Disable them by removing them yourself.
See the problem there is that it doesn’t scale. You can only take down so many cameras.
Now if you convince the local scrappers that the things are full of copper…
“Genious Gray Hat creates open-source software to repurpose second-hand flock cameras for personal use; Flock cameras start flooding Craigslist and eBay”
Well, don’t sell yourself short—one camera per person destroys them all. It’s gotta start somewhere.
I’m sure those cameras would probably resell somewhere. Sell them back to flock 🙃
Sure. If all you can do is steal one camera, then steal one camera.
But…
Steal one camera, stop surveillance for a day. But teach a cracky to steal cameras for cash, stop surveillance for a generation.
Haha cracky 😂
Made me lol, too!
Problem is that many are clustered and in high-traffic areas. There’s a triplet of them in one area near my neighborhood, covering entrance and exit of said area, so it’s impossible to avoid detection.
Remove the devices. Like, go up to it and destroy it.
Obviously, wear a mask and common clothing
I bet they’d search for cell location records, in order to find who damaged the cameras. I hear that even turning your phone off won’t help. Surely they’ll be caught unless someone also leaves their phone at home.
You should always leave your phone at home for that kind of thing. The same goes for protests.
Well, don’t commit crimes with person items on your body of any kind.
- leave your phone at home
- instead of destroying it, wrap it in duct tape or something like that, because afaik obstructing a camera owned by a private company which happens to be placed on public property is not illegal
A paintball gun is a good option
Or just come up to it outside of it’s FOV and wrap that fucker up
That doesn’t help when there are more than one.
I figure sniping them from a long distance would be a good tactic. Of course, I neither own a rifle nor have any sort of marksmanship training so I could be wrong.
Well, be careful… You would not want to miss and have that bullet hit someone.
But it does start an interesting conversation: what are some ways, that don’t involve guns, that could take one out from a relative distance or… If they had to get close, take it out quickly?
Unfortunately, blowing something up is always a good idea until you lose a hand.
Having never flown a drone - a drone?
A drone would work, but you would have to stomach the fact that it would be a one-way trip for each unit, otherwise it would be easily tracked.
I definitely think there could be a situation where a drone could have some kind of spray paint device connected to it and the drone could be used to access difficult locations, like over freeways, something high up, or even just for some anonymity. Blocking the view of the camera I think is the number one goal. Obviously creating policies that prevent these cameras from existing would be best, but I just don’t see any of that happening in the United States at least for the next few decades.
I heard Flock and other traffic cameras have had issues lately with people using paintball guns on them. Something about how easy it is to buy those and they can be quietly used. Real shame these punk kids keep vandalizing these corporations products, it must be terribly expensive.
Real shame these punk kids keep vandalizing these corporations products, it must be terribly expensive.
Yes, expensive for you and the other taxpayers who pay for them.
I can only speak for me, but I’m happy to keep making the state replace expensive cameras. More time focused replacing them means less new ones, and less uptime.
We can’t choose what they spend the money on, but we can collectively let them know when they fuck up.
Fuck Flock!
They are software based and either have bluetooth or wifi. Can’t some wise person hack them and/or brick them?
The result would be more of your tax dollars going to Flock, for repairs or replacements.
The correct solution would be to ban them.
Don’t underestimate the tactic of making it untenable by increasing the expense.
I wish that was still as valid, but sheesh, these days operating for years on a massive loss with zero profits and empty promises is a Silicon Valley standard.
You’d have to convince enough investors that it was just a big cash black hole that was going nowhere.
It will be easier to ban them if they are shown to be ineffective because of constant vandalism. There’s much less incentive to keep them and it becomes an easy win for politicians.
Is there precedent on record for that scenario playing out as you describe, or is it just wishful thinking?
Yup. “We don’t have the funds to replace them this year.” Next year, “We’re not going to buy new ones because they’ll just get destroyed and we’ll have to replace them again.”
