5 ms·

You understand why that's worse, right?

Manuel_D 4mo ago
No? If someone broke into your car as stole your luggage, the surveillance camera might not directly capture the thief breaking into your car. But if the camera recorded someone entering the parking garage and then exiting the garage carrying your luggage a few minutes later, that's strong evidence is it not?
- etchalon 4mo ago
  You're missing the part where, for that to work, we have a government with access to a massive surveillance system capable of identifying and tracking the population at scale. And you're missing that, instead of specifically identifying a specific individual doing a specific thing, this network would be used to place under suspicion, investigation and possible arrest, people who's only documented action was "being somewhere." Oh, and while your example is "committed a crime", that same network could easily be used to identity and track people who were, say, coming and going from protests. Or libraries. Or voting.
  - Manuel_D 4mo ago
    > investigation and possible arrest, people who's only documented action was "being somewhere." In the example above, the police wouldn't arrest every single person who entered and exited the parking lot. They'd arrest the person who walked out of the lot with your stolen luggage. > Oh, and while your example is "committed a crime", that same network could easily be used to identity and track people who were, say, coming and going from protests Again realize that this is legal right? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/us/charlottesville-doxxing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/us/charlottesville-doxxin... There's no right to have your public demonstrations off limits for recording. The whole point of a protest is to be seen. If someone is concerned that they will be associated with some group or cause because of their decision to protest, then they seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a protest is. > Or voting You realize the government already has that information? Voters literally filled out ballots and delivered it to the government. They don't need a camera to know who voted, they have the ballots.
    - etchalon 4mo ago
      [flagged]
      - Manuel_D 4mo ago
        Yes, ballots are anonymous. But how would Flock cameras somehow de-anonymize votes? I had assumed you were referring to tracking people driving to polling stations to discover who voted - not how they voted. Because how on earth would automated license plate readers somehow de-anonymize individual ballots? Please do explain what you meant by that. And do explain the "idiocy" of the rest of my comment. Do you actually dispute anything I wrote? Do you think that law enforcement weren't monitoring groups like the Proud Boys, Nation of Islam, militia organizations, etc. before Flock came around?
        Ancapistani 4mo ago
        Well, in my precinct I'd estimate there are ~20 people at the polls to vote at any given time. Given the timestamp of a ballot, there are maybe 50 people it could have possibly been. That's more than enough information to correlate voting behavior after a couple of election cycles with a high degree of confidence. Oh, and ballots aren't just for one race generally. By looking at what races that ballot voted in and a list of people present, there's a very good chance you'd be able to narrow it down to an individual in a single visit.
        Manuel_D 4mo ago
        The ballots are timestamped to a degree fine-grained enough to narrow down the set of potential voters to just 50 people? Which state is this? I'm not finding any search results indicating that ballots are timestamped. In fact, some of the results I've encountered specifically say that ballots aren't timestamped to ensure privacy. But happy to learn more of you can explain how ballots in your state are timestamped. In my state, we have to sign our name on the envelope containing our ballot. If the government was corrupt and they wanted to identify how people voted, they could just look at the signature. No Flock required. Of all the things to complain about Flock, the notion that it can somehow de-anonymize ballots is probably one of the most unusual I've heard.

No? If someone broke into your car as stole your luggage, the surveillance camera might not directly capture the thief breaking into your car. But if the camera recorded someone entering the parking garage and then exiting the garage carrying your luggage a few minutes later, that's strong evidence is it not?

etchalon 4mo ago
You're missing the part where, for that to work, we have a government with access to a massive surveillance system capable of identifying and tracking the population at scale. And you're missing that, instead of specifically identifying a specific individual doing a specific thing, this network would be used to place under suspicion, investigation and possible arrest, people who's only documented action was "being somewhere." Oh, and while your example is "committed a crime", that same network could easily be used to identity and track people who were, say, coming and going from protests. Or libraries. Or voting.
- Manuel_D 4mo ago
  > investigation and possible arrest, people who's only documented action was "being somewhere." In the example above, the police wouldn't arrest every single person who entered and exited the parking lot. They'd arrest the person who walked out of the lot with your stolen luggage. > Oh, and while your example is "committed a crime", that same network could easily be used to identity and track people who were, say, coming and going from protests Again realize that this is legal right? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/us/charlottesville-doxxing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/us/charlottesville-doxxin... There's no right to have your public demonstrations off limits for recording. The whole point of a protest is to be seen. If someone is concerned that they will be associated with some group or cause because of their decision to protest, then they seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a protest is. > Or voting You realize the government already has that information? Voters literally filled out ballots and delivered it to the government. They don't need a camera to know who voted, they have the ballots.
  - etchalon 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - Manuel_D 4mo ago
      Yes, ballots are anonymous. But how would Flock cameras somehow de-anonymize votes? I had assumed you were referring to tracking people driving to polling stations to discover who voted - not how they voted. Because how on earth would automated license plate readers somehow de-anonymize individual ballots? Please do explain what you meant by that. And do explain the "idiocy" of the rest of my comment. Do you actually dispute anything I wrote? Do you think that law enforcement weren't monitoring groups like the Proud Boys, Nation of Islam, militia organizations, etc. before Flock came around?
      - Ancapistani 4mo ago
        Well, in my precinct I'd estimate there are ~20 people at the polls to vote at any given time. Given the timestamp of a ballot, there are maybe 50 people it could have possibly been. That's more than enough information to correlate voting behavior after a couple of election cycles with a high degree of confidence. Oh, and ballots aren't just for one race generally. By looking at what races that ballot voted in and a list of people present, there's a very good chance you'd be able to narrow it down to an individual in a single visit.
        Manuel_D 4mo ago
        The ballots are timestamped to a degree fine-grained enough to narrow down the set of potential voters to just 50 people? Which state is this? I'm not finding any search results indicating that ballots are timestamped. In fact, some of the results I've encountered specifically say that ballots aren't timestamped to ensure privacy. But happy to learn more of you can explain how ballots in your state are timestamped. In my state, we have to sign our name on the envelope containing our ballot. If the government was corrupt and they wanted to identify how people voted, they could just look at the signature. No Flock required. Of all the things to complain about Flock, the notion that it can somehow de-anonymize ballots is probably one of the most unusual I've heard.