bold, no?

When phrased that way, your position does not seem reasonable. You have to understand, this is how some people see it, and when you understand that perspective, you can understand what you're actually asking for.

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#497

Post by palata »

0_____0 wrote: post #476
palata wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, let's say something like this: https://www.instructables.com/DIY-IR-Infrared-Illuminator-Ni... > Let me be clear - you're still responsible for verifying the safety of your stuff Obviously yeah. I was just wondering if there were known rules like "these wavelengths under this power are fine for humans and wildlife, even if they put the LEDs right in front of their eyes", and also if you have an array of such IR…

Invisible wavelengths can absolutely hurt your retina, but as wavelengths go farther beyond visible, your eye begins to not focus them properly on the retina, so the risks change. E.g. with 1550nm IR (common in telecom, sometimes in LIDAR) the risk of eye damage is to the surface of the eye rather than to the retina. Short wavelengths like UV will be absorbed by the lens at near-UV, and then eventually just be absorb…

Very interesting, thanks a lot!

I assume CCTV surveillance cameras are usually fine because people cannot go and stare at it from very close then :-).

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#498

Post by inigyou »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #459
temp8830 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody (OK, maybe a few very special people) is saying that COVID was a hoax. What is true - and one wasn't allowed to say - was that the measures intended to prevent COVID weren't very effective and did more harm than good. Ah yes you say, another psycho. He probably eats ivermectin for breakfast and chases it with bleach. But I ask you, after a chlorinated burp: how come Africa didn't die out? Why was the death rat…

>how come Africa didn't die out? Because it's an airborne virus and Africa isn't 1) as connected with the world to begin with and 2) as closely concentrated as urban areas. That's before really looking into Africa's response compared to other countries. >Why was the death rate pretty much the same in Florida and California? Because we didn't isolate fast enough between Trump trying to claim it being a hoax early on a…

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Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#499

Post by inigyou »

toephu2 wrote: post #302
tptacek wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this presumes that residents in municipalities with ALPRs don't want them used the way they are. That's not true! These things are broadly pretty popular among a broad set of residents.

I am in favor of them. There is no expectation of privacy in the public setting. I can record anyone on a public street w/o their permission. If these license plate cameras are making the streets safer and helping to reduce crime, why not? Sure there may be some mis-uses here and there, but for the most part they seem to be working and in places where they are deployed, crime is being reduced.

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Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#500

Post by inigyou »

ChoGGi wrote: post #339
Larrikin wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rape is clearly in the Epstein files. Murder is implied in the Epstein files with an email about burying girls on the property. Eating sounds like an unhelpful exaggeration, unless I missed a major news story.

> Eating sounds like an unhelpful exaggeration, unless I missed a major news story. There's a bunch of mentions of "jerky" in the files, some people have taken it to mean eating people.

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