4 ms·

It frustrates me when people call them license plate readers. I guess you need to call them something, but they are general-purpose internet connected cameras.

by malwrar 2mo ago

It frustrates me when people call them license plate readers. I guess you need to call them something, but they are general-purpose internet connected cameras. They will do whatever their firmware tells them to do, and could be reprogrammed at any time by anyone with access. No one expected doorbell cameras to join a mass surveillance network, but later the manufacturers added that feature. Why do we treat these cameras like they can do only one thing?

alberth 2mo ago
By that logic, should private citizens need a background check to buy a computer, since a computer could be programmed to run cyber attacks?
- k4rli 2mo ago
  Computer isn't quite it, internet connection itself seems closer. Then again an Android phone with terminal emulator could also run attacks. Seems like a nonsense comparison either way. These cameras are in public places and provide surveillance intel for governmental entities.
jameshart 2mo ago
This amounts to an argument against ever using general purpose computing devices to accomplish anything. You could say the same about literally any privately operated device. ‘I don’t know why they call these things cell towers. They do whatever they are programmed to and can be reprogrammed by anyone with access’ Heck the same applies to non electronic things too ‘why do they call it a house? It’s a general purpose structure and could be turned into a shop or a factory or a crack den at any time by anyone with access’
- woodrowbarlow 2mo ago
  i see it more like an argument against increasingly networked solutions. red-light cameras used to just upload when an incident occurred (or maybe required routine physical downloading?). the object itself did one thing. now it's cheap to feed continuous live feeds to a centralized processor... and once it's there, it's cheap to do a lot more.
  - jameshart 2mo ago
    Okay so is the argument that if a city wants to install red light cameras they must install analog film based systems because if they install a CCD camera with a raspberry pi and a network connection they could use it for other purposes? Obviously the electronic networked solution is going to be cheaper and easier to operate. It would be insanely wasteful to force government organizations to use expensive cumbersome processes just to ensure they can’t be misused. The solution is legislation and enforcement of rules that constrain what local governments are allowed to actually do with equipment they install and the data it collects, not regulation of what the equipment they install could theoretically be converted to accomplish.
    - woodrowbarlow 2mo ago
      the argument is that they should be called traffic surveillance cameras. for the record: whatever they're called, and in fact even if they just POSTed txt license plate numbers, i'd still be opposed because they're collecting info about people who've done nothing wrong (unlike red light cameras).
- IncreasePosts 2mo ago
  I think the point is these aren't just license plate readers. For example, are they recording fingerprintable bluetooth or other wifi signals of occupants of cars that are going by?
  - jameshart 2mo ago
    Best cover your car in tinfoil then. (To be clear: the government requires you to display a license plate on your car. They do not require that you broadcast an identifiable Bluetooth signature as you drive around. If you happen to do so - something you have a choice to avoid - it seems disingenuous of you to say ‘I don’t want anyone to take any notice of the Bluetooth and WiFi signatures I choose to broadcast’.)
- malwrar 1mo ago
  Interesting perspective. As others have noted, I believe the brightline is less “general purpose computer…” and more “…that is remotely accessible & modifiable effectively anywhere in the world”. I worry not just about OEMs and cops, but also criminals, foreign intelligence agencies, etc. Honestly potentially anyone at this point, now that folks have figured out you can use LLMs to do analysis. This is a sound foundation for concern by itself, don’t you think?
  - jameshart 1mo ago
    I think that’s a very different concern - your take is more ‘governments shouldn’t deploy these things because they are incompetent’ whereas the original concern seemed to be ‘governments shouldn’t deploy these things because they are malicious’. Neither philosophy seems to have a good limiting principle for what they mean governments should be allowed to do to efficiently enforce traffic law
    - malwrar 1mo ago
      Don’t get me wrong, governments putting these things up for one purpose and then using them for another (my read on your use of “malicious”) is a major concern I have. It is broader than that though, and is the distinction I sought to capture with “anyone with access” in my original post. They are connected to the internet, and to a cloud no less! Anyone could be the NSA now, from anywhere in the world. I bet we’ll see these used to collect marketing data too. Perhaps a limiting principle can be that we simply do not use ALPRs or other surveillance tech, or at least that we don’t connect them to the internet and require a warrant to access and use their data? Personally, I’d just prefer cops enforce traffic law the old fashioned way.
      - jameshart 1mo ago
        The old fashioned way cops enforce traffic law is, typically: unevenly, ineffectively, expensively, and with a large dose of racism. So we’re talking about trading off your concerns over potential abuse and misuse of technology vs concerns about potential abuse and misuse of police powers vs just allowing traffic to kill more cyclists and pedestrians. The nihilistic libertarian says ‘precisely - government doesn’t work - we can’t hope to make things better by concentrating power’ An optimistic democratic-institutionalist says ‘we can constrain governments at the ballot box and with constitutional limitations’. I suspect our disagreement lies somewhere in the chasm between these world views.
chaps 2mo ago
It's simply because the language hasn't caught up with the technology yet. A similar problem happens in courts where legal terminology hasn't caught up with technology. There's no malintent with it, it just means that the public conversation hasn't gotten to a point where these distinctions can easily be made to a wider audience. We'll get there.
- mock-possum 2mo ago
  The claim that there’s no mal intent to copaganda comes off as weirdly apologist. Do you really think people don’t know how they’re framing the situation when they choose to use language this way? It’s all just an innocent misunderstanding, that just so happens to serve the interest of existing power structures?
  - chaps 2mo ago
    I think you're misinterpreting my words. Of course there's malintent with copaganda. I'm talking about the random schmos out there who don't know what "ALPR" even is. These folk are more and more learning about what these things are and pushing back on them.
thewebguyd 2mo ago
> Why do we treat these cameras like they can do only one thing? Because its useful messaging to disarm the populace. "License plate reader" sounds less alarming than "Internet connected camera" or "Mass surveillance device." Public attitudes vary around a "license plate reader" but will be more uniformly opposed to "Widespread, automated government mass surveillance tracking your every move via camera in real time"
- 01100011 2mo ago
  I'm holding a more powerful surveillance device than an Internet connected pole cam which we normally term a "smartphone". Its ability to spy on folks is widely known and almost no one seems to care enough to change their behavior. You'd be surprised what people will or won't care about. Once Trump is out of office, the folks currently obsessed with privacy will move on to the next thing...
  - macintux 2mo ago
    Were all the smartphones in the country constantly recording video to a central location for surveillance purposes, you’d have a point.
    - 01100011 1mo ago
      They don't need to. They know where you've been, where you're going, and what your intentions are. It's a far more intimate and effective surveillance tool. As a bonus, it's also a propaganda vehicle and an implement of mass psychological manipulation.
      - macintux 1mo ago
        And yet it’s (mostly) voluntary. You can leave your smartphone at home, and it’s generally not spying on people around you. Smart glasses obviously change that equation quite a bit. But they can’t come close to the panopticon of video cameras everywhere, all the time, capturing everything for years of record-keeping.
drtz 2mo ago
"Autonomous dragnet surveillance cameras" wasn't as popular with the focus groups. > No one expected doorbell cameras to join a mass surveillance network Doorbell cameras were at least for individual security, initially. There's no attempt being made to market Flock as anything but mass surveillance. Surely we all expect them or their successors to be detecting peoples' faces, walking gates, and who-knows-what-else in the near future.
wiseleo 2mo ago
I always define them as "Remotely managed, field-upgradeable, multi-interconnected computing devices with full spectrum cameras and other sensory capabilities. Information is monitored in real-time by increasingly capable AI technology. They have edge AI capability for intelligent classification. They can be upgraded without announcement at any time. They can be replaced in the field with higher capabilities at any time. The data they captured can be accessed at any time by anyone with sufficient permissions granted by an entity capable of granting such permissions. Not all users have the same permissions. Multiple user interfaces with differing capabilities exist. There exists a capability to aggregate data streams from multiple sources provided the user has sufficient permissions. Deleted data remains accessible to users with higher clearance."
- thaumaturgy 2mo ago
  That's cute and technically accurate but doesn't help when having conversations with the public. "Warrantless mass surveillance technology" creates a category into which these and similar devices can be aggregated together where people's concerns tend to be about the same. That phrase was suggested by a local chief of police while we were having discussions on policy.
  - wiseleo 2mo ago
    When speaking, I use a short definition. When writing, I use the expanded definition so it's clear what it means.
  - malwrar 1mo ago
    Thanks for this term, I’ll try using it!
glaslong 2mo ago
Especially considering Flock's API will give you people not just license plates. The flag for whether the object/person is law enforcement vs not is interesting as well. Love that, very cool for quickly filtering out the streams / geodata that might have an officer's actions recorded. https://docs.flocksafety.com/developer-hub/docs/tracking-objects-people-and-vehicles-on-the-flockos-map https://docs.flocksafety.com/developer-hub/docs/tracking-obj...
phil21 2mo ago
> No one expected doorbell cameras to join a mass surveillance network, but later the manufacturers added that feature. Plenty of people did? That was obviously one of the end goals for cloud connected devices pushing recordings to a remote side for processing and storage. Especially when stuff like facial recognition was implemented server side. I would be highly surprised if this was not pitched in the first internal product meeting. While I give some grace to the regular population on this topic - anyone posting on HN should have trivially seen this outcome as not only likely, but nearly written in stone. Even if all your imagination captured was “secret NSA warrant” it would be one of the first risks you’d imagine for such a product. It was obvious that this was the final outcome even back when Facebook first implemented tagging friends in photos before image recognition got cheap and good enough to go back and time and correlate the social graphs of everyone.
- malwrar 2mo ago
  I don’t doubt it was intended by the manufacturer, but do you think the average customer knows this? Every normal person I’ve ever told this to, that their Ring cameras can also be looked through by the police, has looked at me like I’m crazy. I’m sure some people would buy a Flock camera for their porch, but I’d bet many others wouldn’t if they truly knew what they were signing up for. The Super Bowl commercial that Ring put out about finding lost dogs spooked people for a reason!
  - pseudalopex 1mo ago
    > do you think the average customer knows this? > I give some grace to the regular population on this topic
- LoganDark 1mo ago
  > Plenty of people did? That was obviously one of the end goals for cloud connected devices pushing recordings to a remote side for processing and storage. Especially when stuff like facial recognition was implemented server side. There is a huge difference between storing and processing recordings for a customer's own use, and aggregating them from multiple sources for organized mass surveillance. With that said, most corporations do not have the principles to resist the latter.
stronglikedan 2mo ago
Don't know if it's true (cuz lazy), but I recently read that they will start tracking phone signals an linking them to plates.
- sandworm101 2mo ago
  Using bluetooth signals to monitor traffic speeds/flow has been a thing for over a decade, and remains far cheaper than cameras. https://www.smatstraffic.com/blog/bluetooth-and-radar-traffic-sensors-a-practical-guide-for-travel-time-speed-and-count-data-collection https://www.smatstraffic.com/blog/bluetooth-and-radar-traffi... "They detect Bluetooth or Wi-Fi signals emitted by mobile devices inside passing vehicles and capture the device’s MAC address, a unique identifier that allows the same device to be recognized at multiple locations"
- johnflan 1mo ago
  I think it’s Bluetooth identifiers they track
markovs_gun 1mo ago
> No one expected doorbell cameras to join a mass surveillance network No one? There's a reason I never bought one of these things. This was a pretty obvious outcome to anyone who even slightly distrusts corporations or the government.
protocolture 1mo ago
LPR is in itself a very dangerous technology. I dont know why you think its sanitised. Its honestly barely less dangerous than facial rec.

by malwrar 2mo ago

alberth 2mo ago

By that logic, should private citizens need a background check to buy a computer, since a computer could be programmed to run cyber attacks?

k4rli 2mo ago
Computer isn't quite it, internet connection itself seems closer. Then again an Android phone with terminal emulator could also run attacks. Seems like a nonsense comparison either way. These cameras are in public places and provide surveillance intel for governmental entities.

jameshart 2mo ago

This amounts to an argument against ever using general purpose computing devices to accomplish anything. You could say the same about literally any privately operated device. ‘I don’t know why they call these things cell towers. They do whatever they are programmed to and can be reprogrammed by anyone with access’ Heck the same applies to non electronic things too ‘why do they call it a house? It’s a general purpose structure and could be turned into a shop or a factory or a crack den at any time by anyone with access’

woodrowbarlow 2mo ago
i see it more like an argument against increasingly networked solutions. red-light cameras used to just upload when an incident occurred (or maybe required routine physical downloading?). the object itself did one thing. now it's cheap to feed continuous live feeds to a centralized processor... and once it's there, it's cheap to do a lot more.
- jameshart 2mo ago
  Okay so is the argument that if a city wants to install red light cameras they must install analog film based systems because if they install a CCD camera with a raspberry pi and a network connection they could use it for other purposes? Obviously the electronic networked solution is going to be cheaper and easier to operate. It would be insanely wasteful to force government organizations to use expensive cumbersome processes just to ensure they can’t be misused. The solution is legislation and enforcement of rules that constrain what local governments are allowed to actually do with equipment they install and the data it collects, not regulation of what the equipment they install could theoretically be converted to accomplish.
  - woodrowbarlow 2mo ago
    the argument is that they should be called traffic surveillance cameras. for the record: whatever they're called, and in fact even if they just POSTed txt license plate numbers, i'd still be opposed because they're collecting info about people who've done nothing wrong (unlike red light cameras).
IncreasePosts 2mo ago
I think the point is these aren't just license plate readers. For example, are they recording fingerprintable bluetooth or other wifi signals of occupants of cars that are going by?
- jameshart 2mo ago
  Best cover your car in tinfoil then. (To be clear: the government requires you to display a license plate on your car. They do not require that you broadcast an identifiable Bluetooth signature as you drive around. If you happen to do so - something you have a choice to avoid - it seems disingenuous of you to say ‘I don’t want anyone to take any notice of the Bluetooth and WiFi signatures I choose to broadcast’.)
malwrar 1mo ago
Interesting perspective. As others have noted, I believe the brightline is less “general purpose computer…” and more “…that is remotely accessible & modifiable effectively anywhere in the world”. I worry not just about OEMs and cops, but also criminals, foreign intelligence agencies, etc. Honestly potentially anyone at this point, now that folks have figured out you can use LLMs to do analysis. This is a sound foundation for concern by itself, don’t you think?
- jameshart 1mo ago
  I think that’s a very different concern - your take is more ‘governments shouldn’t deploy these things because they are incompetent’ whereas the original concern seemed to be ‘governments shouldn’t deploy these things because they are malicious’. Neither philosophy seems to have a good limiting principle for what they mean governments should be allowed to do to efficiently enforce traffic law
  - malwrar 1mo ago
    Don’t get me wrong, governments putting these things up for one purpose and then using them for another (my read on your use of “malicious”) is a major concern I have. It is broader than that though, and is the distinction I sought to capture with “anyone with access” in my original post. They are connected to the internet, and to a cloud no less! Anyone could be the NSA now, from anywhere in the world. I bet we’ll see these used to collect marketing data too. Perhaps a limiting principle can be that we simply do not use ALPRs or other surveillance tech, or at least that we don’t connect them to the internet and require a warrant to access and use their data? Personally, I’d just prefer cops enforce traffic law the old fashioned way.
    - jameshart 1mo ago
      The old fashioned way cops enforce traffic law is, typically: unevenly, ineffectively, expensively, and with a large dose of racism. So we’re talking about trading off your concerns over potential abuse and misuse of technology vs concerns about potential abuse and misuse of police powers vs just allowing traffic to kill more cyclists and pedestrians. The nihilistic libertarian says ‘precisely - government doesn’t work - we can’t hope to make things better by concentrating power’ An optimistic democratic-institutionalist says ‘we can constrain governments at the ballot box and with constitutional limitations’. I suspect our disagreement lies somewhere in the chasm between these world views.

chaps 2mo ago

It's simply because the language hasn't caught up with the technology yet. A similar problem happens in courts where legal terminology hasn't caught up with technology. There's no malintent with it, it just means that the public conversation hasn't gotten to a point where these distinctions can easily be made to a wider audience. We'll get there.

mock-possum 2mo ago
The claim that there’s no mal intent to copaganda comes off as weirdly apologist. Do you really think people don’t know how they’re framing the situation when they choose to use language this way? It’s all just an innocent misunderstanding, that just so happens to serve the interest of existing power structures?
- chaps 2mo ago
  I think you're misinterpreting my words. Of course there's malintent with copaganda. I'm talking about the random schmos out there who don't know what "ALPR" even is. These folk are more and more learning about what these things are and pushing back on them.

thewebguyd 2mo ago

> Why do we treat these cameras like they can do only one thing? Because its useful messaging to disarm the populace. "License plate reader" sounds less alarming than "Internet connected camera" or "Mass surveillance device." Public attitudes vary around a "license plate reader" but will be more uniformly opposed to "Widespread, automated government mass surveillance tracking your every move via camera in real time"

01100011 2mo ago
I'm holding a more powerful surveillance device than an Internet connected pole cam which we normally term a "smartphone". Its ability to spy on folks is widely known and almost no one seems to care enough to change their behavior. You'd be surprised what people will or won't care about. Once Trump is out of office, the folks currently obsessed with privacy will move on to the next thing...
- macintux 2mo ago
  Were all the smartphones in the country constantly recording video to a central location for surveillance purposes, you’d have a point.
  - 01100011 1mo ago
    They don't need to. They know where you've been, where you're going, and what your intentions are. It's a far more intimate and effective surveillance tool. As a bonus, it's also a propaganda vehicle and an implement of mass psychological manipulation.
    - macintux 1mo ago
      And yet it’s (mostly) voluntary. You can leave your smartphone at home, and it’s generally not spying on people around you. Smart glasses obviously change that equation quite a bit. But they can’t come close to the panopticon of video cameras everywhere, all the time, capturing everything for years of record-keeping.

drtz 2mo ago

"Autonomous dragnet surveillance cameras" wasn't as popular with the focus groups. > No one expected doorbell cameras to join a mass surveillance network Doorbell cameras were at least for individual security, initially. There's no attempt being made to market Flock as anything but mass surveillance. Surely we all expect them or their successors to be detecting peoples' faces, walking gates, and who-knows-what-else in the near future.

wiseleo 2mo ago

I always define them as "Remotely managed, field-upgradeable, multi-interconnected computing devices with full spectrum cameras and other sensory capabilities. Information is monitored in real-time by increasingly capable AI technology. They have edge AI capability for intelligent classification. They can be upgraded without announcement at any time. They can be replaced in the field with higher capabilities at any time. The data they captured can be accessed at any time by anyone with sufficient permissions granted by an entity capable of granting such permissions. Not all users have the same permissions. Multiple user interfaces with differing capabilities exist. There exists a capability to aggregate data streams from multiple sources provided the user has sufficient permissions. Deleted data remains accessible to users with higher clearance."

thaumaturgy 2mo ago
That's cute and technically accurate but doesn't help when having conversations with the public. "Warrantless mass surveillance technology" creates a category into which these and similar devices can be aggregated together where people's concerns tend to be about the same. That phrase was suggested by a local chief of police while we were having discussions on policy.
- wiseleo 2mo ago
  When speaking, I use a short definition. When writing, I use the expanded definition so it's clear what it means.
- malwrar 1mo ago
  Thanks for this term, I’ll try using it!

glaslong 2mo ago

Especially considering Flock's API will give you people not just license plates. The flag for whether the object/person is law enforcement vs not is interesting as well. Love that, very cool for quickly filtering out the streams / geodata that might have an officer's actions recorded. https://docs.flocksafety.com/developer-hub/docs/tracking-objects-people-and-vehicles-on-the-flockos-map https://docs.flocksafety.com/developer-hub/docs/tracking-obj...

phil21 2mo ago

> No one expected doorbell cameras to join a mass surveillance network, but later the manufacturers added that feature. Plenty of people did? That was obviously one of the end goals for cloud connected devices pushing recordings to a remote side for processing and storage. Especially when stuff like facial recognition was implemented server side. I would be highly surprised if this was not pitched in the first internal product meeting. While I give some grace to the regular population on this topic - anyone posting on HN should have trivially seen this outcome as not only likely, but nearly written in stone. Even if all your imagination captured was “secret NSA warrant” it would be one of the first risks you’d imagine for such a product. It was obvious that this was the final outcome even back when Facebook first implemented tagging friends in photos before image recognition got cheap and good enough to go back and time and correlate the social graphs of everyone.

malwrar 2mo ago
I don’t doubt it was intended by the manufacturer, but do you think the average customer knows this? Every normal person I’ve ever told this to, that their Ring cameras can also be looked through by the police, has looked at me like I’m crazy. I’m sure some people would buy a Flock camera for their porch, but I’d bet many others wouldn’t if they truly knew what they were signing up for. The Super Bowl commercial that Ring put out about finding lost dogs spooked people for a reason!
- pseudalopex 1mo ago
  > do you think the average customer knows this? > I give some grace to the regular population on this topic
LoganDark 1mo ago
> Plenty of people did? That was obviously one of the end goals for cloud connected devices pushing recordings to a remote side for processing and storage. Especially when stuff like facial recognition was implemented server side. There is a huge difference between storing and processing recordings for a customer's own use, and aggregating them from multiple sources for organized mass surveillance. With that said, most corporations do not have the principles to resist the latter.

stronglikedan 2mo ago

Don't know if it's true (cuz lazy), but I recently read that they will start tracking phone signals an linking them to plates.

sandworm101 2mo ago
Using bluetooth signals to monitor traffic speeds/flow has been a thing for over a decade, and remains far cheaper than cameras. https://www.smatstraffic.com/blog/bluetooth-and-radar-traffic-sensors-a-practical-guide-for-travel-time-speed-and-count-data-collection https://www.smatstraffic.com/blog/bluetooth-and-radar-traffi... "They detect Bluetooth or Wi-Fi signals emitted by mobile devices inside passing vehicles and capture the device’s MAC address, a unique identifier that allows the same device to be recognized at multiple locations"
johnflan 1mo ago
I think it’s Bluetooth identifiers they track

markovs_gun 1mo ago

> No one expected doorbell cameras to join a mass surveillance network No one? There's a reason I never bought one of these things. This was a pretty obvious outcome to anyone who even slightly distrusts corporations or the government.

protocolture 1mo ago

LPR is in itself a very dangerous technology. I dont know why you think its sanitised. Its honestly barely less dangerous than facial rec.