There are ways of doing this that don't require you to abdicate all of your privacy to a third-party SaaS company who makes it easy to share information with the police everywhere.
My camera system is not connected to the cloud and it has a retention policy of 4 weeks. I took pains not to aim them anywhere where I'd be collecting data outside of my own property. There's full-disk encryption in use. The police could maintain their own surveillance network and place their own cameras in a legally compliant way and it would be fine.
Flock and Ring are awful because they enable easy surveillance and search after the fact, not a priori because they are surveillance systems. If they required proof of warrant before letting the police execute a search I think a lot of people would be more comfortable with them. A police officer stalking an ex is like the basic example you get if you ask an ALPR vendor why we need audit logging and proactive auditing of all searches. But that's not the only way these tools enable invasion of privacy.
If you want proof that that's the problem with them, you should know that people have been building wired camera systems and ALPR systems for decades before Flock and Ring came into existence. So it's solely the cloud Search-as-a-Service business model that's the problem there.
> The answer to that is the only one that matters.
This statement rests on the belief that absolute crime rate is the only thing that matters, and is a cousin to the "I have nothing to hide!" response from people who care little for intrusions to their privacy. Are you in favor of giving law enforcement authorities a way to unlock all private electronic devices?
I'm willing to tolerate the presence of some crime in the name of personal liberty. I do not think my whereabouts should be known on demand by government actors just because I drive a car.
You’re going to be so shocked to find out the tracking device the government tricked you to put in your pocket is even worse. Police can run geofenced dragnets whenever they want, and all you got was the ability to shitpost on the Internet.
You’ll be even more shocked when biometric login isn’t protected by the 5th amendment. Possibly, even more shocked when you find out about XKEYSCORE.
ALPR is bad, of course, but in terms of actual invasion of privacy there are far bigger kraken sized fish to fry that we have accepted as just… completely normal and even necessary to function in our society. It’s only natural that they continue to push the boundaries. Almost like giving up rights for security has consequences we were warned about 250 years ago.
I won't be shocked (I don't have biometric logins enabled, thankyouverymuch), but does that mean I just celebrate it, or give up in all circumstances? I'm not yet a kicked dog, in either behavior or attitude.
Unless something has changed (or I'm simply clueless), it's not quite so trivial to ask where my phone was on January 30th. Camera surveillance is not time-limited.
It’s quite common for cell phone carriers to provide law enforcement with historical records of which towers a phone was connected to at specific times. Also the phone itself stores detailed location history, including which wifi networks it connected to, allowing police to get someone’s movements if their phone is seized as evidence. Police can even use battery temperature history to get an idea of whether the phone was on someone’s body, outside in the heat/cold, etc.
You made a broad-brush statement that essentially justified anything in the name of safety. You might want to re-word your statement if you meant otherwise.
I think the point is that it's a tradeoff of civil liberties in exchange for safety.
I think it's an interesting discussion and it's not clear to me what the right answer is.
Given the first amendment in the USA, i think once it's cheap enough everyone will be filming everyone all the time. Just look at how many people have ring doorbells.
The first amendment?? Is surveillance speech now? Lets add it to the list: money is speech, surveillance is speech, protesting is NOT speech. Anything I’m missing?
My point was if you are only looking at the reduction in crime as the sole success criterion we will all end up naked in glass cells because that would result in the lowest crime rates.
By any means necessary, as long as crime goes down? So we can execute anyone that breaks any kind of law and as long as crime goes down, that's all that should matter? Rights have no value to you, only protecting people from crime? There's no balance to be had, the only relevant question is if crime goes up or down?
You need the carrot and the stick. There's a reason the QoL in urban areas in countries with significantly draconian enforcement like Singapore, Japan, and South Korea is significantly higher peer cities in North America and Western Europe.
Cleanliness and order as a cultural norm only arose because police in Singapore, Japan, and South Korea are very fine and enforcement happy.
> Would crime go up, down or stay the same if all surveillance cameras were removed?
I would think the same, crime rates would be unaffected in the short and medium term, since I don't think it prevents much crime given the short or non-custodial sentences given many criminals. Clearance rates and justice (conviction rates) would likely go down though IMO.
There are ways of doing this that don't require you to abdicate all of your privacy to a third-party SaaS company who makes it easy to share information with the police everywhere.
My camera system is not connected to the cloud and it has a retention policy of 4 weeks. I took pains not to aim them anywhere where I'd be collecting data outside of my own property. There's full-disk encryption in use. The police could maintain their own surveillance network and place their own cameras in a legally compliant way and it would be fine.
Flock and Ring are awful because they enable easy surveillance and search after the fact, not a priori because they are surveillance systems. If they required proof of warrant before letting the police execute a search I think a lot of people would be more comfortable with them. A police officer stalking an ex is like the basic example you get if you ask an ALPR vendor why we need audit logging and proactive auditing of all searches. But that's not the only way these tools enable invasion of privacy.
If you want proof that that's the problem with them, you should know that people have been building wired camera systems and ALPR systems for decades before Flock and Ring came into existence. So it's solely the cloud Search-as-a-Service business model that's the problem there.
> The answer to that is the only one that matters.
This statement rests on the belief that absolute crime rate is the only thing that matters, and is a cousin to the "I have nothing to hide!" response from people who care little for intrusions to their privacy. Are you in favor of giving law enforcement authorities a way to unlock all private electronic devices?
I'm willing to tolerate the presence of some crime in the name of personal liberty. I do not think my whereabouts should be known on demand by government actors just because I drive a car.
You’re going to be so shocked to find out the tracking device the government tricked you to put in your pocket is even worse. Police can run geofenced dragnets whenever they want, and all you got was the ability to shitpost on the Internet.
You’ll be even more shocked when biometric login isn’t protected by the 5th amendment. Possibly, even more shocked when you find out about XKEYSCORE.
ALPR is bad, of course, but in terms of actual invasion of privacy there are far bigger kraken sized fish to fry that we have accepted as just… completely normal and even necessary to function in our society. It’s only natural that they continue to push the boundaries. Almost like giving up rights for security has consequences we were warned about 250 years ago.
I won't be shocked (I don't have biometric logins enabled, thankyouverymuch), but does that mean I just celebrate it, or give up in all circumstances? I'm not yet a kicked dog, in either behavior or attitude.
Unless something has changed (or I'm simply clueless), it's not quite so trivial to ask where my phone was on January 30th. Camera surveillance is not time-limited.
It’s quite common for cell phone carriers to provide law enforcement with historical records of which towers a phone was connected to at specific times. Also the phone itself stores detailed location history, including which wifi networks it connected to, allowing police to get someone’s movements if their phone is seized as evidence. Police can even use battery temperature history to get an idea of whether the phone was on someone’s body, outside in the heat/cold, etc.
None of that sounds as straightforward as a dragnet would be. Most require a target to be identified.
> The answer to that is the only one that matters.
Is it, though? Crime would be super low if we were all confined to prison cells by default, too.
[flagged]
You made a broad-brush statement that essentially justified anything in the name of safety. You might want to re-word your statement if you meant otherwise.
It's a stretch for sure.
I think the point is that it's a tradeoff of civil liberties in exchange for safety.
I think it's an interesting discussion and it's not clear to me what the right answer is.
Given the first amendment in the USA, i think once it's cheap enough everyone will be filming everyone all the time. Just look at how many people have ring doorbells.
The first amendment?? Is surveillance speech now? Lets add it to the list: money is speech, surveillance is speech, protesting is NOT speech. Anything I’m missing?
> For a tech forum the rebuttals are terrible.
Physician, heal thyself!
HN has become much dumber as X became less censured.
No it's not. Would crime go up, down, or stay the same if we had to get strip searched before entering airplanes?
The types of crime that would happen in an airplane would already be identifiable due to its constrained cabin, so I don’t understand the comparison.
Let’s use your example for say a concert. Is checking bags worth it? Would crime go up if there was no bag check? Why or why not?
> Is checking bags worth it?
Probably not. It's mostly there to preserve the profits from alcohol sales.
> Would crime go up if there was no bag check?
Did it go down when they added them?
My point was if you are only looking at the reduction in crime as the sole success criterion we will all end up naked in glass cells because that would result in the lowest crime rates.
I mean, that depends on whether you consider the warrantless, disproportionate search a crime.
It should be!
By any means necessary, as long as crime goes down? So we can execute anyone that breaks any kind of law and as long as crime goes down, that's all that should matter? Rights have no value to you, only protecting people from crime? There's no balance to be had, the only relevant question is if crime goes up or down?
Wow.
You need the carrot and the stick. There's a reason the QoL in urban areas in countries with significantly draconian enforcement like Singapore, Japan, and South Korea is significantly higher peer cities in North America and Western Europe.
Cleanliness and order as a cultural norm only arose because police in Singapore, Japan, and South Korea are very fine and enforcement happy.
Crime would go down if everyone was executed. Your question is not the only one that matters.
[flagged]
> Would crime go up, down or stay the same if all surveillance cameras were removed?
I would think the same, crime rates would be unaffected in the short and medium term, since I don't think it prevents much crime given the short or non-custodial sentences given many criminals. Clearance rates and justice (conviction rates) would likely go down though IMO.
probably up