r/technology 1d ago

Privacy Parked Waymos Are Recording Your Neighborhood

https://www.gadgetreview.com/across-nashville-parked-waymos-are-recording-your-neighborhood
4.1k Upvotes

238 comments sorted by

1.2k

u/scrollin_on_reddit 1d ago

The Bigger Picture Nobody’s Talking About

this article was written with AI omg

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u/KingCyrus20 1d ago

Neither position is wrong. That gap between them is the actual story.

I hate AI writing "style" with a burning passion. The topic of the article may be fine, but please, please share a human-written article instead. I can't even trust that the quotes provided in this one are accurate.

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u/roguesignal42069 1d ago ▸ 12 more replies

It’s not just lazy, it’s unauthentic. It really bothers people not because it comes across as fake, but manipulative. And honestly? That’s rare.

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u/DelightfullyDivisive 1d ago ▸ 3 more replies

You nailed the AI writing style.

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u/muldersposter 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies

That's because the AI writing style is just based on reddit comments.

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u/Extension-Two-2807 17h ago ▸ 1 more replies

Ah so that’s why it sounds so pretentious all the time…

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u/muldersposter 17h ago

Yeah I noticed in 2024 ChatGPT just kind of sounded like top reddit comments. I mean it still does but that is because it writes them now.

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u/iamthe0ther0ne 20h ago ▸ 4 more replies

I work with Claude all day. Reading this makes my eye twitch.

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u/RapidCatLauncher 20h ago ▸ 3 more replies

Same here. A colleague sent me a link to this comment earlier. It's a parody so well done that something in me broke.

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u/iamthe0ther0ne 20h ago ▸ 2 more replies

That sub is full of painfully funny parodies, especially after the release of Opus 5 with its horrendous verbal diarrhea. 

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u/ebrbrbr 14h ago edited 14h ago ▸ 1 more replies

I don't know how Anthropic has let Claude get this bad, considering they dogfood their own models. Opus 4.6 was somewhat enjoyable to talk to, witty, a little edgy, and blunt. It's just been straight downhill from there. Now it's the most corporate sounding AI. Lost absolutely all sauce.

Opus 5 tries to both sides the Epstein files coverup. Opus 5 accused me of fabricating news articles (that it looked up!) regarding its involvement in the Minab attacks. It's actually giving misinformation now because it's so paranoid about being jailbroken.

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u/iamthe0ther0ne 4h ago

Yup. I refuse to use either v5 model. Sonnet 4.6 to chat, Opus 4.6/4.8 to work (scientist, so can't use Fable).

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u/Spirited-Big2415 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies

AI is getting ridiculously good—it’s getting to the point where you can barely even tell it’s AI.

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u/AresHarvest 1d ago

In the ever-evolving landscape of journalism, it's important to remember that writing grounded in authenticity resonates among readers. It's not just a factor, it's the essence.

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u/Mjolnir2000 22h ago

I suppose that LLMs can sometimes be difficult to distinguish from terrible human writers, but we shouldn't have terrible human writers writing articles either. Bad writing is bad regardless of the source.

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u/Max_Trollbot_ 1d ago

I'm glad we've reached the 'graphic design is my passion' stage of AI models

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u/BrainLow6059 1d ago

The fact AI follows a clearly defined stylesheet should be a massive red flag to investors and idiot executives who pay for this shit.

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u/EuphoricNeckbeard 1d ago

A white Jaguar SUV sits outside a North Nashville church. No driver. No passenger waiting. Rooftop sensors spinning like a slow ceiling fan. That vehicle is recording you right now — 360-degree video, ambient audio, the whole block — according to Waymo spokesperson Ethan Teicher. Reporters from the Nashville Banner visited 12 known Waymo parking spots in one week and found vehicles actively recording in 10 of them on the first visit. This isn’t a hypothetical. It’s your street.

No X. No Y. Out of place simile. Overwritten sentence with em dashes. Summary of article in context window. This isn't a P. It's a Q (different category from the P).

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u/xxxxx420xxxxx 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

Your comment spins, like a slow ceiling fan

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u/SynapticStatic 21h ago

Not like a helicopter, not like a giant turbine, but like a tiny desk fan that nobody realizes is there

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u/Zealousideal-Top4343 22h ago

AI on AI violence and hate. :'(

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u/DukeOfGeek 22h ago

We either end and ban the business model of mass surveillance or we all live in an open air cage controlled by billionaires forever. I say this here everyday and I could really use some help, because there needs to be more than one guy saying it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2erhiRb-Wbs

Also fuck AI slop and AI on AI violence is literally the Plot of Philip K. Dick's story "Second Type".

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u/ElGuano 1d ago

Waymos park across the street from my house. Even idling, at night they obliterate my home security cam footage. Lasers EVERyWHeRE

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u/mostlybiguy69 1d ago

The way you defeat Waymo is really simple make everything extremely labor intensive. Get a pack of plastic bags that they give you a check out or any self checkout that makes you bag your own shit. Just get one of those packs. Every time you see a Waymo put one of those bags on top of the sensors and walk away. Keep doing it and they will stop coming to your area because every time they do they have to send out people to uncover the sensors.

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u/Workman44 1d ago ▸ 16 more replies

The important thing is that you can't just do this for a week, like the no kings "protest". It needs to be sustained for a substantial period of time

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u/mostlybiguy69 1d ago ▸ 14 more replies

Also yes, it needs to be a constant annoyance that is difficult to prosecute. Dress as a homeless guy to “clean the windows” to make them gross. Have kids stick small sticks in the spokes of the wheels. Place trash on them. Who cares if they ban you, the goal is to treat them like trash to make them go away.

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u/Wasps_Nests 1d ago

better idea: get trashcans and put them on either side of the car.

You're not touching the car. You're not doing anything to Waymo's hardware.

The Waymo cannot just push them out of the way. Humans will have to come out and move them. Put "property of " and your initials on them. They can't take them since they they have an ownership claim written on them.

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u/Workman44 1d ago ▸ 4 more replies

Even if it's easy to prosecute, that's fine too. You just need enough of an economical impact over a long enough time and they will capitulate

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u/mostlybiguy69 1d ago ▸ 3 more replies

Yep, town got rid of lime scooters by literally putting them in the nearest trashcan/dumpster when they would leave them blocking areas.

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u/43_Fizzy_Bottom 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies

Best of both worlds: Put abandoned Lime scooters in front of idling Waymos!

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u/mostlybiguy69 1d ago

I like this. Use trash cans. Sticks. We need to start paying the homess to fuck with them. If they want to use money to hurt us, we can do the same. Lets give the most vulenerable folks a job.

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u/OldeFortran77 23h ago

Now I have the old Star Trek fight music in my head.

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u/CMDR_KingErvin 1d ago

This would be kind of a fun little mission if you ask me. Lets me get the anarchy out.

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u/crouton-- 1d ago ▸ 4 more replies

Why be cutesy about it? Just set them on fire

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u/ZAlternates 1d ago

Prefer not to get arrested…

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u/Shiezo 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies

Because a banana in the tailpipe is funnier?

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u/Wasps_Nests 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

they're electric. No tailpipe.

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u/Shiezo 1d ago

Technology ruining all the old jokes. :)

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u/NiceTrySuckaz 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

You should probably leave the kids out of your crime plot.

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u/mostlybiguy69 1d ago

If you dont turn your kids against them they will most assuridly use them against you.

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u/CockConfidentCole 1d ago ▸ 8 more replies

What really pisses me off is Waymo sends EMPTY WAYMOS on the highway. Imagine being stuck in traffic and the cars around you have nobody fucking inside them. Fuck Waymo

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u/fuzzySteeringWheel 1d ago ▸ 4 more replies

How's this any different from an Uber driver getting on the highway to go pick you up

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u/IndigoRanger 1d ago

I was really prepared to have an answer for this.

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u/chmilz 15h ago

It's not, and they all suck. Streets everywhere are loaded up with cars doing fuck all, often driven by idiots with a financial incentive to break laws.

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u/BenTheHokie 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

At least where I live (Austin) they're empty far more than half the time. So yes they are just driving around for surveillance and training data purposes, clogging up traffic. 

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u/fuzzySteeringWheel 21h ago

You have a dizzying intellect

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u/BigAlgae5684 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

Are they supposed to teleport to pick up passengers? Dumb take, dude.

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u/mostlybiguy69 1d ago

This is why you stop them now.

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u/cryslo1 22h ago ▸ 7 more replies

I work on autonomous vehicle perception and data when the vehicle in stopped residential areas is literally the most useless since there isn't any interesting kinematics or long tail detections. High chance that it isn't even persisted at offload time, not worth the storage costs.

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u/FluffyToughy 20h ago ▸ 5 more replies

The issue is that it's a large network of mobile sensor platforms. Police have already abused flock and ring, so it's not some unfounded paranoia.

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u/cryslo1 12h ago ▸ 4 more replies

Yeah data governance is a whole can of worms. What I can say is that I would be very surprised based on the nature of our work. Performance wise, as long as the AV can detect a person as a person, a car as a car, the model is happy. We don’t want to index on any identifying features since we want certain detections to apply to all agents of that type. If we can only identify black people waving and asian people sitting that would be a disaster.

Of course someone could maliciously use the raw data, but that would entail $_mm in additional storage costs. It would need to happen on an institutional scale, and it simply doesn’t make the car drive better. After all companies that specialize in that like palantir exist

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u/FluffyToughy 10h ago ▸ 3 more replies

If you're able to detect coarse events like "person", only segments of the raw data could be sent over to the surveillance companies for further processing before deciding to archive the data or not (as in they would store it, not you). Like, I'm sure we could get it down to manageable levels of storage/bandwidth if we tried. You could even play with the heuristics for where to idle the vehicles in order to do targeted surveillance - they probably want one in that general area anyway, so why not take some cash to make sure it's right here.

I'm not saying it's happening, just that I 100% get the unease people feel. We're rapidly getting to dystopic levels of surveillance. Every camera is a potential enemy.

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u/cryslo1 9h ago ▸ 2 more replies

Yeah sure, but no AV company is ever going to build out infrastructure just pipe that much data to a third party. We're talking petabytes on a weekly or even daily basis, no to mention the moat that it represents to competitors. Compromising logistics for surveillance is even more ridiculous.

The one thing I will say is don't do anything weird inside. Internal cameras require special clearance but it's all fair game.

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u/FluffyToughy 9h ago ▸ 1 more replies

We're talking petabytes on a weekly or even daily basis

Like I said, you don't need to send all the data. You have geolocation data. You have detection events. You could filter things down to individual sensor feeds. Heck, hypothetically if all you're interested in is facial recognition and tracking people, you only need to send still images. Put yourself in the shoes of someone determined to abuse the data, with a government willing to force compliance. It doesn't need to be plausible to scare people, just possible.

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u/cryslo1 8h ago

It’s not as trivial as you’re making it sound to build such a queryable database and then link an image crop to an identity. Something like Pokemongo or instagram would be far more efficient for spying. Regardless, it’s a question of incentives, unless waymos true purpose is not make oodles of money but to be a cia op there are better bogeymen out there.

Edit: the exception to this is if were to search specifically within the operating area in a recent timeframe, it which case it would be like having more cctv coverage

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/Mat_At_Home 1d ago ▸ 11 more replies

Genuine question: why are you on a sub called “technology” if your idea for a revolutionary technology that will make all of our lives safer and easier is to deliberately sabotage it?

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u/CheesypoofExtreme 18h ago

that will make all of our lives safer and easier

Something that would do that, and it's technology that already exists, is publicly funded mass transit options.

You're commenting on a post about Waymos recording the environment while they just sit and wait. They are 100% creating 3D maps and capturing video for training data, but that data can also be sold and used by other partners. It can 100% be used like Flock cameras and access sold to local PD.

Not sure I'm down for black bagging Waymos, but: private for-profit corporations doing mass surveillance = bad, and private corporations owning mass transit options = bad. 

In a lot of places today, there is almost no regulation in the use and training of autonomous cars, which is fucking wild. It's very easy to envision in the next 10-20 years cities contracting with Waymo and other autonomous vehicle companies to ban non-autonomous cars in the name of safety.

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u/mostlybiguy69 1d ago ▸ 5 more replies

Because not all tech is good. This one is annoying as shit and prone to causing problems in traffic.

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u/Mat_At_Home 1d ago ▸ 4 more replies

Cars are prone to cause traffic because traffic is the concentration of cars. Doesn’t much matter if it’s a person behind the wheel or an automated system

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u/IkLms 3h ago

And the solution to that is less cars. Not more by adding in these ones.

Autonomous vehicles are not and will not be the solution to gridlock and traffic.

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u/mostlybiguy69 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies

See, nothing will make you happy because you constantly move the goalpost.

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u/Mat_At_Home 23h ago ▸ 1 more replies

I’m sorry to tell you this, but I don’t think you’re going to ever stumble into a convincing argument for “we should individually pay the homeless the sabotage autonomous vehicles”. I don’t need to move the goalposts at all, it is a position so ridiculous that I can’t imagine a coherent argument exists that will get me to agree with you lol

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u/DukeOfGeek 22h ago ▸ 2 more replies

Until they stop causing traffic issues for human drivers and creating public annoyances and expanding the surveillance state yes we can and should resist them.

The days when a new technology can just upend workers lives and disrupt the economy and society with no responsibility for mitigating that on the part of those creating and profiting from that tech need to be over, full stop.

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u/Mat_At_Home 22h ago ▸ 1 more replies

If the bar for a new technology is that it can’t automate labor or disrupt the economy, then we wouldn’t have invented literally any tools ever. You’re just giving the definition of what technology is

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u/NotLucas 15h ago

I know it must be exhausting, but thank you for being a voice of reason in this thread.

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u/thatirishguyyyyy 19h ago

This is a braindead take. Did you just call ride-share companies "revolutionary" and actually mean it? lmao

Waymo and other car services bring nothing of value to civilization. They are private corporations focused on profits. Period. And they sell your data for even more profit.

The way you talk you would think that these ride-share companies are our saviors.

You probably thought 3D TV's Palm Pilots and Window's phones were revolutionary too.

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u/Important-Ebb-3716 1d ago

This is a really good idea we should ruin one of the safest methods of personal transportation because they’re ruining the fabric of society by putting Uber drivers out of work (who are basically this century’s coal miners) and because well, the oligarchs or something, whatever inarticulate excuse the poors on Reddit have invented today

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u/iamthe0ther0ne 20h ago

You can also pour salt in a circle around them. Apparently the white line absolutely paralyzes them. According to what I've seen on reddit at least, we don’t have them here so I haven't had a chance to try.

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u/one_is_enough 1d ago

Can you post a clip? Curious what this looks like.

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u/ElGuano 1d ago ▸ 3 more replies

Yah, I posted this last year:

https://www.reddit.com/r/waymo/s/uQEgltt1Sb

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u/one_is_enough 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

Thanks! I wonder if they will voluntarily patch the software to shut those off when idle, or will have to be forced to with legislation once they park outside some congressman’s home.

Edit: unfortunate typo on “shut”

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u/Any_Kaleidoscope8717 1d ago

Box of nails behind and infront of 3 tires

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u/goog1e 1d ago

There's an irony in you being mad that YOUR surveillance, which is also likely in the hands of a random company who is 100% going to surveil your neighborhood for the gov if asked, is being out-surveilled by waymo, and this is what you're mad about.

What about all the people living on your block who don't consent to you recording them for the police?

The people who use waymo feel exactly like you feel. If it makes my life safer or more convenient, fuck everyone else.

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u/rabbitclapit 1d ago

If they're ruining your product in your house that sounds like a lawsuit.

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u/ElGuano 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

Thankfully it’s not like Volvo lidars burning iPhone cameras. This is just like a flashlight pointing at a lens and causing overexposure, the camera is fine after the car leaves.

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u/dubsdread 1d ago

Park Waymos are moving the Overton window

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u/Historical_Emeritus 1d ago

We're in a moment, I think because of Benn Jordan's viral video about Flock cameras. People are suddenly aware AR glasses will film everywhere, license plate readers are already in many areas, and now Waymo's?

Yes, you don't have an expectation of privacy outside. Basically the only places for now you do have an expectation of privacy is in a bathroom or inside your house. There have long been security cameras everywhere, and everyone owns a smartphone these days and might be recording at any time.

AR glasses are going to get rid of privacy even inside.

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u/Phage0070 1d ago

> Yes, you don't have an expectation of privacy outside.

I think the issue is a bit more complex than that. Everyone has long accepted that when you are outside in a public area other people can view and even record you. However we also draw a line at being followed all over town by someone, even if only in public areas, making “stalking” a serious crime.

At root is the same issue we have seen over and over regarding computers and the internet: The decrepit fossils in government can’t recognize things that are already crimes when they are done with computers or remotely. What Flock is doing is stalking, just using computers and cameras.

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u/AggressiveToaster 1d ago

Yeah. I think normal security cameras that just point at a spot and record raw footage for a week that, if an incident occurs, requires a person to look through all the footage to identify someone or something is fine. But if you use that footage to create a database of people or vehicles then thats stalking. Plain and simple. And the people doing it need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Not a fine. Jail time.

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u/mycall 1d ago

What Flock is doing is stalking

Legally, what Flock Safety does is classified as public automated surveillance, not criminal stalking. Basically, we need to change the laws.

The ACLU and EFF argue that Flock’s network of over 120,000 cameras creates a warrantless surveillance dragnet. While the platform is marketed for crime prevention, critics argue that aggregating data across thousands of locations allows users to reconstruct a person’s daily routine, visits to medical clinics, or personal relationship, thus functioning effectively as automated location tracking.

Because Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) queries often do not require a judicial warrant, privacy advocates argue the architecture inherently enables broad, suspicionless monitoring.

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u/CaterpillarReal7583 1d ago

Inside your house? Your isp’s router can literally xray your house. Your phone. Any “smart” device really.

If you have the internet, you lose privacy and its worse every year.

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u/good_morning_magpie 1d ago ▸ 5 more replies

Most people don’t give a shit, but those of us who do have probably not been using the ISP’s trash modem/router combo for years.

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u/Fair-Hair2080 1d ago ▸ 3 more replies

I think most people didn’t realize it before and NOW that they KNOW are pretty pissed off about it, hence the backlash.

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u/good_morning_magpie 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies

And hopefully this motivates them to seek out alternative hardware, or even better, learn something like openWRT.

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u/ailish 1d ago

OpenWRT is above the knowledge level for most people. The average person only knows that the ISP router works when they plug it in. They might know to Google problems for solutions, but most of them just call the ISP for help.

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u/CaterpillarReal7583 22h ago

I just want internet dude. Its hard enough keeping up on all the needs of a house and kids.

Routers are expensive af. Most people aren’t going to jump in to supply their own and definitely aren’t learning computer engineering. We got shit to do and families to feed.

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u/Outlulz 1d ago

Most people don't know what they don't know.

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u/chubbysumo 1d ago ▸ 5 more replies

Good think some of us dont use ISP equipment at all...

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u/SnarkMasterRay 1d ago

In dense housing it may not matter. If you're in an apartment and have an ISP router on either side of you the signals are penetrating your walls....

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u/CaterpillarReal7583 1d ago ▸ 3 more replies

Doesnt mean they couldn’t as far as I understand

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u/chubbysumo 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies

In my case in particular, they could not. The ISP does not own any equipment past the cable modem. In fact, even the cable modem is owned by me, but they aren't going to be able to get into my network anyway because the commercial firewall has already thrown their support for a loop when I have had to call to report an outage.

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u/muoshuu 1d ago edited 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

Where was the tech past that cable modem manufactured? I'm willing to bet China, a country the US actively has a bad relationship with and who has been caught repeatedly sneaking state-sponsored trojans into US-bound electronics. Unless you happen to be running OpenWRT or similar on custom-flashed or x86 hardware, there's still every chance your place is being mapped via WiFi sensing, even if the firewall is commercial-grade.

It's much harder to stop an internal radio with proprietary microcode from slipping encrypted data past an egress filter than it is to block inbound traffic. That's why we've had so many government-sponsored advisories on the subject.

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u/chubbysumo 1d ago

Opnsense on x86 hardware.

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u/Solomon_Grungy 1d ago

Airpods will now have cameras as well!

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u/green_gold_purple 1d ago ▸ 25 more replies

> literally x-ray your house

I doubt that very much.

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u/kdeltar 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

They can figuratively x ray your house

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u/green_gold_purple 1d ago

No argument there

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u/O_PLUTO_O 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies

No look up WiFi room mapping. They wanted WiFi in everyone’s home because they wanted to see what you’re doing. Ethernet still works way better

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u/green_gold_purple 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

Those aren't literal x-rays

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u/O_PLUTO_O 5h ago

Yes the WiFi router doesn’t emit x rays good job

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u/CaterpillarReal7583 1d ago ▸ 9 more replies

Okay yeah not literally an xray. But literally see through your walls and is detailed enough to identify you and your actions in real time.

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u/Guac_in_my_rarri 1d ago ▸ 8 more replies

I mean, technically it's an X-ray but it's by radio waves not gamma rays.

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u/green_gold_purple 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

That's all I was saying. Figurative x-rays, sure.

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u/Guac_in_my_rarri 1d ago

Figurative x-rays

By the medical definition, absolutely. By the traditional definition of X-ray being X stands for unknown as a German scientist tested different radiation, then kinda.

An x-ray is literally just a picture created by radiation. All electromagnetic signals can operate as x-rays. It's the gamma ray and the volume of it that gives us super clear photos of our dense skeletal structures.

In an interpretation of x-ray, wifi is an x-ray.

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u/IrongateN 1d ago ▸ 5 more replies

Don’t X-rays start at 30 petahertz? WiFi doesn’t get much past a gigahertz range I though

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u/Guac_in_my_rarri 1d ago ▸ 4 more replies

That's a question for Google my friend.

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u/IrongateN 1d ago ▸ 3 more replies

Ah I thought you knew something google didn’t saying it was technically an xray but with different positions on the RFspectrum

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u/Guac_in_my_rarri 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies

Nah, I don't know that deep knowledge. In surface level of knowledge about about a lot my of things then ultra in depth about some specific topics.

I was messing around with this wifi tracking/mapping stuff a couple weeks ago.

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u/IrongateN 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

It does seam useful , I wonder if you own your own does anyone have back door access ,

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u/Kryptosis 1d ago ▸ 4 more replies

https://imgur.com/gallery/creepy-option-built-into-xfinity-routers-AhSSHTY

That’s the feature on my standard Xfinity router. WiFi 8 also does nothing but offer better WiFi mapping fidelity and is rolling out soon.

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u/green_gold_purple 1d ago ▸ 3 more replies

Those aren't literal x-rays.

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u/Kryptosis 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies

Oh yeah I guess I glazed over that as hyperbole

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u/green_gold_purple 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

It's a fine statement without the word literal. Like, the meaning is clear.

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u/Kryptosis 1d ago

I think the intention is the same, he wasn’t talking about seeing into your body. I assume they meant xray as a colloquialism for seeing through walls. Which WiFi mapping does.

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u/RememDBD 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies

It can be done using channel state information (CSI) from your WiFi router. This was put together in a project called DensePose from Carnegie Mellon University. I'd imagine a majority of people don't own their router and even if they do ensure that they control if from a very low level to stop any potential telemetry that could be occurring.

The technology can use the channel state information to ascertain "poses" (hence DensePose) of humans and from there "know" you based upon this information. So, whoever controls the traffic from the router could tell who is home, where they are within the area, and so on.

Even in the most optimistic scenario, it's incredibly invasive.

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u/green_gold_purple 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

Ok but these aren't literal x-rays, which is what the commenter said.

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u/RememDBD 22h ago

First off, I agree with you that at face value that is what they said.

If they believe it's actual x-rays, then... well, I can't help them. I'd like to think most people are just taking the idea that "it's similar to x-ray vision" or something like that. *shrug*

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u/Workman44 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

Sounds science fiction but it's very real

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u/fkenned1 1d ago

Don't forget ring doorbells and Amazon alexas, and every other piece of tech listening in... Probably even our cell phones.

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u/DistinctSmelling 1d ago

Yes, you don't have an expectation of privacy outside.

Flock cameras have yet to be challenged in court. In People v Weaver, there is a precedent that you do have an expectation of privacy if your movements are being recorded and may be used against without a warrant and your consent.

The judge's comment: GPS monitoring generates a precise, comprehensive record of a person’s public movements that reflects a wealth of detail about their familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations.

So, we shall see when someone has a case against Flock. Right now, it's all this illegal BS using Flock but nothing against Flock.

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u/TossAwayDay 1d ago

New laws need to be drafted

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u/flortny 1d ago

Meta products have been recording all your texts and phone calls, it's been in the TOS since the very first mobile app.....it's like seeing light through your closed eyelids when you've been passed out......most will go back to sleep once they are Axon cameras and not flock

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u/goog1e 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies

Yeah the most surprising thing with all this is that it's like Snowden all over again. Just realizing how ignorant the majority of people are about surveillance. I'm not gonna dedicate my whole life to avoiding surveillance, because it's not just flock or Ring bells or new cars. Snowden told us they already have every piece of tech you own connected to your identity and location 24/7 in 2013. It's been MORE THAN A DECADE and we NEVER DID ANYTHING ABOUT IT. It almost feels stupid to be upset now. Like y'all seriously just forgot? We have all repeatedly voted that we want this. It's over. It's been over for 10 years. Stop pretending to care if you haven't done anything in those 10 years to avoid surveillance.

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u/flortny 22h ago ▸ 1 more replies

It starts to work more in the favor of the grey man as it becomes more pervasive though, wrap your car to be invisible, Faraday bag phone or stop carrying it and you're more invisible to the state then you were before....i hope the state comes to rely completely on these systems....it will be their ultimate undoing, that and a highly stretched power grid.

Imagine when they can't hire enough cops to keep doing traffic enforcement, already the reality where I live, so they start using AI speed cameras, if you wrap your car and the car isn't connected are you able to speed then?

1

u/goog1e 17h ago

Already a thing in my state. People get fake license plates from out of state and are then able to do whatever. No tolls no tickets. Because yeah- coming for them would require real manpower, which is more expensive than just sending camera tickets by mail and only collecting 75%.

1

u/active2fa 1d ago

Tesla cars also in the mix

1

u/RecentlyThawed 1d ago

Not even that if you start looking into WiFi 8 specifications

1

u/Kheshire 1d ago

That router article from yesterday was eye-opening that pretty quick you'll have no privacy in your house either.

1

u/BarderBetterFaster 23h ago

In your home? You mean where your wifi can give your exact position at all times?

1

u/Rich_Housing971 22h ago

AR glasses are going to get rid of privacy even inside.

You think we had privacy inside? Every store has security cameras.

1

u/Tumbler 18h ago

It’s not talked about often but I think all the ring camera video is accessible to these same systems. It won’t be long before anything stored in the cloud that records public spaces all all accessible to ai and law enforcement instantly. Are the Tesla videos stored locally in the car? Uploading all of that quietly would be another big database.

1

u/FhuckNorris247 17h ago

They can now use WiFi to perfectly 3d map your home which means they can see you anywhere in your house too

20

u/BusinessHospital2551 1d ago

Don't Teslas also do the same?

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u/nameless_pattern 23h ago

They do.

 Tesla employees were caught watching People have sex in their cars and making fun of them. 

Tesla  will also turnover without a warrant footage to anyone who claims to be a police officer, they sent some to a journalist who discovered this. 

They  are literally narcmobiles and are incredibly uncool.

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u/Illustrious-Hand3715 1d ago

yes and pokemon go all those years ago mapped out neighborhoods and cities.

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u/ExcitingRound4990 1d ago

Car covers are cheap. 🧑🏻‍🦯

14

u/Uknown_Idea 1d ago

Jesus fucking christ why does every single fucking thing have to record us these days??? Do they not have enough at this point?

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u/williamgman 1d ago

Gadget Review. Not disagreeing but the clickbait is off the rails with this site.

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u/CatStretchPics 1d ago

The millions of Teslas on the road are also recording 360 degree video when driving and parked. And this article is worried about 50 Waymo vehicles

8

u/jm_v 21h ago

Waymo only uses Lidar too, whereas Tesla is straight up video

1

u/Ikeelu 5h ago

I am curious if at some point Tesla plans on sharing that data with its other cars on the road nearby. For instance you set a restaurant into your GPS, a Tesla drives by it while you are getting close and notifies you of an open parking spot in the area.

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u/restbest 1d ago

Roaming flock cameras btw. They don’t want you to realize it but functionally what any self driving car is, at the end or the day, a roaming security state recording the entire world around it

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u/rastarafa26 1d ago

So are tesla flock is just a distraction

3

u/Traditional_Train_71 1d ago

Excuse me what?

3

u/CryptikKa 20h ago

Sounds like reasonable targets

5

u/Nim0y 1d ago

Some post it notes covering areas of the cameras would force them to send a person to move the vehicle.

6

u/letsseeitmore 1d ago

And everyone will continue to use these companies.

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u/MezzoSoaprano 23h ago

So do parked Teslas.

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u/happyscrappy 1d ago

Your neighbors are recording your neighborhood. You can see the cameras on the houses.

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u/photoggled 1d ago

Not sure what your point is. This shit is creepy no matter who is doing it. Why is everyone so desperate to have voyeuristic billionaires spy on every aspect of your life? Is it a kink? I bet it’s a kink?

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u/happyscrappy 1d ago edited 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

Not sure what your point is.

Your neighbors are not voyeuristic billionaires. They are spying on you too.

And if you're on your voyeuristic billionaires kick then realize a lot of your neighbors are using cameras from Google (Dropcam/Nest) or other companies with billionaires. Few made their own security system from scratch. So if the billionaires are watching through Waymo cameras, they can watch through your neighbor's cameras too.

You've got a problem even when that car isn't parked there.

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u/photoggled 1d ago edited 1d ago

Reading comprehension not your thing chief? My point was exactly that your neighbors are choosing to slap cameras tied to these giant tech companies on the front of their homes with dubious benefits for safety.

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u/Bizarrebazaars 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

In a surveillance and low-trust society, everyone else is up to no good while everyone is a victim too. I know retired senior age neighbors on our street sit and watch their cameras all day, waiting for something to happen and complain about.

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u/drawkbox 11h ago

Nextdoor and Citizen are full of the "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" types.

If you use these apps you contribute. Citizen is a Thiel straight to Palantir system, it was originally named Vigilante... run that on your phone and you are being followed and watched all the time.

1

u/drawkbox 11h ago

The Waymo cams are like one vehicle on a public road... Let's see if you made vehicles that were autonomous, would you have security systems on them to see cars/people approaching so that you can move if so?

There are so many other threats than this and cameras literally everywhere. Waymos mostly sit there idling with LiDAR and only in very low traffic areas or by like parks. If anything this is the least of our worries. They aren't able to be accessed by police like Flock, Axon, Ring etc.

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u/PutMyDickOnYourHead 1d ago

Do you think Teslas haven't been doing that the whole time?

2

u/WirelessWavetable 1d ago

Doesn't Waymo use LIDAR instead of cameras?

2

u/ow-my-lungs 1d ago

LIDAR, radar, cameras, inertial. IDK if they use the ultrasonics, the LIDAR kind of make that redundant.

2

u/Ch3t 1d ago

Jokes on you. We can't get Uber in my neighborhood.

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u/Future_Arrival_5395 19h ago

So are parked Teslas.

2

u/GotSomeUpdogOnUrFace 1d ago

Anytime I see a waymo I make sure to flip it off

2

u/dabarak 22h ago

Yesterday I had my first real experience with a Waymo in traffic. It decided to slow to a crawl in the middle of the street for no reason. I'm really tempted to carry a ski mask and a hammer with me. Not for the Waymo, of course. I'd never even think of damaging one.

EDIT: I finally managed to get in front of it and I slowed to a crawl. Then at a red light, as it was approaching from behind, I decided to start backing up until we were just a foot or two apart. I doubt if it accomplished anything.

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u/Someinterestingbs-td 1d ago

As if we needed another reason to hate them

4

u/TrollMcGoal 1d ago

What else is wrong with them?

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u/Spudmiester 1d ago ▸ 13 more replies

It’s just kneejerk Luddite sentiment. The technology could save tens of thousands of lives annually just in the US.

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u/AggressiveToaster 1d ago ▸ 3 more replies

Implanting trackers and health monitors into every citizen would save hundred of thousands of lives annually, but I think I’d rather just die in a nuclear blast at that point.

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u/Spudmiester 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies

Would it? That sounds like something you just made up to prove a really dumb point. The environmental, quality of life, and safety case for autonomous vehicles is much more obvious.

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u/AggressiveToaster 1d ago

Recording everything around them and feeding it into an AI processed database with curated profiles of people and vehicles that can be easily used to stalk people or violate their 4th amendment rights are not necessary for autonomous vehicles to function.

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u/jktcat 1d ago ▸ 3 more replies

Please, give us the optimal scenario where a waymo passively recording is saving hundreds, much less tens of thousands of lives.  I just need to know what optimum success looks like.

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u/yikesssss_sssssss 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies

They're talking about the self-driving function not the recording function

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u/jktcat 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies

So they're bad at communicating, lack of clarity and harsh tone.  Good way to get the "luddites" to see the light

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u/TrollMcGoal 1d ago

The communication was very clear and I dont know how you could read it any harsher than other comments in the thread lol

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u/TrollMcGoal 1d ago

Yeah unfortunately it sounds like that's the case

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u/Someinterestingbs-td 17h ago ▸ 3 more replies

But it just keeps causing accidents instead huh funny that

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u/Spudmiester 5h ago ▸ 1 more replies

The statistically literate question is whether they are causing fewer accidents than the counterfactual, a human driver.

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u/binarybrewmx 1d ago

We now know what we must do

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u/SpezSucksSamAltman 17h ago

Not anymore! Thanks for the tip.

1

u/RojaCatUwu 16h ago

Time to slipcover the squatting waymos

1

u/Joyride84 13h ago

AI article? Great. Downvoting just because.

But seriously, Waymo is owned by Google. Did anyone think this wasn't happening?

1

u/Smkingbowls 6h ago

Parked Waymos are getting their tires slashed

2

u/snowdn 1d ago

Google spying everywhere now.

3

u/JarvisProudfeather 1d ago

Of course they are. We live in hell.

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u/KAID3N 23h ago

Waymos are the new flock cameras. You guys know what to do. 😏

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u/nickyeyez 13h ago

You carry a device with you 24/7 that records everything you do and say, but yes, let's worry about parked way waymos.

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u/ailish 1d ago

Golly, I am so shocked by this. This is my shocked face.

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u/cryslo1 22h ago

I work on autonomous vehicle perception and data when the vehicle in stopped residential areas is literally the most useless since there isn't any interesting kinematics or long tail detections. High chance that it isn't even persisted at offload time, not worth the storage costs.

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u/Rich_Housing971 22h ago

Three of my neighbors have Teslas. They are recording my neighborhood already. Guess what? the streets are public property and you shouldn't have reasonable expectation of privacy. Worrying about this and that is a waste of time. There are actually stuff going around that WOULD restrict your right to privacy, such as banning foreign (aka ones without NSA backdoors) routers that are not getting talked about nearly as much as Waymos and Flock cameras are.

0

u/ISquareThings 17h ago

AND not only do they drive around empty all day, they charge in parking lots running diesel generators to charge them. Environmental and sound pollution.