Flockery
You may have heard about Flock cameras and the controversy surrounding them. Or maybe not. You might live underneath a rock. Or in a better country than the shithole known as the USA, or "land of the fee" as I like to call it, and thus not care about whatever crap goes on in the US.I have been hearing about Flock cameras off and on for some months in the news. One of the ones I was amused by is people ripping them open and going "oh hey look a free large lion cell." The idea of crackheads tearing down Flock cameras to sell the batteries in them is funny to me.
Don't ever do that. Don't tear down Flock cameras. I would never support such lawless vigilante expression of your beliefs in what is right and wrong. No no. I fully expect you sheep to keep dancing the sheep tune to the cameras. ;)
Back to the point... So the latest thing I saw was this video from Tommy G and Benn Jordan
And wow. There are apparently 100,000+ of these Flock cameras now across the US, and most ( all? ) of them also watch license plates and thus track where everyone drives.
This is striking to me, because I've long wondered if/when the US government would begin doing that. Well, the answer is apparently "now." Welcome to the surveillance state. Well sort of. It was already one before, but, well, it's more of one now.
The shit from the horses mouth ( PR lady ) from the Flock company at the end of the video is telling too. Her position is essentially "you can record anything you want on public property so we do." Uhh... but stalking? How tf is it stalking online when an individual does it, but not when a huge corporation does it en-masse to everyone? It's so fucked up.
It's also very telling that these Flockers ( cute name; I saw people saying this in YouTube comments ) want to hide where they do business, and not be in videos, yet are fine videoing everyone everywhere they go. That's absurdly hypocritical.
That Flock also has drones, and mics that listen to what people say on campuses, is even more dystopian.
That's about the gist of my primary thoughts from the video. On to the secondary thoughts.
I was struck by how they hid their locations of businesses using what amount to shell corporations and crap like that. That is so suspicious. It also reminded me of when I worked for the main T Rowe Price data center in Maryland. I had to sign some bullshit that said I would not tell anyone where the data center was located.
Except that the fucking thing still appeared on Google maps at the time.
Ok ok I get it. If it is public someone could go blow it up. AND making me legally sign that I'll not tell people where it is does not change that at all! Besides it's a huge data center. They aren't that hard to find. They aren't invisible. Stupidity all around all that. The Flock insanity reminded me of them.
I liked how they had a college student talking about Flock microphones appearing on his campus and that Flock initially said they are only for gunshot triangulation, but then changed their tune later and are using them to record people talking also. That's quite bs. That definitely used to be illegal.
You see at some point in the US past, it was legal to record people on video in public without consent, but you could not record them on audio without consent. Times change I guess? Or Flock just doesn't give a shit about the law?
I think it is more likely the latter, because it is still incomprehensible to me how Flock cameras are legal at all.
Slightly related to this is a video I saw a while back of a homeowner bitching about a Flock camera appearing on their property, going to find out where it came from, and then it just being removed in response.
That begged the question for me "Do these flockers just put these fucking cameras anywhere they want including on private property with no respect to the wishes of the property owners?" Yes yes. Seems they do that.
Reminds me of the time that cops parked in front of my house and I told them to get away. Yes yes I know they can legally be on the public street anywhere they want, but damn it I don't want those assholes parked in front of my house.
I was also happy to see people pointing out that laser pointers of sufficient strength can damage digital cameras. I have no idea what that has to do with Flock cameras. No siree. I am only in support of following all law 100% to a T. That's what they call me. Mr obeys all laws no matter how idiotic. That's me.
Another random thing that was funny when the YouTubers asked the random guy "where did you get that Flock camera" and he responded "ebay", as if that made the stolen camera suddenly legit somehow.
They pulled the same crap later. When the Flock employee saw it he was like "Is that ours? Give that back."
As much as I hate all things Flock, I'm actually with Flock on this one, it is their camera and it was stolen. So hey, I actually might be in favor of obeying laws and not stealing people's stuff.
Like... when did "yeah I bought this stolen thing on ebay, so it's legit mine now" become reasonable in any way?
Another thing this whole story made me think about is my invention, Donkey Free. Donkey Free can be used to make such surveillance, and especially low power license plate tracking by cheap cameras, work even better. Which is exactly one of the many things I don't want Donkey Free to ever be used for.
Which is why I will not attempt to patent Donkey Free in the US, because it is a dual-use technology that I believe the US dickheads will try to seize and subject me to a silence order. So I'm keeping it to myself. US corrupt authorities can't have it.
Sorry I don't have any real point to this particular post. It amounts to "I saw a video about Flock cameras and they suck." :shrug:
AI says my anticlimactic ending sucks. So I'll end it with this:
I've come up with a new acronym for AI as a service. AAASS.
The extra S is for Shitty.