this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
900 points (99.0% liked)

Technology

81907 readers
3367 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] MountainMan@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Didn't some use a 5000MW laser to fry some of them?

Fucking gangster.

[–] PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But but but...the internet told me that Americans welcome this with open arms! /s

[–] S4m_S3p1l 8 points 2 days ago

This is the Mirror's Edge type rebellion shit I would imagine myself doing when I was a kid as a future hacker. This is fucking sick as.

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 days ago

Tech crunch indeed.

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

ANYTHING cloud-connected - your doorbell, your security system, even all f**king post-2006 vehicles, regardless of manufacturer - are suspect.

And are highly likely to be actually spying on you.

I’ve been working with computers since 1982, on the Internet since 1988, on the Web since 1992, and in the IT industry since 1997. The proportion of average people who don’t realize how much of their stuff is exposing them, and by how much, is frankly astounding. It’s almost 100% of normies who are woefully ignorant. Even IT people who have no clue is in the majority.

And the security on this stuff that tracks you tends to be - except in rare circumstances - absolute dogshite. Sometimes it comes without any security at all, such as all devices sold having admin creds baked in, or all remote-access credentials being identical and non-user-editable.

This is why almost all of my stuff is hardlined, I have no IoT devices at all, and the wifi for my family’s devices is physically separate from everything else.

Don’t get me wrong, as IT for almost three decades I love all the new shinies. But I’m not blind, and I’m not stupid.

[–] Mynameisallen@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 days ago

Much later into the career than you but honestly in the same boat. I don't fucking let any of that shit into my house, I don't use any of the big tech companies software, FOSS on everything I own and I honestly have become so disillusioned with mainline consumer tech because it's honestly mostly trash imo. The older I get the more I realize I just want a fucking laptop with a decent keyboard, decent screen and good battery life.

[–] TronBronson@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Thank god I just purchased my dream car, a 2002 Lexus. Hack that you jabronis. tape deck gang

[–] boaratio@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago
[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 236 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Who'd have thought that warrant-less mass surveillance that treats every citizen like a potential criminal would eventually hit a tipping point where people began to fight back against it?

[–] SpezCanLigmaBalls@lemmy.world 83 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Along with it incorrectly labeling people as a criminal so cops harass innocent families

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 88 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (8 children)

That's a feature, not a bug.

The whole point of warrantless mass surveillance where you collect a person's entire life history from birth to death is to be able to go back through that history at any point they become an inconvenient person, whether because they are protesting or are a whistleblower or anything else that endangers the existing power structures. They can and will use your history to fabricate a "reasonable" narrative to turn you into whatever type of criminal they claim you are.

This is exactly why they're pushing the "antifa is an organized terrorist organization" so hard.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] artyom@piefed.social 26 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I watched a video last night. Some guy was banned from a casino. All they had was a blurry surveillance camera photo of him.

The AI tagged some other guy as him. Cops came and arrested him. Said the man's ID must be fake, or he used a fake ID last time because there's no way their high-fallutin AI could be wrong! It was >99% certain!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 46 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What’s funny is someone at flock is likely seeing this as a business opportunity. “With flock+ we will detect downed cameras and send a technician out to replace them instantly. Subscribe now!”

Meanwhile, municipalities are less than thrilled about defending throwing money at something literally no taxpayer wants.

This problem might solve itself really. Let the buisness majors sell the hangman their own nooses.

[–] privatepirate@lemmy.zip 22 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Sadly some people do want flock cameras because they think it's worth it to have a better chance of catching criminals even if our personal liberties get taken away. It's the age old freedom vs safety discussion.

[–] amju_wolf@pawb.social 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The thing is though you could have both, at least to a degree. You could have much more transparent policing, the cameras could do processing purely locally and based on publicly accessible lists with listed reasons for why the given plates are captured, you could make it so that the only ones who do get the data are actually thr police and not thr company selling the cameras, etc.

But that's not in the interest of Flock, or even really the powers that be. The surveillance machine needs feeding, doesn't matter for what cost.

[–] privatepirate@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

Yes, I agree very much with your statement. I think our lives would be much better if our government was built like an open source project lol

[–] Kellenved@sh.itjust.works 21 points 3 days ago

Those who sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Maybe a year or so ago, but now those same people are starting to understand the definition of criminal is flexible.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] CatZoomies@lemmy.world 23 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Meanwhile, new age Glassholes Flock to their new Meta glasses.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 73 points 3 days ago

Stealing them is felony grand theft.

Vandalizing them is a misdemeanor (typically, check your local laws and also don't do crimes).

If they were all stolen, it's an easy PR 'woe is us, think of the children' win for Flock.

If there's a bunch of social media posts that are showing chopped down flock cameras just laying on the side of the road then it has better optics from the point of view of 'We don't want country-wide surveillance networks'.

[–] LostSoul8765@lemmy.world 106 points 3 days ago
[–] XLE@piefed.social 128 points 3 days ago (2 children)

There's nothing more American than destroying a Flock camera

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] drascus@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

im glad people are fighting back. i hate these things.

[–] SaltySalamander@fedia.io 59 points 3 days ago
[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 34 points 3 days ago

If we won’t defend our 4th Amendment rights the sold out politicians sure as hell won’t

[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

It's every American's duty as an American to do so.

[–] ShellMonkey@piefed.socdojo.com 47 points 3 days ago (21 children)

Couple dead pixels from a particularly bright light might well make them unable to do their plate reading job efficiently. Might make for an interesting study.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 24 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Lasers tend not to be good for camera sensors, I've heard.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (20 replies)
[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How did Ring avoid controversy?

[–] calmluck9349 10 points 2 days ago

Cause private citizens are doing it. Not sure why people aren't hating on them as much yet

[–] SpezCanLigmaBalls@lemmy.world 30 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Ive thought about getting a stick with a cardboard sign that says fuck flock and putting it right in front of all the cameras around me that i know of

[–] cranakis@reddthat.com 37 points 3 days ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ZombieMantis@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago
[–] tidderuuf@lemmy.world 24 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I could've sworn 2 weeks ago there was an article about people breaking into them to steal the wires and components.

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 24 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I hear tell them cameras is full of valuable minerals like gold and copper!

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›