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I wonder how the HN commentariat would feel about this if it was a government agency behind this rather than a fellow hacker...

pc86 11y ago
It's one thing to just get the data and make an argument (in this case, "slow down") - it's an entirely separate thing to do that and start issuing citations or impounding vehicles.
- furyg3 11y ago
  Why is issuing a citation in this way so problematic? In a few places near where I live there is extremely clear signage about the speed limit, and that speed cameras are in effect, 100% of the time, every single day. If you speed there, you will get a ticket. The systems are configured to only send the data of speeders, and are audited. It is extremely effective. I prefer this system in every way to the way tickets are generally handled in the US. It's effective, it's fair, it does not discriminate against minorities, it does not endanger lives of the driver/police/other drivers as pulling someone over does, and it's much easier for me to avoid a ticket, it respects my privacy, persuasive / weeping / friends of cops can't get out of it, there's no chance for police to start tacking on other violations (your blinker is broken!)... etc, etc, etc. It's just better in every way, except the fact that driving on these particular roads is really boring!
- ryandrake 11y ago
  > Reynolds and neighbor Bruce Odell will make a presentation on the software to the council Monday night. It's not just a neat tech hobby--this is a busybody pitching what amounts to ubiquitous rule-enforcement to the local government.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Yeah I'd say that too - except its speed limits in residential neighborhoods. We're not talking about what color they're painting their front doors. We're talking injuring people. All sorts of desperate measures are taken to try to control this - speed bumps, no-car zones, cameras. This seems cheaper and maybe more effective than all that?
    - ryandrake 11y ago
      What's even cheaper is not wasting money on "all sorts of desperate measures" and instead, crack down severely on the people actually out there injuring people with their cars (which is also against the law).
akgerber 11y ago
Great? Speeding on a residential street is dangerous, especially to those walking or cycling.
oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
Do you have an objection to government-run cameras enforcing a safe speed limit? In my experience, an awful lot of drivers are really, really bad at driving. Speeding, in particular. If there is no other way to ensure idiots behind the wheel stick to a safe speed, then I'm all for it. This is merely a step towards fully-automated vehicles, anyway, which will be literally incapable of breaking the speed limit.
- pavel_lishin 11y ago
  In practice, implementations of things like red-light cameras end up making things worse, by shortening yellow light durations (which makes intersections less safe) in order to generate more revenue for the city and the company running the program. http://pix11.com/2015/11/19/red-light-cameras-may-be-causing-more-harm-than-good-in-new-york-city/ http://pix11.com/2015/11/19/red-light-cameras-may-be-causing...
  - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
    In no way should revenue ever be tied to law enforcement. As you point out, the potential for corruption is just too great.
acdha 11y ago
The major question for me would be data retention – if they monitor speed (or failing to stop at a red light or stop sign, etc.) but fundamentally aren't doing anything different than if they parked an officer there with a radar gun, it doesn't bother me. Saving the data for later mining, OCRing license plates to build a record of cars traveling around town, etc. would be a different story because that affects everyone whether or not they're choosing to break the law and spans more than a single incident in time.
- pc86 11y ago
  Unfortunately, for the following three scenarios: 1 - Do nothing 2 - Put a camera there just to get a % of cars going 5+ over the limit 3 - Put a camera there to OCR everything and save it in perpetuity The distance between 1 and 2 is quite large but the distance between 2 and 3 is very small and doesn't necessarily come with the same public notice/disclosure/outrage instituting 2 would. The safest course of action strictly from a privacy perspective is to oppose anything that makes implementing #3 easier.
  - acdha 11y ago
    I think you're grossly over-estimating the gap between #1 and #2 in a world where network-connected cameras are so cheap and include significant local processing capabilities. More importantly, however, there are multiple forces driving deployment of cameras in a variety of area (e.g. right now my city is offering homeowners a tax benefit to install one because of an increase in crime, many people want all police activity to be recorded, etc.) and it seems unlikely that anything will reverse that trend. I think that means that the way to prevent abuse isn't to try to fight block the technology but rather to focus on legal protections & oversight – things like retention policies, restricted access and logging, etc. to avoid strengthening the argument that privacy activists are preventing legitimate police work.

pc86 11y ago

It's one thing to just get the data and make an argument (in this case, "slow down") - it's an entirely separate thing to do that and start issuing citations or impounding vehicles.

furyg3 11y ago
Why is issuing a citation in this way so problematic? In a few places near where I live there is extremely clear signage about the speed limit, and that speed cameras are in effect, 100% of the time, every single day. If you speed there, you will get a ticket. The systems are configured to only send the data of speeders, and are audited. It is extremely effective. I prefer this system in every way to the way tickets are generally handled in the US. It's effective, it's fair, it does not discriminate against minorities, it does not endanger lives of the driver/police/other drivers as pulling someone over does, and it's much easier for me to avoid a ticket, it respects my privacy, persuasive / weeping / friends of cops can't get out of it, there's no chance for police to start tacking on other violations (your blinker is broken!)... etc, etc, etc. It's just better in every way, except the fact that driving on these particular roads is really boring!
ryandrake 11y ago
> Reynolds and neighbor Bruce Odell will make a presentation on the software to the council Monday night. It's not just a neat tech hobby--this is a busybody pitching what amounts to ubiquitous rule-enforcement to the local government.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Yeah I'd say that too - except its speed limits in residential neighborhoods. We're not talking about what color they're painting their front doors. We're talking injuring people. All sorts of desperate measures are taken to try to control this - speed bumps, no-car zones, cameras. This seems cheaper and maybe more effective than all that?
  - ryandrake 11y ago
    What's even cheaper is not wasting money on "all sorts of desperate measures" and instead, crack down severely on the people actually out there injuring people with their cars (which is also against the law).

akgerber 11y ago

Great? Speeding on a residential street is dangerous, especially to those walking or cycling.

oneeyedpigeon 11y ago

Do you have an objection to government-run cameras enforcing a safe speed limit? In my experience, an awful lot of drivers are really, really bad at driving. Speeding, in particular. If there is no other way to ensure idiots behind the wheel stick to a safe speed, then I'm all for it. This is merely a step towards fully-automated vehicles, anyway, which will be literally incapable of breaking the speed limit.

pavel_lishin 11y ago
In practice, implementations of things like red-light cameras end up making things worse, by shortening yellow light durations (which makes intersections less safe) in order to generate more revenue for the city and the company running the program. http://pix11.com/2015/11/19/red-light-cameras-may-be-causing-more-harm-than-good-in-new-york-city/ http://pix11.com/2015/11/19/red-light-cameras-may-be-causing...
- oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
  In no way should revenue ever be tied to law enforcement. As you point out, the potential for corruption is just too great.

acdha 11y ago

The major question for me would be data retention – if they monitor speed (or failing to stop at a red light or stop sign, etc.) but fundamentally aren't doing anything different than if they parked an officer there with a radar gun, it doesn't bother me. Saving the data for later mining, OCRing license plates to build a record of cars traveling around town, etc. would be a different story because that affects everyone whether or not they're choosing to break the law and spans more than a single incident in time.

pc86 11y ago
Unfortunately, for the following three scenarios: 1 - Do nothing 2 - Put a camera there just to get a % of cars going 5+ over the limit 3 - Put a camera there to OCR everything and save it in perpetuity The distance between 1 and 2 is quite large but the distance between 2 and 3 is very small and doesn't necessarily come with the same public notice/disclosure/outrage instituting 2 would. The safest course of action strictly from a privacy perspective is to oppose anything that makes implementing #3 easier.
- acdha 11y ago
  I think you're grossly over-estimating the gap between #1 and #2 in a world where network-connected cameras are so cheap and include significant local processing capabilities. More importantly, however, there are multiple forces driving deployment of cameras in a variety of area (e.g. right now my city is offering homeowners a tax benefit to install one because of an increase in crime, many people want all police activity to be recorded, etc.) and it seems unlikely that anything will reverse that trend. I think that means that the way to prevent abuse isn't to try to fight block the technology but rather to focus on legal protections & oversight – things like retention policies, restricted access and logging, etc. to avoid strengthening the argument that privacy activists are preventing legitimate police work.