8 ms·

> 4. ADT 2.0: Digital neighborhood watch. That this is not only a market, but a "wish" which seems to get traction even here on HN confirms to me that the old

> 4. ADT 2.0: Digital neighborhood watch. That this is not only a market, but a "wish" which seems to get traction even here on HN confirms to me that the old joke "1984 is not a manual" is more relevant than ever, and scarily not only in regards to the usual suspects, corporate and nation states, but people themselves. Can anyone explain to me why anyone would advocate a profit-driven, systematic eradication of soul and character around each and every human residence? Why would you trade the vibrancy of your young urban block or the sense of trust and community in your suburb against prevention of low-impact black-swan events like serial packet thiefs? Why would you surrender your home, not only your safe haven in life but also your gateway to low effort exploration of your surroundings to wide-spanning AI surveillance and automated purge of any nuisance? Maybe I am just weird or out of touch but I can absolutely not get in my head how people surrender to such a dull dystopia based on an apparent fetish for weaponized gossip and abnormal levels of fear of petty crimes...

umvi 7y ago
1984 is only a manual if the state or federal government implements it. If an HOA implements it, I don't see how that is 1984. If I turn my house into my own surveillance state, that's not 1984 either, that's me automating tedious things like looking out the window for suspicious characters or events.
- bjelkeman-again 7y ago
  > only if government implements it I suspect that if a non-government implementation becomes widespread the authorities will require access. A bit like grabbing the feeds from Facebook etc.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  There's good odds that the HOA won't home-grow this - I'm sure that if this product did exist, it'd either come from or end up being scooped up by one of the usual suspects of the information gathering and advertising age. I don't think that corporations helpfully defining what sort of crime was committed for the local HOA is any less dystopian, it just makes it potentially more subtle.
- slg 7y ago
  The problem is that in a capitalist society, the surveillance options that provide the best combination of price and feature set are likely going to come from a company that has other revenue streams such as connecting all those cameras together and monetizing the entire customer network. Enter Ring.
- blackbrokkoli 7y ago
  Fully agreeing within your premise. Digitalizing the grandman standing at her window 25/7 does not change the world. But you missed the part where not you (or your HOA) implements it: > Services model. Part of the purchase includes a technician showing up and doing the installation. There would be no DIY component. > Subscription only. The product would be a hardware/software/services bundle with an up front fee and ongoing subscription as default. So, you have scale. Someone owns all the data. Or three companies, same difference. The state of the "art" security in this sector is beyond laughable (Xiamoi camera showing feed from other peoples camera [0]) and even if not, just buy the dataset. And then the real shit begins. Give me that dataset of say 20% of the Americans and a decent laptop and I blow Cambridge and their silly facebook data out of the water. Recognizing people gets ridiculously easy - instead of 7 billion people I only have to identify you out of maybe 100 persons frequenting an area. Cue all the low hanging fruits like your affairs, about all disabilities affecting gait, your bedtime regularity. Let me assume the role of a big store chain: I can not only see plants and garden equipment you buy, but also how you use it and how often you break stuff or let your grass grow brown. Nice! All these habits, unfiltered, unlike in the internets! How regular is your daily routine? Are you up to some risks due to little sunlight and sport? Your insurer would like to know! Your other insurer would also like to know, should you be considered a traffic risk considering how angry you take your driveway sometimes? But your other insurer has already pattern matched: Is probably an anger management issue. Your future job interviewer thanks you for this red flag! But hey, you did avoid getting your electric pepper mill stolen that one time, probably! [0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/01/cache-issue-causes-xiaomi-cameras-to-show-other-peoples-camera-feeds/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/01/cache-issue-causes-x...
- ksdale 7y ago
  Since HOAs are much less capable of doing violence to people, it's certainly not as harmful for them to implement this technology as it is for the state to do so, but I think the impulse to view every single person passing through the neighborhood as a potential threat can create a very dystopian vibe. There's always a house or two for sale in our neighborhood, and naturally people will slowly drive by the houses to check them out, and without fail, someone will post on the HOA FB page to watch out for such and such sketchy vehicle. The house we bought was vacant for a short time and some kids came along and threw rocks at some of the windows, but for a few weeks after we bought the house, people would ask us if we knew about the "break-in." We live in one of the nicest neighborhoods I've ever seen and it's some combination of the news and technology like this that makes people think they're about to get Purged every night. I don't think the technology is the problem so much as the attitude it creates toward the world, and I think the technology can be quite useful, but when everyone believes it is necessary, it creates a 1984 vibe without government intervention. No government involvement is necessary for us to be suspicious and mean toward each other.
  - ctdonath 7y ago
    Less capable of violence, yes, but still able to low-level terrorize or cause serious financial problems.
    - ksdale 7y ago
      Yeah I agree, I thought the parent overstated the difference between governments and HOAs. A lot of HOAs are basically just the very local-est of local government, being responsible for roads and utilities, even approximating some functions of super small town law enforcement in the form of that guy who open carries really conspicuously.
- ctdonath 7y ago
  HOAs are practically incorporated hamlets - local governments. There is a government (board) which imposes taxed (dues) and imposes zoning & other laws (rules), and can impose debilitating punishments (liens) against subjects (residents). Some are little more than friendly neighbors trying to keep neighborhood home values stable, others are wannabe tyrannical dictatorships. I could certainly see an HOA installing (increasingly cheap!) license plate & face recognition to monitor local activity "for security reasons"; seems innocuous enough if actually used sparingly to help police solve real crimes, but could quickly become obnoxious/oppressive when meddling board members with hyperactive imaginations start "looking for trouble before it starts". Yes, "HOA going 1984" is not full blown 1984, but it can terrorize & harm locals until they manage to move (i.e.: persuade someone else to move into a place locals are fleeing for reasons), and if less problematic still proceeds to normalize progression of 1984-ish governance.
  - gnopgnip 7y ago
    HOAs in most states cannot issue liens for unpaid fines, only for unpaid dues or assessments.
    - ctdonath 7y ago
      Some form of enforcement must be available to the HOA. Otherwise I'd sow wheat in my yard and raise a gaggle of chickens starting tomorrow.
      - umvi 7y ago
        My neighbors (Maryland) have had a broken down car in front of their house for 2 years now. I see HOA violation notices on it every once in a while threatening to get it towed if they don't fix it, but nothing ever comes of it.
        ctdonath 7y ago
        And every year we see news stories of HOAs inducing foreclosures etc on owners for $10 late dues, flying national flag, or painting a porch the wrong shade of white. Gov't/HOA involvement & enforcement varies wildly. This subthread regards those thinking "1984" was a good idea.
skosch 7y ago
I'm with you, but then again I currently live in a nice neighbourhood where something like "serial packet thiefs" are considered a "low-impact black-swan event", as you say. Not everyone is so lucky, and I'd wager that many folks would be happy to "automatically purge nuisances" if all it costs them is some sidewalk privacy. I would certainly make that trade-off if I lived in a dodgier environment.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  I'd rather people actually got involved in their neighborhoods and formed or joined a real Neighborhood Watch group, rather than letting some AI handle it badly, or outsource it to some faceless company. At least if your neighbors screw it up, there is an avenue of redress. Plus, outside of TV shows, few bad things come from neighbors getting involved in their neighborhood.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
bfung 7y ago
In China, this already happened with smart cameras everywhere to monitor traffic and people. It’s only a matter of time other sensors are added. And only a small slippery slope away from a US city gov/municipality to think it’s a good idea to install for the whole community. When 5g comes online...
- reaperducer 7y ago
  In China, this already happened with smart cameras everywhere to monitor traffic and people And once the Chinese market starts to look saturated, the companies that make these systems will target Western governments. Hard.
tclancy 7y ago
It's one of the gaps/ downsides to tech development. We see anything not yet in existence in as an "underserved market", design a product and assume everyone thinks like we do. The whole time I was reading that section all I heard was, "Let's move from individual neighbor racism tools to group chat!"
- munmaek 7y ago
  That's pretty much what NextDoor is for my neighborhood.
zone411 7y ago
Ask that to one of the ~6 million victims of burglaries per year (2.5 mil burglaries/year). How are those black swan events? How are they low impact?
- blackbrokkoli 7y ago
  What can a start-up driven cloud mass surveilance do in that regard what a 1950-tech alarm system can not? Why not look into the countless measures other nations with far less crime or individuals have successfuly done which coincidentally also are not opening an attack surface for sinister activities as large as Alaska?
  - bokbok8379 7y ago
    >What can a start-up driven cloud mass surveillance do in that regard what a 1950-tech alarm system can not? One word: tranquilizer dart
scarejunba 7y ago
Because the normal result of this for people isn't that they have to go perform two minutes hate or praise Big Brother; it's that their packages don't get stolen. And the downside? Nothing. In fact, the expression of "I could be watched at any time but no one will" is a greater expression of trust. People live their lives very differently from the universe you're talking about. They enforce things through trust networks. My friends and I have Find my Friends access to each other. That's right. If I wanted I could sit there and spy on one of them. But she knows I won't. I know I won't. That's how a sense of trust works.
- blackbrokkoli 7y ago
  Well, 300 million people are currently living under an administration whose election was most likely heavily influenced by mass data collection and analysis. Nobody cares if you and your friend read each others diaries or whatever. The problem is the metaphorical diary being owned by a global entity, along with two billion other diaries. Locked behind shoddy security and regarded as sellable for the right price at any point in time. As a German I was thoroughly (and rightfully IMO) teached to treat the opinion of "haha personally I just don't look further than a few meters beyond my nose and the world looks quite fine now" as danger, not as an excuse and your statement are falls quite clearly in that category. Just because you don't see nothing doesn't mean nothing is happening.
  - bart_spoon 7y ago
    > 300 million people are currently living under an administration whose election was most likely heavily influenced by mass data collection and analysis There’s has been little to no evidence any of the data collection/analysis done by the Trump campaign influenced anyone.
  - scarejunba 7y ago
    It doesn't have to be sellable and it doesn't have to be shoddy security. Those don't come inherently with the product. Nothing inherently wrong with mass data collection and analysis and nothing inherently wrong with an election being heavily influenced by that. If there were falsehoods advertised then the problem is the falsehoods.
amatecha 7y ago
Sadly, this seems to be literally already happening, right? Nest and Wyze home surveillance cams, etc... all cloud-based... :\
munificent 7y ago
I agree with your overall point. However: > low-impact black-swan events like serial packet thiefs? I live in Seattle. Package theft is a white swan event here. Everyone I know has had packages stolen. Most people are forced to come up with some strategy to deal with it: get things shipped to work, use Amazon lockers, get a camera on your porch and make sure to bring the package inside as soon as it shows up, etc. You are right that materially it is a low-impact event. However, psychologically it isn't. It sucks having shit stolen from in front of your own home. It immediately undermines that "sense of trust and community" you mention. My home no longer feels like a sanctuary, and random people ambling down my street no longer feel like friendly neighbors. Any of them could be a thief scoping out porches and the evidence is clear that at least some of them are. It is a maddeningly disempowering feeling to know that I am unable to prevent someone from stealing shit from my own property. Worse, I know the police won't do a thing about it either. I literally have video of the dude grabbing shit off my porch, but can do nothing about it. I think it is that feeling of helplnessness that leads people to buy security systems.
- gradstudent 7y ago
  Do US postal services offer a shipping option where you need to sign for the parcel? I'd try and opt for something like that, if possible, rather than trusting the courier to leave the package on my doorstep. What I'm saying is, the problem isn't people stealing your packages. It's that you leave valuable property outside. Perhaps a good analogy is locking your door.
  - RussianCow 7y ago
    They do, but the sender would have to pay extra for a signature requirement, so this is not something the receiver can do anything about.
- arrosenberg 7y ago
  > I literally have video of the dude grabbing shit off my porch, but can do nothing about it. In that case, what is the security system really doing for you?
trevyn 7y ago
>Can anyone explain to me why anyone would advocate a profit-driven, systematic eradication of soul and character around each and every human residence? The more money you make, the more effort you spend cementing your position and systematically eradicating soul and character. See: Gated communities.
bredren 7y ago
I played with this idea some with a startup called Perch, which intended to turn old smartphones into security cameras or modern webcams. While some users were interested in deterring crime, others just like to watch webcams. Sometimes weird and noteworthy stuff happens, though I found not nearly often enough. Also low-cost application specific cameras like wyze emerged that were easier to setup than old phones. Anyhow, Petty crimes are currently very interesting to people to catch in this sort of age of online shaming. This is evidenced by the stolen package bomb videos. Importantly, adding more surveillance does not mean you can go out now and not assume you're being recorded or that your actions in public might turn up on a social network. We passed this as an assumption years ago. However, it is still possible to do terrible things in broad daylight and get away with it. We had, I believe two unsolved daytime pedestrian hit and runs in inner Portland in December! Hard to imagine but there is still relatively low or even no useful video coverage in some areas. And it isn't always a great thing. https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/e5kr7q/woman_and_dog_injured_by_hitandrun_driver_while/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/e5kr7q/woman_and_...
- blackbrokkoli 7y ago
  > I played with this idea some with a startup called Perch, which intended to turn old smartphones into security cameras or modern webcams. > Petty crimes are currently very interesting to people to catch in this sort of age of online shaming. This is evidenced by the stolen package bomb videos. I hope you do not take this as a personal attack, but I consider this line of thinking...well, fucked up. Just because an idea is remotely viable in an economic sense it seems to be instantly within the Overton window of serious consideration. > However, it is still possible to do terrible things in broad daylight and get away with it. Like manipulating the self-assigned greatest democracy in the world as a foreign actor via, you guessed it, mass surveillance and analysis. I would rather prevent that instead of pleasing some digital mop and peoples craving for "vengeance" on criminals, but oh well.
  - bredren 7y ago
    I don't have a single one of the 26M views of Porch Pirate vs. Glitter Bomb Trap 2.0 on youtube. To take your comment personally would be the equivalent of being mad people like Marvel movies. As for ideas remotely viable in economic sense, that's the only way black swans are born. That's startups. They're remotely viable until they're entirely new engines of economic activity. I'm not really sure what the rest of your comment is driving at. I've worked both sides of privacy of both consumer and enterprise products and realized sometimes "good" products made by good people protect and help "bad" guys too. Things are not all one way or another.
coldtea 7y ago
>Why would you trade the vibrancy of your young urban block or the sense of trust and community in your suburb against prevention of low-impact black-swan events like serial packet thiefs? It's a big and a privileged assumption that the worse that happens in neighbours is "low-impact black-swan events like serial packet thiefs" or that otherwise they resemble a "vibrant young urban block".
enobrev 7y ago
I wholeheartedly agree with this. I bought a house with a front porch, and for three seasons of the year my wife and I sit out there almost every day. It's mind-blowing to me how few of our neighbors sit in front of their houses. They're all nice. They say hello as they walk their dogs and strollers. But then they go back inside and hide from the world. Not many packages get taken on my block, though they seem to on others. I'm not saying it's because of us, but I assume being outside and neighborly helps. It seems we've collectively lost that sense somehow.
bart_spoon 7y ago
> systematic eradication of soul and character around each and every human residence? Why would you trade the vibrancy of your young urban block or the sense of trust and community in your suburb against prevention of low-impact black-swan events like serial packet thiefs? Why would the “soul” and “vibrancy” of a neighborhood die with some kind of digital neighborhood watch? Seems like a flawed premise. There’s also something to be said about the hypocrisy of accusing others of having abnormal levels of fear of crimes that occur every day, while assuming that your neighbors installing a security camera on their porch will inevitably lead to a surveillance state dystopia on par with 1984.
- vageli 7y ago
  > > systematic eradication of soul and character around each and every human residence? Why would you trade the vibrancy of your young urban block or the sense of trust and community in your suburb against prevention of low-impact black-swan events like serial packet thiefs? > Why would the “soul” and “vibrancy” of a neighborhood die with some kind of digital neighborhood watch? Seems like a flawed premise. People act very differently when they are being filmed. Go to the nearest largest city and start filming passerby in an obvious fashion. People will not appreciate it and act differently towards you (likely visibly hostile). That reaction supports the notion that something of value is lost when you blanket-surveil a society.
  - tomlagier 7y ago
    > People act very differently when they are being filmed. Go to the nearest largest city and start filming passerby in an obvious fashion. People will not appreciate it and act differently towards you (likely visibly hostile). That reaction supports the notion that something of value is lost when you blanket-surveil a society. I don't agree with this premise. People act very differently _when they don't know why they are being filmed_. (Almost) every retail store in the world has had CCTV for 40 years now and people are not alarmed. They know why the filming is happening - as a deterrent to theft. I'd argue that the same principle applies to dashcams, stoplight cameras, helmet cams on bicycles, and, yes, porch or doorbell cams. Once you start filming people _without_ an obvious reason, then they start acting differently.
oh_sigh 7y ago
How do security cameras remove the "vibrancy of your young urban block" or "the sense of trust and community in your suburb"? Do the locks on your door accomplish the same incredible feat?
- blackbrokkoli 7y ago
  No, because my lock does not monitor? You can seriously not see how the the entanglement of psychological effects of being watched, mob justice, alienation, gossip, public shaming and threatening and first and foremost real or imagined social scoring breeds dull monoculture?
  - oh_sigh 7y ago
    Security cameras generally don't actively monitor either - they merely record and let someone go back and look at the footage if they feel there is a reason to So you list every possible bad thing that possibly could happen, and that is reason enough to not even bother with something? Have these horror scenarios played out in any place that actually is heavily surveiled? Are there no young vibrant urban blocks in London? No sense of trust in Islington?
- wDcBKgt66V8WDs 7y ago
  There are gentrifying city streets that I, a white male, will not walk down because the entire street is new construction with builder included Ring systems. I don't want to walk down a street and have literally 30 people get notifications on their phones that I'm there. I can't imagine how the local PoC that are getting pushed back feel about that. Existing neighborhood watch networks already have people crying wolf at the smallest things. This is how the culture of the area dies.
  - oh_sigh 7y ago
    I guarantee you whatever route you take in a city, you will fall under the gaze of at least one security camera. It doesn't appear you have any evidence for your viewpoints, just vague fears, topped off with a standard appeal of "what about PoCs?"
hinkley 7y ago
If you buy or rent an old enough house you might still have the vestiges of a coal chute somewhere on the side of the house. Unfortunately, I don't think today you could leave that much external access for a 'package chute'. Amazon tried to solve this by making your front door the package chute. And we laughed and laughed. Maybe there's something in between, but it's not as simple a solution as replacing the doorknob and lock.
gumby 7y ago
Such a system could be designed in a privacy-preserving fashion which might be a customer-valued property. Even better if it could avoid the toxic crap fed by Nextdoor. For example: I considered writing an app that verified that a caller did indeed work for the company they claimed (have a facial recognition digest, send to company, get a thumb up/down, then discard the local data on thumb up). There’s nothing to stop me from remembering the faces of people I’ve met; what’s creepy is that the machines know essentially everybody’s face. But the opposite can be true to: we could make machines that discard everything inessential. There’s just no customer demand for that yet.
z3t4 7y ago
Its difficult to argue against safety. For some people there are no pros and cons, just black or white. 10% more safety vs 0% more safety. They dont want to do hard work to solve the problem. They just want short time fixes of the symptoms.
scubbo 7y ago
I completely agree with most of your point, but "black-swan events like serial packet thieves" made me laugh. Checking in from San Francisco, where over 50% of the packages that I had delivered to my home (wherein the package delivery area is behind a locked grill-door!) were stolen in the first two weeks after I moved there. I have shipped everything to my work since then.

umvi 7y ago

1984 is only a manual if the state or federal government implements it. If an HOA implements it, I don't see how that is 1984. If I turn my house into my own surveillance state, that's not 1984 either, that's me automating tedious things like looking out the window for suspicious characters or events.

bjelkeman-again 7y ago
> only if government implements it I suspect that if a non-government implementation becomes widespread the authorities will require access. A bit like grabbing the feeds from Facebook etc.
SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
There's good odds that the HOA won't home-grow this - I'm sure that if this product did exist, it'd either come from or end up being scooped up by one of the usual suspects of the information gathering and advertising age. I don't think that corporations helpfully defining what sort of crime was committed for the local HOA is any less dystopian, it just makes it potentially more subtle.
slg 7y ago
The problem is that in a capitalist society, the surveillance options that provide the best combination of price and feature set are likely going to come from a company that has other revenue streams such as connecting all those cameras together and monetizing the entire customer network. Enter Ring.
blackbrokkoli 7y ago
Fully agreeing within your premise. Digitalizing the grandman standing at her window 25/7 does not change the world. But you missed the part where not you (or your HOA) implements it: > Services model. Part of the purchase includes a technician showing up and doing the installation. There would be no DIY component. > Subscription only. The product would be a hardware/software/services bundle with an up front fee and ongoing subscription as default. So, you have scale. Someone owns all the data. Or three companies, same difference. The state of the "art" security in this sector is beyond laughable (Xiamoi camera showing feed from other peoples camera [0]) and even if not, just buy the dataset. And then the real shit begins. Give me that dataset of say 20% of the Americans and a decent laptop and I blow Cambridge and their silly facebook data out of the water. Recognizing people gets ridiculously easy - instead of 7 billion people I only have to identify you out of maybe 100 persons frequenting an area. Cue all the low hanging fruits like your affairs, about all disabilities affecting gait, your bedtime regularity. Let me assume the role of a big store chain: I can not only see plants and garden equipment you buy, but also how you use it and how often you break stuff or let your grass grow brown. Nice! All these habits, unfiltered, unlike in the internets! How regular is your daily routine? Are you up to some risks due to little sunlight and sport? Your insurer would like to know! Your other insurer would also like to know, should you be considered a traffic risk considering how angry you take your driveway sometimes? But your other insurer has already pattern matched: Is probably an anger management issue. Your future job interviewer thanks you for this red flag! But hey, you did avoid getting your electric pepper mill stolen that one time, probably! [0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/01/cache-issue-causes-xiaomi-cameras-to-show-other-peoples-camera-feeds/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/01/cache-issue-causes-x...
ksdale 7y ago
Since HOAs are much less capable of doing violence to people, it's certainly not as harmful for them to implement this technology as it is for the state to do so, but I think the impulse to view every single person passing through the neighborhood as a potential threat can create a very dystopian vibe. There's always a house or two for sale in our neighborhood, and naturally people will slowly drive by the houses to check them out, and without fail, someone will post on the HOA FB page to watch out for such and such sketchy vehicle. The house we bought was vacant for a short time and some kids came along and threw rocks at some of the windows, but for a few weeks after we bought the house, people would ask us if we knew about the "break-in." We live in one of the nicest neighborhoods I've ever seen and it's some combination of the news and technology like this that makes people think they're about to get Purged every night. I don't think the technology is the problem so much as the attitude it creates toward the world, and I think the technology can be quite useful, but when everyone believes it is necessary, it creates a 1984 vibe without government intervention. No government involvement is necessary for us to be suspicious and mean toward each other.
- ctdonath 7y ago
  Less capable of violence, yes, but still able to low-level terrorize or cause serious financial problems.
  - ksdale 7y ago
    Yeah I agree, I thought the parent overstated the difference between governments and HOAs. A lot of HOAs are basically just the very local-est of local government, being responsible for roads and utilities, even approximating some functions of super small town law enforcement in the form of that guy who open carries really conspicuously.
ctdonath 7y ago
HOAs are practically incorporated hamlets - local governments. There is a government (board) which imposes taxed (dues) and imposes zoning & other laws (rules), and can impose debilitating punishments (liens) against subjects (residents). Some are little more than friendly neighbors trying to keep neighborhood home values stable, others are wannabe tyrannical dictatorships. I could certainly see an HOA installing (increasingly cheap!) license plate & face recognition to monitor local activity "for security reasons"; seems innocuous enough if actually used sparingly to help police solve real crimes, but could quickly become obnoxious/oppressive when meddling board members with hyperactive imaginations start "looking for trouble before it starts". Yes, "HOA going 1984" is not full blown 1984, but it can terrorize & harm locals until they manage to move (i.e.: persuade someone else to move into a place locals are fleeing for reasons), and if less problematic still proceeds to normalize progression of 1984-ish governance.
- gnopgnip 7y ago
  HOAs in most states cannot issue liens for unpaid fines, only for unpaid dues or assessments.
  - ctdonath 7y ago
    Some form of enforcement must be available to the HOA. Otherwise I'd sow wheat in my yard and raise a gaggle of chickens starting tomorrow.
    - umvi 7y ago
      My neighbors (Maryland) have had a broken down car in front of their house for 2 years now. I see HOA violation notices on it every once in a while threatening to get it towed if they don't fix it, but nothing ever comes of it.
      - ctdonath 7y ago
        And every year we see news stories of HOAs inducing foreclosures etc on owners for $10 late dues, flying national flag, or painting a porch the wrong shade of white. Gov't/HOA involvement & enforcement varies wildly. This subthread regards those thinking "1984" was a good idea.

skosch 7y ago

I'm with you, but then again I currently live in a nice neighbourhood where something like "serial packet thiefs" are considered a "low-impact black-swan event", as you say. Not everyone is so lucky, and I'd wager that many folks would be happy to "automatically purge nuisances" if all it costs them is some sidewalk privacy. I would certainly make that trade-off if I lived in a dodgier environment.

reaperducer 7y ago
I'd rather people actually got involved in their neighborhoods and formed or joined a real Neighborhood Watch group, rather than letting some AI handle it badly, or outsource it to some faceless company. At least if your neighbors screw it up, there is an avenue of redress. Plus, outside of TV shows, few bad things come from neighbors getting involved in their neighborhood.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

bfung 7y ago

In China, this already happened with smart cameras everywhere to monitor traffic and people. It’s only a matter of time other sensors are added. And only a small slippery slope away from a US city gov/municipality to think it’s a good idea to install for the whole community. When 5g comes online...

reaperducer 7y ago
In China, this already happened with smart cameras everywhere to monitor traffic and people And once the Chinese market starts to look saturated, the companies that make these systems will target Western governments. Hard.

tclancy 7y ago

It's one of the gaps/ downsides to tech development. We see anything not yet in existence in as an "underserved market", design a product and assume everyone thinks like we do. The whole time I was reading that section all I heard was, "Let's move from individual neighbor racism tools to group chat!"

munmaek 7y ago
That's pretty much what NextDoor is for my neighborhood.

zone411 7y ago

Ask that to one of the ~6 million victims of burglaries per year (2.5 mil burglaries/year). How are those black swan events? How are they low impact?

blackbrokkoli 7y ago
What can a start-up driven cloud mass surveilance do in that regard what a 1950-tech alarm system can not? Why not look into the countless measures other nations with far less crime or individuals have successfuly done which coincidentally also are not opening an attack surface for sinister activities as large as Alaska?
- bokbok8379 7y ago
  >What can a start-up driven cloud mass surveillance do in that regard what a 1950-tech alarm system can not? One word: tranquilizer dart

scarejunba 7y ago

Because the normal result of this for people isn't that they have to go perform two minutes hate or praise Big Brother; it's that their packages don't get stolen. And the downside? Nothing. In fact, the expression of "I could be watched at any time but no one will" is a greater expression of trust. People live their lives very differently from the universe you're talking about. They enforce things through trust networks. My friends and I have Find my Friends access to each other. That's right. If I wanted I could sit there and spy on one of them. But she knows I won't. I know I won't. That's how a sense of trust works.

blackbrokkoli 7y ago
Well, 300 million people are currently living under an administration whose election was most likely heavily influenced by mass data collection and analysis. Nobody cares if you and your friend read each others diaries or whatever. The problem is the metaphorical diary being owned by a global entity, along with two billion other diaries. Locked behind shoddy security and regarded as sellable for the right price at any point in time. As a German I was thoroughly (and rightfully IMO) teached to treat the opinion of "haha personally I just don't look further than a few meters beyond my nose and the world looks quite fine now" as danger, not as an excuse and your statement are falls quite clearly in that category. Just because you don't see nothing doesn't mean nothing is happening.
- bart_spoon 7y ago
  > 300 million people are currently living under an administration whose election was most likely heavily influenced by mass data collection and analysis There’s has been little to no evidence any of the data collection/analysis done by the Trump campaign influenced anyone.
- scarejunba 7y ago
  It doesn't have to be sellable and it doesn't have to be shoddy security. Those don't come inherently with the product. Nothing inherently wrong with mass data collection and analysis and nothing inherently wrong with an election being heavily influenced by that. If there were falsehoods advertised then the problem is the falsehoods.

amatecha 7y ago

Sadly, this seems to be literally already happening, right? Nest and Wyze home surveillance cams, etc... all cloud-based... :\

munificent 7y ago

I agree with your overall point. However: > low-impact black-swan events like serial packet thiefs? I live in Seattle. Package theft is a white swan event here. Everyone I know has had packages stolen. Most people are forced to come up with some strategy to deal with it: get things shipped to work, use Amazon lockers, get a camera on your porch and make sure to bring the package inside as soon as it shows up, etc. You are right that materially it is a low-impact event. However, psychologically it isn't. It sucks having shit stolen from in front of your own home. It immediately undermines that "sense of trust and community" you mention. My home no longer feels like a sanctuary, and random people ambling down my street no longer feel like friendly neighbors. Any of them could be a thief scoping out porches and the evidence is clear that at least some of them are. It is a maddeningly disempowering feeling to know that I am unable to prevent someone from stealing shit from my own property. Worse, I know the police won't do a thing about it either. I literally have video of the dude grabbing shit off my porch, but can do nothing about it. I think it is that feeling of helplnessness that leads people to buy security systems.

gradstudent 7y ago
Do US postal services offer a shipping option where you need to sign for the parcel? I'd try and opt for something like that, if possible, rather than trusting the courier to leave the package on my doorstep. What I'm saying is, the problem isn't people stealing your packages. It's that you leave valuable property outside. Perhaps a good analogy is locking your door.
- RussianCow 7y ago
  They do, but the sender would have to pay extra for a signature requirement, so this is not something the receiver can do anything about.
arrosenberg 7y ago
> I literally have video of the dude grabbing shit off my porch, but can do nothing about it. In that case, what is the security system really doing for you?

trevyn 7y ago

>Can anyone explain to me why anyone would advocate a profit-driven, systematic eradication of soul and character around each and every human residence? The more money you make, the more effort you spend cementing your position and systematically eradicating soul and character. See: Gated communities.

bredren 7y ago

I played with this idea some with a startup called Perch, which intended to turn old smartphones into security cameras or modern webcams. While some users were interested in deterring crime, others just like to watch webcams. Sometimes weird and noteworthy stuff happens, though I found not nearly often enough. Also low-cost application specific cameras like wyze emerged that were easier to setup than old phones. Anyhow, Petty crimes are currently very interesting to people to catch in this sort of age of online shaming. This is evidenced by the stolen package bomb videos. Importantly, adding more surveillance does not mean you can go out now and not assume you're being recorded or that your actions in public might turn up on a social network. We passed this as an assumption years ago. However, it is still possible to do terrible things in broad daylight and get away with it. We had, I believe two unsolved daytime pedestrian hit and runs in inner Portland in December! Hard to imagine but there is still relatively low or even no useful video coverage in some areas. And it isn't always a great thing. https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/e5kr7q/woman_and_dog_injured_by_hitandrun_driver_while/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/e5kr7q/woman_and_...

blackbrokkoli 7y ago
> I played with this idea some with a startup called Perch, which intended to turn old smartphones into security cameras or modern webcams. > Petty crimes are currently very interesting to people to catch in this sort of age of online shaming. This is evidenced by the stolen package bomb videos. I hope you do not take this as a personal attack, but I consider this line of thinking...well, fucked up. Just because an idea is remotely viable in an economic sense it seems to be instantly within the Overton window of serious consideration. > However, it is still possible to do terrible things in broad daylight and get away with it. Like manipulating the self-assigned greatest democracy in the world as a foreign actor via, you guessed it, mass surveillance and analysis. I would rather prevent that instead of pleasing some digital mop and peoples craving for "vengeance" on criminals, but oh well.
- bredren 7y ago
  I don't have a single one of the 26M views of Porch Pirate vs. Glitter Bomb Trap 2.0 on youtube. To take your comment personally would be the equivalent of being mad people like Marvel movies. As for ideas remotely viable in economic sense, that's the only way black swans are born. That's startups. They're remotely viable until they're entirely new engines of economic activity. I'm not really sure what the rest of your comment is driving at. I've worked both sides of privacy of both consumer and enterprise products and realized sometimes "good" products made by good people protect and help "bad" guys too. Things are not all one way or another.

coldtea 7y ago

>Why would you trade the vibrancy of your young urban block or the sense of trust and community in your suburb against prevention of low-impact black-swan events like serial packet thiefs? It's a big and a privileged assumption that the worse that happens in neighbours is "low-impact black-swan events like serial packet thiefs" or that otherwise they resemble a "vibrant young urban block".

enobrev 7y ago

I wholeheartedly agree with this. I bought a house with a front porch, and for three seasons of the year my wife and I sit out there almost every day. It's mind-blowing to me how few of our neighbors sit in front of their houses. They're all nice. They say hello as they walk their dogs and strollers. But then they go back inside and hide from the world. Not many packages get taken on my block, though they seem to on others. I'm not saying it's because of us, but I assume being outside and neighborly helps. It seems we've collectively lost that sense somehow.

bart_spoon 7y ago

> systematic eradication of soul and character around each and every human residence? Why would you trade the vibrancy of your young urban block or the sense of trust and community in your suburb against prevention of low-impact black-swan events like serial packet thiefs? Why would the “soul” and “vibrancy” of a neighborhood die with some kind of digital neighborhood watch? Seems like a flawed premise. There’s also something to be said about the hypocrisy of accusing others of having abnormal levels of fear of crimes that occur every day, while assuming that your neighbors installing a security camera on their porch will inevitably lead to a surveillance state dystopia on par with 1984.

vageli 7y ago
> > systematic eradication of soul and character around each and every human residence? Why would you trade the vibrancy of your young urban block or the sense of trust and community in your suburb against prevention of low-impact black-swan events like serial packet thiefs? > Why would the “soul” and “vibrancy” of a neighborhood die with some kind of digital neighborhood watch? Seems like a flawed premise. People act very differently when they are being filmed. Go to the nearest largest city and start filming passerby in an obvious fashion. People will not appreciate it and act differently towards you (likely visibly hostile). That reaction supports the notion that something of value is lost when you blanket-surveil a society.
- tomlagier 7y ago
  > People act very differently when they are being filmed. Go to the nearest largest city and start filming passerby in an obvious fashion. People will not appreciate it and act differently towards you (likely visibly hostile). That reaction supports the notion that something of value is lost when you blanket-surveil a society. I don't agree with this premise. People act very differently _when they don't know why they are being filmed_. (Almost) every retail store in the world has had CCTV for 40 years now and people are not alarmed. They know why the filming is happening - as a deterrent to theft. I'd argue that the same principle applies to dashcams, stoplight cameras, helmet cams on bicycles, and, yes, porch or doorbell cams. Once you start filming people _without_ an obvious reason, then they start acting differently.

oh_sigh 7y ago

How do security cameras remove the "vibrancy of your young urban block" or "the sense of trust and community in your suburb"? Do the locks on your door accomplish the same incredible feat?

blackbrokkoli 7y ago
No, because my lock does not monitor? You can seriously not see how the the entanglement of psychological effects of being watched, mob justice, alienation, gossip, public shaming and threatening and first and foremost real or imagined social scoring breeds dull monoculture?
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  Security cameras generally don't actively monitor either - they merely record and let someone go back and look at the footage if they feel there is a reason to So you list every possible bad thing that possibly could happen, and that is reason enough to not even bother with something? Have these horror scenarios played out in any place that actually is heavily surveiled? Are there no young vibrant urban blocks in London? No sense of trust in Islington?
wDcBKgt66V8WDs 7y ago
There are gentrifying city streets that I, a white male, will not walk down because the entire street is new construction with builder included Ring systems. I don't want to walk down a street and have literally 30 people get notifications on their phones that I'm there. I can't imagine how the local PoC that are getting pushed back feel about that. Existing neighborhood watch networks already have people crying wolf at the smallest things. This is how the culture of the area dies.
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  I guarantee you whatever route you take in a city, you will fall under the gaze of at least one security camera. It doesn't appear you have any evidence for your viewpoints, just vague fears, topped off with a standard appeal of "what about PoCs?"

hinkley 7y ago

If you buy or rent an old enough house you might still have the vestiges of a coal chute somewhere on the side of the house. Unfortunately, I don't think today you could leave that much external access for a 'package chute'. Amazon tried to solve this by making your front door the package chute. And we laughed and laughed. Maybe there's something in between, but it's not as simple a solution as replacing the doorknob and lock.

gumby 7y ago

Such a system could be designed in a privacy-preserving fashion which might be a customer-valued property. Even better if it could avoid the toxic crap fed by Nextdoor. For example: I considered writing an app that verified that a caller did indeed work for the company they claimed (have a facial recognition digest, send to company, get a thumb up/down, then discard the local data on thumb up). There’s nothing to stop me from remembering the faces of people I’ve met; what’s creepy is that the machines know essentially everybody’s face. But the opposite can be true to: we could make machines that discard everything inessential. There’s just no customer demand for that yet.

z3t4 7y ago

Its difficult to argue against safety. For some people there are no pros and cons, just black or white. 10% more safety vs 0% more safety. They dont want to do hard work to solve the problem. They just want short time fixes of the symptoms.

scubbo 7y ago

I completely agree with most of your point, but "black-swan events like serial packet thieves" made me laugh. Checking in from San Francisco, where over 50% of the packages that I had delivered to my home (wherein the package delivery area is behind a locked grill-door!) were stolen in the first two weeks after I moved there. I have shipped everything to my work since then.