The police say that over the weekend, officers found the poles the cameras were mounted on had been cut down and the cameras were gone. Flock cameras are stirring controversy across the country as they compile license plate and other vehicle details in a national database.
  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
    1292·
    14 days ago

    I have never and I will never see someone cutting down a Flock camera.

    • TheTechnician27@lemmy.worldEnglish
      69·
      14 days ago

      I mean it’s the cameras’ job to keep track of criminals, right? So it’s not my job anymore to give a shit about where they went or what they looked like, surely.

      • EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world
        28·
        14 days ago

        Growing up watching Batman and Spiderman be told to leave it to the professionals, I think it might be my job to not interfere by knowing anything.

        My memory has been shot for ten years anyways.

        • fartographer@lemmy.world
          5·
          13 days ago

          I mean, who am I gonna trust? Some person on the Internet saying that I didn’t see anything, or my lying eyes?

    • chocrates@piefed.worldEnglish
      6·
      13 days ago

      It’s never our job to assist the police. If they talk to you the only response is “am I being detained”

  • CubitOom@infosec.pubEnglish
    111·
    14 days ago

    I think flock is stealing their own cameras so they can reset them and charge to replace them. There is a clear incentive.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      14 days ago

      If you don’t have a cellphone but ya got a sheisty…

      There’s not really anyway to ID the person in the video.

      • SeeMarkFly@lemmy.mlEnglish
        61·
        14 days ago

        They’d recognize my LIMP. I have a (documented) broken bone in my foot.

        (For a short time I can limp on the wrong foot so THEY have PROOF that it wasn’t me)

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          13 days ago

          Gait recognition is not as good as they say it is…

          They use it to say two videos are of the same person, but if you think “expert testimony” gives actual opinions and not just what will get lawyers to pay them again…

          Then you don’t understand how any of this works.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
      6·
      12 days ago

      I know it’s a joke, but I’m hijacking youry comment because it’s a great example sentence on why you should never, ever talk to the police outside of an active emergency when you need their help.

      You didn’t do anything, but your words self-incriminated you as someone who took part in the destruction of the cameras.

      • ikidd@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        7·
        12 days ago

        Hmm, never thought of it that way. Yes, if someone were incredibly stupid or malicious, that would certainly come off that way. So I can see why a cop might see it like that.

        • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
          7·
          12 days ago

          Exactly. And when they testify at trial that you admitted to being with the offender at the time of the crime, it’s not just the cop’s opinion you have to worry anout. Your defense of “I was lying to get the real culprit off the hook” also wouldn’t help you much at that point. Best case you’re looking at an obstruction conviction.

          Even more interestingly - this scenario doesn’t require the officer to be corrupt.

          Never talk to cops.

  • MalReynolds@slrpnk.netEnglish
    19·
    14 days ago

    If you see someone vandalizing / stealing private surveillance cameras in public areas : No You Didn’t.

    While I get them in public transit it’s still a slippery slope, and could be manually triggered by a (physically protected) driver in needed situation. Then there’s the whole everyone with a phone camera uploading them to Google / Apple (and consequently three letter agencies as well) which is the granddaddy of privacy destruction.

    At some point, when this all shakes out as the terrible idea many have already suggested, we need to require third party consent for visual recording (like for audio in some jurisdictions) and was once required for profitable publication. If that ends up with a lot more landscapes and art photography online, I’ll consider it a win.

    • DanceMomsSavedMe@lemmy.zipBanned from community
      91·
      14 days ago

      Oh yeah man Police departments all over the country will love that rule about always obtaining consent to record.

      “We can brutalize people even harder now??”

      I do hate the Flock shit and everything else you mentioned though. Idk what the answer is other than sane legislation that is for the people so of course that will not ever happen here.

      • MalReynolds@slrpnk.netEnglish
        7·
        14 days ago

        Oh yeah man Police departments all over the country will love that rule about always obtaining consent to record.

        Yeah, good point. An exception here would be good, also not requiring consent to film police (and other actors for state violence) should be baked in.

        • Manjushri@piefed.socialEnglish
          2·
          13 days ago

          This gets complicated because you also need to build in an exception for anyone interacting with the police or in the background of the shot.

          • MalReynolds@slrpnk.netEnglish
            1·
            12 days ago

            Seems pretty reasonable, with extraordinary powers comes extraordinary oversight. Everything gets destroyed as a matter of course unless legal proceedings ensue within a proscribed time frame, unless third party approval is given. Do you disagree? Do you have a better option? I’m just scratching around, appreciate the input.

            • Manjushri@piefed.socialEnglish
              1·
              12 days ago

              I don’t know that I really have a better option, but I do have some parameters that I would really like to see.

              My position is that there should be no expectation of privacy when you’re in public but there are obviously issues with that. I think there should be a distinction between private photography and recordings and official ones though. Someone taking a video of their kids playing in the park shouldn’t need to get consent from every person in the park who may end up getting recorded. Even private security cameras such as doorbell cameras should be okay even if the recording includes public areas near the home like the street or sidewalk.

              Posting said recordings online is another matter. Say I take a video of my dog playing in the park and post it on youtube because I think it’s cute. Now let’s say that the video includes other people in the background. I think that should be fine if the people just happen to be there in the background. On the other hand, if I post the video with the intent of pointing out the people in the background and mocking them, that is a whole other issue. I think that should fall afoul of some sort of revenge-porn like law. People should have a right to the direct use of their image in a public venue but not an absolute right that would make it illegal to post their image or even their voice as an incidental background feature.

              Having said all that, I do not approve of the use of cameras by government or law enforcement unless it is part of an existing investigation and a warrant has been obtained or as part of standard (and universal) use of body-cams. Police, and the government in general, should not have networks of surveillance cameras monitoring everyone all the time. Neither should police be able to access private or business security cameras without valid probable cause or a warrant. Recordings made by members of the public for their own entertainment, news reporting (whether they are a paid reporter or not), or security purposes should be considered completely separately from government or police recordings.

              I have no idea if this idea could be effectively legislated, but in my perfect world, this is how it would be.

              • MalReynolds@slrpnk.netEnglish
                2·
                12 days ago

                I get it, and I’m a bit cavalier myself about just taking a photo, and that’s historically been fine for personal use. The problem comes when companies aggregate that privilege. One of the interesting possibilities now available is simply removing all (non focused / designated) background humans from a photo, and it can be done on device these days. The tech could actually be used to preserve privacy, but where’s the profit?

                The mechanisms to stop mass surveillance by governments are in place, warrants and so forth, but they are now able to simply buy it from private concerns which makes it OK legally apparently (until challenged). Perhaps there needs to be an expectation of significant consequences for flaunting ethics before legal precedents have been set, things change fast, but decency is still recognizable.

                Journalists should also have a pass, poor bastards have been used hard in the last few decades. I’d suggest making it a formal, protected profession like doctors or psychologists, with strict ethical guidelines, like it almost was once. Allow whistleblowers and others with information for the public good temporary protection under the same guidelines.

                All in all, it makes little difference to simply post online, but I do appreciate the chance to test my ideas and formulate something coherent from the inchoate rage I feel at the unchecked abuses I see daily. Thanks for your input, here’s hoping you, I, and others get the chance to put these ideas to use.

    • ctrl_alt_esc@lemmy.ml
      1·
      12 days ago

      In Germany (most of Europe I think), it’s illegal to film people without their consent. Private citizens that is, you can always film the cops of course.

  • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
    18·
    13 days ago

    Quick question, how are these flock cameras generally connected to the Web?

    Is it via Wi-Fi, perhaps 4g radio?

    What frequencies would one need to jam (completely theoretically) to know that the camera wasn’t able to send back video of a person cutting it down.

    • Bytemeister@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      12 days ago

      Mobile broadband. I promise you, if you go around jamming cell towers, you’re going to get the feds on your ass real quick.

      • Promethiel@lemmy.world
        4·
        12 days ago

        @Cocodapuf@lemmy.world Listen to the above comment!

        This is not amateur hour. Radio waves are not analogous to just DDOS’ing over the Internet. The consequences and effects play out in the physical world.

        You cannot scream into the void without the source being heard.

        Say, I’m writing a story. A work of fiction. Sci-fi, really. Here’s a hypothetical sort of idea that I’m work shopping currently and might as well share:

        Edit:

        The protagonist needs to deal with some surveillance appliances, that use cellular network to communicate, and needs to jam them.

        He goes around, and buys many small solar panels. He wires them to radios that work with Lora/Reticulum/And the Internet. He places them around the local town parks and such, near the surveillance appliances, months before he needs to disrupt them, slowly, unseen.

        Still working on the climax, when he triggers them remotely and they do some cool stuff tho.

        • Bytemeister@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          12 days ago

          Your character would get caught. Mainly because electronics boards are absolutely covered in parts made from all over the world. Each one of those parts is batch numbered, if not labeled with a serial number. If your main character wasn’t caught from being the only person with a purchase history that matches the equipment used, they would certainly be caught using forensic analysis of the identifying marks on the devices.

          Your character’s best bet is to realize that the point of sabotage is not to destroy a resource, (complete destruction is a bonus), but to make the opponent either realize that they would need to commit more effort to protect that resource than it is worth, or get your opponent to commit that effort, wasting their time and resources.

          Real life example : Ukraine blew up part of a useful bridge in Crimea with a truck bomb. The bridge has been restored to working order, but now Russia has to check every single truck that goes over the bridge very thoroughly. They’ve limited the maximum size of the trucks as well. The total flow of material over that bridge had been choked, and Russia is doing all the work to choke out their own asset, and they will need to continue to do this for the rest of the conflict, or the bridge will get blown up again.

          So, back to your fictional character… He doesn’t need to devise a sophisticated attack to destroy all the cameras, he just needs to be part of an ongoing uncoordinated campaign of random attacks. Either the camera owners step up hardening their devices, which increases the cost and decreases the number they can deploy, and their usefulness, or, the government entities that use the cameras will need to deploy more police presence to protect the cameras, invalidating the benefit of having the cameras anyway.

          • Promethiel@lemmy.world
            1·
            12 days ago

            You are absolutely correct in all you said! And you also made several assumptions about the character actions; some considered already and some most illuminating! Thank you for improving my fiction!

            Though the goal of the character isn’t at all the destruction of a resource. It is the simple and timely denial of access of the story’s antagonist to their tooling, at a time when they expected it to be working. Like during a bean counting competition at the country fair!

      • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
        10·
        13 days ago

        That would get expensive. Get a roll of heavy duty foil and a roll of metal tape (the kind for duct work). Wrap them in a bag made of doubled up heavy duty foil.

          • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
            4·
            13 days ago

            It generally does. But even if some signal escapes (like if you had to hurry and do this so it wasn’t perfectly sealed), it wouldn’t be that great a signal so communication would definitely be compromised.