Remix.run Logo
shimman 10 hours ago

No this is bad logic. Flock is absolutely responsible and they should not be releasing or selling products that are this poorly made.

Saying that the responsibility is only on the user is extremely myopic. It's also dismissing the role Flock has in how they make and design their software.

If they can't handle this maybe they should be disbanded as a company or nationalized for better public control.

lukan 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

"Flock is absolutely responsible and they should not be releasing or selling products that are this poorly made."

I am not a fan of flock, nor police surveillance state, but what could they have done better here?

"Milwaukee police later admitted the alert should have been cleared out of the system days earlier, but an employee simply forgot to remove it. "

The system seemed to work as intended - that numberplate was flagged for investigation with homicide - and gave the alarm as intented, nothing more. The problem was wrong data given to them by humans.

nogridbag 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah I'm confused. The title of the article is wrong. There was no "Flock Camera Glitch" according to the article.

The human in the loop did not properly delete an invalid license plate number from one of the databases the flock system checks against.

The issue issues are with:

1. Human in the loop

2. Third party database police use for homicide info

3. Police response

I don't see what the license plate reading technology has to do with any of this. It seems like the only thing working reliably.

gopher_space 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I am not a fan of flock, nor police surveillance state, but what could they have done better here?

We'd need to take a look at what they have access to and how they're ingesting that info. I'd start with caring greatly about false positives and not automating department onboarding.

Working with various counties I've seen situations where someone needs to tell you a specific table dump exists to get an accurate count because that's how they published deletions back in 1983. There are no standards and the people who created these systems are all dead.

> The problem was wrong data given to them by humans.

This is always a problem. It's never not a problem. The question is how Flock chooses to address the problem.

JoshTriplett 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I am not a fan of flock, nor police surveillance state, but what could they have done better here?

Flock should stop existing. I hope people help them with that, enthusiastically.

genewitch 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

don't worry, Axon wants to put all 90,000 CCTV cameras into a database for dragnets, too. And i'm sure there will be startups, possibly even mentioned here, that want the same thing.

There's a lot of money in cyberstalking and real stalking. see: Facebook's valuation

nickthegreek 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Legislation is how that happens. There is no other way. And these stories are what help get that ball rolling in the direction we want.

esseph 9 hours ago | parent [-]

> Legislation is how that happens. There is no other way.

There are plenty of ways if you are creative enough.

Somebody could start putting Flock executive license plates in with erroneous police data.

esseph 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Which would not have been acted on if those charges were ever in the flock system to begin with.

Which means they wouldn't have flagged the car and pulled it over.

A couple of days go by and the error is out of the system.

shimman 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They can design a system that doesn't enable these behaviors. Good grief these excuses are pathetic. This is a purposely made system with specific outcomes, these are the outcomes.

Saying there is nothing we can do is pathetic behavior and just shows that maybe you (nor Flock) should be in charge of these things if these are the outcomes they find acceptable.

fluidcruft 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The flock cameras were clearly misused. Misuse is 100% user error.

shimman 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Then you should design systems to ensure this type of user error doesn't happen. I'm sorry but this is software and all these excuses are straight up pathetic.

If you don't know how to design a system to prevent this, DON'T MAKE IT!

Good grief our industry is absolutely pathetic with these excuses.

fluidcruft 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Did you actually read the article? It's like you are demanding a car to not drive when you push the gas pedal.

shimman an hour ago | parent [-]

No it's more like demanding crumple zones, seat belts, and third brake lights.

Just because you have zero standards or ethics does not make this acceptable at all.

This was a purely created system that was purposely designed exactly for these outcomes. You do not have to create such a system. There can be more accountability.

Have standards please. This is impacting real human lives here because you refuse to have standards.

daedrdev 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Them is flock responsible for reducing auto thefts and should be counted too?