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Comment by wil421 | Hacker News Reader

Yes. Prior to flock, my city trialed LPRs attached to the local power company’s poles. In the first month, they recovered more stolen cars than any prior years total recoveries. I’ve got mixed feelings about Flock, LPRs, and what it allows people and governments to do.

I’m 100% sold on the results.

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Nobody is questioning the value of unconstrained mass surveillance on solving crimes.

Unfortunately it also enables a good deal of more heinous crimes against the people its supposed to protect, by the people who are supposed to be protecting them.

The problem imo is the usage and laws rather than the technology. Security cameras used for public good is good. But it needs to be heavily limited to preventing crime, with strict access logs and penalties for misuse.

Part of that is cops also doing their jobs in the first place versus "not giving a shit". Like when shown an eBay page of the person who sold my stolen phone. Nearly a hundred iPhones, all "activation locked", "no charger", same for Mac laptops, "no chargers, no accessories, may be locked".

Cops: "Well he probably didn't steal them himself."

Me: "Even so, knowingly selling stolen property is a crime too, no?"

Cops: "..."

Imagine if the police had the names and faces of every marcher in every protest. They too would be (are) 100% sold on the results.

Flock doesnt scan faces, only cars.

So they claim. But the footage will continue to exist if somebody or themselves decide to identify faces.

Flock provide more than LPRs. Check out the "Condor" cameras.

Why would you go to a protest if you don’t want people to know that you are there?

I don't understand the question, and I'm not who you asked, but I think that those are two completely different things. It is our right to protest, and it says nothing about having to give up our anonymity to do so.

You’re sadly mistaken. Anything you do in public is public.

So, ends justifies the means. Got it.

I guess I’m old enough to remember when 99.9% of us on hacker news were…well, hackers. We valued privacy and freedom over surveillance and “results.”

I miss those days.

> We valued privacy and freedom over surveillance and “results.”

The relative value of one over the other depends on the absolute value of either. In a Mad Max scenario, very few would value the principles of privacy and freedom over the immediate need to reestablish basic order.

Take auto theft as an example. Depending on how old you are, the recent spike in auto theft is either "nothing compared to the 80s" or "entirely unacceptable in civilized society"; in select cities, the rate almost tripled in five years[0] (an incredible jump), though remaining well below the historical peak.

However, case clearance rates are at an all time low, which I'm sure furthers frustration for the victims. That is, you're statistically less likely to be a victim of auto theft today than during the historical peak, but if you are, you're statistically more likely to be SOL.

You're probably approaching this from a civil libertarian point of view, but the Constitution is not a suicide pact[1]. Members of society who collectively uphold the law also have a vested interested in the maintenance of the conditions that would further perpetuate upholding the law, i.e. law and order.

[0]: https://counciloncj.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/motor-veh...

[1]: Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949)

HN has always been associated with tech entrepreneurship rather than 'hacker' in the way that it's commonly used.

I'm not sure there was ever a time when 99.9% of the userbase, or even a much smaller percentage, actually valued privacy and freedom rather than seeing them as obstacles to value extraction.

This is a SV startup forum more than a hacker forum.

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