BTW, if you don't know Benn Jordan, his YouTube content is fire. I happen to be in the intersection of things that he likes to think about, but every video I've seen of his lately deserves front page HN treatment. It is that good.
This one was particularly good, given the technical difficulties of recording low frequency sounds. I can't vouch for his conclusions, but the effort he goes to to record these sounds is crazy.
1. I highly doubt the adversarial image generated by Jordan actually works in practice, especially since it needs to be fined tuned for a specific model, not to mention that different angles/noise will probably break it even more
2. Louis tries to defend whatever Ben's doing by saying that it's basically like random specks of mud or bird shit, but he doesn't seem to realize that intent is a thing. Having random specks on your license plate isn't going to send you to jail, but if it's obvious that you intentionally crafted the specks to defeat the ANPR, that's a whole different thing entirely, even if they vaguely look the same.
3. As much as I don't like ANPR networks or government surveillance, haven't courts consistently ruled that drivers have less rights (ie. "driving is a privilege, not a right")? For instance, the constitution guarantees free movement, but you need a drivers license to drive and police can ask for your license without probable cause. You also can't refuse a blood alcohol test while driving.
This would seem like a form of State AI regulation forcing you to submit to flock AI surveillance. I thought the dear leader was going to make any sort of regulation of AI illegal nationwide? Looking forward to the absurd lawsuit asserting exactly this.
Especially when the boss move is just to retrain the network with a bunch of examples with the flock camera jammer applied. And if that's beyond the pythonic acumen of the employees of flock, that's their problem.
I generally don't like the idea of relying on one private company to track private individual citizens' movement. So, I have an issue with this punishment (although I see that allowing that would also make it harder for automated toll charging systems to collect tolls).
On a related note, when I lived in FL, I often saw cars with this opaque plastic cover on number plates. I think these are installed by the drivers so that they can avoid paying road toll (FL has many road tolls). I also noticed that these drivers tend to be more aggressive in driving than others (that's how I noticed their license plates are covered). Will the same punishment be applied to those drivers?
The time is ripe for ALPR-based sousveillance. If these types of countermeasures are outlawed, legislators and police could use a reminder that the legal principle that enables Flock imperils their privacy just as much as ours.
Seem to recall license plates are required to be illuminated as well. What's stopping someone from just adding an additional IR light to those enclosures? Couldn't you just slap an additional bright enough IR light in that makes it impossible to even see the plate clearly through cameras?
Personally, if I cared enough to obfuscate my plate info from these devices, I would just taint their data by wrapping my car in a wrap with various different "plates" themed art. I like cars and the exterior has traditionally been treated like art. Tainting data is just as effective at making the core dataset useless as omitting data in the first place.
I would very much like to leave the "free state of Florida". All of the benefits of living here that I grew up knowing by heart no longer exist and the state government's only concern seems to be punishing people for wrongthink. It isn't cheap to lease or buy property anywhere near a metro area, the coral reefs and sponge beds have mostly disappeared, the beautiful wildlife in our state parks has been curtailed by constant wildfires, and the schools have atrophied to a shell of their former selves. What's the point of living here anymore, or raising my kids here?
Every time someone hits back in the name of individual rights and privacy, the same thing happens. The state (aka government) does not want us to be able to protect ourselves from its intrusions. The US has become a surveillance state, it's plain as day where it is heading. The weird thing is, we aren't prosecuting actual crimes when they are discovered. So one must assume that the surveillance is political in nature, much like what the USSR did or China currently engages in. It is for repression.
I thought it was supposed to be the golden age!? Instead we have technocratic elites who are after mass surveillance whether in forced digital ID or AI surveillance for cars and humans, and the worst part is if you try to protect your privacy you are a criminal now, like using VPNs or countering the AI. What's next, using cryptography is illegal and is considered terrorism? And public justification is ready; it's either "illegal immigrants" or "protecting the kids" depending on your political views.
Benn Jordan’s flock camera jammer will send you to jail in Florida now [video]
(youtube.com)168 points by givemeethekeys 23 hours ago | 162 comments
Comments
This one was particularly good, given the technical difficulties of recording low frequency sounds. I can't vouch for his conclusions, but the effort he goes to to record these sounds is crazy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTvr8L5v8u8
2. Louis tries to defend whatever Ben's doing by saying that it's basically like random specks of mud or bird shit, but he doesn't seem to realize that intent is a thing. Having random specks on your license plate isn't going to send you to jail, but if it's obvious that you intentionally crafted the specks to defeat the ANPR, that's a whole different thing entirely, even if they vaguely look the same.
3. As much as I don't like ANPR networks or government surveillance, haven't courts consistently ruled that drivers have less rights (ie. "driving is a privilege, not a right")? For instance, the constitution guarantees free movement, but you need a drivers license to drive and police can ask for your license without probable cause. You also can't refuse a blood alcohol test while driving.
Especially when the boss move is just to retrain the network with a bunch of examples with the flock camera jammer applied. And if that's beyond the pythonic acumen of the employees of flock, that's their problem.
On a related note, when I lived in FL, I often saw cars with this opaque plastic cover on number plates. I think these are installed by the drivers so that they can avoid paying road toll (FL has many road tolls). I also noticed that these drivers tend to be more aggressive in driving than others (that's how I noticed their license plates are covered). Will the same punishment be applied to those drivers?
The only thing I'm shocked about is that it hasn't wasn't illegal before.
Personally, if I cared enough to obfuscate my plate info from these devices, I would just taint their data by wrapping my car in a wrap with various different "plates" themed art. I like cars and the exterior has traditionally been treated like art. Tainting data is just as effective at making the core dataset useless as omitting data in the first place.
The license plate can still be recorded. A human viewing the license plate recorded would still be able to visualize it.
There is nothing shown in this video in the law that states that the license plate has to be legible to a computer or specifically an AI.
Because it is so obvious that they are coming.
Jokes aside I think this is an issue for the reason of hypocrisy (not that I want to track people) and usage of the technology.