20 ms·

Sensor tracks who's driving in your neighbourhood

140 points by edward 9y ago

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
anfractuosity 9y ago
It seems rather intrusive to me. Also unless I'm misunderstanding it doesn't seems to be capturing the speed of vehicles either, although I wonder if doing that accurately would require more precise mounting and calibration. I was wondering if you could identify these 'sensors' somehow, but it looks like they're using cell networks, which as far as I understand means there is no plaintext unique identifier. Does this mean something similar could be done with tracking of people via facial recognition? (Or is that different somehow?).
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  It's just a camera in a box, hooked up to some image recognition software. The convicted thief would have been caught just as trivially with a regular security camera. So, the answer to your last question is "yes", same as with any other camera.
  - djmobley 9y ago
    In practice, if you request assistance from the owner of a conventional security camera, you will run into one or more of the following issues: a) Discover the camera was a dummy; b) It was out of service at the time of the incident; c) The camera is a live stream only and does not record footage; c) The owner is unwilling to pore over hours of footage to help you; d) They find an image but the quality is insufficient to identify a person or a vehicle; e) They find a satisfactory image but are unable to share it with you for data protection reasons.
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      Don't b, c#2, d, and e apply to this also?
awjr 9y ago
Anybody have a link to the actual company? I also think they've missed the key use for this. Modelling traffic movements through a space. Many villages/residential areas suffer from speeding and rat running, but getting a local authority to take you seriously or even get the local police to 'visit' the speeders and have a word is hard to make happen. Community speed watch using ANPR cameras to create an average speed monitored area is HUGE. Even working out people that are using the one way road systems incorrectly helps. This has huge application across multiple resident associations. To achieve this you need to be able to time synch, know the location of each camera, the shortest 'route' between each camera, and the ability to 'network' each camera. Where do I invest? Hell I have 16 residents associations that would bite your hands off to get their hands on a cheap traffic profiling system.
- treehau5 9y ago
  > but getting a local authority to take you seriously or even get the local police to 'visit' the speeders and have a word is hard to make happen. Interesting, this isn't my experience. I think this is a size issue. In major cities probably. Out here in the 'burbs, I call the police about a speeder, and there's an officer with a radar gun out within the hour. Speeding tickets are nice funding for the department. Add a reckless driving on there and you got a nice doozy. What happens more often than not though is you get two really annoying speed humps installed if enough calls about it come through.
  - dazc 9y ago
    > Out here in the 'burbs, I call the police about a speeder, and there's an officer with a radar gun out within the hour. To get a police officer to come to you within the hour in the UK you would have to have reported a murder at the very least.
- awjr 9y ago
  Found them http://www.flocksafety.com/ http://www.flocksafety.com/
  - 9y ago
KaiserPro 9y ago
If you want to make this your self: A cheap hi-res outdoor day/night webcam (~$150) A server running openalpr (https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr) Job done
- ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
  My neighborhood has multiple people that drive through each day, just to steal packages from people's doorsteps. Sometimes they get photos of the thieves from their security systems, but they NEVER get plate numbers. This could be an awesome solution.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  That is the scalable solution, but I get by just fine with a trail cam pointed at my driveway. It takes 5 minutes a month to scroll through manually and check that most cars are me, my wife, or family, and then check any others.
- gridscomputing 9y ago
  recommended camera? and is it better to have an IR illuminator integral to the camera, or should it be separate?
  - KaiserPro 9y ago
    Depends on the range of the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coVOf-1XNc8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coVOf-1XNc8 The illumination is software controlled, so you can add extra flood lights depending on need. However your range is limited by resolution, so it might not be needed.
    - KaiserPro 9y ago
      Sorry, Foscam make cheap outdoor day/night camera. However you'll have to take precautions about firewalling as they are cheap internet enabled webcams...
mrmondo 9y ago
Are there any privacy guards that can be applied to number plates that are effective in protecting you from being tracked? I’m immediately reminded of Jon Ronson’s article ‘Who killed Richard Cullen?’[1] where companies such as Experian sell relational geo-data on people to whatever companies want to use that data to target and potentially manipulate people. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2005/jul/16/creditcards.debt https://www.theguardian.com/money/2005/jul/16/creditcards.de...
- DKnoll 9y ago
  It depends on where you live. Some places have the privacy built-in. In Canada anybody can get the name associated with a plate, but it costs ~$30 CAD and your name and drivers license number is verified and stored to do so. If you want the address you must be a licensed private investigator (~$350 CAD course and ~$80 CAD test) or police, again the access is logged. In the UK you need to write to the ministry for even a name, not sure of the level of difficulty or likelihood of the request being granted. In the USA, it depends on the state. Many you can get freely and anonymously from a 3rd party database.
- criddell 9y ago
  > Are there any privacy guards that can be applied to number plates that are effective in protecting you from being tracked? Not legal ones. The whole point of the number plate is as an identifier for the vehicle. I've been thinking about logging all the traffic down my street as a fun project as a way to learn OpenCV.
- xkcd-sucks 9y ago
  There are LCD license plate frames which go opaque/transparent when powered, for example http://www.ghostplate.com/mechanics/ http://www.ghostplate.com/mechanics/ (first google result for "lcd license plate frame"). Of course they're Very Illegal to use while driving.
- TACIXAT 9y ago
  Bike racks! I thought about doing an ALPR project for a while which got me to start looking at plates. I always laugh when I see a bike rack that totally obscures the view.
mmmBacon 9y ago
A great addition to this would be radar to track vehicle speeds. In my neighborhood we have an issue with jerks doing 50mph down our street(speed limit is 25mph) to bypass a traffic light on an adjacent street. Kids are often out and we've had a few near misses. Most of the offenders live nearby and I'd love a way to shame them into slowing down. The city is unable and unwilling to do any enforcement or install traffic calming on our street so we don't have any other options except moving.
- criddell 9y ago
  Would you need radar? If you have a camera pointed at the street, couldn't you use the distance traveled in successive frames to calculate a speed? If you already have one camera set up to record the tags, a second one should be easy to capture the speed.
  - telot1 9y ago
    10 year veteran of the ITS industry here. It's not trivial to do camera speed recognition. You need to do ranging in addition to the video detection to know how far the vehicle is from the camera to accurately measure the speeds using movement between frames. These systems cost in the $10,000+ range, while a k-band doppler can be had for around $500. It's a no brainer to stick with the 1940's doppler technology ;)
    - ambicapter 9y ago
      Or could you just post two posts near the road in view of the camera with a known distance between them...
      - votingprawn 9y ago
        I wonder if you could even use road markings or kerb stones as your calibration to save the effort of measuring things out. I'm admittedly rather unqualified in this area (I don't even know what the ITS industry is!) but I have experience in estimating distances from video and calculating speeds from pixel displacement (particle image velocimetry) and at first pass it seems to me this would be a fairly straightforward problem to solve. Obviously radar or lidar would be preferable but a quick search for "OpenCV speed estimation" shows people having success with simple single <$50 camera setups.
dmitrygr 9y ago
When laws do not give you privacy, paintball guns will (see speed cameras in Chicago for examples of how citizenry will _rightly_ deal with this)
- Harvey-Specter 9y ago
  Why do you expect privacy on public roads?
  - giarc 9y ago
    I think the issue is that if you are doing nothing wrong, why do they need to track your license plate and know when you come and go?
  - TomMarius 9y ago
    Because I contributed for these roads.
    - Overtonwindow 9y ago
      Since the OP of this thread is new, they're probably trolling us, but giving benefit of the doubt for a moment, you have no right to privacy on public roads. Whether you paid for them or not is irrelevant. You could make that argument for state action, but not private. Just because you paid your taxes for that road doesn't stop me from recording your license plate, description, time and date of every time I've seen your car, the race, gender, etc. of your passengers, and posting that to the internet.
      - JabavuAdams 9y ago
        In the US. In other countries, they have different norms. Therefore, it's debatable.
      - TomMarius 9y ago
        In my country it's illegal since communism was overthrown. I'm not discussing the current legal status though. People should not be tracked on public property - property built from their own money.
neuronexmachina 9y ago
I've sometimes pondered what it would be like to have something like Sensor's license plate tracking, but using a car-mounted dashcam. Even with just one in every few thousand cars equipped, you could probably get pretty comprehensive location tracking of where particular cars were at a given time. There would be many uses for such a capability, both positive and negative to society.
turc1656 9y ago
Another big brother style invention. Wonderful. I'm sure they won't sell this info to the government at any point. My biggest issue, though, is the inequitable terms of tracking. If you live in a given neighborhood then you can opt out. Great. That gives those people preference. And treats everyone else as lesser citizens because they don't live there. We're talking about public spaces so there really shouldn't be any inequity. I think the company behind this sees the opt out ability for locals as the only way to make this palatable to people on a large scale. Also, how is "neighborhood" defined? I assume it's by them and has some radius or something like that. And I'm also fairly certain to opt out would require me creating an account and providing my name, address, and car info (at minimum). You want to record everything in public spaces? Fine, the law says you can do that so I respect that right. But that does not mean I am a fan of this by any stretch of the imagination. I feel like the real reason for this is something more nefarious they have planned later on - it could really be a way to finally track the remaining untrackables in our society who may be older and not have or use all the fancy tech we have today that tracks everything. It could also include people like myself that go to reasonable but not insane methods to circumvent tracking methods simply because I don't like to be tracked. There's really nothing I can do if they see me leave my house and drive to my friend's place and hang out there for 5 hours. Since I don't use social media they can't really connect that he and I are close friends without a tool like this. They can now make that association, which was previously near impossible to achieve.
- jpollock 9y ago
  In the US there are neighborhoods which are not freehold property, the owners are members in a Home Owner's Association (HOA). HOA's have significant powers, and are responsible for many things in the property, sometimes even roads and water. Gated communities fall into this class. So this camera would be targeting the HOA market, but not gated communities which have gates, locks and guards. Personally, I don't like HOAs, and I don't like private neighborhoods. To the point that I refuse to look at property with an HOA.
  - turc1656 9y ago
    I also would never purchase an HOA property. They wield far too much power over what you can and cannot do with what you own and you can never leave the HOA as it is linked to the deed.
amelius 9y ago
Simple question: is this legal? Shouldn't there be a law against building databases containing other people's data?
- Overtonwindow 9y ago
  It's absolutely legal. Anything in public you can photograph, record, monitor, etc. A different question to ask is: Should this be legal when certain data points, such as a license plate number, are required to be public, and the state forces you to disclose these.
  - Silhouette 9y ago
    In the US, perhaps. Privacy laws are weak there. In various other parts of the world, if this system works as described in the news articles then it's probably going to get eaten alive, possibly along with anyone deploying it.
  - amelius 9y ago
    I'm not so sure. It's legal to walk next to somebody. It's not legal to stalk somebody. The latter is just a more elaborate version of the former. A similar thing can be said about taking photographs (which is legal) versus recording people's behavior in a database (akin to drag-net surveillance, which we do not trust the government with, let alone companies or individuals).
    - criddell 9y ago
      > which we do not trust the government with, let alone companies or individuals Actually, I think it's legal for individuals or companies but not for the government. For example, the government can't install surveillance cameras in a shopping mall, but the mall owner can. The government can't watch people shop in stores, but stores are installing cameras to track how people move through the store, what items they smile at, and what they finally buy. I was listening to a podcast recently where they were talking about a future where companies will drive around, pick up peoples trash, then process it to build a profile of the household. Because trash is fair game once you drop it off at the curb, they claimed there was nothing stopping anybody from doing this.
Overtonwindow 9y ago
This reminds me of the Burbclaves in the novel "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson. Looking at the exclusive neighborhoods and subdivisions around D.C. I can totally see this becoming a selling point, along with the gates, armed guards, etc. that already exist. Tie these sensors into a network and suddenly a wrong turn can get you put on a neighborhood "watch list" across the city.
IanCal 9y ago
Perhaps a different side to the comments already raised: Why did YC invest in this? Are there published ethical rules YC tries to follow?
- Overtonwindow 9y ago
  Why does YC invest in anything? I think it's because they see the potential to make money. I believe you are correct, there are YC ethical rules, but I don't think Sam and company have any qualms about violating those ethics for themselves, or even holding themselves to any ethics at all. If it makes money, they invest. Only when something bad happens do ethics suddenly become an issue.
  - borisj 9y ago
    Ethics are just words that they claim to take seriously until money is involved. See: Peter Thiel.
- garrettlangley 9y ago
  IanCal, sorry you feel this way. Our goal is simply to help police do their job. Today, only 13% of crime is solved due to lack of evidence. We are trying to help drive that number to 100% and eliminate crime in our neighborhoods.
  - blackguardx 9y ago
    What type of crime is your main target? Do you store video in addition to plate numbers? How accurate are your speed estimates at oblique angles? I think you are getting some pushback because a lot of neighborhood watch groups have a reputation for looking out for "wrong looking people." The Trayvon Martin case surely didn't help, either. Also, crime in the US is an all time low, but perception of crime is at an all time high. This is good for your product, but not for our society.
  - Gargoyle 9y ago
    Surely you're aware of the tremendous potential for unethical uses. Do you have any concerns along those lines? Any steps to take to prevent it?
Dirlewanger 9y ago
As if pockets of sheltered NIMBYs just existing wasn't bad enough, let's now make tools for them to enforce their own mini-police state for their already-gated neighborhoods! The Big One™ that hits and sends all of Silicon Valley crashing into the Pacific can't come soon enough...
have_faith 9y ago
It doesn't track who is driving in your neighbourhood, it tracks who owns the car driving in your neighbourhood. A not so subtle difference. I don't want mob delivered justice based on bad data.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > It doesn't track who is driving in your neighbourhood, it tracks who owns the car driving in your neighbourhood. A not so subtle difference. Actually, it tracks who is the registered owner of the license plate numbers read off the vehicles driving in your area, which is subtly different from even what you describe.
  - have_faith 9y ago
    Good point.
brightball 9y ago
As the president of an HOA, let me tell you...the residents here will be begging to get one of these.
- garrettlangley 9y ago
  drop us an email sales [at] flocksafety.com this is garrett (co-founder of Flock)
tyingq 9y ago
For the US, you can register a "somewhat anonymous" LLC in places like New Mexico, then register your vehicle in the name of the LLC. Unwinding who really owns the vehicle is still possible for government, though still not quick or automated. It would make it very difficult for private efforts like this one. Lot of work though.
jetti 9y ago
I'm interested in who owns the data after it is collected. Is it the company's or does it below to the person who is paying the $50/year? My hunch is that the company will retain rights over the data collected and it can become another source of income for them over time.
- garrettlangley 9y ago
  the neighborhood owns the data. we have zero plans to sell the data. our goal is to provide police with the evidence they need to solve crime. today only 13% of non-violent crime is solved. we think it should be 100%.
  - Severian 9y ago
    Define "the neighborhood". I personally don't know more than three or four neighbors in my apartment complex. Who specifically is it then? I tend to believe you actually meant to type 'police precinct'. I applaud your sense of civic duty, but having a complete panopticon of all outside activities for an unobtainable goal of 100% seems absurd.
    - garrettlangley 9y ago
      Neighborhood = Homeowners association or civic association.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > the neighborhood owns the data. You keep using the word “neighborhood” as if it referred to a legal entity with a defined authority structure that can make decisions and own property. This is generally not the case, so it is apparent that this is being used as a sloppy, PR-friendly term for something else, like maybe an HOA. What specifically do you mean when you say “neighborhood”?
Animats 9y ago
"The data is only made available to 'neighbourhood leaders'" This is going to go over big in religious communities. Control-freak religions such as Scientology and Haredi Judaism will go for this. Both already operate sizable camera networks in areas where they have power.
- froindt 9y ago
  Oh goodness, and polygamist groups. TLC has an interesting show called escaping polygamy, where a few people (formerly in groups) help others escape. They're routinely followed when they drive into places like Colorado city. It would be so easy to track everyone in those cities. And that would really up the level of danger to those residents.
llsf 9y ago
I could actually consider such system for my neighborhood, but only if it is off-line (i.e. nobody can access the data, unless I decide to deposit some during a crime investigation). A bit like a ATM security camera. I would not mind to have the data being discarded after X days for instance. Since it is supposed to be used to make a case of crime, if no crime was reported there is no need to keep the data. Also, they would have to make sure that the data collected is receivable by the justice system. Otherwise it would be pointless.
- garrettlangley 9y ago
  llsf, great points. we let the neighborhood decide who has access and how access is granted. some neighborhoods give every resident unlimited access while others require a police report before logging in.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > we let the neighborhood decide who has access and how access is granted. “Neighborhoods” generally aren't legal entities that you can deal with this way. When you say “neighborhood” here, are you talking about an homeowners association (which is a very different thing than a “neighborhood”) or...what, exactly?
    - garrettlangley 9y ago
      Either Homeowners association or a Civic association. Both are legal entities.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
imcrs 9y ago
It was going to happen regardless, but it makes me deeply cynical to see this infrastructure going up in the folksy tone of "neighborhood safety." I guess to justify erecting yet another component of the massive surveillance apparatus, you have to have a startup-ey landing page and cool logo. I would prefer to see this announced on a dingy government website, or even signs on every corner stating "all movement is tracked" installed by bureaucratic decree. At least then we'd be honest with what we're creating.
- iamatworknow 9y ago
  These types of scanners already exist in your neighborhood, and probably have for a couple of years. The next time you're near a police car, look at the trunk. There will probably be three or four cameras pointing to the adjacent lanes. They look like this: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y7NgL5zbq3U/TER5EIjZ20I/AAAAAAAAAtk/8tbGe_LcJU4/s1600/0710_platereader2.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y7NgL5zbq3U/TER5EIjZ20I/AAAAAAAAAt...
glitcher 9y ago
A bit off-topic, but reminds me of the creative workarounds people tried when automated ticketing via speed cameras were first introduced in Arizona. One loophole was that if they weren't able to reasonably identify you in the traffic photo then the ticket wouldn't stand up in court. Some guy kept deliberately speeding by these cameras wearing a monkey mask: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-traffic/2017/02/03/phoenix-speed-photo-cams-driver-wears-monkey-mask-racks-up-37-tickets/97447212/ http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-traffic/20...
throw2016 9y ago
This is sketchy. The desire for absolute security can only end in a total surveillance state. This kind of surveillance makes a mockery of the concept of privacy and anonymity. Nor only is data collected but it is stored enabling profiling. The whole point of rule of law is to find common ground to temper out of control self interest. This is akin to stalking people going about their daily lives and should be illegal. Why is YC supporting this. Why is anyone supporting this? Unless you take a stand minute to minute surveillance of everyone's lives will become the new normal.
aivijay 9y ago
These are great ideas to monetize now. As it grows, it will be the same as its been happening with the big companies, like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo etc., where law enforcement will force to acquire these data and naturally as its a company which owns it, its going to turn up to be used to scrutinize anyone in the name of security etc., and privacy at all levels will be basically sold for money. These guys start snooping around and project its a great tool for safety. True there could be a fraction of safety around this. But at the end of the day its just about money and becomes another surveillance mechanism to monitor everyone which is bullshit and nonsense.
fuzzywalrus 9y ago
I like the false pretense for "neighborhood protection", when really this is a lowering bar for plate collection likely for more intrusive advertising. Even if you were able to pay cash or epay system obfuscate store purchases at a retailer, they could still nab your plates. Really, if a criminal were to drive in and loot a house in your neighborhood, what self respecting criminal wouldn't use dummy plates or a lifted car to commit robberies and at least some sort of identity obfuscation. Let's not pretend this is a noble invention. While out in public you may not have a right to privacy, there's certainly a level of general anonymity that most of us assume. While such plate reading technology has existed for some time, now it could be easily deployed by a overbearing ex-lover to know if/when person is home or worse, a hate group outside an abortion clinic. File this under war on privacy to further usher in a technocratic hellscape future.
- 659087 9y ago
  Won't take long for plate data from this highly ethical YC startup to be used as blackmail/extortion material against someone who gets caught parking in the wrong driveway while their wife/husband is out of town.
infectoid 9y ago
I have a new product. It's called FlockOff. Basically it is a laser connected to a battery connected to a solar panel that shoot a high intensity beam of (UV? IR?) light directly at the Flock 24/7. Also available is the FlockOff Mini. This attaches to the plate on your car bathing it in IR light 24/7. Good times. Note: I don't actually know what I'm talking about here.
glennb 9y ago
,
glennb 9y ago
I tried this with a working prototype and all about 3 years ago...I struggled with the retail bdev side as no one wanted it because of privacy issues and base monthly costs. I went over the use cases and market left and right, up and down, with not much success. I still have a system in operation in front of my business that has been online since June 2014
- telot1 9y ago
  Mind reaching out to me glennb? Curious how you went about it, and I might be able to help with a new market. Thanks! jp@slndrtech.com

140 points by edward 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

It seems rather intrusive to me. Also unless I'm misunderstanding it doesn't seems to be capturing the speed of vehicles either, although I wonder if doing that accurately would require more precise mounting and calibration. I was wondering if you could identify these 'sensors' somehow, but it looks like they're using cell networks, which as far as I understand means there is no plaintext unique identifier. Does this mean something similar could be done with tracking of people via facial recognition? (Or is that different somehow?).

pavel_lishin 9y ago
It's just a camera in a box, hooked up to some image recognition software. The convicted thief would have been caught just as trivially with a regular security camera. So, the answer to your last question is "yes", same as with any other camera.
- djmobley 9y ago
  In practice, if you request assistance from the owner of a conventional security camera, you will run into one or more of the following issues: a) Discover the camera was a dummy; b) It was out of service at the time of the incident; c) The camera is a live stream only and does not record footage; c) The owner is unwilling to pore over hours of footage to help you; d) They find an image but the quality is insufficient to identify a person or a vehicle; e) They find a satisfactory image but are unable to share it with you for data protection reasons.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    Don't b, c#2, d, and e apply to this also?

awjr 9y ago

Anybody have a link to the actual company? I also think they've missed the key use for this. Modelling traffic movements through a space. Many villages/residential areas suffer from speeding and rat running, but getting a local authority to take you seriously or even get the local police to 'visit' the speeders and have a word is hard to make happen. Community speed watch using ANPR cameras to create an average speed monitored area is HUGE. Even working out people that are using the one way road systems incorrectly helps. This has huge application across multiple resident associations. To achieve this you need to be able to time synch, know the location of each camera, the shortest 'route' between each camera, and the ability to 'network' each camera. Where do I invest? Hell I have 16 residents associations that would bite your hands off to get their hands on a cheap traffic profiling system.

treehau5 9y ago
> but getting a local authority to take you seriously or even get the local police to 'visit' the speeders and have a word is hard to make happen. Interesting, this isn't my experience. I think this is a size issue. In major cities probably. Out here in the 'burbs, I call the police about a speeder, and there's an officer with a radar gun out within the hour. Speeding tickets are nice funding for the department. Add a reckless driving on there and you got a nice doozy. What happens more often than not though is you get two really annoying speed humps installed if enough calls about it come through.
- dazc 9y ago
  > Out here in the 'burbs, I call the police about a speeder, and there's an officer with a radar gun out within the hour. To get a police officer to come to you within the hour in the UK you would have to have reported a murder at the very least.
awjr 9y ago
Found them http://www.flocksafety.com/ http://www.flocksafety.com/
- 9y ago

KaiserPro 9y ago

If you want to make this your self: A cheap hi-res outdoor day/night webcam (~$150) A server running openalpr (https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr) Job done

ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
My neighborhood has multiple people that drive through each day, just to steal packages from people's doorsteps. Sometimes they get photos of the thieves from their security systems, but they NEVER get plate numbers. This could be an awesome solution.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
LeifCarrotson 9y ago
That is the scalable solution, but I get by just fine with a trail cam pointed at my driveway. It takes 5 minutes a month to scroll through manually and check that most cars are me, my wife, or family, and then check any others.
gridscomputing 9y ago
recommended camera? and is it better to have an IR illuminator integral to the camera, or should it be separate?
- KaiserPro 9y ago
  Depends on the range of the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coVOf-1XNc8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coVOf-1XNc8 The illumination is software controlled, so you can add extra flood lights depending on need. However your range is limited by resolution, so it might not be needed.
  - KaiserPro 9y ago
    Sorry, Foscam make cheap outdoor day/night camera. However you'll have to take precautions about firewalling as they are cheap internet enabled webcams...

mrmondo 9y ago

Are there any privacy guards that can be applied to number plates that are effective in protecting you from being tracked? I’m immediately reminded of Jon Ronson’s article ‘Who killed Richard Cullen?’[1] where companies such as Experian sell relational geo-data on people to whatever companies want to use that data to target and potentially manipulate people. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2005/jul/16/creditcards.debt https://www.theguardian.com/money/2005/jul/16/creditcards.de...

DKnoll 9y ago
It depends on where you live. Some places have the privacy built-in. In Canada anybody can get the name associated with a plate, but it costs ~$30 CAD and your name and drivers license number is verified and stored to do so. If you want the address you must be a licensed private investigator (~$350 CAD course and ~$80 CAD test) or police, again the access is logged. In the UK you need to write to the ministry for even a name, not sure of the level of difficulty or likelihood of the request being granted. In the USA, it depends on the state. Many you can get freely and anonymously from a 3rd party database.
criddell 9y ago
> Are there any privacy guards that can be applied to number plates that are effective in protecting you from being tracked? Not legal ones. The whole point of the number plate is as an identifier for the vehicle. I've been thinking about logging all the traffic down my street as a fun project as a way to learn OpenCV.
xkcd-sucks 9y ago
There are LCD license plate frames which go opaque/transparent when powered, for example http://www.ghostplate.com/mechanics/ http://www.ghostplate.com/mechanics/ (first google result for "lcd license plate frame"). Of course they're Very Illegal to use while driving.
TACIXAT 9y ago
Bike racks! I thought about doing an ALPR project for a while which got me to start looking at plates. I always laugh when I see a bike rack that totally obscures the view.

mmmBacon 9y ago

A great addition to this would be radar to track vehicle speeds. In my neighborhood we have an issue with jerks doing 50mph down our street(speed limit is 25mph) to bypass a traffic light on an adjacent street. Kids are often out and we've had a few near misses. Most of the offenders live nearby and I'd love a way to shame them into slowing down. The city is unable and unwilling to do any enforcement or install traffic calming on our street so we don't have any other options except moving.

criddell 9y ago
Would you need radar? If you have a camera pointed at the street, couldn't you use the distance traveled in successive frames to calculate a speed? If you already have one camera set up to record the tags, a second one should be easy to capture the speed.
- telot1 9y ago
  10 year veteran of the ITS industry here. It's not trivial to do camera speed recognition. You need to do ranging in addition to the video detection to know how far the vehicle is from the camera to accurately measure the speeds using movement between frames. These systems cost in the $10,000+ range, while a k-band doppler can be had for around $500. It's a no brainer to stick with the 1940's doppler technology ;)
  - ambicapter 9y ago
    Or could you just post two posts near the road in view of the camera with a known distance between them...
    - votingprawn 9y ago
      I wonder if you could even use road markings or kerb stones as your calibration to save the effort of measuring things out. I'm admittedly rather unqualified in this area (I don't even know what the ITS industry is!) but I have experience in estimating distances from video and calculating speeds from pixel displacement (particle image velocimetry) and at first pass it seems to me this would be a fairly straightforward problem to solve. Obviously radar or lidar would be preferable but a quick search for "OpenCV speed estimation" shows people having success with simple single <$50 camera setups.

dmitrygr 9y ago

When laws do not give you privacy, paintball guns will (see speed cameras in Chicago for examples of how citizenry will _rightly_ deal with this)

Harvey-Specter 9y ago
Why do you expect privacy on public roads?
- giarc 9y ago
  I think the issue is that if you are doing nothing wrong, why do they need to track your license plate and know when you come and go?
- TomMarius 9y ago
  Because I contributed for these roads.
  - Overtonwindow 9y ago
    Since the OP of this thread is new, they're probably trolling us, but giving benefit of the doubt for a moment, you have no right to privacy on public roads. Whether you paid for them or not is irrelevant. You could make that argument for state action, but not private. Just because you paid your taxes for that road doesn't stop me from recording your license plate, description, time and date of every time I've seen your car, the race, gender, etc. of your passengers, and posting that to the internet.
    - JabavuAdams 9y ago
      In the US. In other countries, they have different norms. Therefore, it's debatable.
    - TomMarius 9y ago
      In my country it's illegal since communism was overthrown. I'm not discussing the current legal status though. People should not be tracked on public property - property built from their own money.

neuronexmachina 9y ago

I've sometimes pondered what it would be like to have something like Sensor's license plate tracking, but using a car-mounted dashcam. Even with just one in every few thousand cars equipped, you could probably get pretty comprehensive location tracking of where particular cars were at a given time. There would be many uses for such a capability, both positive and negative to society.

turc1656 9y ago

Another big brother style invention. Wonderful. I'm sure they won't sell this info to the government at any point. My biggest issue, though, is the inequitable terms of tracking. If you live in a given neighborhood then you can opt out. Great. That gives those people preference. And treats everyone else as lesser citizens because they don't live there. We're talking about public spaces so there really shouldn't be any inequity. I think the company behind this sees the opt out ability for locals as the only way to make this palatable to people on a large scale. Also, how is "neighborhood" defined? I assume it's by them and has some radius or something like that. And I'm also fairly certain to opt out would require me creating an account and providing my name, address, and car info (at minimum). You want to record everything in public spaces? Fine, the law says you can do that so I respect that right. But that does not mean I am a fan of this by any stretch of the imagination. I feel like the real reason for this is something more nefarious they have planned later on - it could really be a way to finally track the remaining untrackables in our society who may be older and not have or use all the fancy tech we have today that tracks everything. It could also include people like myself that go to reasonable but not insane methods to circumvent tracking methods simply because I don't like to be tracked. There's really nothing I can do if they see me leave my house and drive to my friend's place and hang out there for 5 hours. Since I don't use social media they can't really connect that he and I are close friends without a tool like this. They can now make that association, which was previously near impossible to achieve.

jpollock 9y ago
In the US there are neighborhoods which are not freehold property, the owners are members in a Home Owner's Association (HOA). HOA's have significant powers, and are responsible for many things in the property, sometimes even roads and water. Gated communities fall into this class. So this camera would be targeting the HOA market, but not gated communities which have gates, locks and guards. Personally, I don't like HOAs, and I don't like private neighborhoods. To the point that I refuse to look at property with an HOA.
- turc1656 9y ago
  I also would never purchase an HOA property. They wield far too much power over what you can and cannot do with what you own and you can never leave the HOA as it is linked to the deed.

amelius 9y ago

Simple question: is this legal? Shouldn't there be a law against building databases containing other people's data?

Overtonwindow 9y ago
It's absolutely legal. Anything in public you can photograph, record, monitor, etc. A different question to ask is: Should this be legal when certain data points, such as a license plate number, are required to be public, and the state forces you to disclose these.
- Silhouette 9y ago
  In the US, perhaps. Privacy laws are weak there. In various other parts of the world, if this system works as described in the news articles then it's probably going to get eaten alive, possibly along with anyone deploying it.
- amelius 9y ago
  I'm not so sure. It's legal to walk next to somebody. It's not legal to stalk somebody. The latter is just a more elaborate version of the former. A similar thing can be said about taking photographs (which is legal) versus recording people's behavior in a database (akin to drag-net surveillance, which we do not trust the government with, let alone companies or individuals).
  - criddell 9y ago
    > which we do not trust the government with, let alone companies or individuals Actually, I think it's legal for individuals or companies but not for the government. For example, the government can't install surveillance cameras in a shopping mall, but the mall owner can. The government can't watch people shop in stores, but stores are installing cameras to track how people move through the store, what items they smile at, and what they finally buy. I was listening to a podcast recently where they were talking about a future where companies will drive around, pick up peoples trash, then process it to build a profile of the household. Because trash is fair game once you drop it off at the curb, they claimed there was nothing stopping anybody from doing this.

Overtonwindow 9y ago

This reminds me of the Burbclaves in the novel "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson. Looking at the exclusive neighborhoods and subdivisions around D.C. I can totally see this becoming a selling point, along with the gates, armed guards, etc. that already exist. Tie these sensors into a network and suddenly a wrong turn can get you put on a neighborhood "watch list" across the city.

IanCal 9y ago

Perhaps a different side to the comments already raised: Why did YC invest in this? Are there published ethical rules YC tries to follow?

Overtonwindow 9y ago
Why does YC invest in anything? I think it's because they see the potential to make money. I believe you are correct, there are YC ethical rules, but I don't think Sam and company have any qualms about violating those ethics for themselves, or even holding themselves to any ethics at all. If it makes money, they invest. Only when something bad happens do ethics suddenly become an issue.
- borisj 9y ago
  Ethics are just words that they claim to take seriously until money is involved. See: Peter Thiel.
garrettlangley 9y ago
IanCal, sorry you feel this way. Our goal is simply to help police do their job. Today, only 13% of crime is solved due to lack of evidence. We are trying to help drive that number to 100% and eliminate crime in our neighborhoods.
- blackguardx 9y ago
  What type of crime is your main target? Do you store video in addition to plate numbers? How accurate are your speed estimates at oblique angles? I think you are getting some pushback because a lot of neighborhood watch groups have a reputation for looking out for "wrong looking people." The Trayvon Martin case surely didn't help, either. Also, crime in the US is an all time low, but perception of crime is at an all time high. This is good for your product, but not for our society.
- Gargoyle 9y ago
  Surely you're aware of the tremendous potential for unethical uses. Do you have any concerns along those lines? Any steps to take to prevent it?

Dirlewanger 9y ago

As if pockets of sheltered NIMBYs just existing wasn't bad enough, let's now make tools for them to enforce their own mini-police state for their already-gated neighborhoods! The Big One™ that hits and sends all of Silicon Valley crashing into the Pacific can't come soon enough...

have_faith 9y ago

It doesn't track who is driving in your neighbourhood, it tracks who owns the car driving in your neighbourhood. A not so subtle difference. I don't want mob delivered justice based on bad data.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> It doesn't track who is driving in your neighbourhood, it tracks who owns the car driving in your neighbourhood. A not so subtle difference. Actually, it tracks who is the registered owner of the license plate numbers read off the vehicles driving in your area, which is subtly different from even what you describe.
- have_faith 9y ago
  Good point.

brightball 9y ago

As the president of an HOA, let me tell you...the residents here will be begging to get one of these.

garrettlangley 9y ago
drop us an email sales [at] flocksafety.com this is garrett (co-founder of Flock)

tyingq 9y ago

For the US, you can register a "somewhat anonymous" LLC in places like New Mexico, then register your vehicle in the name of the LLC. Unwinding who really owns the vehicle is still possible for government, though still not quick or automated. It would make it very difficult for private efforts like this one. Lot of work though.

jetti 9y ago

I'm interested in who owns the data after it is collected. Is it the company's or does it below to the person who is paying the $50/year? My hunch is that the company will retain rights over the data collected and it can become another source of income for them over time.

garrettlangley 9y ago
the neighborhood owns the data. we have zero plans to sell the data. our goal is to provide police with the evidence they need to solve crime. today only 13% of non-violent crime is solved. we think it should be 100%.
- Severian 9y ago
  Define "the neighborhood". I personally don't know more than three or four neighbors in my apartment complex. Who specifically is it then? I tend to believe you actually meant to type 'police precinct'. I applaud your sense of civic duty, but having a complete panopticon of all outside activities for an unobtainable goal of 100% seems absurd.
  - garrettlangley 9y ago
    Neighborhood = Homeowners association or civic association.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > the neighborhood owns the data. You keep using the word “neighborhood” as if it referred to a legal entity with a defined authority structure that can make decisions and own property. This is generally not the case, so it is apparent that this is being used as a sloppy, PR-friendly term for something else, like maybe an HOA. What specifically do you mean when you say “neighborhood”?

Animats 9y ago

"The data is only made available to 'neighbourhood leaders'" This is going to go over big in religious communities. Control-freak religions such as Scientology and Haredi Judaism will go for this. Both already operate sizable camera networks in areas where they have power.

froindt 9y ago
Oh goodness, and polygamist groups. TLC has an interesting show called escaping polygamy, where a few people (formerly in groups) help others escape. They're routinely followed when they drive into places like Colorado city. It would be so easy to track everyone in those cities. And that would really up the level of danger to those residents.

llsf 9y ago

I could actually consider such system for my neighborhood, but only if it is off-line (i.e. nobody can access the data, unless I decide to deposit some during a crime investigation). A bit like a ATM security camera. I would not mind to have the data being discarded after X days for instance. Since it is supposed to be used to make a case of crime, if no crime was reported there is no need to keep the data. Also, they would have to make sure that the data collected is receivable by the justice system. Otherwise it would be pointless.

garrettlangley 9y ago
llsf, great points. we let the neighborhood decide who has access and how access is granted. some neighborhoods give every resident unlimited access while others require a police report before logging in.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > we let the neighborhood decide who has access and how access is granted. “Neighborhoods” generally aren't legal entities that you can deal with this way. When you say “neighborhood” here, are you talking about an homeowners association (which is a very different thing than a “neighborhood”) or...what, exactly?
  - garrettlangley 9y ago
    Either Homeowners association or a Civic association. Both are legal entities.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

imcrs 9y ago

It was going to happen regardless, but it makes me deeply cynical to see this infrastructure going up in the folksy tone of "neighborhood safety." I guess to justify erecting yet another component of the massive surveillance apparatus, you have to have a startup-ey landing page and cool logo. I would prefer to see this announced on a dingy government website, or even signs on every corner stating "all movement is tracked" installed by bureaucratic decree. At least then we'd be honest with what we're creating.

iamatworknow 9y ago
These types of scanners already exist in your neighborhood, and probably have for a couple of years. The next time you're near a police car, look at the trunk. There will probably be three or four cameras pointing to the adjacent lanes. They look like this: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y7NgL5zbq3U/TER5EIjZ20I/AAAAAAAAAtk/8tbGe_LcJU4/s1600/0710_platereader2.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y7NgL5zbq3U/TER5EIjZ20I/AAAAAAAAAt...

glitcher 9y ago

A bit off-topic, but reminds me of the creative workarounds people tried when automated ticketing via speed cameras were first introduced in Arizona. One loophole was that if they weren't able to reasonably identify you in the traffic photo then the ticket wouldn't stand up in court. Some guy kept deliberately speeding by these cameras wearing a monkey mask: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-traffic/2017/02/03/phoenix-speed-photo-cams-driver-wears-monkey-mask-racks-up-37-tickets/97447212/ http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-traffic/20...

throw2016 9y ago

This is sketchy. The desire for absolute security can only end in a total surveillance state. This kind of surveillance makes a mockery of the concept of privacy and anonymity. Nor only is data collected but it is stored enabling profiling. The whole point of rule of law is to find common ground to temper out of control self interest. This is akin to stalking people going about their daily lives and should be illegal. Why is YC supporting this. Why is anyone supporting this? Unless you take a stand minute to minute surveillance of everyone's lives will become the new normal.

aivijay 9y ago

These are great ideas to monetize now. As it grows, it will be the same as its been happening with the big companies, like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo etc., where law enforcement will force to acquire these data and naturally as its a company which owns it, its going to turn up to be used to scrutinize anyone in the name of security etc., and privacy at all levels will be basically sold for money. These guys start snooping around and project its a great tool for safety. True there could be a fraction of safety around this. But at the end of the day its just about money and becomes another surveillance mechanism to monitor everyone which is bullshit and nonsense.

fuzzywalrus 9y ago

I like the false pretense for "neighborhood protection", when really this is a lowering bar for plate collection likely for more intrusive advertising. Even if you were able to pay cash or epay system obfuscate store purchases at a retailer, they could still nab your plates. Really, if a criminal were to drive in and loot a house in your neighborhood, what self respecting criminal wouldn't use dummy plates or a lifted car to commit robberies and at least some sort of identity obfuscation. Let's not pretend this is a noble invention. While out in public you may not have a right to privacy, there's certainly a level of general anonymity that most of us assume. While such plate reading technology has existed for some time, now it could be easily deployed by a overbearing ex-lover to know if/when person is home or worse, a hate group outside an abortion clinic. File this under war on privacy to further usher in a technocratic hellscape future.

659087 9y ago
Won't take long for plate data from this highly ethical YC startup to be used as blackmail/extortion material against someone who gets caught parking in the wrong driveway while their wife/husband is out of town.

infectoid 9y ago

I have a new product. It's called FlockOff. Basically it is a laser connected to a battery connected to a solar panel that shoot a high intensity beam of (UV? IR?) light directly at the Flock 24/7. Also available is the FlockOff Mini. This attaches to the plate on your car bathing it in IR light 24/7. Good times. Note: I don't actually know what I'm talking about here.

glennb 9y ago

I tried this with a working prototype and all about 3 years ago...I struggled with the retail bdev side as no one wanted it because of privacy issues and base monthly costs. I went over the use cases and market left and right, up and down, with not much success. I still have a system in operation in front of my business that has been online since June 2014

telot1 9y ago
Mind reaching out to me glennb? Curious how you went about it, and I might be able to help with a new market. Thanks! jp@slndrtech.com