>“The city of Dunwoody is one city in our demo partner program,” a Flock spokesperson told 404 Media. “The cities involved in this program have authorized select Flock employees to demonstrate new products and features as we develop them in partnership with the city.
the two things i still dont understand are:
1) why is there not a dedicated demo environment for demos, like practically every other software? i cant think of any reason why they need live data for a demonstration. (this might be addressed in the article, but the paragraph where it looks like it might be mentioned is also where the article is cut off)
2) is the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta (MCJCCA) city-owned? if not, the city should not be able to give permission to use the cameras. if so, was the MJCCA notified that the cameras would be used for demo purposes? were the parents notified?
Presumably there are people that have access to it. And if you are demoing software that connects to cameras, then someone gave the sales guy access to those cameras.
I’m also assuming those probably weren’t the only cameras…
I imagine its for security. Ie if there are reports of robbery, you can find who did it. I know its not that popular in the states but its common elsewhere, but with better controls. (well, "better" as in controlled by shitty IoT devices)
I think the thing with flock is just how poorly put together everything is. They are obviously insecure, and the entire network has massive holes in it. Yet its still being rolled out.
In many cases the people deploying these cameras have no idea the feeds are being resold to Flock. It’s not like they have a consumer brand and people are saying, “oh yeah, Flock, they’re the license plate camera folks…I definitely want one of those in my locker room.”
I was attacked by "a good dog" and then blamed for provoking the dog (like that is valid excuse for starting an attack). I defended myself, and dog owner joined the attacked together with their dog!
After that, I have cameras everywhere, I even record many interactions on my phone. I refuse to be at mercy of random beasts and their "owners". If people start using leashes and muzzles, I may consider taking down cameras!
So there are people sitting in cubicles in various companies/orgs that flock sells the access to and they are watching your children on a screen.
Usually the government is trying to wrap the spying/privacy breaches by "save the children", but this time if you want to save your children from some older dude watching them on a screen, you actually have to be against this privacy nightmare.
Isolated information isn't a problem. If it takes effort to access information then mass information abuse doesn't scale, it is free of cost, and consequence, access that is the issue here. Flock is attempting to destroy barriers to access around real time surveillance. There is a clear distinction between someone having a business surveillance system that points at the street that the police can get access to with some sort of device specific request and no-requirement needed brows the world access that Flock is pushing. This is different. This is evil.
It's it anything like the comments I see on here defending Flock, it'll just be a bunch of attempting to scare people with the idea of crime, and disparaging anyone in favor of privacy as being pro-crime.
>“The city of Dunwoody is one city in our demo partner program,” a Flock spokesperson told 404 Media. “The cities involved in this program have authorized select Flock employees to demonstrate new products and features as we develop them in partnership with the city.
the two things i still dont understand are:
1) why is there not a dedicated demo environment for demos, like practically every other software? i cant think of any reason why they need live data for a demonstration. (this might be addressed in the article, but the paragraph where it looks like it might be mentioned is also where the article is cut off)
2) is the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta (MCJCCA) city-owned? if not, the city should not be able to give permission to use the cameras. if so, was the MJCCA notified that the cameras would be used for demo purposes? were the parents notified?
While I think this isn’t great.
Why is the camera there in the first place??
Presumably there are people that have access to it. And if you are demoing software that connects to cameras, then someone gave the sales guy access to those cameras.
I’m also assuming those probably weren’t the only cameras…
> Why is the camera there in the first place??
I imagine its for security. Ie if there are reports of robbery, you can find who did it. I know its not that popular in the states but its common elsewhere, but with better controls. (well, "better" as in controlled by shitty IoT devices)
I think the thing with flock is just how poorly put together everything is. They are obviously insecure, and the entire network has massive holes in it. Yet its still being rolled out.
In many cases the people deploying these cameras have no idea the feeds are being resold to Flock. It’s not like they have a consumer brand and people are saying, “oh yeah, Flock, they’re the license plate camera folks…I definitely want one of those in my locker room.”
I feel like I’m missing something.
There is someone that is making the decision right?
Or are you just saying the person placing the cameras is decoupled from the person making the decision to aggregate them all.
But I still feel like the accountability is on who is giving the access to sensitive cameras.
> Why is the camera there in the first place??
I was attacked by "a good dog" and then blamed for provoking the dog (like that is valid excuse for starting an attack). I defended myself, and dog owner joined the attacked together with their dog!
After that, I have cameras everywhere, I even record many interactions on my phone. I refuse to be at mercy of random beasts and their "owners". If people start using leashes and muzzles, I may consider taking down cameras!
There is also another movement to stop Flock. And a discussion [1]
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47772012
So there are people sitting in cubicles in various companies/orgs that flock sells the access to and they are watching your children on a screen.
Usually the government is trying to wrap the spying/privacy breaches by "save the children", but this time if you want to save your children from some older dude watching them on a screen, you actually have to be against this privacy nightmare.
The crazy thing is that this isn’t even a hypothetical. Some random dude was watching your kids from an office building with spy cameras
Isolated information isn't a problem. If it takes effort to access information then mass information abuse doesn't scale, it is free of cost, and consequence, access that is the issue here. Flock is attempting to destroy barriers to access around real time surveillance. There is a clear distinction between someone having a business surveillance system that points at the street that the police can get access to with some sort of device specific request and no-requirement needed brows the world access that Flock is pushing. This is different. This is evil.
Meanwhile YC President Garry Tan continues to support and defend Flock. I'm curious how he'd spin this as a good thing.
It's it anything like the comments I see on here defending Flock, it'll just be a bunch of attempting to scare people with the idea of crime, and disparaging anyone in favor of privacy as being pro-crime.
Probably something like "but imagine how much money a few people are making from it!"
If a school shooter was in your children's daycare, wouldn't you want there to be cameras so you knew where they were?
...is how I imagine that one goes.
One of the previous discussions [1]
[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47784045