56 pointsby nozzlegear2 hours ago13 comments
  • cebertan hour ago
    With mass drone surveillance and online safety acts, we will finally be able to keep our children truly safe for the small cost of privacy.
    • chrismcb24 minutes ago
      And a couple of ES-209s as well
    • vatsachak19 minutes ago
      Now that's what we call bait
    • _davide_30 minutes ago
      To balance it, the police need to be extremely accountable, but so far they get away with murder pretty easily...so...
  • infecto11 minutes ago
    I don’t think I have a problem with drones. There is a line to be drawn regarding auditing access of footage and how we are analyzing it historically (prevent from misusing the tech) but for things like active reporting it has the potential to be pretty helpful. Cops used to be a lot more visible (or maybe greater in number) and this type of tech has the potential to help get that back.

    I am no fan of police and am a big proponent of requiring police to carry malpractice insurance. I still think having cameras and footage while a call is going on is good for everyone.

    • buellerbueller10 minutes ago
      All camera footage should be publicly available.
      • Gigachad9 minutes ago
        I really don’t agree. Especially in this day where anyone, or any business could run it all through AI and profile everyone to work out the exact best moment to send you a push notification for a Big Mac or whatever.
        • infecto5 minutes ago
          I think I agree. I think this is the type of data that should be able to be requested (and given if the context is correct) but not simply freely out there. Some third party commercial party will just use and abuse it.
        • buellerbueller3 minutes ago
          I think the value of having the data on public spaces publicly available far outweighs the risk of privately held data, or editorializaed data from public spaces.

          Also: You're welcome to disable push notifications if you don't want a big mac ad. (I agree that advertising is a cancer.)

  • dannywan hour ago
    > The innocuous appearance of many of the videos raises questions about whether the surveillance was necessary. In one “auto boost/strip”-related call, the drone follows two young men in their car, at least one of whom is described in police records as having been identified as a “suspicious person in a vehicle.” Then the two men emerge onto a basketball court and start playing, and the drone departs.

    https://archive.is/dychh

    • 01284a7e6 minutes ago
      No drone has ever followed me when I am on the way to go play hockey.
    • lazide10 minutes ago
      I mean, they evaluated and left?

      What should they have done, creeped on them as they played?

  • iamnothere34 minutes ago
    Useful tool mentioned in the article, hadn’t seen this before: https://github.com/lc/gau
  • ThatMedicIsASpy30 minutes ago
    Am I missing something? I can click the 'article' but its a big picture and a single paragraph. That reads like a picture description.
    • hutattedonmyarm22 minutes ago
      They paywalled the article, that’s why you can only see the first paragraph
  • bobthebob40 minutes ago
    Helicopters already exist, and so do consumer drones - so why is this an issue?
    • aqme2811 minutes ago
      I believe in a "reasonable expectation of privacy" standard. A drone could hover outside my window watching me, but I don't think that would make people feel comfortable.
      • bobthebob9 minutes ago
        In a wiretap scenario, yes that would be uncomforting and worrisome.

        But these drones are used to chase active criminals. Unless you committed a crime and ran back to your apartment, I think you’d be fine

        • jasonlotito6 minutes ago
          FTA: They are not used to chase active criminals.
    • inigyou37 minutes ago
      Scale. The possibility of surveillance was far less worrying when three police officers had to tail you, because they'd only expend that effort when they were pretty sure you'd done a crime.
      • maerF0x019 minutes ago
        So we'd rather a high speed chase, crashes, danger to cyclists and pedestrians? I'd rather a drone follows the car until it stops and the police arrive to retrieve it and give a hand slap to the offender.

        I know this is lagging, and American culture will take decades to accept it, but the better our police are the lighter the sentences can be. Part of why a big hard sentence was seen as a deterrent was sort of the EROI ... If the chances of catching are small, you need a big deterrent. If the chances of catching are near 100% you only need a smaller deterrent (and apply it close to the behavior to maximize the brain training of "Do bad, bad things happen")

        • jplusequalt3 minutes ago
          >the better our police are the lighter the sentences can be.

          >If the chances of catching are near 100% you only need a smaller deterrent

          I would rather live in a world with marginally higher petty crime rates with zero surveillance, than a world that has no petty crime but where there are Flock cameras on every corner and drones patrolling overhead at all times.

          Peter Thiel and his ilk are creating Big Brother.

        • inigyou14 minutes ago
          Constraints can be good when they constrain both sides. E2EE chat protocols are good even though they effectively prohibit large groups, because they also prohibit intermediaries from reading your chats.
      • bobthebob14 minutes ago
        I mean, helicopters are a limited and expensive resource.

        And here it looks like they use it on criminals on the run - not something they use to practically monitor each person like some surveillance system, or court ordered wiretap

        At least, that’s what I’ve gathered

    • ceejayoz24 minutes ago
      Helicopters are expensive and thus rare.

      Consumer drones can't summon a SWAT team.

      • bobthebob12 minutes ago
        Still don’t know how this affects me. The use here seems to be for criminals on the run
  • buellerbueller5 minutes ago
    What are the safeguards that are in place here? What happens when this surveillance capability falls into the hands of an autocratic government?
  • maerF0x023 minutes ago
    >Exposes reality of urban surveillance

    Sounds like they're saying we should be appalled by this usage of drones... IDK, until we have some proof of an truly innocent (found by a court) or no reason to be suspected person (eg profiled, misidentified) having a bad outcome (such as arrest and long detention) without recourse (sue the crap out of the city, dept, or state) ...

    This article basically reads as "Drones help police apprehend a man involved with auto theft" ...

    The only "news" here (no shocker) is that the PD is somewhat ignorant on how to handle these new technologies securely. They need to go out on the open market and hire some of the best and brightest security folks displaced by Mythos (that's a joke), and secure their stuff with the basics.

    • normalaccess17 minutes ago
      Classic example of the Nothing to hide argument.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument

      • maerF0x014 minutes ago
        nah, that's not at all what I'm saying. What I'm saying is IMO until the police have something to hide (besides their crappy securing of the usage) It's not really a news piece.

        If we had a story of a Police officer using the drone to follow his dominos order, or his ex-girlfriend -- thatd be a story about abuse of power and quite newsworthy.

    • pluralmonad19 minutes ago
      There will always be those who make excuses for the panopticon. Is yours that reducing auto theft is worth the tradeoffs?
      • infecto7 minutes ago
        I think there is a valid discussion for devices like Flock. The CEO is a detriment to their company and the lack of police guardrails and auditing make it ripe for abuse.

        Having a camera in the sky for police calls does not sound like a bad idea and actually good for all parties.

        Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t. SFPD only uses these for active calls. It’s no different imo than a human cop chasing down a suspect for a call.

      • maerF0x012 minutes ago
        AFAIK there is no right to privacy in public, no?

        What I don't care so much about the data collection as I do about how it's used.

        Its not that the NSA surveils that bugs me. It's that they use kangaroo courts, "asdfasdfasdf" as the search reason field, that they cyber stalk girlfriends, or view camera devices to see people in state of undress (illegally and unethically).

        In this case we have an example of police using the devices, for a very legitimate usecase, more or less in an excellent manner (save for not properly securing the footage).

        • infecto6 minutes ago
          +1. I think having cameras is good. In this case these are active calls and it’s great for all parties. How it’s used after the fact is what matters imo.

          I could even get comfortable with tech like Flock if it was not so ripe for abuse.

        • inigyou6 minutes ago
          Civilized countries do have limited rights to privacy in public. For example, it may be illegal to publish a photograph of a person without their consent.
  • Simulacraan hour ago
    I remember reading this excellent article on Bloomberg about a guy who started a company that uses Cessna's with high-quality cameras, and they fly over an area for hours, and then use that footage to rollback crimes.

    They filmed everything. There's a video if you can find it where the man shows footage they took of a city in Mexico, where a murder occurred, and how they were able to roll back time and see the murder go down in real time.

    It was really fascinating… In 2016.

    At the time I imagined one day we would have blimps, or long range aircraft circling all major cities 24/7 doing the same thing.

    Instead of planes, they are using drones…

    https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baltimore-secret-sur...

  • kotaKat39 minutes ago
    And the amazing thing is that DJI was the ones lambasted for their shitty security practices.

    But here we are, with Skydio users openly using public sharing links to their drone feeds 24x7x365 apparently.

    Sounds like another vendor needs to get added to the Covered List, methinks, but the lobbyists won't let that one fly.

    • creaturemachine32 minutes ago
      The only thing insecure was the market position of the domestic competition.
    • inigyou38 minutes ago
      Or rather, lobbyists will let it fly as long as it's got a camera.
  • technewssssan hour ago
    Sad to see. Here in Europe it's definitely not any better. Despite the GDPR’s safeguards, tech surveillance is set to become one of the defining civil liberties battlegrounds in across the World. Even with the EU AI act, the people of europe are significantly at risk.
    • easytigeran hour ago
      Wait until you find out what the EU want/have asked the GAM trio of big tech corps to do to your phone and private messaging platforms. (Coincidentally they suddenly don't think so big an anti competition problem exists anymore).
      • inigyou38 minutes ago
        Are you referring to Chat Control 2.0 which has repeatedly failed to pass the Parliament and is illegal to implement today?

        Or to the requirement for RCS for which certificates are only issued to trusted parties?

  • aftbit15 minutes ago
    Great, just what I need - another reason to never leave my house.
  • fortran77an hour ago
    It's nice to see SFPD taking car break-ins seriously.
    • malfistan hour ago
      "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
      • tqia minute ago
        You know he was talking about taxes...
      • Neil4425 minutes ago
        Is it essential liberty to be able to run around doing crime without being surveiled?
        • ceejayoz23 minutes ago
          Sweet, you've invented pre-crime.
          • bobthebob6 minutes ago
            This isn’t Reddit, one-liner jokes aren’t contributing
            • inigyou4 minutes ago
              We don't surveil everyone all the time just in case they do a crime. It's not a joke.
      • infecto11 minutes ago
        What liberty does a drone with a camera break? Seems like a nice optimization on police resources.
      • maerF0x017 minutes ago
        [flagged]