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Comment by dualvariable | Hacker News Reader

> As someone who’s had bikes stolen and car broken into, I sympathize with the desire for surveillance (especially in San Francisco).

That isn't what it is being used for. That would still require cops to be investigating petty theft as if they cared about it.

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> That isn't what it is being used for.

I'm not sure if you know what you're talking about? Flock cameras have definitely involved in detecting people who come into SF in stolen cars or with stolen plates, who proceed to go on sprees of breaking into cars and stealing things.

I really dislike Flock as a company, but their cameras absolutely do get used in the way they're publicly pitched.

Flock doing bad things does not justify coming into this thread and stating as fact things that are patently false.

You said it - they only care when it's a spree.

and one with a plate that's already reported stolen. trnslation: it's a zero effort publicity project.

Plates can be retroactively searched, backtracked, subjects followed back to other cars and tracked back to where they left from, or other cars that are repeatedly in the area prior to cars being stolen before being used for other crimes can be identified and tracked backward. A plate doesn’t need to be flagged prior to a crime. It’s the same way they can tell which tolls and which plate readers a vehicle has passed recently when running a plate, and is frequently used to identify or trip up drug runners.

Translation: you are wrong and seem to be making things up to fit your position, because this is exactly what people have a problem with — that this data is retained regardless of suspicion.

That wasn't what I said at all, and you know this. Please don't deliberately misrepresent me

Plenty of places this is happening.

I got to teach a Detective the technical limitations of Find My, and also successfully recovered some of my property from a UHaul truck during a stop.

All for bikes - but it contributed to two arrests, and contributed to a larger, interstate theft case.

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