> [Doppel] filed a trademark infringement complaint regarding his site, claiming to be working on Flock’s behalf. Doppel says that the site is using the trademark “FLOCK SAFETY” without authorization
Warning to anyone who receives these types of notices from Doppel. They are a defamation-as-a-service company. If the frivolous trademark notice doesn't work, they will follow it up with a letter to your host claiming that you're running a phishing website. If your host is lazy and paranoid (like OVH), they will block your IP immediately, and you'll have to deal with the fallout. Expect the letter to be sent on a Friday afternoon too.
My biggest take away from this is that there's still a market niche for small, independent, feisty hosting companies that have some balls. For instance archive.is (which undoubtedly receives many legal threats) seems to be in a /24 IP block belonging to an Estonian hosting company in Talinn.
The bigger a hosting company gets the more likely it is to near fully automate its abuse process.
> If your host is lazy and paranoid (like OVH), they will block your IP immediately
I would guess that this is something like a process that, if it's even reviewed by a human at all, some grossly overworked, underqualified and underpaid person working in a call center type environment looks at it for 20 seconds in a massive abuse queue pile of tickets, and has a GUI button in front of them to mash which disables an account and all its services immediately.
IMO, when they have to hide, that's the beginning of the end. Too many people are aware of the what/why now. And above all else, once the tables turn on elected officials and they realize they're under the same surveillance, I bet their tune will change (likely due to a public egg-on-face moment involving illegal or suspicious activity). If people keep the pressure on, this will be a "remember when" rather quickly.
Nobody deletes anything. It'll all still be soft-deleted and they'll still have you present in the backups which will be what is ultimately searched by the unadvertised Flock++ members. Read: Governments.
Politicians are humans who knowingly choose to enter public office for the sake of exercising power, whether for altruistic or nefarious reasons (or some combination thereof).
The power is why politicians deserve greater scrutiny than the average person, and anyone who wants to keep their privacy intact can choose not to run for office. The loss of privacy (usually at the hands of the press) is already an implied cost of running for and holding office.
Is that how you want your employer to behave? You want them to surveil you all day every day in case you are doing something that is counter to their business?
I think there's a balance that needs to be struck, in proportion to actual power. A senator or cabinet member deserves more scrutiny than a small town city clerk. Also, there are private individuals who knowingly exercise more power than that clerk.
I think you misunderstand the balance of power. If you're talking about power over you specifically, your local clerk almost certainly has more than your senator. If they both want to make your life suck, the clerk is the one with the relationship to the local PD, the ability to make your filings get lost in a pile for a couple days so they were technically filed late, etc. Your senator or representative is likely in 0 of the processes you are likely to engage in unless you're notable enough that you specifically get targeted by the state legislature.
> Also, there are private individuals who knowingly exercise more power than that clerk.
This is partially a pet peeve of mine, but again, almost certainly not. I struggle to think of someone with more ability to kill a project than a clerk that refuses to do their job.
Kim Davis was a clerk that refused a literal Supreme Court order. As best I can tell, she did 5 days in jail and launched a million dollar speaking career out of it. Bezos or Musk can be absolutely sidelined by a clerk who is pissed off enough to accept eventually getting fired as a result.
Some of that is already happening, in DC of all places, where the DC Police Officer's Union is protesting against use of Flock by ... the DC Police (albeit Internal Affairs).
Something about "this technology is invasive and violates the right to privacy of our members"...
If Flock wants to be used by public services, it should be subject to maximum transparency. If you don't want your camera locations public, don't offer them to the public for their use.
It’s hilarious that the entire business model is based on aggregating information recorded in public, and now they’re objecting to having their information publicly recorded and aggregated.
Perhaps if they could explain why they don’t want that information to be available, they’ll understand how their victims feel.
I am starting a surveillance company in the US. I'll sell the data to anyone who wants. I'll put cameras up wherever I like, call it protection of the people, the police will enjoy it doing a lot of work for them and then I'll point cameras squarely at my competition, 24 hours a day, 365 a year, until they ask for regulations.
That's not how investors think. They don't want to bet on one pony winning the race. Instead they bet on the whole race, on the off chance that one of them turns into a rocketship to the moon.
I do not follow in detail the individual companies that YC puts money into at early stages (there's so many of them), are there any examples of two companies YC invested in that serve basically the same purpose and market vertical where one was clearly the "winner", or both became successful and self sustaining?
There's a clause in my company, once regulations around privacy that are al least comparable to the EU are enforced, we sell all assets and return money based on profits to share holders.
Then we start a new company creating just aggressive advertising patents so that they're not created by aggressive companies.
Highly unlikely (but hey, anything's possible when you're flirting with an authoritarian regime). They would need to demonstrate that the map was made TO destroy cameras if to have real merit.
In my uninformed opinion that would be a dangerous precedent if there is no proven collusion or conspiracy to act together. I anal though so I'll wait for people who know the law to respond.
for what it's worth, the DeFlock maps also include Axon/Motorola cams. they pick up my city's custom implementation too so the anti-surveillance movement is really benefiting from this Flock-focused hate
It's public information. Courts have already ruled that if it's in public, you can photograph and document it. If anything, this will be a giant Streisand effect.
Hey just like my car, when it is in public you can't expect privacy. The cameras cam track us in public but we can't track the cameras in public? Sorry if you take away my privacy then I'll take away yours too. Everything tracked, logged, and cataloged.
It's time Americans learnt a few facts about the rest of the world..
Pretty much every major road in the UK is covered in ANPR. Yes, the UK sucks in many ways, but ANPR is nowhere near as bad as the haters think it is.It's not the penultimate step towards authoratarianism.
The technology is only half of the puzzle; the other half is the availability of the data. For example, many toll roads use license plate readers. Police cruisers may also read a license plate.
Flock the technology would be less of a problem if it had reasonable guards around access, such as requiring search warrants for each query, in each jurisdiction the results touch.
Clickbait. The website proprietor received a 3rd party trademark infringement complaint. If people in the company would prefer the map to be offline, they are taking a very roundabout way of accomplishing it.
On Thursday, Michael was notified that Doppel, which describes itself as an “AI-native social engineering defense platfom,” filed a trademark infringement complaint regarding his site, claiming to be working on Flock’s behalf. Doppel says that the site is using the trademark “FLOCK SAFETY” without authorization, which “may cause customer confusion / harm.” Doppel requested the site be taken down.
Using a 3rd party trademark enforcement company is an excellent way to minimize PR fallout for a company wanting to silence transparency around (or criticism of) a company.
Let's be real here; Would Doppel give any fucks about trying to do a trademark request if Flock wasn't paying them money?
I look forward to trying to understand your reasoning.
The fact that they can't go to the court and say "It pisses me off that this guy is doing what he's doing" and instead have to, ya know, try a case based on the actual laws that exist, seems to be confusing you about what "direct legal action" is.
The article's headline is the claim: "Flock Wants the Most Detailed Map of Its Surveillance Cameras Taken Offline"
The basis for this is an undisclosed trademark letter from a 3rd party. The company in question may or may not want the map taken down. However, the article offers scant evidence for the headline claim. That is why it is clickbait. It promises something large and delivers something minimal.
The security researcher in question has certainly made a splash however. Promising new levels of people mad at Flock is definitely the way to create some bona fides.
Is it your opinion that the letter was likely not sent on behalf of Flock, and this Doppel company is lying about being affiliated with Flock?
If so, what do they stand to gain by doing this? Is it even possible for a company to file a trademark letter on behalf of trademark owner without being affiliated?
Is that the description of the law firm? Because it sounds like how a law firm would self-describe. Let's get some founders of law firms to put this in their mission statements.
Furthermore, the EFF and Cory Doctorow could embrace this slogan. Especially the FSF. Richard M. Stallman would totally have adopted this description 35+ years ago.
Warning to anyone who receives these types of notices from Doppel. They are a defamation-as-a-service company. If the frivolous trademark notice doesn't work, they will follow it up with a letter to your host claiming that you're running a phishing website. If your host is lazy and paranoid (like OVH), they will block your IP immediately, and you'll have to deal with the fallout. Expect the letter to be sent on a Friday afternoon too.
The bigger a hosting company gets the more likely it is to near fully automate its abuse process.
> If your host is lazy and paranoid (like OVH), they will block your IP immediately
I would guess that this is something like a process that, if it's even reviewed by a human at all, some grossly overworked, underqualified and underpaid person working in a call center type environment looks at it for 20 seconds in a massive abuse queue pile of tickets, and has a GUI button in front of them to mash which disables an account and all its services immediately.
Is this not defamation?
The power is why politicians deserve greater scrutiny than the average person, and anyone who wants to keep their privacy intact can choose not to run for office. The loss of privacy (usually at the hands of the press) is already an implied cost of running for and holding office.
> Also, there are private individuals who knowingly exercise more power than that clerk.
This is partially a pet peeve of mine, but again, almost certainly not. I struggle to think of someone with more ability to kill a project than a clerk that refuses to do their job.
Kim Davis was a clerk that refused a literal Supreme Court order. As best I can tell, she did 5 days in jail and launched a million dollar speaking career out of it. Bezos or Musk can be absolutely sidelined by a clerk who is pissed off enough to accept eventually getting fired as a result.
Something about "this technology is invasive and violates the right to privacy of our members"...
Perhaps if they could explain why they don’t want that information to be available, they’ll understand how their victims feel.
If anyone would like to kickstart let me know.
https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/industry/data-visualiz...
Then we start a new company creating just aggressive advertising patents so that they're not created by aggressive companies.
Edit : Hypothetical company, this is all satire.
I'm sure the wildly circuitous routes generated will be useful for rhetorical purposes though.
It's time Americans learnt a few facts about the rest of the world..
Pretty much every major road in the UK is covered in ANPR. Yes, the UK sucks in many ways, but ANPR is nowhere near as bad as the haters think it is.It's not the penultimate step towards authoratarianism.
Flock the technology would be less of a problem if it had reasonable guards around access, such as requiring search warrants for each query, in each jurisdiction the results touch.
Let's be real here; Would Doppel give any fucks about trying to do a trademark request if Flock wasn't paying them money?
I look forward to trying to understand your reasoning.
The basis for this is an undisclosed trademark letter from a 3rd party. The company in question may or may not want the map taken down. However, the article offers scant evidence for the headline claim. That is why it is clickbait. It promises something large and delivers something minimal.
The security researcher in question has certainly made a splash however. Promising new levels of people mad at Flock is definitely the way to create some bona fides.
If so, what do they stand to gain by doing this? Is it even possible for a company to file a trademark letter on behalf of trademark owner without being affiliated?
Is that the description of the law firm? Because it sounds like how a law firm would self-describe. Let's get some founders of law firms to put this in their mission statements.
Furthermore, the EFF and Cory Doctorow could embrace this slogan. Especially the FSF. Richard M. Stallman would totally have adopted this description 35+ years ago.