8 ms·

Seattle Surveillance Technologies Up for Public Review

153 points by markovbot 8y ago

jak92 8y ago
Great idea. I wish more local governments had this. Lots of cities are acquiring surveillance without pols even knowing.
- schoen 8y ago
  As the page notes, this is a result of a surveillance transparency ordinance adopted in 2017. Some other cities are considering these; readers could advocate for them elsewhere too.
debatem1 8y ago
As someone who was raised in the south I find the competence of Seattle's city government absolutely amazing. It's night-and-day different from the learned helplessness of city governments elsewhere in the US.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  For whatever it's worth, it's not just the South. I live in Wisconsin and a lot of our city governments are not even half as competent as the city governments you probably have in the South. (Of course, I guess I don't really know how bad it gets down there so I shouldn't say that? But it's pretty bad up here is my point.) That said, yeah, Seattle is something else altogether in terms of governance. What's funny is that people from Seattle would probably complain about their city government... until they tried to live somewhere else for a little while.
  - komali2 8y ago
    My life took me from Wisconsin to South Carolina to Texas to San Francisco, as well as abroad, so I've seen the gamut. Government in places like Wisconsin, SC, rural Texas are so comically incompetent it's no wonder there's so much anti-government or libertarian sentiment out there. When you have to dig your own well because the muni can't sort getting clean water piped to you, you may not realize that that's precisely what taxes are supposed to be paying for. When you have to homeschool your kids cause the local schools aren't even good enough to be classified as day care, you may wonder what the purpose of the Department of Education is. God damn am I glad I got the fuck out of those places. I wish I could be more patriotic but as an ex rural-american, I confidently say rural America is fucked and hopeless. Feel free to argue otherwise because I'd love to be able to cling to hope again.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      It seems these places prove the old saying about groups that claim that government is incompetent and when they come in power, they prove it.
    - pathseeker 8y ago
      >God damn am I glad I got the fuck out of those places. I wish I could be more patriotic but as an ex rural-american, I confidently say rural America is fucked and hopeless. Feel free to argue otherwise because I'd love to be able to cling to hope again. If it makes you feel any better, most of the cities are fucked as well if you aren't rich enough to get into good school districts. Rural areas just throw it in your face because there is no bypass for rich/upper middle-class people.
  - existencebox 8y ago
    Chiming in as a seattelite having spent significant time in Baltimore, Philly, and Colorado: We do some things rather well (Transparency, not entirely atrophied ability to enact infrastructure progress, reasonable decent levels of participation without rampant nimbyism, govt. not entirely compromised by special interest groups/corruption) and some things much less well. (Transit/road funding, communication with our constituencies (Although this could just be my own experiences), growth planning, Marijuana legalization, cryptocurrency policy) I don't think you should sell short the people who would complain about their govts, "there are worse elsewhere" always struck me as vacuous as the "Starving children in africa" argument; the fact that places like Flint exist doesn't make me happier at seeing building firms lobby for reduced contributions to e.g. sewage costs. In politics I've found there's usually something worth complaining about, and it's our impetus as citizens to be attentive and stay on top of it :) (I optimistically hope we complain because we, or at least I, am never going to think "well I can't improve it more." If we complained and never did anything about it, _THEN_ I think we'd deserve the jab)
    - loeg 8y ago
      Did the city have much power over marijuana policy? It seems like that was mostly the state legislature, no?
      - existencebox 8y ago
        You're entirely right. I was, laxly, overlapping county/city/state legislature, since they all have some amount of impact on your day to day. (Transportation, another of my example, at least in my county, is largely being hamstrung due to a trickle down of "lack of fed funding so lack of state funding so lack of city funding so ...")
    - mediaman 8y ago
      Lack of transit funding no longer rings true. The area just funded $50 billion in one of the most ambitious public transit expansion projects in the country, with heavy expansion of the train network. This is after an expansion still completing to grow its rail network. (Granted, it should have happened earlier, but this criticism seems less valid now than 20 years ago.) And SPD stopped enforcing marijuana laws well before the state legalized it. It was classified as "the lowest possible enforcement priority". And then, last year, Seattle vacated all misdemeanor marijuana charges from prior to legalization. Seattle, overall, seems reasonably well-managed. I think City Council gets up to antics now and then - they nearly lost $12 million in federal funds because of some political grandstanding in December - but the staff who actually run the city seem to do a good job. Sometimes the level of effort to communicate and involve citizens slows down needed progress, such as the upzoning efforts designed to increase density, but they would get criticized for not doing that too.
- sphinxpy 8y ago
  Speaking as another southerner, I can't agree more. Looking at how Seattle is doing it vs how it works down here made me jealous. The place I live is under intense investigation for its confidential informant practices that are leading to people being framed and convicted for crimes they didn't commit. The use of surveillance here is something we should be worried about as it could and probably is being used in this process. That said, I have had family in multiple southern states who were law enforcement officers for generations and I can say that transparency will come here last due to an ingrained culture within many law enforcement agencies here. Sadly, we probably need it more than anywhere.
- wil421 8y ago
  I’m in Atlanta and specifically in DeKalb County. The politicians are extremely corrupt and only care about themeselves. The former City of Atlanta mayor will hopefully face charges soon[1], someone in his office was indicted for taking bribes. A former Dekalb sheriff is in jail for hiring a hit man to kill the guy who was running against him[2]. Not to mention former CEOs of Dekalb county are in jail. Yes a county with a CEO, that tells you a lot. Alothught the current CEO appears to be different and is cracking down on corruption, time will tell. [1]https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/atlanta-corruption-probe-seeks-former-mayor-kasim-reed-records/n3QX9qewXcz3LASI1uVxEN https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/atlanta-corrup... [2]https://www.ajc.com/news/local/years-ago-dekalb-sheriff-had-his-political-rival-murdered/7nukL76ETsFQDxIOPegZHL/ https://www.ajc.com/news/local/years-ago-dekalb-sheriff-had-... [3]https://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/dekalb-ceo-burrell-ellis-released-from-prison-early/EL4aPBhv7eBAQjlAS8qy3K/ https://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/dekalb-ceo-burrell-ellis...
  - ethbro 8y ago
    The thing about Atlanta has always been how screwed up our metro counties are [1]. Unincorporated DeKalb is a prime example of this -- a lot of money, and county politics is the easiest way to get ahold of it. That said, Atlanta as a whole has also managed to mostly teeter its way through racism and economic inequality better than other large southern cities, largely through economic-political compromises [2]. So there's something to be said for a little political corruption. [1] https://southernspaces.org/sites/default/files/images/2015/pooley-m007-medianvalue-lg.png https://southernspaces.org/sites/default/files/images/2015/p... [2] Initially the turn-of-the-century Atlanta compromise, in which African Americans submitted to white political rule, in exchange for economic and some educational opportunities. And then the 1970s+ compromise, whereby white businesses agreed to cede political power to African Americans as long as businesses weren't overly interfered with by government.
- rbritton 8y ago
  I'm not entirely sure what I'd call it, but competent is not the word. Seattle has a history of attempting to push constitutionally-questionable and ill-thought legislation. 0: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-playing-wait-and-see-with-income-tax-on-the-wealthy/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-p... 1: https://q13fox.com/2018/05/08/seattles-proposed-employee-tax-highest-head-tax-in-the-nation/ https://q13fox.com/2018/05/08/seattles-proposed-employee-tax... 2: https://patch.com/washington/seattle/seattle-residents-jolted-new-sugar-tax https://patch.com/washington/seattle/seattle-residents-jolte... 3: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-to-add-tax-on-gun-ammunition-sales/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-t... and so on.
  - debatem1 8y ago
    I get that you don't like taxes, but policy disagreement is not evidence of incompetence.
    - wang_li 8y ago
      How about them buying new trains that don't fit the tracks and maintenance barns? https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/seattles-new-streetcars-may-be-too-big-to-fit-tracks-maintenance-barn/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sea...
    - blang 8y ago
      With the head tax, it was hard to say there was not incompetence or at least gross miscalculation. The city council passed the tax, the mayor signed it, and then less than a month later it was repealed. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/about-face-seattle-city-council-repeals-head-tax-amid-pressure-from-big-businesses/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/about-fac...
    - barsonme 8y ago
      There's much more that's not just not liking taxes. - https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/12-million-per-mile-for-a-bike-lane-that-should-trigger-a-civic-heart-attack/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/12-millio... - https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/like-terrain-for-a-jeep-obstacle-course-the-enduring-mystery-of-why-seattle-cant-fix-its-roads/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/like-terr... Or see the city council's total failure at dealing with homelessness. Or their 180 on the head tax.
- m0zg 8y ago
  Really? People who run the city with the third largest homeless population in the US are "competent"?
samstave 8y ago
Another city that forces private companies to provide them surveillance data is menlo park.
jdavis703 8y ago
Seattle uses WiFi MAC addresses to track traffic movements. While the data is currently hashed and anonymized, it wouldn't surprise me if this data is eventually processed and combined with CV technology (specifically license plate readers and facial recognition tech) to provide detailed information on the movements of individuals. From one of their documents: Acyclica technology collects encrypted media access control (MAC) address information and sends the data to the cloud using their RoadTrend Sensor. This sensor is a proprietary Linux-based device that is discreetly installed inside of traffic control cabinets for SDOT. The devices are Ethernet connected and have a Wi-Fi adapter capturing the MAC addresses of all devices within its range. Using the detection of MAC addresses, Acyclica identifies and differentiates vehicle movement as it approaches, stops and leaves an intersection. When Wi-Fi enabled device comes within range, the sensor generates a one-way hash code from the detected device’s MAC address (using a SHA-256 algorithm). Only the hash codes are transmitted to their cloud server, and there is no way to reverse this process and access addresses of the original devices. From the aggregated data, Acyclica can extract and provide actionable traffic related information to SDOT.
- clairity 8y ago
  this is one of the reasons why the wifi button in the ios control center slide-in sheet is so infuriating. at the very least, that button should be tri-mode, so i can turn the wifi radio off rather than just disconnecting from the current wifi ap. otherwise, it leaks location data all over the place.
  - Klonoar 8y ago
    In this particular case, I believe you don't need to worry too much. iOS (since iOS8, I think?) randomizes WiFI MAC addresses to avoid this kind of tracking. Android doesn't.
    - clairity 8y ago
      ah yes, i dimly remember hearing about that but forgot. do you know the parameters around this feature? for instance, how often the mac is rotated and what triggers rotation?
withhighprod 8y ago
Wow almost all positive comments. Impressive
gsreenivas 8y ago
This public review isn't be accident. For several years, an advocacy group that I was involved with briefly helped with achieving important milestones like a getting a chief privacy officer and a privacy advisory committee.

153 points by markovbot 8y ago

Great idea. I wish more local governments had this. Lots of cities are acquiring surveillance without pols even knowing.

schoen 8y ago
As the page notes, this is a result of a surveillance transparency ordinance adopted in 2017. Some other cities are considering these; readers could advocate for them elsewhere too.

debatem1 8y ago

As someone who was raised in the south I find the competence of Seattle's city government absolutely amazing. It's night-and-day different from the learned helplessness of city governments elsewhere in the US.

bilbo0s 8y ago
For whatever it's worth, it's not just the South. I live in Wisconsin and a lot of our city governments are not even half as competent as the city governments you probably have in the South. (Of course, I guess I don't really know how bad it gets down there so I shouldn't say that? But it's pretty bad up here is my point.) That said, yeah, Seattle is something else altogether in terms of governance. What's funny is that people from Seattle would probably complain about their city government... until they tried to live somewhere else for a little while.
- komali2 8y ago
  My life took me from Wisconsin to South Carolina to Texas to San Francisco, as well as abroad, so I've seen the gamut. Government in places like Wisconsin, SC, rural Texas are so comically incompetent it's no wonder there's so much anti-government or libertarian sentiment out there. When you have to dig your own well because the muni can't sort getting clean water piped to you, you may not realize that that's precisely what taxes are supposed to be paying for. When you have to homeschool your kids cause the local schools aren't even good enough to be classified as day care, you may wonder what the purpose of the Department of Education is. God damn am I glad I got the fuck out of those places. I wish I could be more patriotic but as an ex rural-american, I confidently say rural America is fucked and hopeless. Feel free to argue otherwise because I'd love to be able to cling to hope again.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    It seems these places prove the old saying about groups that claim that government is incompetent and when they come in power, they prove it.
  - pathseeker 8y ago
    >God damn am I glad I got the fuck out of those places. I wish I could be more patriotic but as an ex rural-american, I confidently say rural America is fucked and hopeless. Feel free to argue otherwise because I'd love to be able to cling to hope again. If it makes you feel any better, most of the cities are fucked as well if you aren't rich enough to get into good school districts. Rural areas just throw it in your face because there is no bypass for rich/upper middle-class people.
- existencebox 8y ago
  Chiming in as a seattelite having spent significant time in Baltimore, Philly, and Colorado: We do some things rather well (Transparency, not entirely atrophied ability to enact infrastructure progress, reasonable decent levels of participation without rampant nimbyism, govt. not entirely compromised by special interest groups/corruption) and some things much less well. (Transit/road funding, communication with our constituencies (Although this could just be my own experiences), growth planning, Marijuana legalization, cryptocurrency policy) I don't think you should sell short the people who would complain about their govts, "there are worse elsewhere" always struck me as vacuous as the "Starving children in africa" argument; the fact that places like Flint exist doesn't make me happier at seeing building firms lobby for reduced contributions to e.g. sewage costs. In politics I've found there's usually something worth complaining about, and it's our impetus as citizens to be attentive and stay on top of it :) (I optimistically hope we complain because we, or at least I, am never going to think "well I can't improve it more." If we complained and never did anything about it, _THEN_ I think we'd deserve the jab)
  - loeg 8y ago
    Did the city have much power over marijuana policy? It seems like that was mostly the state legislature, no?
    - existencebox 8y ago
      You're entirely right. I was, laxly, overlapping county/city/state legislature, since they all have some amount of impact on your day to day. (Transportation, another of my example, at least in my county, is largely being hamstrung due to a trickle down of "lack of fed funding so lack of state funding so lack of city funding so ...")
  - mediaman 8y ago
    Lack of transit funding no longer rings true. The area just funded $50 billion in one of the most ambitious public transit expansion projects in the country, with heavy expansion of the train network. This is after an expansion still completing to grow its rail network. (Granted, it should have happened earlier, but this criticism seems less valid now than 20 years ago.) And SPD stopped enforcing marijuana laws well before the state legalized it. It was classified as "the lowest possible enforcement priority". And then, last year, Seattle vacated all misdemeanor marijuana charges from prior to legalization. Seattle, overall, seems reasonably well-managed. I think City Council gets up to antics now and then - they nearly lost $12 million in federal funds because of some political grandstanding in December - but the staff who actually run the city seem to do a good job. Sometimes the level of effort to communicate and involve citizens slows down needed progress, such as the upzoning efforts designed to increase density, but they would get criticized for not doing that too.
sphinxpy 8y ago
Speaking as another southerner, I can't agree more. Looking at how Seattle is doing it vs how it works down here made me jealous. The place I live is under intense investigation for its confidential informant practices that are leading to people being framed and convicted for crimes they didn't commit. The use of surveillance here is something we should be worried about as it could and probably is being used in this process. That said, I have had family in multiple southern states who were law enforcement officers for generations and I can say that transparency will come here last due to an ingrained culture within many law enforcement agencies here. Sadly, we probably need it more than anywhere.
wil421 8y ago
I’m in Atlanta and specifically in DeKalb County. The politicians are extremely corrupt and only care about themeselves. The former City of Atlanta mayor will hopefully face charges soon[1], someone in his office was indicted for taking bribes. A former Dekalb sheriff is in jail for hiring a hit man to kill the guy who was running against him[2]. Not to mention former CEOs of Dekalb county are in jail. Yes a county with a CEO, that tells you a lot. Alothught the current CEO appears to be different and is cracking down on corruption, time will tell. [1]https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/atlanta-corruption-probe-seeks-former-mayor-kasim-reed-records/n3QX9qewXcz3LASI1uVxEN https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/atlanta-corrup... [2]https://www.ajc.com/news/local/years-ago-dekalb-sheriff-had-his-political-rival-murdered/7nukL76ETsFQDxIOPegZHL/ https://www.ajc.com/news/local/years-ago-dekalb-sheriff-had-... [3]https://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/dekalb-ceo-burrell-ellis-released-from-prison-early/EL4aPBhv7eBAQjlAS8qy3K/ https://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/dekalb-ceo-burrell-ellis...
- ethbro 8y ago
  The thing about Atlanta has always been how screwed up our metro counties are [1]. Unincorporated DeKalb is a prime example of this -- a lot of money, and county politics is the easiest way to get ahold of it. That said, Atlanta as a whole has also managed to mostly teeter its way through racism and economic inequality better than other large southern cities, largely through economic-political compromises [2]. So there's something to be said for a little political corruption. [1] https://southernspaces.org/sites/default/files/images/2015/pooley-m007-medianvalue-lg.png https://southernspaces.org/sites/default/files/images/2015/p... [2] Initially the turn-of-the-century Atlanta compromise, in which African Americans submitted to white political rule, in exchange for economic and some educational opportunities. And then the 1970s+ compromise, whereby white businesses agreed to cede political power to African Americans as long as businesses weren't overly interfered with by government.
rbritton 8y ago
I'm not entirely sure what I'd call it, but competent is not the word. Seattle has a history of attempting to push constitutionally-questionable and ill-thought legislation. 0: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-playing-wait-and-see-with-income-tax-on-the-wealthy/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-p... 1: https://q13fox.com/2018/05/08/seattles-proposed-employee-tax-highest-head-tax-in-the-nation/ https://q13fox.com/2018/05/08/seattles-proposed-employee-tax... 2: https://patch.com/washington/seattle/seattle-residents-jolted-new-sugar-tax https://patch.com/washington/seattle/seattle-residents-jolte... 3: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-to-add-tax-on-gun-ammunition-sales/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-t... and so on.
- debatem1 8y ago
  I get that you don't like taxes, but policy disagreement is not evidence of incompetence.
  - wang_li 8y ago
    How about them buying new trains that don't fit the tracks and maintenance barns? https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/seattles-new-streetcars-may-be-too-big-to-fit-tracks-maintenance-barn/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sea...
  - blang 8y ago
    With the head tax, it was hard to say there was not incompetence or at least gross miscalculation. The city council passed the tax, the mayor signed it, and then less than a month later it was repealed. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/about-face-seattle-city-council-repeals-head-tax-amid-pressure-from-big-businesses/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/about-fac...
  - barsonme 8y ago
    There's much more that's not just not liking taxes. - https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/12-million-per-mile-for-a-bike-lane-that-should-trigger-a-civic-heart-attack/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/12-millio... - https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/like-terrain-for-a-jeep-obstacle-course-the-enduring-mystery-of-why-seattle-cant-fix-its-roads/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/like-terr... Or see the city council's total failure at dealing with homelessness. Or their 180 on the head tax.
m0zg 8y ago
Really? People who run the city with the third largest homeless population in the US are "competent"?

samstave 8y ago

Another city that forces private companies to provide them surveillance data is menlo park.

jdavis703 8y ago

Seattle uses WiFi MAC addresses to track traffic movements. While the data is currently hashed and anonymized, it wouldn't surprise me if this data is eventually processed and combined with CV technology (specifically license plate readers and facial recognition tech) to provide detailed information on the movements of individuals. From one of their documents: Acyclica technology collects encrypted media access control (MAC) address information and sends the data to the cloud using their RoadTrend Sensor. This sensor is a proprietary Linux-based device that is discreetly installed inside of traffic control cabinets for SDOT. The devices are Ethernet connected and have a Wi-Fi adapter capturing the MAC addresses of all devices within its range. Using the detection of MAC addresses, Acyclica identifies and differentiates vehicle movement as it approaches, stops and leaves an intersection. When Wi-Fi enabled device comes within range, the sensor generates a one-way hash code from the detected device’s MAC address (using a SHA-256 algorithm). Only the hash codes are transmitted to their cloud server, and there is no way to reverse this process and access addresses of the original devices. From the aggregated data, Acyclica can extract and provide actionable traffic related information to SDOT.

clairity 8y ago
this is one of the reasons why the wifi button in the ios control center slide-in sheet is so infuriating. at the very least, that button should be tri-mode, so i can turn the wifi radio off rather than just disconnecting from the current wifi ap. otherwise, it leaks location data all over the place.
- Klonoar 8y ago
  In this particular case, I believe you don't need to worry too much. iOS (since iOS8, I think?) randomizes WiFI MAC addresses to avoid this kind of tracking. Android doesn't.
  - clairity 8y ago
    ah yes, i dimly remember hearing about that but forgot. do you know the parameters around this feature? for instance, how often the mac is rotated and what triggers rotation?

withhighprod 8y ago

Wow almost all positive comments. Impressive

gsreenivas 8y ago

This public review isn't be accident. For several years, an advocacy group that I was involved with briefly helped with achieving important milestones like a getting a chief privacy officer and a privacy advisory committee.