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I would love to watch a shorter version of this video that just discussed the deltas between the status quo and Flock, rather than breathlessly reporting the im

by tptacek 11mo ago

I would love to watch a shorter version of this video that just discussed the deltas between the status quo and Flock, rather than breathlessly reporting the implications of cameras as if they were distinctive to Flock. He'll spend 30 seconds talking about how you can see every activity and every person on the camera --- yeah, that's how cameras work. There are thousands of public IP cameras on the Internet, aimed at intersections, public streets, houses, playgrounds, schools; most of them operated that way deliberately. There are Flock-specific bad things happening here, but you have to dig through the video to get to them, and they're not intuitive. The new Flock "Condor" cameras are apparently auto-PTZ, meaning that when they detect motion, they zoom in on it. That's new! I want to hear more about that, and less about "I had tears in my eyes watching this camera footage of a children's playground", which is something you could have done last week or last year or last decade, or about a mental health police wellness detention somewhere where all the cops were already wearing FOIA-able body cams. If open Flock cameras gave you the Flock search bar, that would be the end of the world. And the possibility that could happen is a good reason to push back on Flock. But that's not what happened here.

jkestner 11mo ago
In my experience, people respond much more strongly to naming a specific company or person. Clearer plan of action than a resigned “This tech is old news.”
- akerl_ 11mo ago
  If your takeaway from that comment is that ‘tptacek thinks Flock’s tech is old news and he’s resigned about it, I think you’re going to be in for a treat.
- tptacek 11mo ago
  Is the plan of action "eliminate all public IP cameras"? That's coherent, I'd get it, but that doesn't seem to be what he's saying at all. He used a Google search to find exposed Flock admin consoles (interesting! say more about that!) but he could just as easily have just searched "open IP cameras"; there's sites that do nothing but index those.
fuckflock 11mo ago
[dead]
phyzome 11mo ago
He's pretty open in this video about how Flock is far from alone in this space, and he's just using them as an example because they're so popular and flagrantly abusive.
- tptacek 11mo ago
  In what way this is an illustration of Flock's "flagrancy"? I'm seriously asking. I'm not a Flock supporter. My point is that cameras just as sensitive as the ones he shows here are deliberately public on the Internet.
  - ryandrake 11mo ago
    It's the attitude and marketing. Maybe not "flagrant" but "ambitious," "aggressive," and "expansive." I don't know the name of any other public surveillance/camera company, but I've heard about Flock, and the same is probably true of any of my neighbors who are even the least bit tech-following. They are also ambitiously funded for growth and expansion and their outward press attitude is congruent. Other camera companies would like to see steady year-over-year growth in camera sales. Flock would like to see the world blanketed in 24/7 surveillance. They make themselves a lightning rod as a business strategy.
    - tptacek 11mo ago
      If Flock vanished off the Earth tomorrow I think we'd see exactly the same ALPR penetration. Municipalities aren't buying these things because Flock's so good at selling them; they're buying because the ALPR vendors have an extremely compelling pitch! Two of our neighboring municipalities have non-Flock ALPRs; I think you're going to see a lot of non-Flock ALPR penetration in progressive-leaning suburbs, for instance, because progressives are all het up about Flock. (I helped get Flock cancelled in Oak Park, where I live, and before that led the passage of what I believe to be the most restrictive ALPR regs/ordinance package in the country. I'm not an ALPR booster.) But I'm going to keep saying: my thing about this video is that he's describing mostly things that are true of all public IP cameras. There are zillions of those!
fuzzylightbulb 11mo ago
Have you ever gone fishing? Did you catch all the fish? Often it is more impactful to address one major/tangible player in a particular space than it would be to "boil the ocean" and ensure that we are capturing every possible player/transgressor. I agree that some of the video was overly breathless, but if that's what wakes people up to the dangers of unsecured cameras/devices then so be it.
- tptacek 11mo ago
  Ok, you're the second person to say that, and I think my point is not clear enough. That's on me. This response would make sense if I was saying "why focus on Flock, there are so many other ALPR cameras out there" (also true, but not relevant to my point). But this is a video that is mostly about things that are true of all IP cameras, of the kind that we've had staring out onto public streets for decades, plural decades. People celebrated those cameras, thought they were super neat, built sites indexing them. All of them do most of the same things this video says those Flock cameras did, the tiny minority of Flock cameras you can access publicly.
- hackable_sand 11mo ago
  Many hands make light work
dang 11mo ago
(This was originally posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46356182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46356182 but we've since merged the threads. The video in question is linked from the toptext above.)
KurSix 11mo ago
But isn't that "auto-PTZ" exactly what changes the game here? Sure, there are plenty of open cameras, but usually, that's just a passive stream you have to stare at for hours to spot anything interesting. Here, we have a situation where technology has effectively removed the "friction" from the surveillance process. You don't need to monitor the screen for hours - the algorithm itself grabs the person, zooms in on the face, and tracks them. It’s like the difference between searching for a needle in a haystack by hand and having a powerful magnet. Because of the Flock leak, this magnet is now available to anyone with a link, and that is what's truly terrifying, not just the mere fact of filming a playground

by tptacek 11mo ago

jkestner 11mo ago

In my experience, people respond much more strongly to naming a specific company or person. Clearer plan of action than a resigned “This tech is old news.”

akerl_ 11mo ago
If your takeaway from that comment is that ‘tptacek thinks Flock’s tech is old news and he’s resigned about it, I think you’re going to be in for a treat.
tptacek 11mo ago
Is the plan of action "eliminate all public IP cameras"? That's coherent, I'd get it, but that doesn't seem to be what he's saying at all. He used a Google search to find exposed Flock admin consoles (interesting! say more about that!) but he could just as easily have just searched "open IP cameras"; there's sites that do nothing but index those.

fuckflock 11mo ago

[dead]

phyzome 11mo ago

He's pretty open in this video about how Flock is far from alone in this space, and he's just using them as an example because they're so popular and flagrantly abusive.

tptacek 11mo ago
In what way this is an illustration of Flock's "flagrancy"? I'm seriously asking. I'm not a Flock supporter. My point is that cameras just as sensitive as the ones he shows here are deliberately public on the Internet.
- ryandrake 11mo ago
  It's the attitude and marketing. Maybe not "flagrant" but "ambitious," "aggressive," and "expansive." I don't know the name of any other public surveillance/camera company, but I've heard about Flock, and the same is probably true of any of my neighbors who are even the least bit tech-following. They are also ambitiously funded for growth and expansion and their outward press attitude is congruent. Other camera companies would like to see steady year-over-year growth in camera sales. Flock would like to see the world blanketed in 24/7 surveillance. They make themselves a lightning rod as a business strategy.
  - tptacek 11mo ago
    If Flock vanished off the Earth tomorrow I think we'd see exactly the same ALPR penetration. Municipalities aren't buying these things because Flock's so good at selling them; they're buying because the ALPR vendors have an extremely compelling pitch! Two of our neighboring municipalities have non-Flock ALPRs; I think you're going to see a lot of non-Flock ALPR penetration in progressive-leaning suburbs, for instance, because progressives are all het up about Flock. (I helped get Flock cancelled in Oak Park, where I live, and before that led the passage of what I believe to be the most restrictive ALPR regs/ordinance package in the country. I'm not an ALPR booster.) But I'm going to keep saying: my thing about this video is that he's describing mostly things that are true of all public IP cameras. There are zillions of those!

fuzzylightbulb 11mo ago

Have you ever gone fishing? Did you catch all the fish? Often it is more impactful to address one major/tangible player in a particular space than it would be to "boil the ocean" and ensure that we are capturing every possible player/transgressor. I agree that some of the video was overly breathless, but if that's what wakes people up to the dangers of unsecured cameras/devices then so be it.

tptacek 11mo ago
Ok, you're the second person to say that, and I think my point is not clear enough. That's on me. This response would make sense if I was saying "why focus on Flock, there are so many other ALPR cameras out there" (also true, but not relevant to my point). But this is a video that is mostly about things that are true of all IP cameras, of the kind that we've had staring out onto public streets for decades, plural decades. People celebrated those cameras, thought they were super neat, built sites indexing them. All of them do most of the same things this video says those Flock cameras did, the tiny minority of Flock cameras you can access publicly.
hackable_sand 11mo ago
Many hands make light work

dang 11mo ago

(This was originally posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46356182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46356182 but we've since merged the threads. The video in question is linked from the toptext above.)

KurSix 11mo ago

But isn't that "auto-PTZ" exactly what changes the game here? Sure, there are plenty of open cameras, but usually, that's just a passive stream you have to stare at for hours to spot anything interesting. Here, we have a situation where technology has effectively removed the "friction" from the surveillance process. You don't need to monitor the screen for hours - the algorithm itself grabs the person, zooms in on the face, and tracks them. It’s like the difference between searching for a needle in a haystack by hand and having a powerful magnet. Because of the Flock leak, this magnet is now available to anyone with a link, and that is what's truly terrifying, not just the mere fact of filming a playground