Just so everyone is aware, even the non-flock speed readers are almost certainly tracking you by your license plate, if not more. I helped try to find a missing elderly person a while ago, maybe five or so years ago, and the government had a record of his movements based on reading his license plate from static roadside devices. I also know that the local cops had a speed display thingie like shown on the video that would alert them to license plates that were listed as stolen vehicles. I wouldn’t doubt that it also tracked every other license plate it read. That was, give or take, a decade ago.
Flock might have notoriety right now, but fuck if the ‘littler’ things like cops put up probably don’t also have more than just cameras now. I’m especially thinking of the things that look like those shown 3 or four posts down on this old post
I think the government has a lot more information on citizens than they’ll ever let on.
Hell, 20 years ago, a cop typed my name into his squad computer, and a quote of mine from an internet forum from about 5 years previous popped up on the screen momentarily.
People have no idea. I read an article a month ago or so that said that WiFi 7 can use radio/sound frequencies to identify individual people in its range. About 20 years ago a theory was proven to be 80+% accurate at capturing passwords by using a microphone to remotely listen to someone type on a keyboard for a while. Websites, applications, operating systems, hardware, carriers, satellites, vehicle manufacturers, payment processors, healthcare systems, watches, GPS, TVs, etc. are all collecting information whether in good faith or not, and various entities, including the government and private companies, are paying and/or using regulatory enforcement to gather it all. The fight for privacy has already been lost. And most people don’t care or are willing to accept it. The silver lining the thought that it’s not worth fighting it anymore is kind of relieving.
In my friends city they use drones that do fly bys.
I remember visiting and we’re all outside and smoking weed at night and a drone flies over the house next to us, goes down a line across other houses and makes a turn and flies down the row right next to the last one it made. Like it was mowing the lawn.
At first I thought it was a hobbyists until I noticed the pattern it was taking. It was a surveillance drone and when I asked my buddy if there was a manhunt or something going on for someone he replied that that’s the local police stations drone and that they do that all the time.
I’ll never forget the terror I felt when he said that. I don’t smoke all the time either so I was just staring at them in disbelief while they were all laughing and just chilling about it while I was freaking the absolute hell out about it. I remember they told me I’m just being paranoid.
“ABOUT NIGHTLY DRONE FLY BYS BY THE POLICE DEPARTMENT!?” I still can’t believe said I’m just being paranoid about being scared shirtless about that and what ur brings for the future.
Police surveillance has been overreaching for a long time
This is what’s been confusing me about this whole situation. They’ve been tracking vehicle movements with ANPR cameras, the movements of your phone from its Bluetooth and wifi transmissions, and your movements with facial recognition for years now. Flock just stapled “AI” on to it and marketed it harder.
It’s great to see communities finally speaking up about these issues, but it’s going to take a lot of work to undo it all. In the meantime, if you have people around you that you can trust, maybe pool your vehicles and phones to increase the noise in their data.
People like the EFF have been fighting these surveillance cameras that track plates for years and years. Flock specifically got notoriety because people started getting grabbed off the street and shipped off to camps or foreign Gulags and we learned Flock was providing the tracking data to do it. Families have been ripped apart and people have died in a reasonable connection with Flock.
I guess what I should have said was that I’m confused as to why more people weren’t up in arms before now. I’m not actually confused, as you say, the harm has now been made obvious when it could be ignored before, but I am frustrated. My biggest concern is that Flock will act as a lightening rod for people’s anger and eventually be removed, leaving the rest of the system intact. It feels very much like a sacrificial move to get people to ignore the underlying problem, whilst exposing themselves if they take action, and allowing those in favour of tracking to say “see it’s just those violent extremists who don’t like being tracked, you’re not like that, so you have nothing to fear, right?” The public pushback needs to be widened, somehow, to encompass all forms of tracking like this.
Just so everyone is aware, even the non-flock speed readers are almost certainly tracking you by your license plate, if not more. I helped try to find a missing elderly person a while ago, maybe five or so years ago, and the government had a record of his movements based on reading his license plate from static roadside devices. I also know that the local cops had a speed display thingie like shown on the video that would alert them to license plates that were listed as stolen vehicles. I wouldn’t doubt that it also tracked every other license plate it read. That was, give or take, a decade ago.
Flock might have notoriety right now, but fuck if the ‘littler’ things like cops put up probably don’t also have more than just cameras now. I’m especially thinking of the things that look like those shown 3 or four posts down on this old post
I think the government has a lot more information on citizens than they’ll ever let on.
Hell, 20 years ago, a cop typed my name into his squad computer, and a quote of mine from an internet forum from about 5 years previous popped up on the screen momentarily.
People have no idea. I read an article a month ago or so that said that WiFi 7 can use radio/sound frequencies to identify individual people in its range. About 20 years ago a theory was proven to be 80+% accurate at capturing passwords by using a microphone to remotely listen to someone type on a keyboard for a while. Websites, applications, operating systems, hardware, carriers, satellites, vehicle manufacturers, payment processors, healthcare systems, watches, GPS, TVs, etc. are all collecting information whether in good faith or not, and various entities, including the government and private companies, are paying and/or using regulatory enforcement to gather it all. The fight for privacy has already been lost. And most people don’t care or are willing to accept it. The silver lining the thought that it’s not worth fighting it anymore is kind of relieving.
In my friends city they use drones that do fly bys.
I remember visiting and we’re all outside and smoking weed at night and a drone flies over the house next to us, goes down a line across other houses and makes a turn and flies down the row right next to the last one it made. Like it was mowing the lawn.
At first I thought it was a hobbyists until I noticed the pattern it was taking. It was a surveillance drone and when I asked my buddy if there was a manhunt or something going on for someone he replied that that’s the local police stations drone and that they do that all the time.
I’ll never forget the terror I felt when he said that. I don’t smoke all the time either so I was just staring at them in disbelief while they were all laughing and just chilling about it while I was freaking the absolute hell out about it. I remember they told me I’m just being paranoid.
“ABOUT NIGHTLY DRONE FLY BYS BY THE POLICE DEPARTMENT!?” I still can’t believe said I’m just being paranoid about being scared shirtless about that and what ur brings for the future.
Police surveillance has been overreaching for a long time
Welcome, to City 17. It’s safer here.
Joke’s on them, I can’t afford car registration
This is what’s been confusing me about this whole situation. They’ve been tracking vehicle movements with ANPR cameras, the movements of your phone from its Bluetooth and wifi transmissions, and your movements with facial recognition for years now. Flock just stapled “AI” on to it and marketed it harder.
It’s great to see communities finally speaking up about these issues, but it’s going to take a lot of work to undo it all. In the meantime, if you have people around you that you can trust, maybe pool your vehicles and phones to increase the noise in their data.
People like the EFF have been fighting these surveillance cameras that track plates for years and years. Flock specifically got notoriety because people started getting grabbed off the street and shipped off to camps or foreign Gulags and we learned Flock was providing the tracking data to do it. Families have been ripped apart and people have died in a reasonable connection with Flock.
I guess what I should have said was that I’m confused as to why more people weren’t up in arms before now. I’m not actually confused, as you say, the harm has now been made obvious when it could be ignored before, but I am frustrated. My biggest concern is that Flock will act as a lightening rod for people’s anger and eventually be removed, leaving the rest of the system intact. It feels very much like a sacrificial move to get people to ignore the underlying problem, whilst exposing themselves if they take action, and allowing those in favour of tracking to say “see it’s just those violent extremists who don’t like being tracked, you’re not like that, so you have nothing to fear, right?” The public pushback needs to be widened, somehow, to encompass all forms of tracking like this.
Ty for the link. Interesting topic