If Flock wants to be used by public services, it should be subject to maximum transparency. If you don't want your camera locations public, don't offer them to the public for their use.
It’s hilarious that the entire business model is based on aggregating information recorded in public, and now they’re objecting to having their information publicly recorded and aggregated.
Perhaps if they could explain why they don’t want that information to be available, they’ll understand how their victims feel.
IMO, when they have to hide, that's the beginning of the end. Too many people are aware of the what/why now. And above all else, once the tables turn on elected officials and they realize they're under the same surveillance, I bet their tune will change (likely due to a public egg-on-face moment involving illegal or suspicious activity). If people keep the pressure on, this will be a "remember when" rather quickly.
Some of that is already happening, in DC of all places, where the DC Police Officer's Union is protesting against use of Flock by ... the DC Police (albeit Internal Affairs).
Something about "this technology is invasive and violates the right to privacy of our members"...
Politicians are humans who knowingly choose to enter public office for the sake of exercising power, whether for altruistic or nefarious reasons (or some combination thereof).
The power is why politicians deserve greater scrutiny than the average person, and anyone who wants to keep their privacy intact can choose not to run for office. The loss of privacy (usually at the hands of the press) is already an implied cost of running for and holding office.
I think there's a balance that needs to be struck, in proportion to actual power. A senator or cabinet member deserves more scrutiny than a small town city clerk. Also, there are private individuals who knowingly exercise more power than that clerk.
I think you misunderstand the balance of power. If you're talking about power over you specifically, your local clerk almost certainly has more than your senator. If they both want to make your life suck, the clerk is the one with the relationship to the local PD, the ability to make your filings get lost in a pile for a couple days so they were technically filed late, etc. Your senator or representative is likely in 0 of the processes you are likely to engage in unless you're notable enough that you specifically get targeted by the state legislature.
> Also, there are private individuals who knowingly exercise more power than that clerk.
This is partially a pet peeve of mine, but again, almost certainly not. I struggle to think of someone with more ability to kill a project than a clerk that refuses to do their job.
Kim Davis was a clerk that refused a literal Supreme Court order. As best I can tell, she did 5 days in jail and launched a million dollar speaking career out of it. Bezos or Musk can be absolutely sidelined by a clerk who is pissed off enough to accept eventually getting fired as a result.
Is that how you want your employer to behave? You want them to surveil you all day every day in case you are doing something that is counter to their business?
They're employees just like you and me, complaining that they work for you then refusing to allow the same rule to be applied to yourself by your employer is....
...normal and internally consistent because we do different jobs in different contexts and the impacts of oversight have a different cost/benefit analysis, do you think doctors should have the same oversight as your food delivery guy?
No. Hypocrisy is when you refuse to have the same rules applied to yourself.
The claim was that they worked for you therefore they should be subject to constant surveillance. Submit to the same from your employer to prove that that is a reasonable expectation.
No - it's hypocrisy for anyone to demand one set of rules for others whilst demanding that those same rules do not apply to themselves.
People in politics, as I said from the beginning, are still people. We can demand transparency in the decisions made (there are limits, because some of that information is sensitive - eg. National security, or commercial secrecy) but we cannot demand that people are surveiled every minute of their lives whilst at the same time complaining that it's a bad thing to happen to us.
No. The difference is you thinking that you, as the employer, have the right to surveil people, but then claim that you, as an employee, have the right to be free from such horrific conditions.
I generally agree, but want to point out that recently politicians have come under physical attack by supporters of their political enemies. In the USA there have been actual killings of politicians. Elsewhere there have been assaults.
If exposing their data leads them to be attacked more, then we need to be careful with this.
Nobody deletes anything. It'll all still be soft-deleted and they'll still have you present in the backups which will be what is ultimately searched by the unadvertised Flock++ members. Read: Governments.
In my uninformed opinion that would be a dangerous precedent if there is no proven collusion or conspiracy to act together. I anal though so I'll wait for people who know the law to respond.
Highly unlikely (but hey, anything's possible when you're flirting with an authoritarian regime). They would need to demonstrate that the map was made TO destroy cameras if to have real merit.
Clickbait. The website proprietor received a 3rd party trademark infringement complaint. If people in the company would prefer the map to be offline, they are taking a very roundabout way of accomplishing it.
On Thursday, Michael was notified that Doppel, which describes itself as an “AI-native social engineering defense platfom,” filed a trademark infringement complaint regarding his site, claiming to be working on Flock’s behalf. Doppel says that the site is using the trademark “FLOCK SAFETY” without authorization, which “may cause customer confusion / harm.” Doppel requested the site be taken down.
The fact that they can't go to the court and say "It pisses me off that this guy is doing what he's doing" and instead have to, ya know, try a case based on the actual laws that exist, seems to be confusing you about what "direct legal action" is.
The article's headline is the claim: "Flock Wants the Most Detailed Map of Its Surveillance Cameras Taken Offline"
The basis for this is an undisclosed trademark letter from a 3rd party. The company in question may or may not want the map taken down. However, the article offers scant evidence for the headline claim. That is why it is clickbait. It promises something large and delivers something minimal.
The security researcher in question has certainly made a splash however. Promising new levels of people mad at Flock is definitely the way to create some bona fides.
Is it your opinion that the letter was likely not sent on behalf of Flock, and this Doppel company is lying about being affiliated with Flock?
If so, what do they stand to gain by doing this? Is it even possible for a company to file a trademark letter on behalf of trademark owner without being affiliated?
I have no opinion one way or another. My first guess is that they have an IP protection firm that goes out and protects their trademarks like any normal company. The action is content neutral in the sense that it doesn't matter if it is the official Flock fan club or hate club. Is it more likely that some evildoer at Flock is twisting their mustache saying "I know how to eliminate this map site—the Streisand Effect!"
The article makes a strong claim and then provides weak substance. An accurate headline is "Flock Map Website Sent a Trademark Notice."
Let's assume that Flock wants to take the website down. How do you think they should go about doing it?
If the site does get taken down due to this trademark dispute and Flock has the deniability of "well it was just the company we hire to do trademark protection, it's not our fault, we didn't do this intentionally" didn't they achieve their aims with plausible deniability that you are affording them here?
If the site has trademark issues, it is irrelevant if the company has the site's removal as a goal or not. The site could address the trademark issues by altering its infringing materials, or if deciding the claims are spurious, legally challenging or ignoring them, and move on. The site's security consultancy proprietor has more to gain by claiming it has forbidden data.
Is that the description of the law firm? Because it sounds like how a law firm would self-describe. Let's get some founders of law firms to put this in their mission statements.
Furthermore, the EFF and Cory Doctorow could embrace this slogan. Especially the FSF. Richard M. Stallman would totally have adopted this description 35+ years ago.
Using a 3rd party trademark enforcement company is an excellent way to minimize PR fallout for a company wanting to silence transparency around (or criticism of) a company.
Let's be real here; Would Doppel give any fucks about trying to do a trademark request if Flock wasn't paying them money?
I look forward to trying to understand your reasoning.
3rd party copyright enforcement goes out an spams anything they think will get their stats up. I doubt anyone would know about this site if the security researcher behind it wasn't able to make some press with "I got a trademark notice!" The claim is "Flock Wants ..." and the evidence is "someone got a trademark C&D."
for what it's worth, the DeFlock maps also include Axon/Motorola cams. they pick up my city's custom implementation too so the anti-surveillance movement is really benefiting from this Flock-focused hate
yep! most of the older hacktivist types who had initially set it up are keenly aware that it's not just Flock doing surveillance. I think it's the newer anti-Flock folks from groups like 50501 that are maybe a bit too obsessed and don't see it as an extension of state hegemony. that said, Flocks expansion and growth is multiple times that of Axon/Motorola in this space -they really opened the can of worms that's standalone, non-grid-powered CCTV and now all the companies are pursuing the tech
if you feel up for it, filing some ORRs according to your local statute for these contracts and sending them to the EFF is a great way of getting involved on a small scale. MuckRock has an entire tool for it that someone on HN pointed me to a few days ago (https://www.muckrock.com/foi/create/) and I'm going to spend an evening or so sending out some requests :)
I am starting a surveillance company in the US. I'll sell the data to anyone who wants. I'll put cameras up wherever I like, call it protection of the people, the police will enjoy it doing a lot of work for them and then I'll point cameras squarely at my competition, 24 hours a day, 365 a year, until they ask for regulations.
That's not how investors think. They don't want to bet on one pony winning the race. Instead they bet on the whole race, on the off chance that one of them turns into a rocketship to the moon.
There's a clause in my company, once regulations around privacy that are al least comparable to the EU are enforced, we sell all assets and return money based on profits to share holders.
Then we start a new company creating just aggressive advertising patents so that they're not created by aggressive companies.
I do not follow in detail the individual companies that YC puts money into at early stages (there's so many of them), are there any examples of two companies YC invested in that serve basically the same purpose and market vertical where one was clearly the "winner", or both became successful and self sustaining?
Hey just like my car, when it is in public you can't expect privacy. The cameras cam track us in public but we can't track the cameras in public? Sorry if you take away my privacy then I'll take away yours too. Everything tracked, logged, and cataloged.
It's public information. Courts have already ruled that if it's in public, you can photograph and document it. If anything, this will be a giant Streisand effect.
> [Doppel] filed a trademark infringement complaint regarding his site, claiming to be working on Flock’s behalf. Doppel says that the site is using the trademark “FLOCK SAFETY” without authorization
Warning to anyone who receives these types of notices from Doppel. They are a defamation-as-a-service company. If the frivolous trademark notice doesn't work, they will follow it up with a letter to your host claiming that you're running a phishing website. If your host is lazy and paranoid (like OVH), they will block your IP immediately, and you'll have to deal with the fallout. Expect the letter to be sent on a Friday afternoon too.
My biggest take away from this is that there's still a market niche for small, independent, feisty hosting companies that have some balls. For instance archive.is (which undoubtedly receives many legal threats) seems to be in a /24 IP block belonging to an Estonian hosting company in Talinn.
The bigger a hosting company gets the more likely it is to near fully automate its abuse process.
> If your host is lazy and paranoid (like OVH), they will block your IP immediately
I would guess that this is something like a process that, if it's even reviewed by a human at all, some grossly overworked, underqualified and underpaid person working in a call center type environment looks at it for 20 seconds in a massive abuse queue pile of tickets, and has a GUI button in front of them to mash which disables an account and all its services immediately.
So why can't people do the same to Doppel? Back in the day folks use to take bad people offline, take down their sites, their phone lines, turn off their electricity. They are lucky these stupid kids hacking rubbish sites haven't found them yet and a will to fight what some might consider the good fight.
They are also lucky that folks are not fighting them in court and draining their wallets.
You see, we live in a country where there are two legal systems. The one for us, and the one for them. In our legal system, we will be held to the full extent of the law for our damages committed, and will even have to pay restitution.
In their legal system, they commit wild fraud or security lapses that lead to massive harm to individuals, and have to pay a fine, and get to keep operating as usual.
It's time Americans learnt a few facts about the rest of the world..
Pretty much every major road in the UK is covered in ANPR. Yes, the UK sucks in many ways, but ANPR is nowhere near as bad as the haters think it is.It's not the penultimate step towards authoratarianism.
The technology is only half of the puzzle; the other half is the availability of the data. For example, many toll roads use license plate readers. Police cruisers may also read a license plate.
Flock the technology would be less of a problem if it had reasonable guards around access, such as requiring search warrants for each query, in each jurisdiction the results touch.
[OP] bookofjoe | a day ago
derbOac | a day ago
antonvs | 22 hours ago
Perhaps if they could explain why they don’t want that information to be available, they’ll understand how their victims feel.
rglover | a day ago
FireBeyond | a day ago
Something about "this technology is invasive and violates the right to privacy of our members"...
N_Lens | 21 hours ago
Cider9986 | 23 hours ago
awesome_dude | 23 hours ago
black6 | 23 hours ago
awesome_dude | 2 hours ago
And, we know that various political machines are using bots/fake accounts the world over to push various agendas via comments.
Where is the line drawn?
atmavatar | 23 hours ago
The power is why politicians deserve greater scrutiny than the average person, and anyone who wants to keep their privacy intact can choose not to run for office. The loss of privacy (usually at the hands of the press) is already an implied cost of running for and holding office.
analog31 | 23 hours ago
everforward | 23 hours ago
> Also, there are private individuals who knowingly exercise more power than that clerk.
This is partially a pet peeve of mine, but again, almost certainly not. I struggle to think of someone with more ability to kill a project than a clerk that refuses to do their job.
Kim Davis was a clerk that refused a literal Supreme Court order. As best I can tell, she did 5 days in jail and launched a million dollar speaking career out of it. Bezos or Musk can be absolutely sidelined by a clerk who is pissed off enough to accept eventually getting fired as a result.
awesome_dude | 23 hours ago
Hnrobert42 | 22 hours ago
thot_experiment | 22 hours ago
awesome_dude | 22 hours ago
nkrisc | 22 hours ago
awesome_dude | 21 hours ago
thot_experiment | 21 hours ago
awesome_dude | 20 hours ago
thot_experiment | 20 hours ago
awesome_dude | 19 hours ago
The claim was that they worked for you therefore they should be subject to constant surveillance. Submit to the same from your employer to prove that that is a reasonable expectation.
philipallstar | 14 hours ago
awesome_dude | 2 hours ago
People in politics, as I said from the beginning, are still people. We can demand transparency in the decisions made (there are limits, because some of that information is sensitive - eg. National security, or commercial secrecy) but we cannot demand that people are surveiled every minute of their lives whilst at the same time complaining that it's a bad thing to happen to us.
nkrisc | 9 hours ago
Your mistake is thinking public and private are the same.
awesome_dude | 2 hours ago
There's no other explanation.
marcus_holmes | 18 hours ago
If exposing their data leads them to be attacked more, then we need to be careful with this.
awesome_dude | 2 hours ago
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabby_Giffords
nkrisc | 22 hours ago
dylan604 | 23 hours ago
snypher | 22 hours ago
tropicalhunter | 22 hours ago
salawat | 22 hours ago
compel2160 | 22 hours ago
speed_spread | 21 hours ago
ortusdux | a day ago
collabs | a day ago
moate | a day ago
dylan604 | 23 hours ago
marcus_holmes | 18 hours ago
JKCalhoun | a day ago
nxobject | a day ago
pennomi | a day ago
arwhatever | 22 hours ago
I'm sure the wildly circuitous routes generated will be useful for rhetorical purposes though.
wpwpwpw | 22 hours ago
AKSF_Ackermann | a day ago
adolph | a day ago
plorg | 23 hours ago
adolph | 23 hours ago
moate | 23 hours ago
adolph | 23 hours ago
The basis for this is an undisclosed trademark letter from a 3rd party. The company in question may or may not want the map taken down. However, the article offers scant evidence for the headline claim. That is why it is clickbait. It promises something large and delivers something minimal.
The security researcher in question has certainly made a splash however. Promising new levels of people mad at Flock is definitely the way to create some bona fides.
muwtyhg | 22 hours ago
If so, what do they stand to gain by doing this? Is it even possible for a company to file a trademark letter on behalf of trademark owner without being affiliated?
adolph | 19 hours ago
The article makes a strong claim and then provides weak substance. An accurate headline is "Flock Map Website Sent a Trademark Notice."
muwtyhg | 18 hours ago
If the site does get taken down due to this trademark dispute and Flock has the deniability of "well it was just the company we hire to do trademark protection, it's not our fault, we didn't do this intentionally" didn't they achieve their aims with plausible deniability that you are affording them here?
adolph | 4 hours ago
ButlerianJihad | 23 hours ago
Is that the description of the law firm? Because it sounds like how a law firm would self-describe. Let's get some founders of law firms to put this in their mission statements.
Furthermore, the EFF and Cory Doctorow could embrace this slogan. Especially the FSF. Richard M. Stallman would totally have adopted this description 35+ years ago.
adolph | 19 hours ago
> Is that the description of the law firm?
Did you read the article? That is a quote from the article, typo and all.
to11mtm | 22 hours ago
Let's be real here; Would Doppel give any fucks about trying to do a trademark request if Flock wasn't paying them money?
I look forward to trying to understand your reasoning.
adolph | 19 hours ago
forshaper | a day ago
paimapi | 23 hours ago
forshaper | 23 hours ago
paimapi | 6 hours ago
EFF's Atlas of Surveillance also does a really great job keeping track of contracts with these companies: https://www.atlasofsurveillance.org/
if you feel up for it, filing some ORRs according to your local statute for these contracts and sending them to the EFF is a great way of getting involved on a small scale. MuckRock has an entire tool for it that someone on HN pointed me to a few days ago (https://www.muckrock.com/foi/create/) and I'm going to spend an evening or so sending out some requests :)
heliomattress | 23 hours ago
protocolture | 23 hours ago
NoboruWataya | 23 hours ago
smoovb | 18 hours ago
bilekas | 23 hours ago
If anyone would like to kickstart let me know.
ejj28 | 23 hours ago
bilekas | 23 hours ago
fragmede | 23 hours ago
bilekas | 22 hours ago
Then we start a new company creating just aggressive advertising patents so that they're not created by aggressive companies.
Edit : Hypothetical company, this is all satire.
walrus01 | 21 hours ago
fragmede | 21 hours ago
https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/industry/data-visualiz...
yboris | 23 hours ago
annoyingnoob | 23 hours ago
Simulacra | 22 hours ago
NDlurker | 22 hours ago
adonovan | 22 hours ago
aussieguy1234 | 22 hours ago
ghastmaster | 21 hours ago
aussieguy1234 | 17 hours ago
tothrowaway | 22 hours ago
Warning to anyone who receives these types of notices from Doppel. They are a defamation-as-a-service company. If the frivolous trademark notice doesn't work, they will follow it up with a letter to your host claiming that you're running a phishing website. If your host is lazy and paranoid (like OVH), they will block your IP immediately, and you'll have to deal with the fallout. Expect the letter to be sent on a Friday afternoon too.
Chris2048 | 22 hours ago
Is this not defamation?
croes | 21 hours ago
walrus01 | 21 hours ago
The bigger a hosting company gets the more likely it is to near fully automate its abuse process.
> If your host is lazy and paranoid (like OVH), they will block your IP immediately
I would guess that this is something like a process that, if it's even reviewed by a human at all, some grossly overworked, underqualified and underpaid person working in a call center type environment looks at it for 20 seconds in a massive abuse queue pile of tickets, and has a GUI button in front of them to mash which disables an account and all its services immediately.
segmondy | 20 hours ago
They are also lucky that folks are not fighting them in court and draining their wallets.
TheScaryOne | 8 hours ago
You see, we live in a country where there are two legal systems. The one for us, and the one for them. In our legal system, we will be held to the full extent of the law for our damages committed, and will even have to pay restitution.
In their legal system, they commit wild fraud or security lapses that lead to massive harm to individuals, and have to pay a fine, and get to keep operating as usual.
failbuffer | 22 hours ago
latexr | 21 hours ago
FridayoLeary | 22 hours ago
It's time Americans learnt a few facts about the rest of the world..
Pretty much every major road in the UK is covered in ANPR. Yes, the UK sucks in many ways, but ANPR is nowhere near as bad as the haters think it is.It's not the penultimate step towards authoratarianism.
bethekidyouwant | 22 hours ago
bdcravens | 21 hours ago
Flock the technology would be less of a problem if it had reasonable guards around access, such as requiring search warrants for each query, in each jurisdiction the results touch.
vortico | 20 hours ago
https://overpass-turbo.eu/
prvt | 17 hours ago