This behavior from companies is so predictable that I’m perpetually disappointed in my fellow human beings for ever buying this equipment.
Well, the CEO did openly invite and approve of this. In his own words, Flock cameras aren’t forced on anyone. So the only logical conclusion is to destroy them if so desired.
There’s one a block from my house, and three blocks from my work, so they can see me coming and going each direction.
…BRB
Is there a common quadcopter on the market capable of carrying a paintball gun or something else that can splatter lenses?
Another, lower tech option that gets the job done.
With a radio control drone you, your face and your smart phone can be a quarter mile away. Plus, have you been in aerial combat? I haven’t. Yet.
Just gonna leave this here for anyone so inclined
Yeah I’m based in one of the highest density ALPR regions in the country, this would just be going off constantly lol
This is exactly what this company deserves, to be smashed out of business and history.
Reminder: If you destroy a camera, be aware that other cameras in the area may be recording you as well. Protect your identity.
Leave your fucking phone at home too.
Faraday bags work… But test them.
I got a cheapo $7 Chromebook sized bag that seemed to work for my SOs iphone. We don’t use NFC so I couldn’t test that.
No BT, WiFi, or Cell, and probably no GPS.
I only did casual testing.
The screen still showed the signal having low bars for WiFi and cellular, but it didn’t actually receive a signal at all when trying to call or use the net, not even with the top of the bag open a sliver and my hand in there.
If the device was off or in airplane mode and in the bag, I’d be comfortable assuming it was safely hidden from tracking.
I haven’t thoroughly tested my various personal devices, but I expect identical results.
I think everyone should probably have a bag like this around, in a go-bag or something, just in case. And it’s safer to have your phone available than not, as long as it’s secure (use a pin or password to lock it, use encryption, put emergency info on it for first responders).
my neighbor hood has one right at the entrance. I make a point of flipping it off every time i pass it. Also, If you were curious how many of these violations of privacy are around you. Here you go- https://deflock.org/map
Seems to be an American thing only.
Everyone should start 3d printing faces of Epstein and take them everywhere they go
Well, that’s actually better than I thought. I wonder if Seattle got rid of them? Home Depot (Pieces of Shit) and an Amazon building that overlooks the interstate seem to be the only ones in Seattle proper.
No curiosity here. I just assume I’m being monitored everywhere I go now, though I keep my phone in a faraday bag when I’m not using it, so that at least is something.
All a person can do now is manage the problem incrementally. I love the idea of people sabotaging doorbell cams though.
Ehh then your destroying a persons property. And they might not know how bad they are.
This is too defeatist for me. I am upset to see these all over town, but too small minded to do anything about it. I want to start something to pressure community leaders to change, but i worry that i’ll make a lot of noise then drop it like i do with everything. I’d love to join with a group.
A black trash bag, a roll of duct tape, and a ladder are not destructive but still very effective.
Follow that link above. There’s a few great online communities around this. One involves keeping these camera out of places that don’t have them yet, for example.
Check out Benn Jordan and Louis Rossman on YT as they are two people spearheading this from a social standpoint. Louis specifically regularly provides links to contacting your legislators about it, including things to say to them. It’s faster and easier than you’d think to do.
On a macro scale I do think the privacy ship has sailed. Seeing the leaked illegal footage in the Guthrie case confirmed that the big tech companies are spying on us, storing the footage permanently, and leaking it to the government covertly upon request. I don’t think it’s unfair to presume that both ruling parties know and love this, which means we’re never turning back that clock.
On the local level, though, change is still eminently possible. I actually drafted an email to my HOA this morning about getting these doorbell cams banned in my building.
Can you share the email draft? How does one convince a bunch of (most likely) MAGA morons to restrict doorbell cams? They love surveillance and ICE.
Yeah, I don’t think it’s reasonable to give up in the face of it.
You should make it as hard as possible for them to track you, use private OpenSource software, advocate for it and don’t be afraid if direct action, like destroying these cameras. The more people that do it, the harder it will be for them to do something about it.
Oh, I do.
I just don’t trust the majority to do anything meaningful themselves. It’s why recycling doesn’t work and why Democrats and Republicans keep getting elected. Our only power now is local.
Yup. And also we should advocate for our rights more locally. Organize with other people, raise awareness and do direct action.
I think the most effective form of resistance is relationships and new local organisations and new structures that resist the forces of the state and of capitalism.
If you are looking for some ideas, maybey you can look here or do your own research.
Tell hood he should take that thing down!
Good, fuck this panopticon dystopia shit.
Also, some guy sliced the entire pole and left a message:
hahaha get wrecked ya surveilling fucks
hahaha get wrecked ya surveilling fucks
lol
lol that’s so cool!
panopticon
Great word choice.
Damn that’s aluminium, not steel. You can do that with an angle grinder, reciprocating saw, or even a mapp gas torch
I can definitely cut steal with my angle grinder.
They sell battery powered angle grinders at Harbour Freight.
Pay cash
Wear a mask
And smoke a little grass?
Paint ball guns with permanent ink ammunition works too.
powerful laser pointers burns camera sensors out too
“crime”
This news man lol
Killing nazis is also a crime. Both currently, and throughout nazi Germany. Do with that information what you will.
Guess who else also needs to be “vandalized”
Can’t have shit in Detroit.
They are beginning to disguise them in cones, barrels and small ones on a pole as small as rebar.
Yes, that’s why we have https://github.com/colonelpanichacks/flock-you
“Sabotage”
Yeah, it’s a weird way of spelling “liberation”.
Pesky German dissidents sabotage military equipment, 1944.
How can I help?
Also https://github.com/colonelpanichacks/flock-you
Edit: For the people confused, you install the firmware onto a OUI-SPY device, which will vibrate when it detects the presence of Flock and other networks, and logs the location using your phones GPS, which can then be exported and submitted to the Deflock database.
I have no idea what any of this does or how I’m supposed to make it work for me.
See edit.
What am I supposed to do with this?
See edit.
How would you take such a camera down without being spotted and tracked? Do they not look in all directions?
Not asking for all the technical details on how to take one down, just curious how so many can be taken down with so few arrests after. I guess it’s a matter of good disguises?
Leave your phone at home.
Don’t drive your own car there, and don’t get an uber.
Ride a scooter, bicycle, or walk.
Wear a dust mask, headphones (to prevent ear pattern recognition) and safety glasses.
Wear a high vis vest while working on the camera. The retro reflective strips show up as dazzling white on infrared cameras, washing out the image. It also helps make any witness assume you’re a legitimate worker
Wear dark clothing with no logos over the top of something dorky, like a white Ralph Lauren shirt and golf shorts. Ditch the dark clothing if you even sense you might be stopped on the way home.
Put duct tape on the soles of your shoes to make the shoe prints indistinct.
Wear gloves, rigger gloves are fine, latex if you have nothing else.
Work quickly, never run (unless your under disguise is a jogging outfit).
if you see a cop, security, or any person that suspects you, believe in your heart and soul that you haven’t committed a crime. Find a way to delete the act from your memory, become an innocent person in your own mind.
Emotional escalation to cop should be indifference, confusion, irritation, indignant, suspicion, and when detained or arrested, lawful but otherwise silent cooperation. That’s how innocent people behave when suspected or accused of a crime. Once detained, say nothing except your name, age, DOB, address, license number ect and “I don’t know, I need to speak to a lawyer.” Even though they will ask you a thousand questions to try to get you to implicate yourself. There is nothing you can say that will talk you out of cuffs.
Yeah, don’t say you don’t know if you do, that’s lying, which is a crime in this situation. You can answer crime related questions with questions (avoidance). But don’t do that for everything. If they push, start asking if you’re free to go. If they say no, invoke the 5th.
Don’t do their jobs for them.
Don’t answer any questions that could incriminate you. Or talk to them in general. But be polite when you do speak.
Only tell them your name or provide other required identity information. Don’t say where you are going or coming from. Don’t explain anything. Don’t tell stories. Don’t lie.
Specifically say you are invoking your right to silence and specifically say you are invoking your right to council.
If they continue to pester you after this, it’s a violation of your rights and a lawyer will have more ammunition to defend you.
If they come back hours later and try talking to you again, you invoke them again. After a significant period of time (whatever the cop decides) they can try again to “see if you’ve changed your mind.”
But just staying silent is not the same in the courts as invoking your right to remain silent.
People tend to want to talk and fill silence. You’ll have to control your urges and learn to be comfortable in silence.
Also, don’t sweat too hard because covering/uninstalling cameras like this is misdemenor-level vandalism (don’t take the cameras, they cost enough to warrant felony grand theft charges).
You’ll have a bond and the bond will be low enough that most bail bondsmen will bond you out on promise of payment even if you don’t have someone outside ready to come get you.
If you’re caught, you’re looking at a few months of probation and restitution. If confronted by police, stay calm, follow orders, “I don’t want to answer questions without a lawyer” and “<Your name>” are all you need to say. Do that an you’ll be right back home opening a gofundme in no time.
Don’t do crimes though, obviously.
I would wonder if it would be illegal to promote your live of the country by hanging a giant flag directly in the viewing path of the camera. Would you get arrested for being too patriotic?
They usually face one direction. And don’t place them to watch each other afaik.
Well, that might change after this though.
The idea of a bunch of surveillance cameras watching other surveillance cameras only to prevent vandalism of the surveillance cameras…
it’s sorta like llm agents in a social network talking amongst themselves, innit?
Even if they do, don’t be a dumbass and have your phone on you and be completely covered and approach the device via analogue method (e.g. walking, bicycle without a serial, etc).
As an aside, I’ve been toying with the following idea:
I like to refurbish bicycles for my own use. The idea I’ve had is to buy cheap Facebook marketplace / Craigslist bikes, disassemble, grind off the serial, and paint in a uniform and non identifiable (or at least less so) and reassemble, replacing wear parts. Put them into the community to use however they see fit, cheap enough to ditch without caring.
Community bikes are not a new thing. They had them in my hometown through most of my youth and teen years, and may still. I don’t live there anymore. 🙁
They had a strong bike community, and a bike store and repair shop off a main ped/cycle path through town, just outside downtown. It had a lounge and was the primary source of the community bikes and their maintenance.
Paint the bikes all a similar bright color, not white, and get stickers made with info about use and contact info for pickup and repair.
Like, “I’m a community bike, use me as you like, leave me somewhere responsibly when you’re done with me, so somebody else can use me too. Contact for pickup or repairs 555 RIDE 4ME”
Thank you for that. I love it. But can I ask why paint a bright color? I would think flat black is what the current environment calls for.
I’ve seen them installed in pairs that watch each other. I also see them in the vicinity of store security cams or intersection cams. I don’t know of one in my area that isn’t in range of another camera.
Wear appropriate clothing/face covering. Bring paint. Paint lenses. Then dismantle camera.
Balaclava and crowbar combo?
They’re not omnidirectional. You can just walk up from behind it.
right, but you do have to approach it. I think the question is more “how are people not being tracked from blocks away”
Use Deflock maps to avoid them. Ride a bike. My city is full of rogue natural trails so I can get around pretty easy without coming across them. Even if I did I have an indistinct bike with no logos. Typical balaclava, hat, sunglasses, etc.
Yep, that’s the direction I was thinking. The whole point of these cameras is to track people, including you, meaning that they can track everyone in the area before and after a camera is destroyed. It seems to me that the logical time to destroy a camera is when few other people are arround to stop/witness someone destroying a camera, but that also means there are few people to track and therefore it’s easier to single out whoever did it.
Dress like an ice agent (but only for a brief moment please)
You mean wear something generic, unidentifiable and add some body armor?
Yeah but skip the axe body spray so people know you aren’t really an ice agent.
Uhhhh I think the better question is how are they?
Similar to what happened in Hong Kong a few years back when the CCP introduced metal telephone poles chock full of monitoring equipment and cameras.
Offtopic, but it’s sad how all discussion about Hong Kong just slipped away into the void. I think this is the first time I’ve seen it mentioned in almost a year.
One of my friends just didn’t even remember it happening, he thought I was making it up at first.
It’s sad, but I don’t think there’s much else that can be done. I guess it’s all running how the CCP wants it now? (Or are there still protests we just don’t hear about?)
Beijing inserted candidates into the local elections, won power and passed sweeping National Security laws which allowed for mass arrests and the breaking up of pro-democracy institutions. The key people in the movement were jailed. New laws, mass arrests and detainment effectively ended protests.
TL;DR: it was crushed.
There it is a small glimpse of hope
This is fantastic news
