Comment by eightysixfour
2 days ago
I don't want these cameras to exist but, if they're going to, might we be better off if they are openly accessible? At the very least, that would make the power they grant more diffuse and people would be more cognizant of their existence and capabilities.
Did you see the other post about this where the guys showed a Flock camera pointed at a playground, so any pedo can see when kids are there and not attended?
Or how it has become increasingly trivial to identify by face or license plate such that combining tools reaches "movie Interpol" levels, without any warrant or security credentials?
If Big Brother surveillance is unavoidable I don't think "everyone has access" is the solution. The best defense is actually the glut of data and the fact nobody is actively watching you picking your nose in the elevator. If everyone can utilize any camera and its history for any reason then expect fractal chaos and internet shaming.
> Did you see the other post about this where the guys showed a Flock camera pointed at a playground, so any pedo can see when kids are there and not attended?
If it's inappropriate for any pedo to see when kids are in a park then certainly it should inappropriate when those pedos just happen to be police officers or Flock employees. The nice thing about the "everyone has access" case is that it forces the public to decide what they think is acceptable instead of making it some abstract thing that their brains aren't able to process correctly.
People will happily stand under mounted surveillance cameras all day long, but the moment they actually see someone point a camera at them they consider that a hostile action. The surveillance camera is an abstract concept they don't understand. The stranger pointing a camera in their direction is something they do understand and it makes their true feelings on strangers recording them very clear.
We might need a little bit of "everyone has access" to convince people of the truth that "no one should have access" instead.
If you're that worried about child molesters knowing where the kids are, I've got very bad news for you: https://www.statista.com/statistics/254893/child-abuse-in-th...
Turns out, 95% of the predators already know exactly where the victims are, usually because it's their kid. Probably we want to worry about that a lot more.
Doubly so since, y'know, this only works if the predator lives close enough to act on the information before it changes - so the tiny possibility of a predator, a tiny possibility that they didn't already know this, and a tiny possibility of being able to act on the information...
> so any pedo can see when kids are there and not attended?
Sure. It also lets parents watch. Or others see when parents are repeatedly leaving their kids unattended. Or lets you see some person that keeps showing up unattended and watching the kids.
> Or how it has become increasingly trivial to identify by face or license plate such that combining tools reaches "movie Interpol" levels, without any warrant or security credentials?
That already exists and it is run by private companies and sold to government agencies. That’s a huge power grab.
> The best defense is actually the glut of data and the fact nobody is actively watching you picking your nose in the elevator. If everyone can utilize any camera and its history for any reason then expect fractal chaos and internet shaming.
This argument holds whether it is public or not. It is worse if Flock or the government can do this asymmetrically than if anyone can do it IMO, they already have enough coercive tools.
"Or others see when parents are repeatedly leaving their kids unattended."
... which is the expected, default use-case for a playground ...
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There are sites that index thousands of public live streaming cameras, with search fields where you can just enter "park" and get live cams with kids playing, because people have specifically arranged for those cameras to exist.
They don't grant power, they enhance it. Not helpful for those without don't have any actual power.
I've thought the same regarding license plate readers (and saw considerable pushback on HN) — feeling like you suggest: if they have the technology anyway, why not open it up?
I imagined a "white list" though (or whatever the new term is—"permitted list"?) so that only certain license plates are posted/tracked.
I wonder if such a business model could exist where they were effectively "public" and thus, access was uniformly granted to anyone willing to pay. not sure if this would be net better for society, but an interesting thought.
Is it more symmetrical? I know in theory we all can continuously download and datamine these video feeds but can everyone really?
No, but the same argument could be made for things like open source software. We assume/hope that someone more aligned with our outcomes is actively looking.
Or, at the very least, that we can go back and look later.
I don't think they are similar. Public feeds would enable someone to document and sell people's whereabouts in real time. The fact that I could do the same or go back and look later is no defense.
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> I don't want these cameras to exist but, if they're going to, might we be better off if they are openly accessible?
Cities will remove Flock cameras at the first council meeting that sits after council-members learn their families can be stalked.
Seems like a positive side effect. The Seattle area is delaying it after the open records request case.