zlacker

>>chaps+(OP)
Flock or their defenders will lock in on the excuse that “oh these are misconfigured” or “yeah hacking is illegal, only cops should have this data”. The issue is neither of the above. The issue is the collection and collation of this footage in the first place! I don’t want hackers watching me all the time, sure, but I DEFINITELY don’t trust the state or megacorps to watch me all the time. Hackers concern me less, actually. I’m glad that Benn Jordan and others are giving this the airtime it needs, but they’re focusing the messaging on security vulnerabilities and not state surveillance. Thus Flock can go “ok we will do better about security” and the bureaucrats, average suburbanites, and law enforcement agencies will go “ok good they fixed the vulnerabilities I’m happy now”

>>edot+15
Yes and the biggest problem with this kind of ALPRs are they bypass the due process. Most of the time police can just pull up data without any warrant and there has been instances where this was abused (I think some cops used this for stalking their exes [1]) and also the most worrying Flock seems to really okay with giving ICE unlimited access to this data [2] [3] (which I speculate for loose regulations).

[1]: https://lookout.co/georgia-police-chief-arrested-for-using-f... [2]: https://www.404media.co/emails-reveal-the-casual-surveillanc... [3]: https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-...

>>dvtkrl+Z5
I keep an unofficial record of instances where police and similar authorities have abused their access to these types of systems. The list is long. It's almost exclusively men stalking ex-partners or attractive women they don't know, but have seen in public.

What's frightening is it's not rare, it actually happens constantly, and this is just within the systems which have a high level of internal logging/user-tracking.

So now with Flock and data brokers we have authorities having access to information that was originally held behind a judge's signature. Often with little oversight, and frequently for unofficial, abusive purposes.

This reality also ties back to the discussion about providing the "good guys" encryption backdoors. The reality is that there are no "good guys", everyone exists in shades of grey, and I dare say there are people in forces whom are attracted to the power the role provides, rather than any desire for public service.

In conclusion it's a fundamental design flaw to rely on the operator being a "good guy", and that's before we get into the problem of leaks, bugs, and flaws in the security model, or in this case: complete open access to the public web - laughable, farcical, and horrifying.

>>quitit+Mk1
And my guess is we only ever find out about some probably very small percentage of the abuses by police, at least in theory having rules and oversight of their use of these systems.

What are the chances that nobody at Flock has ever abused their access?

Cynical-me assumes that if you're the sort of person who'd take a job at a company like Flock, which I and evidently a lot of other people consider morally bankrupt, then you are at least as likely as a typical cop to think that stalking your exes or random attractive people you see - is just a perk of your job, not something that should come with jail time.