[HN Gopher] Traffic cameras expose your location through parking...
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Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps
Author : flux_w42
Score : 319 points
Date : 2022-09-26 06:21 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (notmyplate.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (notmyplate.com)
| pstuart wrote:
| This came up in a thread elsewhere about the severe increase in
| vehicle thefts in the Portland area. These thefts are not
| actively investigated by the police, so it would be nice if the
| owner of a vehicle could get relevant data for the
| movement/location of the stolen vehicle.
|
| Anybody here ever worked with their local PD to get access to the
| ALPR data? Seems like the work to do it would be more
| political/bureaucratic than technical.
| hedora wrote:
| We tried and failed, but it was not ALPR data.
|
| I came to the conclusion that the data is only available to
| defend the well connected, or to persecute their enemies (at
| least in the US).
|
| I think the creation of mass tracking databases should be
| illegal.
|
| Barring that, every single person should have equal access to
| it. (Perhaps gated behind filing a police report and swearing
| it is correct under penalty of perjury.)
| pstuart wrote:
| Yeah, the thought was that after filing a police report one
| could track just the related vehicle.
|
| Agreed on the dismal assessments, but those DBs are going to
| be created and we might as well extract some value as
| citizens.
|
| Would you mind summarizing your attempt and any lessons
| learned (other than the disappointment mentioned)?
| hedora wrote:
| The details are kind of boring and out of date.
|
| We were repeated victims of minor property crimes. The
| police spent maybe 5-10 officer hours investigating, which
| is more than I expected.
|
| However, they failed to run a (unusual for them, but legal)
| database search that would have almost certainly identified
| the culprits.
|
| I think they would have done it if the crime was higher
| priority for them, but ultimately, they need to prioritize
| their resources on serious crimes and things that make for
| good public relations / internal politics (like if we were
| friends with the mayor or something).
|
| As the victims, we had every incentive to pursue the
| investigation, but no legal ability to do so.
|
| I'm well aware that our experience was far, far better than
| is typical in, say SF or Oakland. In our case, they
| probably would have made an arrest if we had a positive
| identification of the criminal.
|
| That's not really the case everywhere, which is a separate
| issue.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > Certain tollroad systems, such as France's Bip & Go telepeage,
| require a physical Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag to
| be present in the car for authentication purposes.
|
| Only if you want to pass the toll / "telepeage" without having to
| stop for paying "manually" (using a credit card of whatever).
|
| I've got one and now you can pass most tolls without stopping
| (but you need to slow down to about 30 km/h // 20 mph).
| mig39 wrote:
| I recently took a Spanish rental car to Portugal for more than
| a month. I registered the license plate number and a credit
| card on the Portuguese tolls website.
|
| I then used a bunch of toll highways that were "electronic
| only" and received the appropriate charges on my credit card a
| few days later.
|
| I think if you're going to set up a toll system in the future,
| then this is the tech you're going to use. Not RFID or
| transponders. Just read the license plate and charge the user.
|
| There were options, BTW, to pay in cash, with pre-paid cards,
| etc, that didn't directly tie your identity to the plate. But I
| assume the rental agency will tie me to the plate, so used my
| credit card anyway.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I think if you're going to set up a toll system in the
| future, then this is the tech you're going to use. Not RFID
| or transponders. Just read the license plate and charge the
| user.
|
| In my experience any tolling system set up in the past decade
| is this way. No worries about transponders, they just have a
| bunch of cameras over the lanes and then send you a bill.
| Works even for out-of-state plates.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Transponders (not sure if it's RFID per se) are common on toll
| highways in the US and can operate at full highway speeds. But
| at least with the system I'm familiar with (I-Pass in the
| Chicago area), if your transponder is broken or missing, they
| will correlate your license plate to your account via photo.
| daoist_shaman wrote:
| Theoretically, could this same principle be borrowed by the open
| source community... to create a database that tracks and updates
| the location of police, government, military, and high status
| individual vehicles?
|
| I'm thinking of a decentralized, Web3, IPFS-like distributed
| database, but instead of file storage, it's real-time geolocation
| with OSM on the backend.
| Olphs wrote:
| Yes technically, as long as you know the license plates, but
| how often do those vehicles park in a commercial places like
| that? I don't think they do often enough for this kind of
| tracking to be useful
| daoist_shaman wrote:
| Good point. It would become dramatically more useful if
| netizens just ran license plate scanners on their dashboards
| that regular report the timestamped geodata of
| marked/government vehicles.
| dublin wrote:
| With the rise of automated license plate readers and tracking
| databases, we MUST recognize this truth: License Plates
| Considered Harmful (to privacy and 4th Amendment rights).
|
| No, I'm not joking. If we're not going to put _serious_ legal
| restrictions and penalties on this kind of tracking, the only
| other viable option is to eliminate license plates entirely.
|
| Here in Austin, there is at least one sane City Councilman who is
| pushing for a maximum 3 minute retention time for license plate
| scan event data. I expect that would get pushed to 30-180 minutes
| in reality, but there is no justification for any longer than
| that...
| avian wrote:
| In my country, the EasyPark app seems to have taken a lot of the
| market. Almost every parking space I see now has it as an option,
| including spaces owned by the city. Thankfully, they currently
| still support paying with cash, but machines often don't return
| change and only accept coins, so they can be inconvenient.
|
| It's shocking to compare the privacy aspect of the app: instead
| of anonymously throwing some coins into a machine and putting a
| slip on your dashboard, the app needs: your phone number, your
| plate number, your credit card details and full GPS access.
| They're not hiding this: It's explained in their GDPR privacy
| notice that they track and store your phone location and travel
| routes even when you're not using a parking space.
|
| On top of that, you also pay more for parking when using the app,
| since they take some percentage commission of the parking cost
| (apparently depending on your account options, but I never got
| far enough with the app to find this out)
| fubbyy wrote:
| Same in the UK with RingGo.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Uk has gdpr?
| goodcanadian wrote:
| Yes. All EU law at the time of Brexit remains UK law unless
| and until it is explicitly revoked/superseded.
| rlpb wrote:
| > They're not hiding this: It's explained in their GDPR privacy
| notice that they track and store your phone location and travel
| routes even when you're not using a parking space.
|
| What you're describing sounds illegal. Under the GDPR they
| cannot collect personal information that's not strictly
| required for the service the customer is requesting. Unless
| they have express permission and the customer isn't denied
| service for refusing.
| kleiba wrote:
| As long as privacy is not a granted right that enables you to sue
| offenders, there's not much you can do. The EU has at least
| started to realize the issue but giving the speed of technology
| vs. the pace of administration, it might be a losing battle.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| The use of dash cams is effectively illegal in Austria on
| privacy grounds:
| https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/152064/are-dash-c...
| mig39 wrote:
| Supposed to be illegal in Portugal too. But I've been using
| different dashcams in Portugal for 6 or 7 years now, and
| nobody's ever commented on them.
| genewitch wrote:
| hilariously, most dashcams don't have the optical fidelity to
| read plates consistently anyhow.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| And banning the use of dash cams also results in good
| drivers subsidizing bad drivers.
| beej71 wrote:
| This is a very foreign concept to me in the US. Even though I
| do think we have a right to privacy from the government,
| there's something to be said for allowing private citizens to
| record whatever they want in public.
| kleiba wrote:
| "Your freedom ends where my nose begins."
| arbitrage wrote:
| Rights grant you the ability to sue others?
|
| Interesting take.
| matthewmcg wrote:
| Sue others or the government. A right without a remedy isn't
| really a useful right.
| pc86 wrote:
| I mean, it makes sense.
|
| If you have the "right" to $THING, but you have no redress if
| someone denies you $THING, you don't really have a right to
| it.
| aqfamnzc wrote:
| For violating those rights? Yeah, I would think so...
| tluyben2 wrote:
| I remember the police claiming they had this tech (license plate
| recognition) for average speed tracking while it did not work. It
| also didn't work but was claimed to work for some toll roads. It
| helped as people slowed down and paid toll but it didn't work; it
| started working years after installing it.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| I am not supposed to ask on HN but why the downvotes? It's just
| an observation from the past (Over 20 years ago)?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It's self-contradictory and hard to understand.
| slowhand09 wrote:
| I'm surprised my idea from 10 yrs ago hasn't been monetized. It
| was an lcd cover that could be made in license plate size, with a
| remote controller which could dim/darken/blackout the cover. Or
| in Deluxe mode, activate lines randomly which would result in a
| different number. Then again... somebody is out front in this
| technology space. https://www.newsweek.com/what-are-digital-
| license-plates-how...
| mellavora wrote:
| maybe because the device could subject both the buyer and the
| seller to criminal prosecution?
| tmh88j wrote:
| I'm not surprised, it sounds illegal for the purpose you
| described. It's illegal just to own plate flipping devices
| without even using them in some states. Surely that would be
| too.
|
| > A person commits an offense if the person with criminal
| negligence uses, purchases, possesses, manufactures, sells,
| offers to sell, or otherwise distributes a license plate
| flipper. An offense under this subsection is a Class C
| misdemeanor, except that the offense is a Class B misdemeanor
| if the person has previously been convicted of an offense under
| this subsection.
|
| https://law.onecle.com/texas/transportation/504.947.html
| slowhand09 wrote:
| My intended used was for parked vehicles. Not to avoid moving
| violations.
| tmh88j wrote:
| I'm sure whoever makes plate flippers claims the same
| intended use.
|
| edit - Found some for motorcycles on ebay...."Ideal for
| track days/shows/meets etc.." along with " _FOR OFF ROAD
| USE ONLY_ " on the listings.
| green-salt wrote:
| I have seen a video of someone doing just this on a car. I'm
| not sure if it was a commercial product or if it was something
| they hacked together.
| pol63 wrote:
| I'm not. You're describing a spectrum from a traffic ticket in
| some states (CA will cite you for darkening) to a misdemeanor
| or even a felony for falsifying or obscuring your license
| plate. Yes, you can still buy darkeners in the areas they're
| illegal, but nobody is going to invest in developing a
| misdemeanor machine for sale. There's a difference between a
| sheet of dark plastic and an engineered device.
|
| The digital plates thought of this in their design. You can
| think of them as frontend UIs for your jurisdiction's motor
| vehicle authority, even though a private company is working on
| them. They will snitch when your tags lapse, both visually and
| electronically (that's their purpose), and won't let you do
| what you're proposing if they're designed correctly.
| Rygian wrote:
| The gist of it: I can subscribe to location updates for any
| license plate that I want, without knowledge or consent from the
| owner of that car.
| samstave wrote:
| did you know that the city of Menlo Park california requires
| companies to have cameras which can see for miles and track and
| report all vehicles that drive by them....
|
| look up the largest company in menlo park...
| m463 wrote:
| a friend of mine told me - a few years ago - that BART had
| >4k cameras everywhere. He thought it might be enough to see
| fingerprints.
| scrumbledober wrote:
| If only they put that effort towards... any other aspect of
| BART...
| samstave wrote:
| FN CHRIST i love this comment because a bay area native
| (5th gen realted to Folsom) I have constantly complained
| about how all BART execs need to go to Hong Kong, Tokyo
| to understand mass transit -- and stop asking for fucking
| raises when the drivers work for hours a day and the
| stations are filthy and filled with big pharma overdoses
|
| BART CAN GO FUCK THEMSELVES
|
| They cant even connect to caltrain or amtrak on the same
| fucking schedule........
|
| --
|
| AND THE FN GO ON STRIKE FOR MORE MONEY.
|
| FUCK BART worst "mass" transit ever
|
| ---
|
| Oh yeAH - AND the reason they dont carry power/usb ports
| is because they dont want homeless...... but san
| francisco BUILDS FUCKING HOMELESS
|
| I cant wait for this to get downvoted by idiots who have
| no idea
| nemothekid wrote:
| BART has it's problems, but the reason why BART isn't on
| the level of east asian rail infrastructure has little to
| do with BART.
| tbihl wrote:
| The main reason people would downvote your comment is
| form, not content. And, if it's the content, it's
| probably because you raised your legitimate complaints to
| a tone of hysteria.
| scrumbledober wrote:
| also complaining about the workers going on strike like
| the workers on BART are the reason it sucks...
| londons_explore wrote:
| Something you could do anyway with a network of $50 android
| phones mounted on bridges over freeways.
|
| But this way you don't have to pay for the cameras - someone
| else has done it for you.
| weberer wrote:
| I know Philadelphia has a network of publicly accessible
| traffic cameras that were installed by the city. I assume
| other places have them too.
| xnyanta wrote:
| Quebec has the same: https://quebec511.info
| arethuza wrote:
| I thought those kind of networks were pretty common - here
| is Scotland's:
|
| https://trafficscotland.org/map/index.aspx?type=26
| dagw wrote:
| Those cameras are placed in such a way and have a low
| enough resolution that it is impossible to read the
| license plates from the public data.
| arethuza wrote:
| Fair point, you can _almost_ read number plates on some
| of the cameras that are close to roads. Presumably the
| cameras are capturing data at a higher resolution than
| those public images?
| londons_explore wrote:
| I'd bet with a bit of data processing on that video feed
| (subpixel aligning and stacking all the frames, using the
| prior knowledge that you know the numberplate isn't
| changing as the car drives down the road), you'd be able
| to read them.
| conradev wrote:
| Not sure why this is being downvoted, it is an actual thing:
|
| "Several companies operate independent, non-law enforcement
| ALPR databases, contracting with drivers to put cameras on
| private vehicles to collect the information."
|
| https://www.eff.org/pages/automated-license-plate-readers-
| al...
|
| Motherboard did a deeper dive on one of them:
|
| "DRN is a private surveillance system crowdsourced by
| hundreds of repo men who have installed cameras that
| passively scan, capture, and upload the license plates of
| every car they drive by to DRN's database. DRN stretches
| coast to coast and is available to private individuals and
| companies focused on tracking and locating people or
| vehicles."
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/ne879z/i-tracked-someone-
| wit...
| justapassenger wrote:
| I didn't downvote it, but $50 for cameras is not even a
| blip in the cost of setting operation like that, and op's
| comment make it sound, like that's all you need.
|
| Surveillance is easy now. But not yet $50 easy.
| schainks wrote:
| Wow, this sounds very illegal in my state. I wonder if DRN
| even respects my state's laws about storing my personal
| information.
| argiopetech wrote:
| Is the location of your state-registered vehicle vehicle
| on publicly owned roads personal information in your
| state? Despite the phrasing, I'm honestly curious.
| breakingcups wrote:
| It's probably not, which is the problem. I feel like the
| wilful processing of such details into parse-able,
| privacy-violating form should be regulated.
| pjleonhardt wrote:
| No, but likely his face biometrics are off he happens to
| have been captured in the video. So if they are keeping
| the raw video, not just the processed license plate
| output, they may fall under this jurisdiction.
| mminer237 wrote:
| Assuming you're talking about the Illinois Biometric
| Information Privacy Act, that only requires consent for
| facial recognition databases based on facial geometry.
| The law explicitly allows storing photographs of people's
| faces without consent.
| milesvp wrote:
| To further this, I know someone who was a public defender a
| decade ago in the US. They would regularly try to get
| intersection camera footage to attempt to prove their
| clients not guilty. Often it was impossible to track down
| who owned the cameras, or even if they were municiple or
| private. I imagine this has only gotten worse as cameras
| have gotten cheaper.
| [deleted]
| tbihl wrote:
| Tape over lens and watch who comes out? I am very much
| not a lawyer.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I'd bet half the time nobody will come out.
|
| So many systems are legacy and entirely unused, or best
| effort - ie. if the camera is working, it'll be used, but
| nobody will be sent to repair it if it's broken.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| Not even close. Cars on a freeway are doing 10 to 100mph. To
| capture a plate on a moving car you need less than 1" of
| movement during the exposure time.
|
| At 10mph a car is moving at 176 inches per second, and to be
| able to read the plate with less than 1" of movement you need
| a camera that has a shutter speed of 176th of a second, or
| rounded up at 1/200th . To capture at 100mph a vehicle is
| moving at 1760 inches per second. To read the plate you'll
| need a camera that can capture at 1760th of a second, or
| rounded up to 1/2000.
|
| I don't know of any android phones that can capture both at
| 1/2000th and video on a second camera at the same time to
| know when to fire the first camera.
| anon_cow1111 wrote:
| You assumed the camera was capturing a photo of the car
| viewed from the side where the full speed is apparent (and
| ironically where the plate will not even be visible).
|
| Most cameras point down the length of the road and the
| "speed" that the camera sees is only a fraction of that.
| You can record a video with a merely-ok phone and probably
| see most plate numbers assuming the lighting isn't
| terrible. Good luck getting a phone camera to work at night
| with an LED flash though
|
| (oh and also, this assumes you want to catch people
| speeding, to capture every plate number you would just put
| the camera near a slow area like a bend or stop sign)
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| I assure you the motion blur, even looking down the same
| plane (parallel) to the car will not be able to capture
| the plate, even in decent light on video alone. Go try to
| take video yourself of a car driving by in full daylight.
| londons_explore wrote:
| The obvious approach is to just train your numberplate
| recognition algorithm with blurred plates. Since the blur
| is almost equal across the whole plate, and nearly all
| cars are moving in the same direction, you aren't really
| losing much information. Sure, it might be hard for a
| human to read, but for a deep learning algorithm I don't
| think it's actually any harder.
|
| But there are other approaches too - like putting a 99
| cent novelty zoom lens on the front of your camera to
| capture more light for your region of interest, allowing
| you to use shorter exposure times. Or an infrared strobe
| light that flashes once per frame (most numberplates are
| retroreflective, so IR strobes work really well).
| anigbrowl wrote:
| 'Something you could do anyway' with something that would
| actually cost a huge amount of money and effort to build
| (those $50 phones probably wouldn't have adequate cameras,
| and would still need to be supplied power by solar panels or
| something, not to mention being subject to removal).
| Sebb767 wrote:
| You'd need to place those, maintain them, prevent vandalism,
| route power to them, pay for network connectivity and
| weather-proof them. The price of the cameras is not the
| problem.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I will place and maintain road cameras for $50/yr,
| including data connectivity for plates. Minimum 1,000
| cameras. 75% uptime/scan rate guarantee.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| Why do you think any city in any Western country will
| allow you to pepper public property with thousands of
| surveillance devices?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Right, gov't doesn't like competition
| InCityDreams wrote:
| >for $50/yr..... Minimum how many years?
|
| I see software doesn't seem to be incuded.
|
| Also, your numbers sound like you like to bid for
| government contracts.
| londons_explore wrote:
| 1 year minimum (my breakeven point is 8 months
| optimistically, 12 months more realistically, and the
| profit comes from either you continuing the contract past
| 12 months or from someone else contracting me for the
| same cameras).
| runlevel1 wrote:
| For reference: Speed cameras have an annual operating
| cost of ~$30,000/year.[1]
|
| [1]: https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-
| now/news...
| m463 wrote:
| I suspect speed cameras have to produce results that are
| verifiable in court, while ALPR cameras just best-effort
| help locate cars.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| $1000 per yr in actual op cost. $29000 p/y to pay the
| contracted company to say it's $30k.
|
| Of course I'm exaggerating. But at the same time gov is
| not known for being efficient + effective.
| arethuza wrote:
| "I will place and maintain"
|
| I suspect a lot of that $50,000 a year would get burned
| getting a _single_ camera installed.
| nisegami wrote:
| Only if you do it legally
| xnorswap wrote:
| You'd likely lose a lot of money trying to do that,
| you're vastly underestimating the cost of maintaining the
| data network for that kind of installation alone, even
| before looking at the cost of physical installation.
| londons_explore wrote:
| If it's a bargain, take me up on the offer then.
| n4r9 wrote:
| It absolutely is a bargain. I don't have the money or
| time to risk but I strongly recommend that you start a
| company, build a website and advertise your service to
| the world. I'm assuming you'll also deal with any
| regulatory and data protection issues, get permission
| from local authorities etc... . You've found an
| astonishing gap in the market, it seems.
| gus_massa wrote:
| > _get permission from local authorities_
|
| For some reason I guess the business plan was about
| forgetting to get the permits...
| generalizations wrote:
| Ok, I'll bite. How would you do that? How do they stay
| connected and powered?
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Within the UK, 4G sim cards and data are cheap. Android
| phone with tether capabilities, Raspberry Pi with solar
| and a webcam.
|
| Or even better to save all that faff, root a phone, run
| the drivers plate OCR software using the phones camera,
| stick to a gantry and send results via text message. You
| wouldn't even need live updates, pull the latest data at
| midnight each day.
|
| Text is cheap.
| arethuza wrote:
| I suspect the computing and communication parts of a
| project like this are by far the easiest bits.
|
| Weatherproofing the camera and solar panels, getting
| permission to get them installed, actually installing
| them (working at heights over busy roads) and then
| maintaining them would be pretty expensive. You might
| also have to pay rent to whoever owns gantries, and what
| about locations where there aren't any existing gantries?
|
| What about insurance in case you camera falls off the
| gantry onto a car and kills someone?
|
| Edit: What about roads that don't have network coverage
| (not that uncommon in the Scottish Highlands)
| doublerabbit wrote:
| > What about roads that don't have network coverage
|
| Satellite. you can buy text bundles. Sure the kit would
| cost a little bit more, but nothing major.
| londons_explore wrote:
| You wouldn't get permission. Just walk with a phone+solar
| panel in a weatherproof box. Either use magnets or zip
| ties to tie to the the pedestrian rail of a bridge
| overlooking a freeway. Done.
|
| I would likely order some chinaphone motherboards only -
| for example[1] - without the screen+case+accessories you
| save ~50% on the retail price. They're then not valuable
| enough to be worth stealing either.
|
| If it's a small road with no bridges, tie to a lamp post
| instead.
|
| You need to be able to install 3 per hour to make the
| finances work out - 10 mins driving, and 10 mins
| installing, and repeat.
|
| If the city catches you, it's only a littering penalty.
| They likely wouldn't care.
|
| [1]:
| https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003892325502.html
|
| Breakeven is 1 year average residency - that has to
| include failure, end-of-life, theft, and removal by the
| city.
| generalizations wrote:
| Love the style, but wouldn't those boxes be conspicuous?
| It only takes a few observant people to notice a couple
| before they spot the pattern and see them everywhere.
| Then it seems like the game would be up.
| [deleted]
| LegitShady wrote:
| if the city catches you and finds you installing multiple
| cameras on their infrastructure for private surveillance
| youre pr0jably going to get charged with all sorte of
| business violations that will cost you thousandw ler
| camera plus the citys cost to inspect their
| infrastruxture.
| n4r9 wrote:
| How much power do you need to be continuously running
| video/snapshots, OCR software, and comms? How expensive a
| solar panel is needed to generate that power, will it
| work overnight and through the winter, and will it also
| be theft-resistant? What's the cost of petrol for driving
| 4+ hours per day? How will you get coverage in parts of
| the country that aren't near your home/office?
| arethuza wrote:
| There is a fairly new automated weather station at the
| side of the road not far from where I live here in
| Scotland - the solar cells are actually quite large - I'd
| guess about 0.50m by 1m. The whole setup is also pretty
| substantial probably to cope with the fact that
| supporting solar panels in a windy location requires a
| fair bit of strength!
| londons_explore wrote:
| About 1.2 watts to capture+process 1 frame/second - thats
| how much my current phone uses, and I suspect a cheaper
| platform will be more power efficient. You'd use a 5 watt
| solar panel (costing $4) in the southern USA, and a 10
| watt panel (costing $9) in the northern USA. You would
| aim to rarely have spare power - in winter, you just drop
| the frame rate and the comms interval.
|
| With more engineering effort, you can probably
| dramatically reduce power usage, for example by
| discarding parts of the frame that cars never drive
| through, which should allow extending the hardwares
| lifespan as batteries age and solar panels get covered in
| dust.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Well, I'm slightly less skeptical than I was before. I'm
| not convinced you can break even for much less than $100
| per instance, and I think the risk of getting into
| trouble is quite high, but there could be something to
| it.
| arethuza wrote:
| Anything placed in a location which has easy accessed to
| pedestrians is going to get stolen and vandalised -
| particularly once people realise what they are.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Solar panels, probably.
| dagw wrote:
| You'll either have to do this guerrilla style, in which
| case solar panels will be far too obvious. Or you'll have
| to apply for all relevant permits, in which case you'll
| never get them.
| cronix wrote:
| Permits? We're not talking a solar farm to power a small
| device. There are a lot of trail cams that have solar
| built in, are very small, camouflaged, and motion
| activated with 20MP cameras for under $200.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| A random solar powered android phone is found fastened to
| a bridge and you can be sure the police are going to look
| into it and take it down.
| dagw wrote:
| We're talking about filming major roads here. "Motion
| activated" effectively means running 24/7. No way a built
| in solar panel in a camouflaged trail camera will manage
| that. Also it doesn't matter how small the device is, if
| you legally want to attach a camera to any sort of
| infrastructure overlooking a road, then yes you need
| permits you almost certainly will not get. You could
| possibly attach it to a pole on private land next to the
| road, but even then you'd need the permission of the land
| owner.
| beambot wrote:
| Partner with roadside billboard providers. Sell it to
| them on the cheap as "analytics", and then just re-sell
| the LPR data.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| I wonder if something like this already exists. This
| seems like a great business.
|
| By great business I mean it seems like something people
| would say for. I don't know if it would actually be
| valuable data to billboard owners though. But I can
| imagine a mega unicorn startup advertising IRL
| advertisement analytics and back-selling the data to tons
| of data brokers.
| cronix wrote:
| I suppose it depends on the jurisdiction. For instance,
| some courts, like the 9th District Court of Appeals have
| ruled that cities can't remove homeless camping on public
| property. Public forests are public, and there's lots of
| trail cams.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/court-ruling-
| homless...
| kube-system wrote:
| Forcibly moving living people and removing unattended
| property are entirely different scenarios.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Yeah, the issue with those who are homeless is that it
| essentially criminalizes living for people who cannot
| rent or own, and thus infringes on their liberties.
|
| There's no right to hang up privately owned cameras in
| public.
| orangepurple wrote:
| I am imagining an army of homeless sitting at every
| intersection in the US holding surveillance cameras and
| getting paid by # of unique plates scanned per minute
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Reminds me of the company that got homeless people to be
| 4g wifi hotspots at SXSW
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2012/03/13/148506762...
| analog31 wrote:
| buy the data from someone else.
| uoaei wrote:
| That's not how the market works.
| dagw wrote:
| What does your SLA look like? Do I get to pick the roads?
| And when do I get my $50k back when you fail to deliver?
| londons_explore wrote:
| SLA: 75% of the cars that pass will be captured. The 25%
| covers equipment failure/theft/service outage/etc. This
| applies to the whole set, not per camera.
|
| We mutually agree the roads - but it's unlikely I'll
| disagree unless you want to place four cameras per
| country worldwide to maximize logistics difficulties.
|
| Half upfront, half when the service has been operating 3
| months. Full refund if SLA not met. If you can show
| you're very solvent, you can pay in arrears instead.
| franga2000 wrote:
| Would the solution no be to simply allow people to pay for
| parking twice? There's already nothing stopping you from getting
| two parking slips at a machine. Just start another parking
| session for each user and track them independently.
| mdrzn wrote:
| It could be easily fixed by having to get a physical OTP from an
| automated kiosk in the car park to add the license plate to the
| app.
| pelasaco wrote:
| super easy and user friendly. Easy to rollout, to keep a
| working supply-chain for the physical OTP...
| Rygian wrote:
| Also known as the ever-lasting tension between security and
| usability.
|
| To protect privacy, I would support an understandable
| degradation of usability.
| bambax wrote:
| The DB5 in Goldfinger (1964) had revolving licence plates.
|
| A cursory Google search comes up with some shady websites that
| sell similar tech, but it would be a nice DIY project to make a
| licence plate screen that can be changed on the fly (e-ink based
| maybe).
|
| Has anyone tried it?
| fsckboy wrote:
| assuming the people here are not in general criminals, I'm not
| sure that committing a fake license plate crime is the best way
| to go about staying under the radar.
| nopcode wrote:
| SWIM has a leaf-shaped magnet that can be demagnetised via
| remote.
|
| You put it on the plate so that it cannot be scanned but if
| police pulls you over it falls off.
| mwcremer wrote:
| Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1105/
| russdill wrote:
| A really good hack to get around the fact that motor vehicles
| are by law easily traceable is to...just take mass transit.
| fsckboy wrote:
| face recognition is also a thing, though perhaps not as
| publicly accessible as a license plate
| floren wrote:
| But when mass transit phases out paper tickets, "use the
| convenient app for a 20% discount!", it's not much better...
|
| Even with paper tickets, if you paid with a credit card
| there's now a perfect record: Jim Smith got on at the
| Fruitvale station and got off in Fremont, stayed there two
| hours, and then came back the same way.
| dylan604 wrote:
| the old trick at the air port was to buy mulitple tickets
| leaving around the same time to different destinations at
| multiple airports ultimately traveling under false ID under
| a different name. that's surely feasible for pretty much
| anybody not just super spies, right?
| getcrunk wrote:
| Not anymore ... With facial recognition and passport/I'd
| databases?
| remus wrote:
| I remember a story of a guy who had his license plate on a
| hinge with a little cable attached to the cigarette lighter in
| the car. When he wanted to speed in an area with cameras he'd
| pull out the cigarette lighter to fold the plate up, then pop
| it back in to fold the plate down when he was finished. This
| struck me as a very neat solution, and nicely disguised too.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| https://www.surreynowleader.com/news/golden-ears-toll-
| evader...
|
| "Officers are always looking for uninsured vehicles," said
| Surrey RCMP spokesman Cpl. Scotty Schumann. "The officer was
| very surprised when he saw a valid B.C. license plate
| magically lift into place after they had passed the toll
| cameras."
| mistrial9 wrote:
| the only time I saw this in real life was a twenty-something
| guy with a high powered street motorcycle. It was not stock and
| had odd parts (which makes other mods less obvious). I believe
| he had a kill switch for all lights on the bike, which made
| reading the plate at night more difficult, but the immediate
| use was to run from a hiway patrol when challenged. No idea how
| that worked out for him over time.
| mellavora wrote:
| Hard to run away from an oncoming truck which didn't see you
| because you were running dark
| mistrial9 wrote:
| well sure but if you are running a high powered street
| bike, the truck is only one of many immediate dangers..
|
| I believe that license plates _used to be_ made of metal
| with reflective coating and ridges (made by prison labor?)
| but today on the street I am seeing what looks like white
| paper with black lettering?
| bjacobt wrote:
| What about https://reviver.com ?
| rozab wrote:
| This would be flagged immediately. Law enforcement cameras
| check the plate against the registered make, model, and colour
| (which are public record in the UK)
| dylan604 wrote:
| What happens if you paint your car? Are you supposed to
| inform your gov't?
| astura wrote:
| Yeah, you are.
|
| Family member of mine actually got in trouble because the
| dealership typed the wrong color into the registration
| paperwork. The color on the registration didn't match the
| actual color of the car therefore it was considered
| illegally registered and the car was impounded during a
| routine traffic stop.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I love hearing these stories of "with all other crime
| being solved" officers have moved onto the petty stuff /s
| tristor wrote:
| Yes, actually, although generally speaking it's not widely
| enforced. Generally you won't get caught as long as the
| color on the registration matches the factory color in the
| VIN database, but you are supposed to ensure the vehicle
| description is accurate when you renew your registration
| and providing false information is a criminal offense, so
| if the color changes, you should update your vehicle
| registration.
| scrumbledober wrote:
| yes
| bambax wrote:
| Just pick up a plate number that matches your car; it's not
| like every car is unique. (But of course that would be
| harmful to the rightful owner of that registration number.)
|
| Also, it's a little doubtful colors can be recognized in all
| light conditions (at night, in a tunnel, etc.)
|
| And if the car is simply parked (vs. a road check), does it
| matter that it's "flagged"? What could happen? There would
| have to be a warning somewhere for the car to be impounded,
| or to send officers to wait for the owner to show up. Very
| unlikely IMHO.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| At this point I'm carrying so many electronic devices with me or
| at home that I've give up on going out of my way to prevent
| getting tracked. My best effort is to trust Apple doesn't sell me
| out.
| izacus wrote:
| What does Apple have to do with it here? The apps on your Apple
| device are exfiltrating data left and right every day -
| including parking apps which are the topic of this post.
|
| Megacorporations aren't going to save you from this one.
| Actually creating regulation that will define where you're data
| is allowed to go (and stay) might.
| ezfe wrote:
| Apple has all the data at full precision. The few apps that
| are selling my data get the scraps of a Wi-Fi SSID here or
| there, and an IP address every once in a while.
|
| This is how Apple comes into it.
| dereg wrote:
| I don't think you (nor parent) read the actual post.
|
| 1. The problem presented is not that parking apps exfiltrate
| data from your phone, it's that anyone can throw your plate
| number into it and get notified of when you pass through
| specific areas.
|
| 2. Your solution would not address the problem. Problem is
| not one of data portability, but the fact that your license
| plate may be registered in a system without your consent or
| awareness. The convenience of the service is directly at odds
| with privacy/security, and the post is asserting that the
| gain in convenience achieved through the current
| implementation is not worth the perils of the unfettered
| tracking possible through it. It provides non-governmental
| solutions to ameliorate the issue.
| raspyberr wrote:
| Inspiring
| yosito wrote:
| I was a bit bored in 2021 and going out a lot less than normal,
| so I had time to experiment with an Android phone using all
| open source privacy respecting apps. I managed to make it work,
| but it took quite a lot of my time and resources and definitely
| meant sacrificing some conveniences. Eventually, when I started
| going out and being more socially active again, it got to be
| too inconvenient for me, and I decided to switch to Apple and
| be less strict about it. While I did pick up some more careful
| privacy practices, I have no doubt that my location could
| easily be tracked by multiple parties. To be honest, it could
| probably have been tracked much of the time when I was going
| all out to avoid it too. If nothing else, cellular network
| operators can determine my position by which towers my SIM card
| is connecting to, and I have no illusions about that data being
| private. I'm sure that being tracked by Wifi networks,
| bluetooth and payment terminals is also happening all the time.
| I don't like that everyone is so trackable in the modern world.
| But avoiding it basically means opting out of all of these
| trackable technologies and living like a monk: no cell phones,
| no cars, no cashless payments, etc. How many people really want
| to make those sacrifices?
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > At this point I'm carrying so many electronic devices with me
| or at home that I've give up on going out of my way to prevent
| getting tracked
|
| As much as I hate the guy, Kissinger made a great point in an
| interview with Eric Schmidt paraphrased:
|
| 'We have lived a fairly peaceful period in the last century
| with a stable world order, we should not assume that this is
| guaranteed to continue forever.'
|
| We usually don't like to think in centuries or decades. But a
| democratic state today can become autocratic 50 years from now.
|
| Equally, today caring about my privacy is just adding a lot of
| friction to me daily live. 50 years from now, I have no
| guarantee that myself or someone in my family becomes 'a person
| of interest' for my government.
| mongol wrote:
| I start to think that in an ordinary human lifetime it is
| more likely than not to experience disaster. If you were born
| in 1945 and are still alive today, you may have picked the
| most lucky period to have lived through of all possible. I am
| not concvinced the next 75 years will be as peaceful as the
| past 75.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'm not sure how true that is. I think it's dependent on
| location really or country for conflicts. Some places have
| seen a lot of violence. Violent crime rates were pretty
| high in some areas too.
| mongol wrote:
| Yes I realize it is not a very general statement. Many
| places have experienced conflicts also during this
| period. But in average, I think it may still be true.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| You were forcibly locked in your home for a year and/or
| made to wear a mask. Even if you supported that, you
| experienced a disaster of epic proportions.
|
| Several cities in the US were firebombed nightly for months
| in 2020.
|
| 9/11
|
| Katrina
| mijamo wrote:
| Those are most likely by far not the worst things that
| would have happened to somebody being born in 1945. And
| also very little compared to what other generations have
| endured, or even what other countries experienced in the
| last 75 years, and for some still right now.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| > Several cities in the US were firebombed nightly for
| months in 2020.
|
| What? What is this referring to?
| r2_pilot wrote:
| From the general tone of the rest of the comment, it's
| likely they're referring to actions taken adjacent to the
| Black Lives Matter protests which were depicted in some
| news media as being like a war zone. Oddly, none of the
| cities today look like, I don't know, Ukraine. But some
| people will make mountains from molehills.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| I was under the impression that "firebombing" exclusively
| referred to aerial firebombing during war, so it sounded
| super strange.
|
| Now that i looked up the term, i see that it can mean
| "any act in which an incendiary device is used to
| initiate a fire".
| thfuran wrote:
| Does that technically include lighting a cigarette?
| ioslipstream wrote:
| But they were mostly peaceful mountains. Right?
| the_sleaze9 wrote:
| You seem to be strangely emotionally invested in this
| issue. Did you witness these events yourself?
| ioslipstream wrote:
| Portland, amongst others.
| ameister14 wrote:
| How many people died in the Portland firebombings? How
| much property was destroyed? Are we talking Dresden or
| Kobe levels? Because when you say 'firebombing nightly
| for months', that's what I think of.
| ioslipstream wrote:
| BLM caused billions worth of damage over the course of
| the summer of love.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The Portland Business Alliance, which may not be an
| entirely unbiased source, put the dollar figure at 10s of
| millions for Portland, not billions.
| NoSorryCannot wrote:
| Yeah, Portland was basically wiped off the map.
| throwaway742 wrote:
| Actual photo of Portland June 2020.
|
| https://i.imgur.com/LoNeyZa.jpg
| andrepd wrote:
| The lack of perspective is astonishing.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Equally, today caring about my privacy is just adding a lot
| of friction to me daily live. 50 years from now, I have no
| guarantee that myself or someone in my family becomes 'a
| person of interest' for my government."
|
| Careful there. Now you're sounding like you you don't want to
| obey the government/laws if you don't agree with what is
| created in the future. At least this has been the argument
| around many gun laws that create registries, quasi-
| registries, or release identity information publically,
| especially with the Overton window and rhetoric.
|
| Edit: why disagree? Really, still no response? Isn't this the
| general play that is being mentioned in the prior comment -
| information gathered now can be used against them by the
| government in the future when the laws change or are ignored?
| Is this only an issue when it's applied to some people or
| topics but not others?
| moduspol wrote:
| Yes. Second amendment supporters often make the same point.
| andrepd wrote:
| > But a democratic state today can become autocratic 50 years
| from now.
|
| It can happen in years, nevermind decades.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Just another reason to preference walking and cycling.
| kornhole wrote:
| When needed, pay taxis with cash, and use public transport with
| rotating bus cards. Only activate the burner SIM on your phone
| when really needed.
| teddyh wrote:
| Do you call your taxi with an app? Or by a phone?
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| Not really an option in cities with consistent 100+ F degree
| weather (e.g., Houston).
| hunterb123 wrote:
| A bike is a great mode of transportation when you don't need to
| carry anything heavy, bulky, passengers etc. and when weather
| permits.
|
| It's not a replacement for a vehicle, nor will it ever be.
| dagurp wrote:
| A lot of people all over the world get by fine without a car.
| They have stores in walking distance so they don't need to
| buy in bulk. They can easily have things delivered and if
| they really need a car they can hire one for a few hours at a
| time.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >It's not a replacement for a vehicle, nor will it ever be.
|
| The majority of my use of a vehicle was commuting to work.
| After that, it was shopping for groceries. I'm 2.5 years into
| having no vehicle. I'm 1.5 years into using a cargo bike.
| There are very few things that are not doable on my cargo
| bike as it is now. With a few DIY modifiations, I could
| narrow that even further. The remaining I can settle with
| ride shares from an app or even more old skool the use of
| friends.
| acdha wrote:
| > A bike is a great mode of transportation when you don't
| need to carry anything heavy, bulky, passengers etc. and when
| weather permits.
|
| My family uses our cargo bikes as our primary mode of
| transportation year round. It turns out that children were
| allowed to leave the house prior to the invention of cars and
| continue to be capable of wearing jackets in the winter. Many
| even like the snow.
|
| The key thing to understand is that while sometimes you need
| more than a bike can carry, that's a small fraction of all of
| the vehicle trips Americans make. The average trip we take
| has 1.2 people in the car, is a relatively short (half of
| them are under 3 miles, a distance my son could do on his own
| as a 2 year old), and carries negligible cargo. Buying a
| vehicle for your 99th percentile needs is a significant
| expense for capacity you use only a handful of times a year
| -- the average American spends $11k/year to own a car
| according to AAA, and for that much money you could buy and
| discard a new cargo bike every couple of months and still
| have plenty left over to rent a truck on the few occasions
| when you need landscaping or building supplies.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| I don't really disagree with your points, but your usecase
| is nowhere near the norm where I live or how I live.
|
| I'm perfectly fine with city dwellers having more bikes (if
| they so choose), whatever helps the traffic and parking in
| the cities.
|
| My point still stands that in no way is a bike a
| replacement for all the utilities of a vehicle, whether
| you're offloading that by renting, borrowing, etc.
|
| I'll drive my vehicle, you can ride your bike. The power of
| choice! No conflict needed.
| acdha wrote:
| Yes, choice is good - my point was simply that the vast
| majority of American vehicle miles traveled are not doing
| things which can only be done by a large, expensive car
| or truck. I suspect in the future we're going so see a
| lot more electric LSVs, too, since an awful lot of trips
| don't need to go over 30mph and saving $20-30k plus
| maintenance is appealing to a lot of people.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| > the vast majority of American vehicle miles traveled
| are not doing things which can only be done by a large,
| expensive car or truck.
|
| Source? People get cars because they need one. The first
| big thing you get for yourself is a car, because it's so
| useful.
|
| I believe the opposite of your statement is true, biking
| is only really practical in a very limited bubble.
| gfaster wrote:
| In North America in September of 2022, your statement is
| not wholly wrong. Building cities around the car is a
| privilege that NA cities have enjoyed in the decades of
| unparalleled prosperity and abundance that followed WWII.
|
| However, we saw in just the past year the consequences of
| even a moderate increase in the cost of gas for the
| average American, how they reacted to it, and how they
| learned from it. From that, I think I can say with fair
| certainty that the American brand of city will not cope
| well with any meaningful shortage. There are other,
| longer term problems that will begin to show themselves
| as abundance wanes as well.
|
| A car can only ever be as useful as the roads it drives
| on, and the same with a cargo bike. If there are copious
| protected bike lanes that go everywhere you want to go,
| you would bike everywhere in just the same way you drive
| everywhere today. The only difference between them is how
| they deal with black swan events that threaten the
| abundance that drives driving.
|
| I'm not trying to be a doomer here, but most places can't
| (and likely none should) build expecting that they're
| always going to have the resources to sustain excess.
| This isn't a knock against you either, you don't always
| have a choice as to where you live and the means
| available to you to get around. However, it is worth
| being aware of the narrowness of this perspective.
| tzs wrote:
| That $11k/year figure is based on 15000 miles/year usage
| which is close to the average annual mileage per driver in
| the US.
| acdha wrote:
| Yes - I think we broke 14k miles on average last year,
| and I'd bet AAA's membership skews above average since
| people who don't depend on daily commutes are less likely
| to join.
|
| https://newsroom.aaa.com/2022/08/annual-cost-of-new-car-
| owne...
| drsim wrote:
| Narrow thinking. Cargo bikes come in a variety of shapes and
| sizes to carry children, adults, parcels, moving boxes, and
| more. As for the weather... well, as we say in Denmark:
| there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.
| dagw wrote:
| _as we say in Denmark: there 's no such thing as bad
| weather, just bad clothing._
|
| That's easy to say in Denmark, since the weather is
| virtually always pretty OK. It basically never gets below
| -10 or above +35. Without looking at the data I would guess
| 300ish days a year are between 5 and 25.
| dagurp wrote:
| We use that expression in Iceland too
| dagw wrote:
| Yea, we use it Norway as well. However the expression
| really only works in cool-moderate climates. You can
| easily dress to be active and comfortable when it's -10
| and snowing, you really can't for +40 and humid.
| mattw2121 wrote:
| Denmark - max temp 72F/22C
|
| Florida - max temp 100F/38C
|
| Have fun biking in Florida, unless there is a shower ready
| for you at each end.
| acdha wrote:
| If you're doing something dressy, you need that shower
| anyway unless you're never spending more than a couple of
| minutes outside -- or you dress appropriately for the
| weather and it's not an issue.
|
| Florida is also an interesting example given that it's
| both the southernmost point of the continental United
| States and at significant risk of catastrophic damages
| from the climate change caused in no small part by
| driving cars. Whether or not you prefer the status quo,
| continuing it isn't an option.
| ioslipstream wrote:
| acdha wrote:
| Let me simplify it for you: scientists have been
| concerned about global warming since the early 20th
| century. In the 1970s the prevailing concern was warming
| but a couple of papers hypothesized that cooling might be
| possible under certain circumstances, but that was
| disproven before 1980. The predictions of warming made
| over the last 40 years have been increasingly precise,
| too.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/that-70s-myth-
| did-cl...
|
| https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/how-well-have-
| climat...
|
| https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/12/ipccs-climate-
| projec...
|
| Unfortunately, the reason you're Just Asking
| Questions(tm) about science which has been settled since
| the Carter administration is because the fossil fuel
| industry also knew the science was accurate, and their
| internal researchers supported it, so they started
| pouring money into spreading denial and securing
| political allies to help prevent actions which would harm
| their business interests:
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-
| about-...
| dylan604 wrote:
| >Florida is also an interesting example
|
| oooh, now do Texas. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico,
| Southern California
|
| or, flip it. Do any of the states bordering Canada during
| winter.
| acdha wrote:
| I grew up in Southern California. You can bike year
| round, except for a couple of days a year when you have
| severe rain (which also floods a lot of roads) or
| wildfires. The primary reason people don't are that the
| roads are unsafe by design and opposition to dense
| housing has pushed people into unsustainable lifestyles.
| PpEY4fu85hkQpn wrote:
| Minneapolis consistently has one of the highest rates of
| bike commuting of US cities.
|
| Build the infrastructure and people ride bikes.
| mattw2121 wrote:
| I believe you are discounting the fact that a shower is
| not always available at the place you are going. Take for
| example, you need to go to a job interview. I skip the
| shower at home, bike to the job interview, sweat
| profusely during the ride, and now I shower where
| exactly?
|
| What about needing to go multiple places during the day?
| Should I now shower 4 times because I have 4 stops that
| require me to interface with people and appear clean?
|
| Biking in Florida (substitute most of the southern US)
| for 7-8 months of the year is simply not possible unless
| it is acceptable to be a sweaty mess at each destination.
| myself248 wrote:
| Or people with asthma or any number of other disabilities.
| Bike-centric design is transparently ableist.
| steelframe wrote:
| > Or people with asthma or any number of other
| disabilities. Bike-centric design is transparently ableist.
|
| Don't recumbent electric trikes largely address this issue?
| Someone unable to operate one of those isn't very likely to
| be able to operate other types of (larger and faster)
| vehicles.
| acdha wrote:
| > Bike-centric design is transparently ableist.
|
| There are many disabilities which don't allow driving, not
| to mention that in countries like the United States which
| don't take care of people there are many disabled people
| who cannot afford to own a car.
|
| Accessibility doesn't have a single solution but if you
| look at areas which are welcoming to bicyclists they are
| also much better for a wide variety of disabilities because
| they have things like sidewalks, safe vehicle speeds or
| limited vehicle access, curb cuts, etc. You'll see people
| in electric wheelchairs or tricycles using bike
| lanes/paths, blind/deaf people don't have to worry as much
| about getting hit by a speeding car they were unable to
| notice, etc.
|
| If you don't like bicycling, think of them as safe mobility
| lanes -- the users certainly do, and we should all back
| having more of them because if we're lucky we'll live long
| enough to need them.
| carlob wrote:
| Bullshit: a city designed around bikes is a city designed
| around wheelchairs.
|
| Not to mention asthma never prevented anyone from cycling.
| Maybe you won't win the Tour, but you can definitely
| commute cycling with asthma if your city is designed around
| humans and not cars.
| acdha wrote:
| Asthma is an especially tragic claim since pollution from
| cars is believed to be responsible for millions of cases
| of asthma annually:
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpla/article/PIIS254
| 2-5...
| closeparen wrote:
| The Netherlands would like a word.
| 988747 wrote:
| It only works for short trips. No one rides a bicycle if
| they have to go to another town, 50 miles away. Also, do
| not mention: "you can take your bicycle on a train" - if
| you need to use the train then again you are dependent on
| public service and traceable.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Passenger cars also don't work for containers or
| industrial timber transport. No specific vehicle needs to
| fit every single use case, if your day to day life
| involves commuting from a town 50 miles away in the
| middle of nowhere, so be it.
|
| More people live in cities than rural areas, but it
| doesn't mean they'll come to take away your car.
| andrepd wrote:
| > It only works for short trips. No one rides a bicycle
| if they have to go to another town, 50 miles away.
|
| 1. Ride your bike into a train
|
| 2. Wait 20 minutes
|
| 3. Roll out of the train and ride into your destination
|
| See, it isn't that hard. What part of this process
| requires you to be tracked? You don't need any ID to
| purchase train tickets.
| tremon wrote:
| > You don't need any ID to purchase train tickets.
|
| The Netherlands would like a word ;)
|
| Most people here have a public transport pass in their
| own name, linked to their bank account.
| jefftk wrote:
| All vehicles have things that they are better or worse at,
| but you overstate the case against bicycles. For example,
| with passengers, you can add a child seat or trailer to an
| ordinary bike, or you can use a longer bike designed for
| bringing others.
|
| Cars also have situations they're a poor fit for: places
| without good parking, if you have to take part of your
| journey by another mode (bus, train, etc...) and need your
| vehicle on the other end, if you can't afford them (including
| fuel, insurance, etc), if there aren't good roads, if you're
| too young, etc.
| csunbird wrote:
| All vehicles are better at some things and worse at some
| things. That is why replacing all cars with bicycles won't
| work at all, and we should stop pushing this idea.
|
| We just need to use more bicycles.
| jefftk wrote:
| I don't see anyone here proposing replacing all cars with
| bicycles?
| andrepd wrote:
| I just wish we spent 1/20th as much money in walking and
| cycling infrastructure as we do on car infrastructure.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| Finally. Publish it all. Tracking of every vehicle, visible for
| everyone.
|
| It has been that way with aircraft for a long time. Pilots,
| however, are such a minority that noone really cares.
|
| Now that everyone is impacted, regulation might get updated (or
| someone might spend the time to identify existing regulation that
| prohibits this), and that would extend to other vehicles than
| those with wheels.
| e_i_pi_2 wrote:
| I can definitely get behind this, being tracked is a solid
| disincentive to flying, this could work the same way for
| driving to promote more public transit/walkable cities. If this
| goes to facial tracking that's a whole different concern
| though.
|
| I think the argument being made here is more that it's non-
| consensual data collection which seems solid. By owning a plane
| you're consenting to it being tracked and same for a car, but I
| don't think a person just using the plane/car/train/street
| should be allowed to be tracked - just the vehicle
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| yep!
|
| There are so many people thinking "I did nothing wrong, who
| cares if I get tracked".... publish it all, and then have all
| the neighbours have access to that, the wife can see when you
| left the bar, your boss can see when you left, etc... only then
| will people be aware that it's not ok to do that.
|
| There are also laws (not sure if accepted yet) that all cars
| should have remote shutdowns/blocks.. for "security reasons"
| (basically police can shut down your car if they want to)...
| and I'm just waiting for someone to hack the whole system and
| shut down all the cars around the world just for fun
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "publish it all, and then have all the neighbours have access
| to that, the wife can see when you left the bar, your boss
| can see when you left, etc... only then will people be aware
| that it's not ok to do that."
|
| If really everyone would participate, I would give it a try.
| Would disrupt a lot, but might end up with a honest society.
| But in reality, if you have money, you can circumvent
| tracking, in varius ways.
|
| I believe it is also being done with planes today? People
| flying planes they control, even if they do not directly own
| it, so can not so easily be tracked.
|
| So no, it is not ok, as it further increases the power
| imbalance. But with self driving cars and more and more
| sensors and safety regulations, it will likely come anyway.
| spiderice wrote:
| > If really everyone would participate, I would give it a
| try
|
| This isn't something you get to just temporality "try".
| Once it's a thing, it will always be a thing. No way is the
| government letting that one slip through their fingers.
|
| Also, I'm envisioning a world where people are getting
| their retinas altered minority report style to avoid this.
| anders_p wrote:
| > If really everyone would participate, I would give it a
| try. Would disrupt a lot, but might end up with a honest
| society.
|
| Do you really want your health insurance company to know
| that you parked outside a doctor's office, who specializes
| in skin cancers? You just went for a check-up, but they
| might want to increase your payments or even cancel your
| coverage entirely.
|
| Then good luck finding another insurance provider, since
| they all have that information now.
|
| Or how about all future potential employers knowing that
| you once visited a union office?
|
| There are so many cases, where people "who have nothing to
| hide" can't imagine where this could bite them in the
| future.
|
| You (or your wife/daughter/girlfriend/secretary, etc.)
| visit a Planned Parenthood? Everyone - including your
| pastor - now has that info.
|
| You go to a job interview at a competitor? Your boss now
| knows that.
|
| We have no idea who or what groups who might want to snoop
| in where we park our cars.
|
| The possibilities for abuse are endless. And as always, we
| have no way of predicting what use-cases unethical
| individuals will come up with as these things roll out.
| aierou wrote:
| Bad actors already have access to the data, right? Would
| it not be better to legalize/regulate it? I'm not
| convinced that we can put the genie back into the bottle.
| McDyver wrote:
| Even if you did nothing wrong and "have nothing to hide"(TM),
| knowing where you are can also tell others where you aren't.
|
| It gives the possibility to infer patterns from your travels,
| or can, for instance, give a thief the opportunity to rob
| your place knowing that you are 200 km away and won't be home
| any time soon.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| This only holds true until you realize that crazy road rager
| on the highway can look up where you live and your children
| go to school
| is_true wrote:
| Ideally other people shouldn't care what you do. But reality
| is sad
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Even beyond nosyness, you might want your elderly parents
| to stay unaware that you're checking retirement homes in
| their area. Or not let your son know you're working a
| second job while he's in college. Privacy is just so
| important from any angle we put it.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I think the point is if this were public, we would end up
| with appropriate controls.
|
| As it stands today, the only privacy that you have today
| in a vehicle is the amount of money it takes to get
| information from someone who runs a tow truck.
|
| The police are mum, as the ever present LPR makes it
| trivial to track anyone. My buddy owns a local pizza
| place and has a bunch of cameras with LPR. He routinely
| provides data to the local PD. There's no rule about it -
| he can give that info to me.
|
| You can be sure that this information is collected and
| aggregated by many commercial entities and used to
| correlate where shoppers shop, where fleet cars go, etc.
| is_true wrote:
| I don't particularly agree with both of your examples,
| but I share your opinion on the importance of privacy.
|
| Citizen surveillance and corruption was the reason I
| started disliking cameras on public places.
| daoist_shaman wrote:
| Yeah, this will be normalized in about a year after some low
| budget government and corporate gaslighting.
|
| People are already complicit with keeping a device in their
| pocket that passively tracks their location.
|
| Tracking people on camera and making them okay with it is the
| logical next chapter in this privacy erosion saga.
| Gys wrote:
| For most boats this is optional, but still most boats have AIS
| [0] as part of their comms and have it enabled. There are also
| several websites (like [1]) where you can locate any boat (with
| AIS) in the world.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_identification_syste...
| [1] https://www.marinetraffic.com/
| m463 wrote:
| the next level would have to be - who searched and what did
| they search for?
| pc86 wrote:
| It's not even that pilots are a minority and that's why no one
| cares. It's that most air travel is commercial, and nobody
| cares if someone can see where exact UAL123 is at this moment.
| Nobody feels bad for some millionaire's private jet getting
| tracked, nobody feels bad for some expensive charter plane with
| $15k tickets getting tracked, and the only thing left is small
| GA aircraft, which nobody care about at all.
|
| The pearl clutching from some pilots (not accusing you of this)
| around aircraft tracking, ADSB, etc., seems exceptionally silly
| to me.
| [deleted]
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| > the only thing left is small GA aircraft, which nobody care
| about at all
|
| Why does nobody care about those? Is it because they're a
| minority? Seems like you might be contradicting yourself?
| pc86 wrote:
| You can probably count on one hand the number of people who
| care where a specific Cessna 172 is at any given point in
| time. What's contradictory about that?
| cjrp wrote:
| In the UK, people who are annoyed by GA plane noise will
| look up the owner's details (these are held in a
| mandatory, public database by the CAA, equivalent to the
| FAA) and contact them directly.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| In Germany the aircraft registry is not public. But
| that's only a minor advantage. People who would need to
| look up my aircraft registration aren't usually
| interested when or where I'm flying. People who know me
| are interested. And they know anyway. Can't hide the
| license plate of my car from neighbors, can't hide the
| aircraft registration from family and friends.
| Stupulous wrote:
| If nobody cares where a Cessna is, why is it mandatory
| that everyone can find out? You could count on a
| fingerless glove the number of people who care where my
| car is, but I'd prefer not to stick that information in a
| public database. Some percentage of Cessna pilots prefer
| to keep that information private, and the rest can
| continue sharing that information regardless, so it would
| be a strictly positive-utility change. For what reason,
| other than the fact that Cessna pilots are a tiny
| minority, has this not been changed yet?
| notch656a wrote:
| "flying is a privilege not a right", "you have no
| expectation of privacy in public," and "but we're safer
| from aircraft collisions etc and that justifies the
| reduced privacy" are what it boils down to. I'd be
| shocked if anything you here isn't a nuanced or refined
| way of saying one of those.
|
| Life is a lot safer now, so ever more 'safe' things start
| to look dangerous. If you prefer liberty/privacy to
| safety you're quickly becoming a dinosaur and if
| necessary society will imprison you to make sure you
| don't interfere with democratic process of the majority.
| wongarsu wrote:
| > Nobody feels bad for some millionaire's private jet getting
| tracked
|
| This might quickly change. Now people are somewhat routinely
| tracking millionaire's private jets and shaming them for what
| they perceive as inappropriate use. Given how the law
| correlates much more with the interests of the types of
| people owning private jets than with the interests of the
| average citizen, we might see attempts to get that outlawed.
| miniBill wrote:
| The difference is that "person went from airport X to airport
| Y" is WAY less private than, say "person went to Planned
| Parenthood clinic" or "person parked in front of union"
| gernb wrote:
| My current feeling is that, at least in SF, no one cares about
| traffic laws. The roads are public and traffic laws exist to
| organize sharing of the roads. I think I'd prefer the roads to
| be surveilled and more fines be levied. I'm sick of watching
| people just run red lights, turn right on no-right-on-red
| lights, block lanes that are illegal to block, stop in places
| marked "no-stopping", drive down bus only lanes, cross double
| white "no crossing line" etc... These all put other people's
| health/lives in danger and need to be enforced IMO
| 0xfeba wrote:
| I'm inclined to agree. They could enforce many more laws with
| automation, today. Car has distance sensors for cruise
| control? Monitor and report following distance. Speeding.
| Changing lanes without signaling. Etc.
| jedberg wrote:
| > Finally. Publish it all. Tracking of every vehicle, visible
| for everyone.
|
| I'd have no problem with this as long as there was a flip side
| that said that I get a cryptographically secure feed of
| verified identities of everyone who accesses my data. Including
| if law enforcement accesses it.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| As soon as you put a huge identification plate on your vehicle
| there's no expectation of privacy.
| tremon wrote:
| That's the reason you only ever leave your house in a niqaab, I
| gather?
| giantg2 wrote:
| That depends. We could set standards for what information is
| linked to that plate and to whom it is accessible. (My state
| actually has a standard for some info which should not be tied
| to a plate, but they do it anyways. But nobody is going to stop
| them. I brought it up to the AG's office, but they were
| complete idiots about it)
|
| One could also set up an anonymous LLC and register the vehicle
| that way if they really cared.
| notmyplateslol wrote:
| I didn't put them on there, they already were there when I
| picked the car up. And every time I try taking them off people
| get angry at me.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| There's always a point where the amount of data makes it a
| different thing altogether. Like the difference between hearing
| random strangers talking on the street, and have a full record
| of everything that person said outside their home for the past
| 5 years.
| daoist_shaman wrote:
| As soon as you're birthed in a hospital and issued a birth
| certificate there's no expectation of privacy.
|
| Unless you're an off-the-grid baby [0].
|
| [0] https://www.quora.com/Is-it-legal-to-have-an-unregistered-
| of...
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