Yet another Hacker News

Flock cameras used to arrest a child for playing on a swing

102 points chadgpt3 1 hour ago 55 comments

uberman 1 hour ago | parent

When I was a kid twisting a swing so you could ride it as it untwisted was something that happend dozens of times every recess. This was something every kid did. If your playground equipment falls apart as a result of the standard way kids use a swing then I think that is a manufacture issue not criminal behavior by a 10 year old

GlibMonkeyDeath 45 minutes ago | parent

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/pennsylvania-girls-10...

"The borough also says visitors encounter its "Play Smart Rules" when entering the park, including a specific instruction: "Do not twist chains.""

So the town buys crappy swings, knowing full well that kids are going to spin them (who hasn't done this a million times as a kid?) Then they slap up a sign telling the kids not to do that. Basically entrapment.

Here's an idea for them: maybe the town shouldn't cheap out on unsafe equipment for children...

bluGill 9 minutes ago | parent

My company makes dangerous equipment like lawn mowers. Because of this, I have to go through training on how to design equipment to be safe.

And the rule is very clear. If there is any possibility of an issue, you need to redesign it so the problem can't happen, you need to put gaurds in place so the problem can't happen, or only if those two fail, are you allowed to put up a warning sign. That is an ordered list so if anything is possible in the previous step you cannot go to the next.

In this case a chain that can take twisting is obvious and so the sign won't protect them from liability should someone get hurt from twisting the chains.

rpdillon 45 minutes ago | parent

Yep! We used to call it "twist and shout". Tons of fun.

Avicebron 40 minutes ago | parent

Why is a 3rd party company keeping videos of people's children? Why aren't the parents concerned about this?

swader999 38 minutes ago | parent

Right? Growing up in the eighties we'd twist, stand on them, double up, back flip out of them.

smalltorch 25 minutes ago | parent

It's marginally cheaper to install flimsy chains and surveillance than to pony up for a slightly thicker gauge chain get out of here with your common sense /s

bluGill 7 minutes ago | parent

Until someone gets hurt and the court find they are liable for millions because signs and cameras did not work and because they thought it would they apply punitive damages to make sure the message is sent.

jerlam 57 minutes ago | parent

Here is a direct news link to the actual incident: https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/springdale-girls-cou...

heaney-555 31 minutes ago | parent

The article has no mention of Flock

jerlam 21 minutes ago | parent

Flock may not actually be involved. YouTube video titles are often lying clickbait, and the video description starts off with "Flock and other surveillance cameras..."

kraken_cult 20 minutes ago | parent

Might as well call them Kleenex surveillance cameras. The point stands.

megaman821 14 minutes ago | parent

No, people should say accurate things. If Flock was not actually invovled then it is just useless clickbait. Give your time to someone else who can report accurately.

nicksaroha 26 minutes ago | parent

Yeah read the full article and no mention of flock.

nomagicbullet 54 minutes ago | parent

I don't think we understand yet the kind of world we are building.

All the small decisions we are making will shape our future: algorithmic decision making, social network broadcasting and "self-reporting", light-speed meme transmission, always-on audio and video surveillance... the list goes on and on. One day we'll wake up to see we've build a jail around us we can't escape.

vkou 49 minutes ago | parent

The vermin that are building it understand it just fine.

chneu 39 minutes ago | parent

The consumer chooses convenience for skill/knowledge and then complains about the outcome of their choice.

It's wild.

kraken_cult 34 minutes ago | parent

It'S ThEiR FaUlT, I'M juSt MaKinG mOneY. Is such a lame excuse. A real engineer knows ethical boundaries. Get lost.

porkshoe 20 minutes ago | parent

American citizens are not choosing to be surveilled via Flock.

That is a decision that is being made by billionaires like Paul Graham who fund and profit from it, and authoritarian individuals at police departments and governments who get influenced by the perceived convenience of warrant and subpoena-free surveillance.

I carry a cell phone... and thankfully the Supreme Court has agreed that my location data that comes off of it is protected from warrantless search.

The heart of your argument is that people shouldn't do anything new unless they accept all of the downsides as-is... but that's a moronic argument. Society is built by people doing new things _but also_ working to come up with new agreements on how to manage the side effects of those new things. This is normal and natural.

What's wild is your decision to mock people who want to preserve liberty while advancing technology.

sroussey 17 minutes ago | parent

How is your location data protected? They may not be able to force a company to hand it over without a warrant… but they can just buy it.

porkshoe 14 minutes ago | parent

Chatrie v. US is a great start.

American Patriots need to keep fighting to deal with the whole host of issues that will keep arising as the ability to acquire, store, and analyze data gets cheaper and cheaper.

Aerroon 12 minutes ago | parent

If things go bad then the problem they cause is so huge that nobody is capable of taking responsibility for it. The following is an illustration of what I mean:

Eg imagine if one of these surveillance companies gets hacked. Personal data and the habits of a hundred million people get compromised.

The penalties for this should be enough to make everyone affected whole.

If your neighbor had a secret camera in your home - what would it take to make you whole? I imagine most people would be okay with like $50k (or some other large sum like that).

Are these surveillance companies ready to pay $50k per person? Hell no. 100M * 50k = $5 trillion.

Nobody can afford to pay that much. They either end up going bankrupt or are absolved of this responsibility. Either way, the people affected will not be made whole.

hollow-moe 22 minutes ago | parent

"One day"? You're years late I'd say. Enjoy the downhill ride, it's not about to end.

t_mahmood 14 minutes ago | parent

I was thinking few days ago something that is very common feature in my city, which made us unsafe in the name of safety without most of us realizing at all.

So, in my city each and every window has metal grills, without anyway to open them, nor we have fire exit, except very few. So, the only way out is the frontdoor. Reason being, It's unsafe to have open windows because of robbers, thieves, rapist etc, which is legit safety concern. But you only have one way out of your safe heaven, the frontdoor, so what happens the day your stairs caught fire? Or earthquake blocks the front door? Or someone just sits there with a gun? You have no way out of your own home.

We really have built jail around us, that we can't escape.

stego-tech 9 minutes ago | parent

Oh, many of us understand quite clearly what world was being built. I'd argue most members of marginalized groups knew damn well what kind of world was being built by those in power.

That being said, one of the best ways to fight surveillance as a concept is authenticity. The goal of the watchers is enforce constraints - limit where you go, who you talk to, how you dress, how you behave, etc - and remaining defiantly authentic lets them know those tactics won't work while simultaneously broadcasting to others that you reject the power those cameras have over you.

Surveillance succeeds because of fear, and it always falls because of authenticity.

neilv 54 minutes ago | parent

That link is an activist YouTube channel. Closest I could find to a news organization reporting on this:

https://www.wtae.com/article/springdale-playground-swing-cou...

sparkling 18 minutes ago | parent

No mention of Flock anywhere in the text

donmcronald 51 minutes ago | parent

If the chain broke from twisting it up and letting it go, it was in disrepair before the kids started using it. Maybe the city admin should be charged with negligence for letting the infrastructure crumble.

k310 47 minutes ago | parent

Government and industry enter the Epstein zone. Creep-shooting little kids.

Not surprised at all.

fedpost 42 minutes ago | parent

There are plenty of people here working on surveillance tech. Is this the world you want to be building?

MiscCompFacts 6 minutes ago | parent

I’d say a lot of people don’t care if it doesn’t affect them directly, and if they can exploit a moral boundary to get rich they’ll do it.

Dig1t 40 minutes ago | parent

I thought these cameras were only used to read license plates. What happened to that discussion?

torstenvl 32 minutes ago | parent

It was never true.

jerlam 31 minutes ago | parent

The content creator is using "Flock" as a shorthand for all surveillance cameras, which muddies the conversation.

heaney-555 30 minutes ago | parent

They are. These aren't Flock cameras. The post is a lie, but it's one people want to believe.

tssva 22 minutes ago | parent

LPR cameras are only one of the camera types Flock has. Flock also has PTZ and fixed cameras meant for general surveillance and not LPR. The description of the PTZ cameras on the Flock website even mentions them being ideal for parks.

"Single and dual lens live and recorded video cameras with remote PTZ controls. Ideal for open areas like parking lots, intersections and parks."

tssva 22 minutes ago | parent

In addition to their LPR cameras Flock also has PTZ and fixed cameras meant for general surveillance.

demibabs 39 minutes ago | parent

As much as I dislike flock, this only seems like an indictment on the police.

demosthanos 33 minutes ago | parent

Surveillance cameras (not Flock, sounds like) are what allowed the police to spend ridiculous amounts of the city's time chasing (checks notes) $295 of damage to a swing from totally normal use by a couple of pre-teens.

Swings have always broken. Before widespread surveillance the swing would have just been replaced or not and everyone would have moved on.

aspbee555 36 minutes ago | parent

How much money did they waste in police and court resources over a swing obviously in disrepair if it broke so easily? How much resources/money did they waste having someone create invoices for numerous children/families? How much resources/money did they waste on harassing/tormenting children and their families instead of just fixing the damn thing?

So nice to see such enormous time and resources being spent on catching actual criminals

kraken_cult 23 minutes ago | parent

right, it probably cost two new swing sets in people's time to make this even happen.

jolmg 33 minutes ago | parent

> They tell me in a lengthy statement in part that the department would never issue an ultimatum of pay for the damage or your children will be charged. They tell me quote, "We simply don't operate that way." Rather, the department's approach was consistent among the five juveniles involved in the incident. The damage was divided equally and an opportunity was provided to address the matter through restitution rather than unnecessarily continuing juvenile proceeding.

Lol. The same thing, but obfuscated. It's not "pay for the damage"; it's "an opportunity was provided to address the matter through restitution". It's not "or your children will be charged"; it's "rather than unnecessarily continuing juvenile proceeding". Add extra fluff at the start to bury the lede, then avoid the trigger words and pretend it's something different.

saghm 14 minutes ago | parent

"Your children won't be charged! They'll just be arrested"

heaney-555 30 minutes ago | parent

Is everyone going to ignore that those are not Flock cameras?

Why is the quality of discussion on this topic on HN so poor? I'm not even pro-Flock, but a blatantly false post like this is just pathetic discourse.

tssva 20 minutes ago | parent

How do you know they aren't Flock cameras? Flock makes PTZ and fixed cameras intended for general surveillance along with the LPR cameras.

LastTrain 30 minutes ago | parent

So the kids were playing on equipment that fell apart and now they owe money? The city is lucky they didn't get injured.

123hafd 28 minutes ago | parent

True disruption! In 1933 the Nazis needed a human, called Blockwart, to surveil the immediate neighborhood block. This has been automated. Shall we call the cameras Flockwart?

mikestew 9 minutes ago | parent

Three questions:

1. Why is the city creeping on children with surveillance cameras? I'd be tempted to run for city council and beat that drum until the head broke (but then I'd have to serve on the city council).

2. How did they identify the children enough to come to their home? Might have read the license plate, but reporting is unclear.

3. Why is our municipality buying such crappy equipment that it fails when kids do what kids have done with swings for 100 years or more?

kstrauser 8 minutes ago | parent

OK, big surveillance fans: please explain why this is OK because "it's not the government", and this keeps us safe, and we don't have any expectation of privacy. It's inevitable that someone is going to claim it's a great idea. Let's get it out of the way.

phoghed 4 minutes ago | parent

You already know the answer. It's a sacrifice they are willing to make just in case someone in a rusty Altima does a hit and run on their Tesla.

kstrauser 2 minutes ago | parent

You know it. They also lack the imagination to see how this could be used against them, instead of the "right" people.