8 ms·

When I worked in NYC (mid 2010s) we were on the top floor of our building and one day a service guy came through needing access to the roof from our suite. Tur

When I worked in NYC (mid 2010s) we were on the top floor of our building and one day a service guy came through needing access to the roof from our suite. Turns out he was there to update some cameras on the roof that pointed out to Union Square. I talked to him for a while, and while he wouldn't specifically say who owned them, he did say "they could read a business card from 300 yards away." This was probably before there was much facial recognition going on, but it stuck with me that we were only one of many buildings with these set ups. I always heard about London being over-surveilled, I guess the NYPD did a much better job of keeping quiet about it.

PaulWaldman 4y ago
>he wouldn't specifically say who owned them That sounds a little concerning. Was the implication that it was a government agency at some level?
- 14 4y ago
  Exactly. Why would you let a random person into your building if there was no answer who they worked for? Was it because they claimed to work for business and you blindly trusted they were doing what they said or did you have some heads up from your boss saying let them in? There must be more to this story or maybe op just didn’t care about random people entering and accessing equipment.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    It wasn't their building, it was clearly a building they rented a suite in. And, at a guess, the tech was let in because the landlord called and asked them to let the tech in.
  - swores 4y ago
    More likely the person telling the story isn't the person who authorised their access, and just happened to witness it / have a conversation about it.
  - rideontime 4y ago
    The parent comment did not claim to have let the person into the building themselves.
- TheFattestNinja 4y ago
  It's quite likely they had no idea. Easy to imagine a scenario where there is a company owning the building, one owning the cameras and maintenance, one owning the data/recording, all wrapped up in management partners mergers shells etc.
  - version_five 4y ago
    With government, unless it's an organization mature enough to do something deliberately covert, it's more likely theres so much bureaucracy to deal with that everybody knows who they are working for.
    - jkaplowitz 4y ago
      The NYPD does do deliberately covert things including counterintelligence. No information one way or another whether that’s true in this case.
      - Eumenes 4y ago
        there are a lot of rich foreign nationals in NYC, so its no surprise
    - emodendroket 4y ago
      The NYPD has covert operations not only all over the country but in many foreign countries so I'd say they're operating at a pretty high level of sophistication in that sense.
      - formerly_proven 4y ago
        Apparently referring to the “International Liaison Program” run by the “NYPD Intelligence Bureau“ which has only executive oversight and is funded by the “New York City Police Foundation” instead of the city itself.
        PaulWaldman 4y ago
- samstave 4y ago
  Cut the 'server hard line' and see who shows up!
samstave 4y ago
Resurrected a memory in me: Back in ~2002 I lived in San Jose, and my neighbor across from me was a satellite designer at Loral Space Systems... We often had the same "wash car in driveway" schedule - and I would ask him a bunch of questions about his work, which he couldnt talk about... But we had a system - I would ask yes/no questions and he would just wash his car - btu if he "waxed left" it was a yes, and if he "waxed right" it was a no... Now, I dont know how truthful he was, but I would ask about the resolution and size of the spy satts... and he indicated that, yes, they did in-fact have satellites that could read your license plate from space.
- neilv 4y ago
  If only you'd taught him wax on, wax off instead, now he'd know karate, instead of getting questioned by stern-looking people next week about security practices.
- godzillabrennus 4y ago
  Doesn’t surprise me. Maxar sells CNN photos where you can make out with reasonable clarity what is going on at the surface of the earth. The stuff the government has probably makes that look like a child’s attempt at satellite imagery.
- pc86 4y ago
  I totally believe they have satellites with this level of clarity, and probably did 20+ years ago as well. But how do you read a license plate at a 90° angle from space?
  - bhhaskin 4y ago
    The earth is round my dude.
    - bhhaskin 4y ago
      Here is a great example from the company planet: https://youtu.be/GPgU5OYpwCs https://youtu.be/GPgU5OYpwCs The angle changes as the satellite counties on its orbit.
n8cpdx 4y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Awareness_System https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Awareness_System
Arrath 4y ago
Reminds me of doing a site survey at a somewhat remote cell tower, prior to performing some expansion work. Was told there was sensitive, classified military communications equipment inside the shack at the base of the tower, and had to perform work carefully around it lest we damage something. Couldn't tell me what kind of vibrations etc I had to keep my equipment under, as those details were classified. While I was there, I watched a Verizon tech show up to fiddle with their equipment inside the shack, which happened to have the door frame somewhat out of square. The tech's solution to getting through the tight security door? Unlock it, then smash on it with a sledge hammer until it came loose and swung in. I guess the fragility memo hadn't gotten down the line to the service techs.
- mjevans 4y ago
  Seems logically like: They'll either fix their equipment or the frame next ticket if this is too much. In shared sites like that, infra should all have a clear and obvious owner to report issues to.
Tuna-Fish 4y ago
> I always heard about London being over-surveilled In London it's not the government that's spying on you. The reason there are so many cameras is that it was established policy for insurance companies give discounts if you have comprehensive camera coverage, and then digital cameras got so cheap that it's simply a great deal for any business owner to acquire enough cameras to surveil the entirety of their business and all the surroundings. And since there's often no co-ordination, if you are walking in Central London you are always in the field of view of at least half a dozen cameras with different owners. Of course, it did turn out to be very convenient to the police that if something happens, it almost certainly happened on video and they just have to go talk to all nearby business owners to get a copy of it.
- cutemonster 4y ago
  Sounds nice if the police doesn't have direct access to all cameras, but instead needs to talk with the nearby buildings. Some balance between capturing crime on camera, and not having a surveillance state -- from the so-many-cameras point of view. But I suppose there are things I don't know (and wouldn't like), related to this
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    If the cops can demand, rather than request, the video, that's not really a check or a balance on the surveillance state. All it functionally means is that collecting footage is not automated, and there is some small back flow of information about what is being looked at.
    - wwweston 4y ago
      Those may not be adequate checks, but they are checks, and personally I think it's worth worrying that the day could come when we'll look back with nostalgia on "not automated, and there is some small back flow of information about what is being looked at."
      - kennywinker 4y ago
RoyGBivCap 4y ago
I live in Portland and watching the Portland Police planes circle downtown all night with their data hidden on https://www.flightradar24.com/ https://www.flightradar24.com/, (but visible on https://globe.adsbexchange.com/ https://globe.adsbexchange.com/ (for now)) is a little unnerving. I have no clue what tech they have onboard, but I assume high res + night vision. It was every night last summer and I think most residents are completely unware that they're up there.
- n8cpdx 4y ago
  You can find the auditor’s report and learn more about how the ASU works. The cameras are 90s tech and not suitable for identifying individuals - just good enough to track the movement of someone they already know about. The plane is particularly useful for reducing the need for car chases. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tVI6fn4YGFo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tVI6fn4YGFo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j0jTuCj7Qeg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j0jTuCj7Qeg Auditor’s report link directly to air support unit info: https://www.portland.gov/audit-services/news/2022/4/6/police-intelligence-gathering-and-surveillance-better-management#toc-transparency-may-assuage-public-s-fear-of-airplane-surveillance- https://www.portland.gov/audit-services/news/2022/4/6/police...
tedunangst 4y ago
"they could read a business card from 300 yards away." What's the field of view?
- TomK32 4y ago
  Probably just the business card.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dionidium 4y ago
The wild aspect of this is that nothing seems to have come of it. If you had told me 20 years ago that eventually every single house would have cameras on their front door I'd have guessed that certain types of crime would drastically drop off in response. But in my neighborhood all the cameras mean is that there's video of the package theft or car break-in to post to the neighborhood group so that everybody can complain about it. It doesn't prevent the crime. It doesn't generate more arrests. It doesn't, as far as I can tell, do much of anything.
- tycho-newman 4y ago
  It lowers insurance premiums.
- MollyRealized 4y ago
  Part of that is that it seems the police are very reluctant to do their job. That is from secondhand anecdote, I'll give you, but I've seen several stories that people have related of bringing Find My results or video to the police only to have the police refuse to follow up on it.
- jimt1234 4y ago
  I've heard two differing explanations of this (all the cameras having no effect), one of them from a cop: 1. The police can't do anything with your home surveillance videos mainly because of the trustworthiness of the evidence, most of the videos don't clearly show the crook. But there's also the issue of authenticity, which will be a major issue in any court case. 2. Cops are lazy and arrogant. They don't want more work. They don't want a higher expectation of catching crooks. And they certainly don't want people telling them how to do their jobs. A lawyer told me #1. A cop told me #2.
  - amatecha 4y ago
    Yeah, the thing I've heard from a cop is to always say "oh, that looks like me, but that's not me". Apparently it's very difficult to prove a person in a video (particularly a grainy surveillance cam video) is a specific person. They apparently tend to rely on the person admitting it's them, and if they refuse, it's a real uphill battle and the footage is borderline useless. Dunno how accurate that is, just what I have heard from a police officer.
magicalist 4y ago
> he did say "they could read a business card from 300 yards away." Almost certainly made that up. You'd need a telescope mounted there to accomplish that. The mid-2010s video output would still be pretty bad, and you'd only be monitoring a FOV of maybe the width of a doorway or two, not anything like street-wide monitoring. Maybe this is why the NYPD's clearance rate is so low? Hyper advanced surveillance, as long as the criminal stands exactly where we're already looking?
- Retric 4y ago
  Normal zoom levels aren’t that useful from the top of a ~30 story buying. Looking down you’ll just see the top of people’s heads, and looking sideways means an even longer distance.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    You need a Samsung phone - they’ll add the detail you want.
- Teever 4y ago
  Are you sure about that? https://youtu.be/0Sx3rAdz2SA https://youtu.be/0Sx3rAdz2SA
  - Matheus28 4y ago
    A mountain is a little bigger than letters on a business card.
- mike_d 4y ago
  > Almost certainly made that up. You'd need a telescope mounted there to accomplish that. Which they very well might have had. Surveillance setups often pair a wide field of view "situational awareness" camera with an extremely high level optical zoom PTZ camera for getting things like license plates or seeing handoffs of items.

PaulWaldman 4y ago

>he wouldn't specifically say who owned them That sounds a little concerning. Was the implication that it was a government agency at some level?

14 4y ago
Exactly. Why would you let a random person into your building if there was no answer who they worked for? Was it because they claimed to work for business and you blindly trusted they were doing what they said or did you have some heads up from your boss saying let them in? There must be more to this story or maybe op just didn’t care about random people entering and accessing equipment.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  It wasn't their building, it was clearly a building they rented a suite in. And, at a guess, the tech was let in because the landlord called and asked them to let the tech in.
- swores 4y ago
  More likely the person telling the story isn't the person who authorised their access, and just happened to witness it / have a conversation about it.
- rideontime 4y ago
  The parent comment did not claim to have let the person into the building themselves.
TheFattestNinja 4y ago
It's quite likely they had no idea. Easy to imagine a scenario where there is a company owning the building, one owning the cameras and maintenance, one owning the data/recording, all wrapped up in management partners mergers shells etc.
- version_five 4y ago
  With government, unless it's an organization mature enough to do something deliberately covert, it's more likely theres so much bureaucracy to deal with that everybody knows who they are working for.
  - jkaplowitz 4y ago
    The NYPD does do deliberately covert things including counterintelligence. No information one way or another whether that’s true in this case.
    - Eumenes 4y ago
      there are a lot of rich foreign nationals in NYC, so its no surprise
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    The NYPD has covert operations not only all over the country but in many foreign countries so I'd say they're operating at a pretty high level of sophistication in that sense.
    - formerly_proven 4y ago
      Apparently referring to the “International Liaison Program” run by the “NYPD Intelligence Bureau“ which has only executive oversight and is funded by the “New York City Police Foundation” instead of the city itself.
      - PaulWaldman 4y ago
samstave 4y ago
Cut the 'server hard line' and see who shows up!

samstave 4y ago

Resurrected a memory in me: Back in ~2002 I lived in San Jose, and my neighbor across from me was a satellite designer at Loral Space Systems... We often had the same "wash car in driveway" schedule - and I would ask him a bunch of questions about his work, which he couldnt talk about... But we had a system - I would ask yes/no questions and he would just wash his car - btu if he "waxed left" it was a yes, and if he "waxed right" it was a no... Now, I dont know how truthful he was, but I would ask about the resolution and size of the spy satts... and he indicated that, yes, they did in-fact have satellites that could read your license plate from space.

neilv 4y ago
If only you'd taught him wax on, wax off instead, now he'd know karate, instead of getting questioned by stern-looking people next week about security practices.
godzillabrennus 4y ago
Doesn’t surprise me. Maxar sells CNN photos where you can make out with reasonable clarity what is going on at the surface of the earth. The stuff the government has probably makes that look like a child’s attempt at satellite imagery.
pc86 4y ago
I totally believe they have satellites with this level of clarity, and probably did 20+ years ago as well. But how do you read a license plate at a 90° angle from space?
- bhhaskin 4y ago
  The earth is round my dude.
  - bhhaskin 4y ago
    Here is a great example from the company planet: https://youtu.be/GPgU5OYpwCs https://youtu.be/GPgU5OYpwCs The angle changes as the satellite counties on its orbit.

n8cpdx 4y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Awareness_System https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Awareness_System

Arrath 4y ago

Reminds me of doing a site survey at a somewhat remote cell tower, prior to performing some expansion work. Was told there was sensitive, classified military communications equipment inside the shack at the base of the tower, and had to perform work carefully around it lest we damage something. Couldn't tell me what kind of vibrations etc I had to keep my equipment under, as those details were classified. While I was there, I watched a Verizon tech show up to fiddle with their equipment inside the shack, which happened to have the door frame somewhat out of square. The tech's solution to getting through the tight security door? Unlock it, then smash on it with a sledge hammer until it came loose and swung in. I guess the fragility memo hadn't gotten down the line to the service techs.

mjevans 4y ago
Seems logically like: They'll either fix their equipment or the frame next ticket if this is too much. In shared sites like that, infra should all have a clear and obvious owner to report issues to.

Tuna-Fish 4y ago

> I always heard about London being over-surveilled In London it's not the government that's spying on you. The reason there are so many cameras is that it was established policy for insurance companies give discounts if you have comprehensive camera coverage, and then digital cameras got so cheap that it's simply a great deal for any business owner to acquire enough cameras to surveil the entirety of their business and all the surroundings. And since there's often no co-ordination, if you are walking in Central London you are always in the field of view of at least half a dozen cameras with different owners. Of course, it did turn out to be very convenient to the police that if something happens, it almost certainly happened on video and they just have to go talk to all nearby business owners to get a copy of it.

cutemonster 4y ago
Sounds nice if the police doesn't have direct access to all cameras, but instead needs to talk with the nearby buildings. Some balance between capturing crime on camera, and not having a surveillance state -- from the so-many-cameras point of view. But I suppose there are things I don't know (and wouldn't like), related to this
- kennywinker 4y ago
  If the cops can demand, rather than request, the video, that's not really a check or a balance on the surveillance state. All it functionally means is that collecting footage is not automated, and there is some small back flow of information about what is being looked at.
  - wwweston 4y ago
    Those may not be adequate checks, but they are checks, and personally I think it's worth worrying that the day could come when we'll look back with nostalgia on "not automated, and there is some small back flow of information about what is being looked at."
    - kennywinker 4y ago

RoyGBivCap 4y ago

I live in Portland and watching the Portland Police planes circle downtown all night with their data hidden on https://www.flightradar24.com/ https://www.flightradar24.com/, (but visible on https://globe.adsbexchange.com/ https://globe.adsbexchange.com/ (for now)) is a little unnerving. I have no clue what tech they have onboard, but I assume high res + night vision. It was every night last summer and I think most residents are completely unware that they're up there.

n8cpdx 4y ago
You can find the auditor’s report and learn more about how the ASU works. The cameras are 90s tech and not suitable for identifying individuals - just good enough to track the movement of someone they already know about. The plane is particularly useful for reducing the need for car chases. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tVI6fn4YGFo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tVI6fn4YGFo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j0jTuCj7Qeg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j0jTuCj7Qeg Auditor’s report link directly to air support unit info: https://www.portland.gov/audit-services/news/2022/4/6/police-intelligence-gathering-and-surveillance-better-management#toc-transparency-may-assuage-public-s-fear-of-airplane-surveillance- https://www.portland.gov/audit-services/news/2022/4/6/police...

tedunangst 4y ago

"they could read a business card from 300 yards away." What's the field of view?

TomK32 4y ago
Probably just the business card.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dionidium 4y ago

The wild aspect of this is that nothing seems to have come of it. If you had told me 20 years ago that eventually every single house would have cameras on their front door I'd have guessed that certain types of crime would drastically drop off in response. But in my neighborhood all the cameras mean is that there's video of the package theft or car break-in to post to the neighborhood group so that everybody can complain about it. It doesn't prevent the crime. It doesn't generate more arrests. It doesn't, as far as I can tell, do much of anything.

tycho-newman 4y ago
It lowers insurance premiums.
MollyRealized 4y ago
Part of that is that it seems the police are very reluctant to do their job. That is from secondhand anecdote, I'll give you, but I've seen several stories that people have related of bringing Find My results or video to the police only to have the police refuse to follow up on it.
jimt1234 4y ago
I've heard two differing explanations of this (all the cameras having no effect), one of them from a cop: 1. The police can't do anything with your home surveillance videos mainly because of the trustworthiness of the evidence, most of the videos don't clearly show the crook. But there's also the issue of authenticity, which will be a major issue in any court case. 2. Cops are lazy and arrogant. They don't want more work. They don't want a higher expectation of catching crooks. And they certainly don't want people telling them how to do their jobs. A lawyer told me #1. A cop told me #2.
- amatecha 4y ago
  Yeah, the thing I've heard from a cop is to always say "oh, that looks like me, but that's not me". Apparently it's very difficult to prove a person in a video (particularly a grainy surveillance cam video) is a specific person. They apparently tend to rely on the person admitting it's them, and if they refuse, it's a real uphill battle and the footage is borderline useless. Dunno how accurate that is, just what I have heard from a police officer.

magicalist 4y ago

> he did say "they could read a business card from 300 yards away." Almost certainly made that up. You'd need a telescope mounted there to accomplish that. The mid-2010s video output would still be pretty bad, and you'd only be monitoring a FOV of maybe the width of a doorway or two, not anything like street-wide monitoring. Maybe this is why the NYPD's clearance rate is so low? Hyper advanced surveillance, as long as the criminal stands exactly where we're already looking?

Retric 4y ago
Normal zoom levels aren’t that useful from the top of a ~30 story buying. Looking down you’ll just see the top of people’s heads, and looking sideways means an even longer distance.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  You need a Samsung phone - they’ll add the detail you want.
Teever 4y ago
Are you sure about that? https://youtu.be/0Sx3rAdz2SA https://youtu.be/0Sx3rAdz2SA
- Matheus28 4y ago
  A mountain is a little bigger than letters on a business card.
mike_d 4y ago
> Almost certainly made that up. You'd need a telescope mounted there to accomplish that. Which they very well might have had. Surveillance setups often pair a wide field of view "situational awareness" camera with an extremely high level optical zoom PTZ camera for getting things like license plates or seeing handoffs of items.