- cross-posted to:
- technology
- privacy
- cross-posted to:
- technology
- privacy
Snips from the article below, but the full thing is worth reading.
My small town in South Carolina will soon have more Flock cameras than police officers.
the city council of my small town of Irmo, South Carolina, voted to install 22 new Flock cameras. That’ll bring the total up to 33. With a population of only 12,000 or so, it means there’ll be one Flock camera for every 300 residents. That means there will be more Flock cameras in my town than police officers.
The vote for the cameras was a hot topic in local news and South Carolina social media. The city council expected a lot of people to show and asked folks to sign up early if they wanted to talk.
I wasn’t the only person who decided to speak. More than 10 other citizens went to the podium and spoke out against the cameras.
“I’m pretty enthralled by all the pushback you’re getting on the cameras you installed without asking a single member of the community if they wanted them installed,” said another resident, a man in a T-shirt and shorts. “If you give the government a tool, they will misuse it. Period. End of story. Get rid of them or we will get rid of them for you.”
For a bit, I thought it was possible that the town might not install these cameras. Then the police chief stood up and explained how he’d used Flock to capture pedophiles and I knew that was probably the end of it.
Police chief Bobby Dale has long been an advocate for the expansion of Flock in town. He told local outlet News19 that 33 cameras will allow him to see all the entrances and exits. “That would ultimately cover pretty much every nook and cranny, every entry point into the town,” he said. “That’s what we want. As the chief of police, I’ve got to make sure our town is safe. I’m learning that with these cameras, with these license plate readers, we’re solving crimes and solving them quicker.”
During the city council meeting, Dale explained that Flock cameras had been instrumental in a To Catch a Predator style sting operation Irmo PD conducted. “During an internet crimes against children operation hosted by a department, 15 adults traveled to our community believing they were coming to meet children for sexual activity," Dale said. “Fourteen of those 15 suspects were not from our jurisdiction.”
“So you lured them here. Into our town. Genius,” the T-shirt and shorts guy shouted from the back of the room. This was the guy who’d said the community would remove the Flock cameras if the city didn’t. The mayor had police escort him from the meeting. He left without a fight and Dale finished his speech praising Flock.
Mayor Bill Danielson opened his portion of the Flock discussion by talking about how he’d recently commiserated with other mayors at the conference about how mean people were on Facebook.
“I came back with a renewed vigor to be the mayor of this town,” he said. “And knowing that I’m not the only one being abused on Facebook, social media, by some people in this room. It’s going to take a whole lot more than that to sway any position I may or may not have on behalf of these citizens.”
“Every one of those mayors either wanted Flock, was trying to figure out how to budget for Flock, or had Flock and was figuring out how to increase their presence.”
My city council voted 4 to 1 to increase the presence of Flock in this small town of 12,000 people. Police chief Dale will soon have more cameras than officers. And, if they can get money from the state, they may also purchase a drone from Flock to use as part of the company’s “drones as first responder” program.
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The other thing the mayor learned is that everyone loves Flock. “There was not a mayor at that conference that I touched bases with […] that did not use Flock, did not use Motorola license plate readers,” he said, referring to another company that sells similar technology (we’ve reported ICE is offering demos to its agents to use a Motorola license plate reader app). “Every one of those mayors either wanted Flock, was trying to figure out how to budget for Flock, or had Flock and was figuring out how to increase their presence.”
Oh no. Just as the GrapheneOS phone gets rolling, Motorola does this. Sigh…
Oh boy, do I got bad news for you.
Motorola has made cameras for a long while now. One of their main products, Avigilon is a security camera system that boasts extremely powerful AI tracking. You can set search filters like shirt and pants color, or vehicle color and it will pull related clips easily. It’s also great at tracking cars, even across multiple cameras.
There was a demo I’d seen where a skyscraper with a busy road all around it and cars parked along the street tracks a single vehicle that circles it. The car goes out of frame in some blind spots, but the cameras quickly pick it back up as it comes back into view and marks it as the same car seen previously.
The license plate readers have been a thing for a long while.
12,000 people?! My hometown was 15,000. Shocker, there is no crime except the random methhead. Nothing ever happens in towns like that! These are the most paranoid fucking cops, bored out of their minds wishing and hoping for someone to do anything so they can go beat the shit out of them.
My town we would see all of their SUVs parked at the gas station, all idling, wasting money, fuel, and our sanity.
What a collossal waste of funds. Everyone should be voted out. But I know how small towns work. Mayor is some uncle to some family dynasty who are big fish in small pond, and they will maintain their power.
Small towns are the most paranoid about crime. They act like it’s everywhere and lurking in every shadow. I moved from a city of 450k to 4k in highschool and the rules in the small town were much more strict. We couldn’t even wear hats in high school cause “gangs” or something. Band shirts weren’t allowed, chain wallets, basically everything that nobody cared about in my previous school.
I remember that. Small town living is resentful of teenagers. Small kids are of course fine and adorable and cute - until they are teenagers. Then they don’t want to see you, they don’t want you to exist at all. You are in the adults and more likely, the elderly’s way.
So they will police everything you do as a teenager in your small town, exactly like you said. I remember I was driving home (from the gas station ironically from above) and suddenly noticed headlights were following my car. My friends and I were spooked, so we pulled into a parking lot to stop and hopefully they’d drive by. Turns out it was a cop, because of course it was. We were “acting suspicious”. Which yes we fucking were because we had an unknown car following us at night. He “let us off with a warning”.
I remember they built a brand new “youth center” for teenagers and kids to hang out at. Of course during the day it sat unused, so the old people started using it. Then the rules started coming in. Then we weren’t allowed to touch their things. Then you know it, they banned the kids altogether and it became a second community center, with teenagers not welcome. Took them a few years but they got it.
Then they wonder why kids act out. They’re micromanaged, they’re not allowed anywhere, they’re told to shut up and not be seen. So kids loiter, they get bored, and that leads to petty crime because there is nothing to fucking do in a small town. And adults are just baffled at the concept.
Here I am, 25 years later and I’m still livid at the “local leaders” of the small town. Their royal fiefdom in the middle of fucking nowhere, surrounded by cornfields. Got the hell out of there. May they rot there in their piercing agony of boredom.
Yup , and you ask why would anyone say Anna live here? And you always get “it’s a good place to raise a family” yeah if you want kids drinking at 14, pregnant at 15, etc.
Didn’t you read it though? If you lure a bunch of pedophiles to the town, you can catch most of them.
It is crazy how many fish they can catch when they lure them from all over the lake to one spot.
Your flock post reminder that they aren’t just license plate readers. They capture Bluetooth and wifi MACs, NFC IDs, and cellphone IMEIs, scan for wifi ssids (exactly like a WiFi Pineapple, to further fingerprint a device) from every device within range. They also do facial recognition of everyone within view of the lens. All that information is sent to flock for sale to any government agency,
All that information is sent to flock for sale to any government agency,
Don’t worry… I’m more than willing to bet it was bought up by commercial interests as well! Can’t leave all that money on the table when interfering with the exploitation of people is a crime in itself, now, can we?
for sale to any government agency
And probably a few private agencies. And foreign governments, too. Anybody with money.
Not that I totally trust my phone’s OS, but do you think bluetooth and wifi MACs are discoverable when they are toggled off?
On Android devices there is a setting to allow WiFi scanning even when WiFi is toggled off. It’s under the Location settings iirc. Also a similar setting for bluetooth.
I don’t believe so, but I also don’t trust the toggles. Remember that Google’s Android and Apple (to a lesser extent but still) are willing participants in the surveillance economy.
Maybe not directly but other parts are:
- Your phone is broadcasting its IMEI
- Your car (if newer than 2002) also has an IMEI most likely for services like OnStar, live traffic, OTA updates or mobile hotspot
- That same mobile hotspot broadcasts an SSID/Wifi MAC
- If you’re connected to your car using Bluetooth those are transmitting a BT MAC… each, so not only can they track cars they can track who is in a car
- if you’re connected via wireless car play or wireless Android Auto, it’s also transmitting WiFi and BT MACs
- if you have a smart watch (of any type) it’s broadcasting a BT MAC, and in some cases its own IMEI
And that’s just stuff off the top of my head.
The article the other day stated that the cost of flock vandalism wasn’t borne by flock, but rather the city that has them under the contracts. Look like that city council has opened up a potential budget draining risk by installing a buttload of cameras the people don’t want. Given the tight budgets of small towns, the city could be broke in short order if pissed off citizens rise up and start vandalizing them.
It’s funny that “they” are against solar… until “they” need it.
Those things are everywhere, and if you get caught “un-installing” one, they will probably ruin your life. We’re so cooked. Actually living in a really really boring cyberpunk dystopia
Uninstalling one is only a misdemeanor IIRC, but I’m not even sure putting plastic bags on stuff ia a crime at all. Littering maybe?
Likely vandalism.
Is it vandalism if one does something that stops an X from working temporarily even if one doesn’t damage the X at all? It’s an interesting question, I’d always thought vandalism = causing damage to a thing.
Tampering with equipment (intentionally altering or interfering with operation) generally falls under the same statutes as vandalism.
Interfering with operation … hmm… you’ve no doubt seen (at least if you’re on FB) the photo of the guy sitting outdoors on a chair next to a Flock device, and blocking its camera using a sign (or something, can’t tell) that’s mounted on a pole at FlockCam height. He’s not touching the Flock gear but he’s presumably interfering with its photo/video taking ability in a mostly passive way. Vandalism? Or does vandalism actually involve making physical contact with the vandalized object? I could imagine him arguing that he was just holding a sign up for the world to read and didn’t intend to interfere with the FlockCam. Still vandalism? Or could people put up objects (signs, flags, stuffed animals, Diaper Baby effigies) on poles very close to FlockCams (but not touching them) that happened to prevent those cams from doing visual surveillance, all without being vandals?
Use American flags.
Who knows what kind of bs they could pin on you. Under this administration, I wouldn’t be surprised if they start handing out terror charges for destruction of surveillance equipment.
That’s worst case scenario, but tbh I’d be more worried about bullying from the local cops.
If they don’t install them right, they have like a 180-degree blind spot. That’s not great for their protection.
Think a b-b will take out the lens?
Be careful not to aim a laser pointer into the lens, because it will be magnified and damage the digital camera inside.
You will likely need a high power laser to do any actual damage. Class 3b or higher. The kind you need to wear laser goggles for so you don’t blind yourself.
Don’t high-power lasers get reflected from any slightly shiny surface in an unpredictable manner and damage vision of random passerbys?
I thought I had read that ordinary laser pointers were enough to damage cameras, which is why I cautioned not to use them.
There was a guy who took out CCTV at my school with paintballs, at the least they would need to be cleaned off by someone.
Sounds like anybody running on a policy of removing all the flock cameras will have a pretty damn good chance of getting elected.
Just say Flock is sponsored by Democrats. That’ll get the small towns to stop using them.
Eh people from the southern us are some of the most pro authority people on the planet, I really don’t think that would be the slam dunk you think it would be. Minimum 1/3 of them will be rabidly screaming about how that candidate is pro crime and anti cop/justice…this 1/3 is also the main voting group btw lol.
Just keep voting for the MAGA fucknuts and their version of freedom.
sorry, paywalled content gets downvotes
I agree, but it doesn’t seem to be paywalled. I was able to read the whole article on 404media.co with no problem.
Yeah, but see that would require actually clicking on the link with the intent to read the article in the first place
you’re totally right, I absolutely clicked on the link and tried to read the article with no intent to actually read the article. 100% correct.
glad it worked for you. for me, it told me I needed to sell my email address to continue reading
Click the ‘x’ up in the corner of that pop-up.
lmao that works. I wonder if that’s intentional or not, since it directly contradicts the message displayed
either way, I’m still backing out immediately when they show a popup like that saying they require your information
