← Back to context

Comment by ranger_danger

1 year ago

The best time to have security cameras is yesterday. Same for a dash cam. Please protect yourself and your loved ones.

I completely agree that security cameras can be a disaster for one's privacy. That's why I decided to build Privastead for my own use in the first place. It's fully open source, so we know what we're getting and what we're trusting. It also uses strong end-to-end encryption provided by Messaging Layer Security (MLS): https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc9420/

I got hit by a truck a few months ago and a dash cam (well, really, scooter cam) could have shown beyond a doubt whose fault it was. I wish I didn't have to be hit by a truck in order to realize this. If something ever happens you're going to want to have had a recording of it.

  • Instead of video, what if our bodies and property emitted points clouds all the time

    where visual representation can be recreated, similar to how LiDar does it

    I’m not sure if thats more or less data to store, but it can show the depth and direction of intrusions into your space

    • > Instead of video, what if our bodies and property emitted points clouds all the time

      If instead of practical and widely available technologies we are discussing scifi concepts which have no realistic prospect of materialising then why not wish for a force field impervious to trucks? Or even better, lets skip the whole middleman and wish for point to point teleportation for all cargo eliminating all dangers and externalities of trucks.

      2 replies →

    • Don't you just love the idea of giving Big Tech and law enforcement literal x-ray vision. That'll go down very well...

Dashcams (including bikecams and helmetcams) are a great idea and AFAIK there's not much of a privacy concern with them as they record to local storage and usually in a common video standard (e.g. mp4).

Hopefully as more people use them, there should be more chance of video footage being available from other vehicles if you're involved in a RTC and don't have one yourself. There's also the protective effect of people uploading bad driving to the police where the police are interested in road crime - hopefully providing the police with a very cheap way of having visibility in lots of places.

  • A number of dash cams now use cloud storage. If anything, when I last purchased I had to go out of my way to find one with decent enough video that also stays local.

    • That's surprising - I would guess that cloud storage would add to the price of them as they'd need a mobile data connection and presumably monthly costs. They must be designed for fleet management where you don't necessarily trust the driver to not delete footage.

      1 reply →

Against what does a security camera protect you? I understand for a business that can afford a human being monitoring the feed, it offers protection by reducing response time to potential threats. But for individuals? I thought it was about justice, not protection.

Or did you mean as a deterrent? Which is fair enough (although a fake camera would achieve the same)

  • It can be all of that and more. And in my case, if someone breaks into your house and steals your stuff, the police will not care because you don't have any evidence. And then your insurance doesn't believe you either and threatens to drop you.

    And if someone is trespassing and about to commit a crime, you can be notified (yes even as an individual, with your own private self-hosted solutions even) immediately so that you can call police or deal with it however you want, especially if you're not home.

Any dashcam recommendations? Last time I looked (last year) there were issues with all the top models I saw recommendations for.