How do you get access get all the local government meetings? Do you have a crawler that looks up every city in the country then visits each website and pull down the info? A public listing site?
It’s so awesome to see more people making things to fight back against ALPRs. Deflock movements are gaining traction across the country and genuinely making progress at suspension or cancellation of contracts.
Interesting. I just ran a similar search for « ANPR » which I think is the UK equivalent, in UK local government meetings and it’s mentioned about 80 times a month, which from a cursory glance looks like it’s more than are being shown here. I didn’t look through them yet to see how many were discussions about adding new installations vs referencing existing ones.
Is the argument that Flock cameras are used for mass surveillance defensible, or just paranoia, and if it is real, does anyone have a good idea of whether the same argument would apply in the UK?
I hope the article's authors aren't taking the position that mass surveillance is a bad thing, signifying a breakdown in civilized norms ... after all, they're using the same methods to "track the trackers."
Im glad WA ruled that you can get flock data with a FOIA request and because of this local cities decided to disable the cameras. Currently they have put caps of the lenses of the installed cameras in WA.
I keep wanting to see the "Rainbows End" style experiment.
The common reaction to surveillance seems to be similar to how we diet. We allow/validate a little bit of the negative agent, but try to limit it and then discuss endlessly how to keep the amount tamped down.
One aspect explored/hypothesized in Rainbows End, is what happens when surveillance becomes so ubiquitous that it's not a privilege of the "haves". I wonder if rather than "deflocking", the counter point is to surround every civic building with a raft of flock cameras that are in the public domain.
Does anyone else find it painfully ironic that the one CO cop said "You can't get a breath of fresh air in or out of that place without us knowing," [0], in light of the George Floyd BLM rallying cry "I can't breathe!" and the common metaphor describing surveilance states as "suffocating"?
Like what are we doing as a society? Stop trying to build the surveilance nexus from sci fi. I don't want to live in a zero-crime world
[1]. It's not worth it. Safety third, there is always gonna be some risk.
[1] Edit to add: if this raises hackles, I encourage folks to think through what true zero crime (or maybe lets call it six-nines lawfulness) entails. If we had literal precrime, would that stop 99.9999% of crime? (hint: read the book/watch the movie)
For years I've thought about doing an "art project" to make people more aware of the fact they are being observed – but I never actually got up and did it.
The idea was to seek spots in the city where public web cams are pointed at, and paint QR codes on the ground at those spots (using a template), linking to the camera stream. So when curious passerbys scan the code, they see themselves in a camera stream and feel "watched".
There's probably several interesting ways to make a QR code on the ground with chalk. I'm thinking of a turtle bot loaded with spray chalk, for starters.
Years ago there was a YouTuber, "Surveillance Camera Man," who went around pointing a camera at people with no pretense. Frequently the subjects were upset by this and became aggressive, even violent. I believe the intended message was that this is a natural and justified reaction to being surveilled, and yet there is little outcry because public surveillance is largely invisible and/or faceless (e.g. just a CCTV camera mounted on a building, rather than a stranger invading your personal space).
I sometimes imagine local laws/contracts with a provision like: "This system may not be operated if there is no state law that makes it a class X felony to violate someone's privacy in any of the Y conditions."
In other words, the "we're trustworthy we'd never do that" folks ought to be perfectly fine with harsh criminal penalties for misuse they're already promising would never happen.
This would also create an incentive for these companies to lobby for the creation/continuation of such a law at the state level, as a way to unlock (or retain) their ability to do businesses in the localities.
This is super important work, and is kind of why I built https://civic.band and https://civic.observer, which are generalized tools for monitoring civic govts. (You can search for anything, not just ALPR)
This is incredible, great work and will definitely be using and sharing this!
Where in the repos can we find the plugin/scraper for given municipalities to help contribute when they seem to be broken? As looks like the last meetings and agendas scraped for Cook County are from March/April of this year
"We have seen a flock of turkeys walk right along that fence on the outside, but I have also seen them
jump high enough that they could easily land on the 4ft fence. Just 2 more feet of fence would
stop all of this and give us the sense of security that we have every right to."
We have this in sweden and it works fine. I kinda think the US would be better off with this since it'd lead to less crime or lower costs to investigate it
This isn't said in bad faith but there is a few things that seem to be unanswered here besides surveillance is bad.
1. You have no expectation of privacy in public.
2. People carry surveillance devices in their pocket.
It is somehow simultaneously bad that the government uses public surveillance, but completely fine the public does. I don't think it's acceptable these target "flock". It's completely useless doesn't solve the greater problem. The greater problem in my eyes is:
1. I can't move around my own neighborhood without being recorded by 200 personal cameras whose data is uploaded an analyzed by various security companies.
2. I can't go to someone's house without their internal cameras recorded my every move and word.
3. I can't go outside without some subset of morons, that seem to always exist, bringing out their pocket government tracking device to record everyones face, movement, location, and action.
4. I can't say or do anything in public without risking some social justice warrior recording me, cutting it up, and using it to destroy me.
The greater problem is the proliferation of surveillance devices in every day life. Flock is such a small player in the grand scheme of this. These websites are simply art pieces and do nothing to solve the actual, pervasive, problem we face.
So do we just stop at Flock and raise the Mission Accomplished banner? Or do we forget this nonsense and target the real problem.
Reading these comments, a common through-line seems to be cars. Hit and runs, drive by shootings, cars without plates, cars speeding, breaking into cars, etc. But the concept of disincentivizing cars never seems to be brought up. Close down urban roads to private car traffic. Increase public transportation. Remove subsidies on gas. Build bike lanes.
Cars are weapons. They kill people quickly with momentum, and slowly with pollution and a sedentary lifestyle. We need to start treating them as such
There are two extremes that rash people tend to fall into.
The first is the person who has no concern for surveillance. He believes that if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear. You see more of these people in older generations, when institutional trust was irrationally high.
The second is the person who responds rabidly to any form or application of surveillance. This is the sort of person who believes that all surveillance is abused, public or private, and if it isn't, that it inevitably will be. Slippery slope fallacy is his motto.
A reasonable range of opinion can exist on the subject between those two extremes.
Personally, I have no problem with traffic cameras per se. First, we are in a public space where recordings are generally permitted. Second, no one is being stalked or harassed by a fixed camera. Third, there are problems that only surveillance can reasonably solve (loud cars, dangerous speeding).
My concerns would have to do with the following.
1) Unauthorized access to accumulated data. You should have to have some kind of legal permission to access the data and to do so in very specific ways. For example, if you neighborhood is being disrupted by loud cars, you can use complaints to get permission to query for footage and license plates of cars identified as loud. Each access is logged for audit purposes.
2) Data fusion. You should not be able to combine datasets without permission either. And when such combination occurs, it should also be scoped appropriately. Queries should then be subject to (1).
3) Indefinite hold. Data should have an expiration date. That is, we should not be able to sequester and store data for indefinite periods of time.
4) Private ownership. The collection of certain kinds of surveillance data should belong only to the public and fall under the strict controls above.
The non-specific and general fear of abuse is not a good counterargument.
what is stopping me from putting a bright infrared light on my car angled in a way causing the camera to not be able to detect my plate? overexposed? this should be totally legal afaik since nothing is hiding my plate from any view to a normal human?
62 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 66.1 ms ] threadAny interesting technical details? Getting the actual data from govt meetings looked like it was the hardest part to me.
Is the argument that Flock cameras are used for mass surveillance defensible, or just paranoia, and if it is real, does anyone have a good idea of whether the same argument would apply in the UK?
99% of the population is voluntarily carrying sophisticated tracking devices with self-reporting always on
even if the signal is off it catches up later
with SEVERAL layers of tracking
not just your phone carrier but Google+Apple stores have your location as the apps are always on in the background
even phone makers have their own tracking layer sometimes
we know EVERY person that went to Epstein Island from their phone tracking and they didn't even have smartphones back then
Flock is just another lazy layer/databroker
https://www.king5.com/article/news/investigations/investigat...
The common reaction to surveillance seems to be similar to how we diet. We allow/validate a little bit of the negative agent, but try to limit it and then discuss endlessly how to keep the amount tamped down.
One aspect explored/hypothesized in Rainbows End, is what happens when surveillance becomes so ubiquitous that it's not a privilege of the "haves". I wonder if rather than "deflocking", the counter point is to surround every civic building with a raft of flock cameras that are in the public domain.
Just thinking the contrarian thoughts.
Like what are we doing as a society? Stop trying to build the surveilance nexus from sci fi. I don't want to live in a zero-crime world [1]. It's not worth it. Safety third, there is always gonna be some risk.
[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/flock-cameras-lead-col...
[1] Edit to add: if this raises hackles, I encourage folks to think through what true zero crime (or maybe lets call it six-nines lawfulness) entails. If we had literal precrime, would that stop 99.9999% of crime? (hint: read the book/watch the movie)
The idea was to seek spots in the city where public web cams are pointed at, and paint QR codes on the ground at those spots (using a template), linking to the camera stream. So when curious passerbys scan the code, they see themselves in a camera stream and feel "watched".
And this post uses wire screen to make a stencil https://www.instructables.com/Simple-QR-Code-Spray-Paint-Ste...
The YouTube account is no longer around, but you can still watch it on archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20190220131525/https://www.youtu...
In other words, the "we're trustworthy we'd never do that" folks ought to be perfectly fine with harsh criminal penalties for misuse they're already promising would never happen.
This would also create an incentive for these companies to lobby for the creation/continuation of such a law at the state level, as a way to unlock (or retain) their ability to do businesses in the localities.
Where in the repos can we find the plugin/scraper for given municipalities to help contribute when they seem to be broken? As looks like the last meetings and agendas scraped for Cook County are from March/April of this year
https://civic.observer/auth/login
I am interested in monitoring local legislation in Clark County, WA
https://alpr.watch/m/WPv1PO
first the came for the turkeys...
1. You have no expectation of privacy in public.
2. People carry surveillance devices in their pocket.
It is somehow simultaneously bad that the government uses public surveillance, but completely fine the public does. I don't think it's acceptable these target "flock". It's completely useless doesn't solve the greater problem. The greater problem in my eyes is:
1. I can't move around my own neighborhood without being recorded by 200 personal cameras whose data is uploaded an analyzed by various security companies.
2. I can't go to someone's house without their internal cameras recorded my every move and word.
3. I can't go outside without some subset of morons, that seem to always exist, bringing out their pocket government tracking device to record everyones face, movement, location, and action.
4. I can't say or do anything in public without risking some social justice warrior recording me, cutting it up, and using it to destroy me.
The greater problem is the proliferation of surveillance devices in every day life. Flock is such a small player in the grand scheme of this. These websites are simply art pieces and do nothing to solve the actual, pervasive, problem we face.
So do we just stop at Flock and raise the Mission Accomplished banner? Or do we forget this nonsense and target the real problem.
Cars are weapons. They kill people quickly with momentum, and slowly with pollution and a sedentary lifestyle. We need to start treating them as such
The first is the person who has no concern for surveillance. He believes that if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear. You see more of these people in older generations, when institutional trust was irrationally high.
The second is the person who responds rabidly to any form or application of surveillance. This is the sort of person who believes that all surveillance is abused, public or private, and if it isn't, that it inevitably will be. Slippery slope fallacy is his motto.
A reasonable range of opinion can exist on the subject between those two extremes.
Personally, I have no problem with traffic cameras per se. First, we are in a public space where recordings are generally permitted. Second, no one is being stalked or harassed by a fixed camera. Third, there are problems that only surveillance can reasonably solve (loud cars, dangerous speeding).
My concerns would have to do with the following.
1) Unauthorized access to accumulated data. You should have to have some kind of legal permission to access the data and to do so in very specific ways. For example, if you neighborhood is being disrupted by loud cars, you can use complaints to get permission to query for footage and license plates of cars identified as loud. Each access is logged for audit purposes.
2) Data fusion. You should not be able to combine datasets without permission either. And when such combination occurs, it should also be scoped appropriately. Queries should then be subject to (1).
3) Indefinite hold. Data should have an expiration date. That is, we should not be able to sequester and store data for indefinite periods of time.
4) Private ownership. The collection of certain kinds of surveillance data should belong only to the public and fall under the strict controls above.
The non-specific and general fear of abuse is not a good counterargument.