[HN Gopher] NYC wants you to stop taking traffic cam selfies, bu...
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NYC wants you to stop taking traffic cam selfies, but here's how to
do it anyway
Author : gnabgib
Score : 157 points
Date : 2024-12-13 02:49 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pcmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pcmag.com)
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| This reminds me of an old sci-fi story, whose name I forgot,
| which had a world building aside that the government had 1person
| moviebooths stren throughout the cities where people could pay a
| quarter to see a 1 minute snippet of the surveillance feeds of
| every public place. The goal was to see yourself, or at least
| someone you recognized.
| Something1234 wrote:
| That sounds incredibly interesting anymore details on where to
| go see it?
| dave78 wrote:
| Isn't the most likely outcome here that the city will simply stop
| allowing public access to the camera feeds?
|
| This feels like it has the potential to be a "this is why we
| can't have nice things" outcome even though I don't think the app
| author is doing anything wrong.
| euniceee3 wrote:
| That is what happened to the local feed for the city I live in.
| Their mapping data was trash. I went through fixed the GPS,
| found the typical focalized center of frame, built a basic
| frontend, and then they shut it all down.
|
| I found the dude that ran it and emailed back and forth with
| him for a few years. They made excuses about how it is an IT
| issue.
| 7speter wrote:
| > They made excuses about how it is an IT issue.
|
| An ego issue
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Why does NYC even care? This tendency to govern in a
| controlling way is not just weird but plain unethical. I hope
| this goes viral and embarrasses them.
| dave78 wrote:
| Agree in spirit, though again if it does go viral and they
| become embarrassed the most likely thing is they'd shut down
| public access to the cameras - which would be a lousy outcome
| for everyone.
|
| My county has traffic cameras available online, though it's
| only static images updated once a minute or so. It's not that
| great but I still appreciate it, especially during winter
| weather. Every now and then if the weather seems bad I check
| the cameras to see what the roads look like before I head
| out. It's not a big deal, but I'd be a little annoyed if they
| took away public access because someone was trying to make
| some sort of statement or game out of them.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| NYC government is peculiar, in that its size and scope is
| like a US state, but it also subsumes the functions of US
| cities and counties. The closest comparison in the US is
| probably LA County.
|
| Thinking about it in terms of technology -- during the
| pandemic the schools bought a million iPads. They also run a
| giant hospital system, the largest police and fire
| departments in the country, etc.
|
| The net result is administration of a vast, sprawling (both
| horizontal and vertical) bureaucracy is complex, and the cogs
| in the wheel of that bureaucracy are simultaneously in your
| face and detached from reality. So you have a group of
| attorneys who see a threat in people posing in front of a
| camera.
| highcountess wrote:
| The response to that should be filing lawsuits to force the
| government to make public resources like that publicly
| accessible.
| autoexec wrote:
| What's the point of making a thing avilable to the public
| online if you're only going to pull it offline as soon as
| regular people start using it? I'm sure there are corporations
| and data brokers quietly collecting info on us using every
| scrap of publicly avilable data including traffic cams, but the
| moment regular folks start getting in on the fun and they post
| a pic of themselves being surveilled on twitter suddenly it's
| time to shut everything down?
|
| If it's a problem as soon as the average American starts using
| something, it's probably better if those resources stop being
| made available period.
| gruez wrote:
| >but the moment regular folks start getting in on the fun and
| they post a pic of themselves being surveilled on twitter
| suddenly it's time to shut everything down?
|
| There's a pretty big difference between using it for its
| intended purpose (ie. monitoring traffic), and the alleged
| behavior that the department of transportation was opposed
| to.
|
| >Office of Legal Affairs recently sent a cease-and-desist
| letter to Morry Kolman, the artist behind the project,
| charging that the TCP "encourages pedestrians to violate NYC
| traffic rules and engage in dangerous behavior."
| autoexec wrote:
| > There's a pretty big difference between using it for its
| intended purpose (ie. monitoring traffic), and the alleged
| behavior that the department of transportation was opposed
| to.
|
| What's the point of having it public then? The department
| of transportation is already using that data for monitoring
| traffic so there's zero need for anyone else to replicate
| their work. The value in making that data public isn't so
| that Joe Average can track traffic volume over time just
| like the DoT is already doing. It's for transparency and so
| that the public can find new and innovative uses for the
| information our tax money is already being spent on
| gathering.
|
| There's no point if we're not allowed to use that data in
| new ways and we don't need the kind of "transparency" that
| only applies as long as the public isn't looking.
|
| If a specific use is actually dangerous then that can be
| dealt with on a case by case basis, and it's arguable that
| they were right to send a cease and desist letter to this
| website, but making the data itself unavailable over it
| would be an overreaction
| ryandrake wrote:
| This seems to happen every time some stuffy SeriousAgency
| or SeriousCompany opens something up to the public. The
| public decides to use it in a way that they didn't think
| of, and they respond by clutching their pearls, panicking
| and shutting it down, instead of just going with it.
|
| SeriousCompany: "Look how cool and in tune we are with
| the public, here's this resource that you can all use.
| High five! [...] Oh, wait, no, what you're doing is bad
| for our image... No, stop, we didn't mean for you to
| do... No, don't enjoy it that way... Wait, stop, we
| didn't think of that at all! Oh, god no you're using it
| to post Amogus Porn! SHUT IT DOWN!!!"
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| > "this is why we can't have nice things"
|
| Of course, it'll be used, but that's just a bad, bad argument
| at any level.
| rKarpinski wrote:
| The referenced project is open source
| https://github.com/wttdotm/traffic_cam_photobooth
|
| TIL NYC traffic cams have a live feed on the web
|
| "NYC DOT traffic cameras only provide live feeds and do not
| record any footage. There are 919 cameras available via the
| NYCTMC.org website."[1]
|
| random traffic camera
| https://webcams.nyctmc.org/api/cameras/a8f2d065-c266-4378-ac...
|
| [1] https://webcams.nyctmc.org/about
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| What is their use if they don't record anything? Just to
| measure current traffic levels? I assumed they were all used as
| ALPRs. I've seen some cameras sprouting up in my small town and
| it worries me.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Yes, and they predate the internet.
|
| They are essentially a public live traffic report so that the
| news agencies are not running helicopters amok to get the
| same footage; and many of the cameras are in tight locations
| where it would be hard to fly helicopters or drones without
| irritating neighbors or being a danger to public safety.
| ldoughty wrote:
| Just because NYCTMC doesn't record doesn't mean NYC Police,
| or any other group doesn't... Could have been intentionally
| coordinated or not at the beginning, but it almost certainly
| is recorded by several players now
| CPLX wrote:
| Google NYPD Viper Unit
| someothherguyy wrote:
| Video Interactive Patrol Enhancement Response
|
| It sounds like they install their own cameras though.
| someothherguyy wrote:
| You should be able to get that information:
|
| https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/about/about-
| nypd/policy/post-a...
|
| Although:
|
| https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-
| opinion/nypd...
| ssl-3 wrote:
| The small(ish) town I grew up in started using cameras a
| dozen or more years ago.
|
| They get used with computer vision to control and coordinate
| traffic lights (sometimes with the help of inductive loops in
| the pavement, and sometimes without).
|
| In this _particular_ case: They don 't record anything, and
| their ISM 900MHz backhauls don't have enough bandwidth for
| centralized video anyway.
|
| (Sources: Background in RF, and I used to hang out with the
| city employee who took care of this system along with most
| other things relating to traffic lights there.)
| crtasm wrote:
| The image with the camera in the mirror shows not every camera
| requires standing in traffic.
|
| The C&D letter:
| https://trafficcamphotobooth.com/assets/CeaseAndDesist.pdf
| hackernewds wrote:
| breaking the law continues to be a good form of monetization
| Spivak wrote:
| Terms & Conditions of a website, even a government website,
| aren't law.
| gosub100 wrote:
| Tangential, but I'm a subscriber to a YouTube channel called VRF
| - virtual railfan - that shows essentially "traffic cams" of
| trains throughout North America. People do take selfies for the
| cam but always from a safe location.
|
| Over the years, the cams have caught some extraordinary events:
| maintenance equipment starting fires, trains on fire, numerous
| derailments, and, I'm not kidding, probably about 100 occurrences
| of people driving onto the tracks and getting stuck. A
| disproportionate number of them occurred at Ashland, VA. Which
| makes me think it's a bug in the traffic design.
| qudat wrote:
| That site is ad cancer, can't see the content at all
| varenc wrote:
| My iOS ad blocker seems to block it all since I see none
| qwe----3 wrote:
| The page crashed on my phone
| airstrike wrote:
| I find it odd that we've conflated political statements with art.
|
| I'm not saying art cannot or should not be political, but rather
| that not all forms of political statements represent art _just
| because_ they are political. For some reason many people think
| they do to such an extent that my position would be borderline
| blasphemous in art circles.
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean this is kind of trivially true so I'm not really sure
| who you're arguing against-- "I think we should have lower
| taxes" is a political statement that isn't art. But for the
| most part if you believe what you're doing it art, it's art--
| this is for sure a performance piece.
|
| I know a few local galleries that would trip over themselves to
| do an exhibition with this photo set.
| airstrike wrote:
| _> I 'm not really sure who you're arguing against_
|
| I'm arguing against calling these photos art.
|
| _> But for the most part if you believe what you 're doing
| it art, it's art-- this is for sure a performance piece._
|
| I understand this is the prevalent view in the 21st century.
| I'm not convinced it is true. And similarly just because I
| rent a place, put up a sign saying "Art Gallery" and put some
| things up for display, that doesn't mean those things are
| works of art. The emperor has no clothes and all that.
| crabmusket wrote:
| Side note, but I find this image caption very amusing
|
| > Kolman shows the traffic cams his cease-and-desist in Brooklyn
| and Times Square.
|
| The use of "shows" feels to me like it anthropomorphises the
| cameras, as if he's sharing the joke with his traffic cam pals.
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