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Comment by mikpanko | Hacker News Reader

Curious: what was Tesla’s initial justification for recording from cameras while the car is parked and charging?

The root reason is that Tesla is made by and for people who assume that they will never ever be at the receiving end of a power imbalance. (edit: to them) More surveillance equals more opportunity to use power, not risk of ending up on the other side. The mindset operates on not identifying with former winners, as in the idea that luck might change e.g. through an unfortunate health development is completely ignored.

Very succinct analysis, I wonder what other brands operate with the same assumption? Also are there any brands that operate under the opposite assumption?

I'm sure the mindset exists everywhere, but others are not associated with a person-brand that puts it into the center.

Being German I can't say much about others, but German luxury might be the least similar. Based no doubt on there having been a time when generational wealth was going all in on understatement not by choice, but because showing off would have inspired curiosity about how exactly that wealth found its way into the second half of the 20th century. And then with the tone being set, those who actually did make their fortune post-war followed the pattern.

This is annoyingly wrong. The root reason is they record when it’s in sentry mode and it’s saved to the cloud so you can view footage on your phone. It isn’t some evil plan to maliciously record people. It’s bothersome that there can’t be rational conversation around anything space man related

Yeah, that's the obvious motivation at the surface, I never questioned that. The thing is, people who "self-identify as winners" are incapable of seeing any downside to ubiquitous surveillance because if that ever turned against an individual, that individual would cease to be who they think they are. Self-inflicted blindness to all outcomes other than best-case.

If that's the root reason, then there is zero reason that footage is open to consumption by the manufacturer (and made generally available to Tesla employees). That is owner data, not company data and it should be stored in a cryptographically secure manner accessible only to the owner themselves. This is entirely possible to implement but it just isn't because it would be forfeiting part of their information asymmetry that Telsa enjoys over it's customers/market.

We don't have any evidence it's generally open to consumption by all Tesla employees, and I'd be shocked if it was. I also don't think there's any cloud video storage happening by any large company that encrypts video files, Tesla isn't like uniquely dumb about this

I have two cameras in my jeep that are recording at all times. One front and back. It just overwrites its recordings after a time period.

Gives me something to report if it's broken into, hit, etc. I'd like an inside camera as well but haven't felt like adding it.

Also the Tesla uses Cameras instead of Lidar which is mentioned in the article, so they already had a million cameras they could give a driver access to.

Jeep having access to my cameras though? Super weird. Jeep can do literally nothing to assist me in any situation that I would have a recording of something happening. But that's possibly much different with Teslas camera system where it's used for self-driving etc.

Yes! But you are recording on your own device and nobody else can do anything about it.

"Sentry mode". If someone keys your car, you get several high-resolution camera recordings of the crime.

And several of your own crime.

No idea if this was Tesla’s justification, but it can be useful for hit-and-run while parked.

Though Tesla probably did it because they could and Elon said so.

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