WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.020 --> 00:00:05.020 We're used to being on camera, knowing that camera is putting me in a centrally searchable database. 00:00:05.520 --> 00:00:07.400 People don't like that, but they don't know, right? 00:00:08.920 --> 00:00:15.140 It's not often for a company to make the news and stay in the news for something that has to do with privacy. 00:00:15.370 --> 00:00:17.220 But Flock has done that. 00:00:17.380 --> 00:00:24.300 Flock is one of the most infamous surveillance companies that has all these agreements with law enforcement, especially around the U.S. 00:00:24.380 --> 00:00:26.400 and they have made a pretty bad name for themselves. 00:00:27.080 --> 00:00:29.480 And they have made the news quite a bit 00:00:29.620 --> 00:00:31.060 for doing things they shouldn't be doing, 00:00:31.360 --> 00:00:33.080 from collecting data they're not supposed to collect, 00:00:33.260 --> 00:00:34.880 from just being plain creepy. 00:00:35.120 --> 00:00:36.840 So we have these counter movements now, 00:00:37.100 --> 00:00:38.000 things like DFLOC, 00:00:38.120 --> 00:00:40.020 and I wanted to ask them what they stand for, 00:00:40.280 --> 00:00:41.460 what started DFLOC, 00:00:41.740 --> 00:00:43.340 why FLOC specifically is targeted, 00:00:43.680 --> 00:00:45.440 or if this is more about a broader movement 00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:47.160 against these kinds of companies. 00:00:47.700 --> 00:00:50.060 And we dive a lot more into what we can do 00:00:50.060 --> 00:00:51.180 to actually take action 00:00:51.820 --> 00:00:53.680 against all of this surveillance technology 00:00:53.680 --> 00:00:58.920 going on right now. Without further ado, let's cut over to it. All right, so today I have on 00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:03.220 Bob from D-Flock. Do you want to just tell me a little bit about yourself, your background, 00:01:03.500 --> 00:01:07.480 and what you're working on today? Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. We're doing a whole 00:01:07.580 --> 00:01:11.420 bunch of stuff, a lot of which you're familiar with. My involvement with D-Flock started about 00:01:11.440 --> 00:01:18.580 a year ago. My primary function here is that I'm the app developer. As I've continued to help out, 00:01:18.740 --> 00:01:23.420 that has grown a little bit to Discord mod, doing little interviews like this, answering emails. 00:01:23.900 --> 00:01:28.480 But we're a pretty small volunteer team. None of us get paid anything. It's all free time, 00:01:28.790 --> 00:01:35.000 post-tax dollars from our day jobs. I feel like Flock made a lot of news during the Ring 00:01:35.300 --> 00:01:40.360 integration and the Super Bowl ad, and it really made headlines. So do you mind expanding first, 00:01:40.460 --> 00:01:47.820 for anybody who didn't catch that whole saga, what is Flock just from a very basic perspective? 00:01:48.740 --> 00:01:52.280 What happened there, and why is there so much controversy around this company? 00:01:53.200 --> 00:01:56.560 So, Flock Safety, Flock Surveillance, I prefer to call them. 00:01:56.840 --> 00:02:04.060 They're one of a number of vendors making what they like to call ALPRs, or Automated License Plate Readers, which really is a bit of a misnomer. 00:02:04.340 --> 00:02:06.700 They do a whole lot more than just read license plates. 00:02:07.180 --> 00:02:20.200 In the case of Flock, they're using AI in a centralized backend to cloud-based backend to tag things like make, model, color, roof racks, bumper stickers, window tints, bike racks, all that kind of stuff. 00:02:20.460 --> 00:02:25.340 And they build, they recently renamed it from a vehicle fingerprint to a vehicle signature, 00:02:26.180 --> 00:02:28.660 which I think just sounds a little better PR wise. 00:02:28.660 --> 00:02:30.080 I think somebody told them to do that. 00:02:30.230 --> 00:02:31.640 But they're building this database. 00:02:31.790 --> 00:02:35.440 And every time they see a vehicle, regardless of whether you're on any kind of a watch list 00:02:35.470 --> 00:02:39.100 or the car is stolen or anything like that, they're putting you in a database that then 00:02:39.340 --> 00:02:43.660 becomes searchable for by default 30 days, but it can be longer without a warrant. 00:02:44.460 --> 00:02:46.580 So we've seen a lot of abuse already. 00:02:47.100 --> 00:02:57.480 A lot of the value proposition from Flock specifically, although they're not the only one doing this, is their ability to share between law enforcement agencies, including across state lines in many cases. 00:02:58.140 --> 00:03:04.560 So there are a couple of states that limit sharing of ALPR data outside of state, but they are in the minority. 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:08.860 And I don't even want a statewide surveillance network that watches everybody all the time. 00:03:09.280 --> 00:03:16.180 Flock in particular have made themselves a bit of an easy target, and they've been in the news a lot lately, but they are far from the only game in town. 00:03:16.620 --> 00:03:21.580 They're maybe the most recognizable, and they're the fastest-growing vendor of this type of surveillance right now. 00:03:22.280 --> 00:03:26.540 But they're not the only one, and it's not a new issue, and it's not even just ALVRs. 00:03:27.100 --> 00:03:35.480 Yeah, that's kind of my next follow-up, is that I've been doing this for a long time, and Flock isn't the first version, and it's not going to be the last. 00:03:35.800 --> 00:03:42.280 And so why do you think Flock specifically has gotten the most amount of, it seems like, press in the last decade? 00:03:42.860 --> 00:03:43.780 It's a good question. 00:03:44.040 --> 00:03:53.140 I think, you know, for a long time, mass surveillance and warrantless surveillance, the surveillance state, the growth of the surveillance state was sort of nebulous and out there. 00:03:53.680 --> 00:03:59.620 And it was on the TV when Edward Snowden showed up and it was on page 284 of your Google Terms of Service. 00:04:00.340 --> 00:04:05.360 But it hasn't ever really been like looking over your shoulder six times on your way to work. 00:04:05.960 --> 00:04:11.360 Right. And there have been cameras and people don't generally have an issue with a camera that records in case something happens. 00:04:12.040 --> 00:04:18.900 It's the constant pre-processing in a centralized way that makes this a really scary tool. 00:04:19.239 --> 00:04:21.940 Flock in particular, they're just really easily identifiable. 00:04:22.240 --> 00:04:29.300 They're uniquely dystopian looking cameras on a very unique black pole that you'll see at the entrance to your neighborhood. 00:04:30.020 --> 00:04:38.160 And unlike Motorola ALPR that's on top of a police car, it makes you stop and pause and go, what is that? 00:04:38.300 --> 00:04:38.880 Where'd that come from? 00:04:39.260 --> 00:04:41.360 So it's not that people haven't cared about this topic. 00:04:41.560 --> 00:04:47.940 It's just that it's not felt quite as tangible and quite as close to home for most people until very recently. 00:04:48.660 --> 00:04:49.260 Got it. 00:04:49.320 --> 00:04:53.320 And I know a lot of our audience, myself and you, are already on the same page about this kind of thing. 00:04:53.480 --> 00:04:57.200 But let's say someone's listening and they go, okay, what's wrong with pre-processing? 00:04:57.430 --> 00:04:58.140 I don't understand. 00:04:58.460 --> 00:05:01.540 If you're not doing anything wrong, there's really nothing to be concerned about. 00:05:01.880 --> 00:05:09.240 So what are your real fundamental concerns that you like to share with people that actually get you worried about this technology? 00:05:10.760 --> 00:05:18.060 Fundamentally, the reason this goes across the political spectrum is because everybody has their own fears of what the future could look like. 00:05:18.270 --> 00:05:25.600 And a lot of them include a government run amok that has passed unjust laws and is enforcing them universally with impunity. 00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:29.440 This is one of the tools that a government needs to do that. 00:05:29.880 --> 00:05:35.240 So whether you're worried about ICE picking up people who may or may not be here illegally, 00:05:35.780 --> 00:05:40.420 whether you're worried about the ATF building a database of people who like to go to church on 00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:45.140 Sunday mornings. Like, we're all afraid of being watched all the time when we're not doing anything 00:05:45.340 --> 00:05:50.100 wrong. There's a reason we have a Fourth Amendment here, and most of it boils down to human nature. 00:05:50.520 --> 00:05:55.480 Government is made up of people, and people make mistakes, and people do bad things. And giving 00:05:55.580 --> 00:06:00.479 any group of people too much ability to peer into other people's lives is just a dangerous thing to 00:06:00.500 --> 00:06:06.960 do. So would you say, because something you mentioned earlier was the lack of warrants, 00:06:07.580 --> 00:06:13.380 and the reality is that police can obtain a lot of this information directly. So is really the 00:06:13.560 --> 00:06:17.840 real concern here that it's a private company that's essentially bypassing that normal Fourth 00:06:18.040 --> 00:06:24.420 Amendment and other kind of protections? Or is there more going on here? I would say there's more 00:06:24.540 --> 00:06:29.419 going on here. You know, third party doctrine is what brings that about. And we just saw the 00:06:29.440 --> 00:06:33.500 Supreme Court make a couple of decisions recently that affected how that's going to work. And we 00:06:33.500 --> 00:06:38.360 have yet to see what the real world implications of that will be. But generally, we think that's 00:06:38.500 --> 00:06:43.440 good news. I guess the point here is that you can't put that much data in the hands of a group 00:06:43.490 --> 00:06:49.900 of people without them having a reason to look at it. It's already the number one reason that 00:06:50.380 --> 00:06:55.439 has been given for a search of the flock system is the word investigation, right? That's not good 00:06:55.460 --> 00:07:02.120 enough. That is not reasonable, articulable suspicion of a crime. You have to explain 00:07:02.420 --> 00:07:08.080 why you're peering into somebody's life, especially over a wide period of time and geographic area. 00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:13.480 Got it. And so if someone's listening to this and they ask, okay, where is this happening? I haven't 00:07:13.480 --> 00:07:17.100 seen one of those black poles. I personally haven't actually, funny enough, even though I 00:07:17.500 --> 00:07:22.799 do this for a living, I haven't actually seen one firsthand. But I've probably been caught in them 00:07:22.820 --> 00:07:28.300 countless times. I'm just not looking for them actively. So where are these? Are they all around 00:07:28.400 --> 00:07:33.420 the country? Are they kind of centralized to just cities? Are they spread out? Can you kind of speak 00:07:33.420 --> 00:07:38.500 to the geographic reality here? You know, they're typically bought at the city level. You sometimes 00:07:38.720 --> 00:07:43.080 see them at the county level and occasionally at the state level. They also, you see them in, 00:07:43.310 --> 00:07:48.860 you know, private parking lots like Lowe's, Home Depot, Simon's Malls, and you see them at HOAs. 00:07:48.960 --> 00:07:56.720 So what's placed in these different places? Is it all being fed to the same data set or is it being kind of compartmentalized between corporate and public? 00:07:58.220 --> 00:08:06.320 There is a, from my understanding, a flag on an account that sets whether it is a public entity, law enforcement, or whether it's a private entity. 00:08:06.740 --> 00:08:11.920 And I'm told that there are safeguards in place that prevent public entities from sharing with private. 00:08:12.879 --> 00:08:18.200 But like in the case of Lowe's, for example, we know they have a form that law enforcement can fill out to request access. 00:08:18.660 --> 00:08:37.240 So those hook in really easily. You see a lot of sharing from private to public, for sure, and from public to public. So yeah, the sharing is one of the things that really gets the hairs on the backs of people's necks standing up is that there are people in other states who are searching you for things that might be legal in your state in some cases. 00:08:37.960 --> 00:08:40.840 Got it. Are there any states where there is no flock at all, period? 00:08:41.860 --> 00:08:57.740 I don't believe there are any states where there are none. As far as I'm aware, there are only privately owned, I don't want to say owned, Flock doesn't sell their hardware. You don't even lease the hardware from Flock. You purchase a subscription service from Flock and they own and maintain the hardware. 00:08:57.800 --> 00:09:02.220 There are privately paid for Flock installations, I believe, in Alaska. 00:09:03.120 --> 00:09:05.900 But I don't think any public entities have Flock in Alaska. 00:09:06.360 --> 00:09:10.020 Now, I'm sure that there are other ALPR vendors up there doing much the same thing, right? 00:09:10.240 --> 00:09:16.040 There's Flock, there's Axon, there's Motorola, who owns Vigilant, there's Recor, there's Genetec. 00:09:16.160 --> 00:09:18.760 There's a whole laundry list of companies that are doing this kind of thing. 00:09:19.820 --> 00:09:20.000 Got it. 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:24.360 And so why, you know, are the companies and the people who are purchasing Flock, 00:09:24.860 --> 00:09:33.220 Their incentive, to me, probably isn't to create a dragnet surveillance, that that's not their ultimate goal in purchasing flocks. 00:09:33.360 --> 00:09:41.940 Can you speak to what it looks like on their end, why they're choosing to go with these providers, and why they're complicit in this, maybe, or what your perspective on that as a whole? 00:09:42.780 --> 00:09:47.760 You know, law enforcement is a difficult job, and I sympathize with the people who do that job. 00:09:48.140 --> 00:09:50.660 General warrants are an effective tool for law enforcement as well. 00:09:50.920 --> 00:09:56.760 The unfortunate truth is whether a tool is useful for law enforcement isn't the bar for whether it's allowed in this country. 00:09:57.300 --> 00:10:05.000 So while I understand that it is very helpful to be able to look into the past movements of somebody, you do still need a good reason to do that, right? 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:08.440 Right. What about private companies like Lowe's? 00:10:08.880 --> 00:10:13.680 There's increasing cooperation between public entities and private, especially on that scale. 00:10:13.980 --> 00:10:18.960 And that is concerning. It's a socio-political issue, and it's a little bit of crisis of democracy. 00:10:19.300 --> 00:10:23.400 the amount of sway that some of these corporations have in our politics. 00:10:23.880 --> 00:10:30.340 If I'm going onto Lowe's property, it's pretty hard to argue under today's law that they don't have the right to record me. 00:10:30.560 --> 00:10:38.080 I would argue that you're going a little bit farther than recording me when you then are putting together a history of every time I've been to any of those locations, 00:10:38.440 --> 00:10:41.400 every time I've driven through a parking lot, everything I've ever bought there. 00:10:41.920 --> 00:10:43.580 And then you're compiling and selling that data. 00:10:43.940 --> 00:10:46.740 Most people, I don't think, expect that that kind of thing is going on. 00:10:47.540 --> 00:10:56.660 They have, again, a vague awareness of the fact that those kind of things do go on, but it's not quite as tangible, right, until you see it over your shoulder. 00:10:57.860 --> 00:11:02.320 Right. You mentioned earlier there was a couple states that had limits on ALPR data. 00:11:02.370 --> 00:11:06.740 Do you mind expanding on that, what those states are and what those limits look like, and if you think they go far enough? 00:11:07.020 --> 00:11:12.720 I don't have them all memorized. I know Illinois and California, for sure, do not allow sharing out of state. 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:16.360 I want to say it's Delaware, New Hampshire. 00:11:16.740 --> 00:11:18.480 It's one of the little states out on the East Coast 00:11:19.040 --> 00:11:20.080 has really, really short, 00:11:20.180 --> 00:11:22.380 like three minute data retention period, 00:11:22.820 --> 00:11:25.360 which now what counts as data retention? 00:11:25.680 --> 00:11:26.380 What counts as data? 00:11:26.680 --> 00:11:27.820 What counts as customer data? 00:11:28.140 --> 00:11:29.600 There's all these questions, right? 00:11:29.720 --> 00:11:30.480 At the end of the day, 00:11:30.580 --> 00:11:32.220 you've still got an internet connected camera 00:11:32.420 --> 00:11:33.660 that's on the side of the road 00:11:34.439 --> 00:11:37.500 that it's really hard to know where that data is going, 00:11:37.700 --> 00:11:38.640 what's being done to it, 00:11:38.700 --> 00:11:40.820 how copies are being taken, blah, blah, blah, blah. 00:11:41.260 --> 00:11:45.420 I don't think that the solution to this is going to be regulation or transparency. 00:11:46.280 --> 00:11:54.180 I think that the solution to this is to not build the infrastructure of control and mass surveillance in the United States. 00:11:54.480 --> 00:12:00.920 Personally, I don't think that there is a way to build such a system safely and put it into the hands of anybody. 00:12:01.360 --> 00:12:10.380 Makes sense. You know, something I've seen in other areas as well, this is actually most seen by myself on these people search removal sites, right? 00:12:10.540 --> 00:12:17.740 So you have an organization that says, hey, I can remove this data, but then we find out later that it's actually also a company that is a data broker themselves. 00:12:17.980 --> 00:12:23.380 So you have this company that's trying to sell B2B and say, yeah, we can buy data, we can do all these things. 00:12:23.500 --> 00:12:29.020 And then they try to also sell to consumers and say, oh, we really care about your privacy, so I consider that double dipping. 00:12:29.800 --> 00:12:34.480 I've seen a general pattern with companies like Flock, where they pick and choose when they say something, 00:12:34.780 --> 00:12:37.800 this is our proprietary way of tracking people, 00:12:38.030 --> 00:12:41.300 and they say this to other companies and police law enforcement 00:12:41.490 --> 00:12:43.920 to try to hype themselves up and make it seem like 00:12:43.920 --> 00:12:46.200 they have some proprietary data that no one else can access. 00:12:46.800 --> 00:12:49.540 And then when you get regulators, you get people asking them questions, 00:12:49.700 --> 00:12:51.680 they go, we're not doing anything wrong, it's all public data. 00:12:51.860 --> 00:12:53.140 This is something anyone can do. 00:12:53.420 --> 00:12:57.300 Does Flock have access to something that is something no one else can do, 00:12:57.450 --> 00:12:59.900 or are they just kind of the biggest in the space right now? 00:12:59.930 --> 00:13:01.040 They're getting away with it. 00:13:01.640 --> 00:13:04.960 What does the tech look like behind the scenes is really what I'm getting at here. 00:13:05.520 --> 00:13:06.640 Yeah, I don't know. 00:13:06.840 --> 00:13:08.740 I mean, it's AI visual models. 00:13:09.260 --> 00:13:11.320 There's nothing particularly unique about this. 00:13:11.320 --> 00:13:18.280 You're tagging certain characteristics out of a photograph and then you're doing correlative analysis to find other matching data points. 00:13:18.580 --> 00:13:21.820 What Flock's really selling, they claim, is not the data itself. 00:13:22.360 --> 00:13:25.860 It's the capture, processing, storage, and access to the data. 00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:31.520 And whatever counts as the data supposedly belongs to the customer and Flock doesn't sell it. 00:13:31.780 --> 00:13:41.480 Now, they also claim they have end-to-end encryption, which means one end is the camera and the other end is Flock, not you accessing it. 00:13:41.640 --> 00:13:43.960 Right. It's encrypted from the camera to Flock. 00:13:44.130 --> 00:13:51.240 And then once Flock has it, it's decrypted and then it's stored on encrypted storage that both Flock and Amazon have the keys to. 00:13:51.760 --> 00:13:54.320 It's a funny use of the word end-to-end encryption in that context. 00:13:54.720 --> 00:13:55.220 Yeah, yeah. 00:13:55.540 --> 00:13:56.540 It's, yeah, what do you, what do you say? 00:13:56.540 --> 00:13:57.360 Not in the spirit of it. 00:13:57.860 --> 00:13:58.040 Right. 00:13:58.770 --> 00:14:00.220 Yeah, it's not in the spirit of it, for sure. 00:14:00.580 --> 00:14:02.720 So, you know, do they have access? 00:14:03.300 --> 00:14:03.440 Yes. 00:14:03.970 --> 00:14:08.260 And we've seen that happen both through, you know, technical glitches, according to Flock, 00:14:08.560 --> 00:14:10.840 and through procedural failures and policy failures. 00:14:12.020 --> 00:14:13.380 We saw that down in Dunwoody, right? 00:14:13.620 --> 00:14:18.660 That a Flock person had access to the cameras in Dunwoody through misconfiguration. 00:14:18.920 --> 00:14:22.600 Really, the way that their sharing works, it couldn't work any other way, right? 00:14:22.740 --> 00:14:26.420 You can't do just full end-to-end encryption the way that they're offering their product 00:14:26.700 --> 00:14:28.780 with all of the sharing from organization to organization. 00:14:29.320 --> 00:14:31.060 It just doesn't do that, right? 00:14:31.480 --> 00:14:32.560 That's not what end-to-end encryption means. 00:14:32.570 --> 00:14:35.920 You'd have to be managing a gigantic set of keys, and they don't. 00:14:36.460 --> 00:14:40.800 So it's really tough to say who's accessing what at any given time. 00:14:41.120 --> 00:14:44.620 And we've also seen that the audit logs that Flok produces are not infallible. 00:14:45.020 --> 00:14:48.280 What is kind of like, I go to dflok's website, right? 00:14:48.860 --> 00:14:50.040 And I'll start with that. 00:14:50.040 --> 00:14:52.580 Why don't you explain for people who haven't actually visited dflok? 00:14:53.360 --> 00:14:54.540 what are you guys doing on your website? 00:14:55.320 --> 00:14:58.100 What is the overall scope of how you're trying to tackle this problem? 00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:03.060 Yeah, so DFLOK has grown significantly from the original goal, 00:15:03.620 --> 00:15:07.120 which started by Will Freeman about a year and a half, almost two years ago. 00:15:07.440 --> 00:15:10.580 And the original goal, which is still on our website right now at the top, 00:15:10.740 --> 00:15:14.220 is an open source project mapping the locations of automated license plate readers. 00:15:14.920 --> 00:15:18.720 And we really, DFLOK could not have been more successful in that pursuit. 00:15:19.160 --> 00:15:21.640 As the topic has gotten more into the mainstream, 00:15:22.400 --> 00:15:30.960 We've been sort of a lightning rod for the topic, and we've had a lot of people asking us questions that have nothing to do really with mapping, such as this conversation here. 00:15:31.170 --> 00:15:34.500 So we are looking at expanding the scope of what our claimed mission is. 00:15:34.710 --> 00:15:42.240 But we do also have FOIA resources and advice on how to talk to city council on our website and some other things, FAQs. 00:15:42.500 --> 00:15:51.680 So we're really becoming sort of a conversation place for people to come together and learn about this and rally behind a name and meet people in their local community. 00:15:51.720 --> 00:16:13.980 We've got well over 60 local groups that have popped up and that have gotten in touch with us and wanted to get an official deflock local chapter that, you know, go stand on the steps of City Hall, go talk to some people, go put a post on Facebook, go have a community town hall, file some FOIA requests, have a conversation with your representatives, put up signs, get something done. 00:16:14.050 --> 00:16:21.320 You have a lot more power in your local community than a lot of people think, and helping people to make that real has been really rewarding. 00:16:21.400 --> 00:16:27.940 Right. You know, and what's not to not to question why it exists, of course, but what is the purpose of the map? 00:16:28.180 --> 00:16:31.900 Is it to kind of shock people into seeing just how widespread it is? 00:16:31.980 --> 00:16:34.780 Like, what have you actually seen as the real world impact of that map? 00:16:35.880 --> 00:16:38.000 That is, I suppose, the primary purpose of it. 00:16:38.060 --> 00:16:41.360 Yeah, is to see just visually like, oh, these are everywhere. 00:16:41.700 --> 00:16:47.160 Like I said, finally, there's a visible extent of the surveillance state that's looking over your shoulder in your neighborhood. 00:16:47.820 --> 00:16:50.240 But still, there's a lot of infrastructure on roads. 00:16:50.440 --> 00:16:52.380 We pass 100 little black pods on poles, 00:16:52.980 --> 00:16:55.140 seeing a map of them all and realizing like, 00:16:55.320 --> 00:16:57.980 oh, it's not just something I see every once in a while. 00:16:58.220 --> 00:16:59.820 I only notice it every once in a while. 00:16:59.930 --> 00:17:02.480 I pass these things every single day, right? 00:17:02.680 --> 00:17:04.780 And just making that real to people 00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:06.280 and seeing one down at the corner 00:17:06.410 --> 00:17:07.780 by the store that you visit, right? 00:17:08.360 --> 00:17:10.060 And going, holy shit, I never noticed that there. 00:17:11.240 --> 00:17:11.360 Yeah. 00:17:11.800 --> 00:17:13.860 Have you seen an uptick in the, 00:17:14.110 --> 00:17:15.980 you said you started a year and a half ago 00:17:16.040 --> 00:17:17.480 with the map, the D-Flock organization. 00:17:18.439 --> 00:17:21.760 What's been the overall expansion of that in the last year and a half? 00:17:22.520 --> 00:17:24.079 Is it exponentially growing? 00:17:24.350 --> 00:17:25.660 Is it staying stagnant? 00:17:25.790 --> 00:17:26.640 Can you speak to this? 00:17:27.819 --> 00:17:30.880 Do you mean the people looking at the map, or do you mean the map data? 00:17:32.040 --> 00:17:35.240 Mostly the map data, but I would also like to know the people looking at the map. 00:17:35.540 --> 00:17:38.260 So actually, I don't know if you have ability to screen share, 00:17:38.290 --> 00:17:40.440 and I guess people who are on podcasts won't be able to see anyway, 00:17:40.660 --> 00:17:44.260 but if you go to our website, on the maps page, there is a timeline view. 00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:47.900 Now this is mapping not just when they were installed, 00:17:48.080 --> 00:17:49.020 but when they were reported. 00:17:49.400 --> 00:17:51.420 So to some extent, there's an influencing factor 00:17:51.450 --> 00:17:52.700 of how many people were paying attention 00:17:52.950 --> 00:17:53.960 and putting these on the map. 00:17:54.720 --> 00:17:57.000 Everything on DFLOC is community sourced 00:17:57.140 --> 00:17:58.480 and submitted through OpenStreetMap. 00:17:59.400 --> 00:18:00.780 For people who aren't familiar, 00:18:01.020 --> 00:18:03.160 they're basically like Wikipedia for maps. 00:18:03.800 --> 00:18:06.200 And anybody can go on and you can map sidewalks, 00:18:06.380 --> 00:18:07.620 fire hydrants, and park benches, 00:18:07.900 --> 00:18:09.440 and water fountains, and all kinds of things. 00:18:09.620 --> 00:18:11.140 They're a really excellent community 00:18:11.210 --> 00:18:12.240 and a fantastic project. 00:18:12.700 --> 00:18:15.460 So we chose to use them as the backend for DFLOC. 00:18:15.840 --> 00:18:17.460 And that's basically where all that comes from. 00:18:17.620 --> 00:18:20.220 So you'll see on the timeline that it really was like 2021, 00:18:21.350 --> 00:18:24.800 one, two, three, that it was pretty flat. 00:18:24.950 --> 00:18:28.340 And then in 2023, four, five, it started going really crazy 00:18:28.490 --> 00:18:30.420 because people started noticing and being like, 00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:32.440 I'm going to help out and get involved with dFlock 00:18:32.640 --> 00:18:33.920 and start putting these on the map. 00:18:34.620 --> 00:18:34.760 Wow. 00:18:35.280 --> 00:18:39.300 Has Flock had any kind of commentary about the dFlock project? 00:18:39.740 --> 00:18:42.820 I assume they're not fans of people knowing the exact locations of all of them. 00:18:44.260 --> 00:18:45.440 They've had a few choice words. 00:18:46.100 --> 00:18:51.440 About a year ago, their CEO called us terrorists, which was interesting. 00:18:52.040 --> 00:18:54.600 He very recently, he didn't apologize. 00:18:54.830 --> 00:18:58.600 He said he was sorry he said it, which, you know, losing will make you sorry. 00:19:00.060 --> 00:19:02.900 So we're hopeful that that's a good sign for us. 00:19:03.220 --> 00:19:04.180 And we believe that it is. 00:19:04.280 --> 00:19:09.800 We've seen, like I said, a bunch of local groups popping up, a bunch of contracts getting canceled, a bunch of attention being paid to this issue. 00:19:10.130 --> 00:19:13.480 And it's just been really, really encouraging the past six months or so. 00:19:14.600 --> 00:19:19.160 Yeah, and I'm sure every example of this happening is a bit different, but I know LA recently, 00:19:19.779 --> 00:19:23.080 LAPD, in the last week, they decided not to renew with Flock. 00:19:23.380 --> 00:19:27.240 The thing is, we as the public never see like, oh, is that because there was so much public 00:19:27.500 --> 00:19:27.660 pressure? 00:19:27.800 --> 00:19:30.120 Is it because they just didn't see the value in it? 00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:35.560 Do you ever get more insight or do you guys have maybe a pattern over time over why people 00:19:35.660 --> 00:19:37.640 choose not to renew with Flock and the priorities there? 00:19:38.860 --> 00:19:40.560 Occasionally, you do get insight into that. 00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:43.440 Comments are made by public representatives. 00:19:43.800 --> 00:19:45.340 In a lot of cases, it is because the pushback. 00:19:45.540 --> 00:19:49.960 It's unpopular enough that it just can't be done for logistical reasons. 00:19:50.240 --> 00:19:51.200 You'll get voted out. 00:19:51.480 --> 00:19:53.360 In LA, I don't know exactly the reasons. 00:19:53.450 --> 00:19:57.520 I do know that LA has other vendors that are still providing LPR, and I believe they're 00:19:57.570 --> 00:20:01.440 actually growing their contract with Axon, commensurate with the cancellation of the 00:20:01.540 --> 00:20:01.840 contract. 00:20:02.480 --> 00:20:04.100 So that's disappointing to see. 00:20:04.270 --> 00:20:08.000 Like I said, there's a whole lot of vendors that are doing this sort of thing and getting 00:20:08.140 --> 00:20:11.940 people educated on what they all look like and what to be looking for and how to be aware 00:20:12.120 --> 00:20:13.200 when they show up in your community. 00:20:13.840 --> 00:20:15.440 is a never-ending task. 00:20:16.440 --> 00:20:18.800 So when you encourage people to get involved locally, 00:20:18.900 --> 00:20:20.220 and I want to ask a bit more about this 00:20:20.440 --> 00:20:23.200 and kind of compile the real actionable stuff soon here, 00:20:23.580 --> 00:20:26.760 but just to dive a bit deeper on one specific thing, 00:20:27.100 --> 00:20:28.680 are you communicating and asking people 00:20:28.820 --> 00:20:31.700 to communicate to DFLOC or to D-ALPR? 00:20:31.940 --> 00:20:33.820 Because it doesn't seem like a success to me 00:20:33.920 --> 00:20:37.600 if LA just starts giving money to another ALPR company 00:20:37.700 --> 00:20:38.860 that's doing the same exact thing. 00:20:38.920 --> 00:20:40.300 So what's this messaging look like? 00:20:41.120 --> 00:20:41.460 That's right. 00:20:41.720 --> 00:20:45.200 You know, DFLOC originally was started, pointed at FLOC safety. 00:20:45.540 --> 00:20:49.700 I envision a future where DFLOC means stop treating us like a flock of sheep, right? 00:20:49.860 --> 00:20:55.120 And it applies to whatever, whether that's, you know, the NSA that's reading all your 00:20:55.360 --> 00:20:59.720 emails and taking your call logs, or whether that's an LPR vendor at the end of your street. 00:21:00.080 --> 00:21:04.020 Stop keeping such close tabs on people who aren't suspected of any wrongdoing. 00:21:04.330 --> 00:21:04.860 Leave us alone. 00:21:05.310 --> 00:21:05.980 Get out of my life. 00:21:07.060 --> 00:21:07.280 Got it. 00:21:07.520 --> 00:21:09.440 Where do you normally have people start? 00:21:09.620 --> 00:21:14.180 If someone sees your map for the first time, they probably experience what you probably 00:21:14.320 --> 00:21:17.260 want them to experience and feel, which is, oh my gosh, that looks scary. 00:21:18.280 --> 00:21:18.900 Don't like this. 00:21:19.700 --> 00:21:22.160 Where do you normally, if you're sitting down with them and they're in front of you, start 00:21:22.260 --> 00:21:23.740 this conversation of what they can do? 00:21:25.040 --> 00:21:29.380 So I said earlier, you have a lot more power in local government than you might realize. 00:21:29.740 --> 00:21:34.620 Get together with some local folks, start a conversation, start a group, put up signs, 00:21:34.800 --> 00:21:39.200 hand out flyers, get together at town hall, speak at a public meeting, email your representatives. 00:21:39.900 --> 00:21:44.800 buy them a beer. I mean, you can do these things, right? Get involved. There is power in numbers. 00:21:45.300 --> 00:21:50.360 Having two people reach out and send an email is a lot different than having 85 people show up for 00:21:50.360 --> 00:21:54.220 a town council meeting where they were talking about budget, right? They don't expect that to 00:21:54.380 --> 00:21:58.620 happen. And when it does, it makes somebody question why you have to pay attention to that 00:21:58.720 --> 00:22:03.300 kind of thing. It's an outlier, right? Got it. And what about any other things that people can get 00:22:03.420 --> 00:22:07.739 involved? Like if somebody's already getting involved locally, or let's say they don't have 00:22:07.760 --> 00:22:12.520 the time? Let's say they have tons of kids at home, they're a single parent. What can they still do if 00:22:12.520 --> 00:22:16.760 they want to still contribute somehow? You know what? The biggest thing right now is still education. 00:22:17.080 --> 00:22:21.000 We've gotten a lot of attention recently, and it's been very encouraging. But still, a lot of people 00:22:21.240 --> 00:22:26.780 just do not know what's going on or how pervasive and how intrusive this stuff is getting and the 00:22:26.880 --> 00:22:32.559 true capabilities of these. We're used to being on camera, right? Knowing that that camera is not 00:22:32.560 --> 00:22:37.820 just recording me. That camera is tagging me and putting me in a centrally searchable database, 00:22:38.820 --> 00:22:43.220 potentially nationwide. People don't like that, but they don't know, right? So if all you can do 00:22:43.240 --> 00:22:48.760 is post on Facebook, talk to somebody at your book club, do that. It's very much, you never know 00:22:48.760 --> 00:22:53.860 who you're talking to, right? Right. To kind of start closing this out, you know, if someone wants 00:22:53.860 --> 00:22:58.339 to hear a little bit more about why you got into this, like, it sounds like you have your own full 00:22:58.360 --> 00:23:02.720 time job. So why do you dedicate time on the side to this? What's the personal kind of reason here? 00:23:04.080 --> 00:23:07.820 Yeah, I do have a full time job. And this deflux stuff has been pretty consuming. 00:23:09.200 --> 00:23:12.820 You know, I grew up in I guess what you'd call a legacy conservative home, 00:23:13.140 --> 00:23:16.180 where I was taught the nine scariest words in the English language are, 00:23:16.300 --> 00:23:20.980 I'm from the government and I'm here to help. You know, I was listening to people decry cradle 00:23:21.050 --> 00:23:26.439 the grave policy. I learned about, you know, the Social Security Act was meant to make us all 00:23:26.460 --> 00:23:30.100 dependent on the government and all of these things. And a couple of those things I ended up 00:23:30.220 --> 00:23:34.920 taking with me in a healthy distrust for people who claim to have your best interests in mind. 00:23:35.220 --> 00:23:39.800 That's that's one of the big ones. Right. So like I said earlier, regardless of what your concerns 00:23:39.940 --> 00:23:44.380 are about the future, we all have things in common that we can agree on. And in my experience, 00:23:44.590 --> 00:23:49.000 this is one of those things. People don't like just being spied on and having their lives 00:23:49.620 --> 00:23:55.419 cataloged and made searchable without good reason. You mentioned earlier that this 00:23:56.080 --> 00:23:58.620 seems to be pretty bipartisan. 00:23:58.920 --> 00:24:00.200 Is that what you guys have seen 00:24:00.260 --> 00:24:01.780 in pretty much most states and situations 00:24:02.180 --> 00:24:03.300 and over at DFLOC as well? 00:24:03.700 --> 00:24:04.940 Yeah, massively so. 00:24:05.200 --> 00:24:06.500 Tucker Carlson was talking about us. 00:24:06.580 --> 00:24:08.020 Alex Jones was talking about us. 00:24:08.220 --> 00:24:09.580 The right really, I think, 00:24:09.740 --> 00:24:11.380 just didn't catch on quite as quickly. 00:24:11.860 --> 00:24:13.220 And part of that might be 00:24:13.440 --> 00:24:15.020 because of who's in office right now, 00:24:15.220 --> 00:24:16.640 that the left feels more threatened 00:24:16.780 --> 00:24:17.240 at the moment, 00:24:17.340 --> 00:24:18.500 so they're paying closer attention. 00:24:18.780 --> 00:24:19.260 Don't know why. 00:24:19.460 --> 00:24:19.920 And you know what? 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:20.800 I don't care. 00:24:21.280 --> 00:24:22.560 Anybody that doesn't want this 00:24:22.620 --> 00:24:23.160 in their neighborhoods, 00:24:23.540 --> 00:24:25.400 I am perfectly happy to shake hands 00:24:25.420 --> 00:24:52.620 And agree on that. And let's go talk to our city council. Let's go email our representatives. Let's go make our voices heard and get this done. We can argue about other stuff later. And it's been great to see that sentiment and a whole bunch of people all over the place. I mean, on Reddit and Facebook, where you don't expect people to be shaking hands about that kind of thing. It's been great to see people come together and say, yeah, no, I'm I'm a libertarian. I'm a MAGA. I'm, you know, soup. My hair is blue. Right. I live in California. 00:24:54.040 --> 00:24:57.200 we're all like, hey, let's come together and let's get this done. 00:24:57.560 --> 00:24:58.860 Not many things do that today. 00:24:59.390 --> 00:25:00.740 Almost everything there has to be aside. 00:25:01.050 --> 00:25:04.860 So you've really stumbled on something magical there in this day and age. 00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:07.340 I am glad to see that so many people do still care. 00:25:08.520 --> 00:25:10.260 For a long time, this has been building, right? 00:25:10.740 --> 00:25:12.060 And people haven't noticed. 00:25:12.130 --> 00:25:14.120 It's been on page 283. 00:25:14.920 --> 00:25:17.920 And it's been great to see that people are finally coming together 00:25:18.120 --> 00:25:20.740 and noticing this en masse and doing something about it. 00:25:21.800 --> 00:25:22.120 That's great. 00:25:22.340 --> 00:25:25.760 So if someone's listening, they like you guys, they want to check it out, where do you normally send them? 00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:28.720 Is there a community they can join? How can they follow what you guys are working on? 00:25:29.260 --> 00:25:35.180 Yeah, definitely. Go on noalprs.com, which is our upcoming week of action just under a month from now. 00:25:35.720 --> 00:25:38.140 Go on dflok.org, look at the local groups. 00:25:38.540 --> 00:25:43.700 You can send us an email if you have some folks together that you want to have, you know, DeepBlockCity. 00:25:44.360 --> 00:25:47.820 Send us an email. We'll get you listed and we'll get some folks coming your way. 00:25:48.040 --> 00:25:49.500 But yeah, get in contact, join the Discord. 00:25:50.200 --> 00:25:51.660 We do have a donate link on the website. 00:25:52.140 --> 00:25:52.900 Nothing is expected. 00:25:53.150 --> 00:25:54.360 Like I said, none of us make any money. 00:25:55.780 --> 00:25:56.620 That's just the way it is. 00:25:56.720 --> 00:25:58.540 We're here because we want to change something 00:25:58.780 --> 00:26:00.440 about the future that we're going to all live in. 00:26:01.020 --> 00:26:03.060 If you had to shout out one city that's done 00:26:03.370 --> 00:26:04.540 an incredible amount of work 00:26:04.740 --> 00:26:06.340 and has made huge progress, 00:26:06.640 --> 00:26:07.300 who would you shout out? 00:26:08.120 --> 00:26:10.140 Oh boy, there are so many cities that, 00:26:10.660 --> 00:26:12.580 you know, the amount of work that people do in a city 00:26:12.700 --> 00:26:14.180 is not really commensurate with the results. 00:26:15.640 --> 00:26:17.460 Sometimes all it takes is that you have to go 00:26:17.470 --> 00:26:18.900 have a conversation with the right folks 00:26:19.280 --> 00:26:20.100 and things change. 00:26:20.160 --> 00:26:23.220 and other times you need a huge citizen movement and push. 00:26:23.280 --> 00:26:26.000 And I've even seen places where there were recall elections 00:26:26.140 --> 00:26:28.060 to get somebody out of office to tip a vote. 00:26:28.280 --> 00:26:30.100 So I wouldn't point anybody out as saying 00:26:30.140 --> 00:26:31.420 these people did the best job. 00:26:31.660 --> 00:26:32.960 I will say there have been a couple of cities 00:26:33.140 --> 00:26:35.520 that have actually banned the use of these kind of technologies, 00:26:36.060 --> 00:26:37.640 which has been super great to see. 00:26:38.240 --> 00:26:39.020 Which ones are they actually? 00:26:39.780 --> 00:26:42.140 I want to say Ypsilanti, Michigan is one of them. 00:26:42.500 --> 00:26:45.760 We have them listed on deflock.org slash council. 00:26:46.060 --> 00:26:47.420 There is a list of wins. 00:26:47.920 --> 00:26:49.360 Yeah, the Ypsilanti City Council, 00:26:49.640 --> 00:26:54.660 unanimously banned the use of ALPRs within city limits past 5-0. 00:26:55.800 --> 00:26:56.140 That's great. 00:26:56.900 --> 00:26:57.020 Yeah. 00:26:57.180 --> 00:27:00.340 So, and we've seen people talking on the state and national level as well about this. 00:27:00.420 --> 00:27:05.400 I think there was a couple of months ago, Thomas Massey and Lauren Boebert, strange bedfellows, 00:27:05.800 --> 00:27:07.940 putting out their Surveillance Accountability Act. 00:27:08.160 --> 00:27:12.120 It's probably not going anywhere, but it's great to see that there are people on the 00:27:12.360 --> 00:27:13.860 national stage who are paying attention to this. 00:27:13.880 --> 00:27:17.840 There are enough people making noise and upset about this that it's garnering attention 00:27:17.860 --> 00:27:22.640 at that level. And if we can keep the heat on and if we can keep educating people, I think we can 00:27:22.740 --> 00:27:28.000 make our voices loud enough that we see real change. Yeah, no, that's beautiful. Thank you so much for 00:27:28.200 --> 00:27:31.560 sharing everything and for the work that I know you're doing every day, especially with balancing 00:27:31.820 --> 00:27:35.880 everything else that I'm sure you're juggling. So it's much appreciated. And it's been great to have 00:27:35.880 --> 00:27:40.720 you on and learn more about it. It's been great talking anytime. Yeah, thanks, Bob. Thank you. 00:27:41.540 --> 00:27:46.400 Make sure to get involved if you can. This is still an ongoing fight. And I want to thank Bob 00:27:46.420 --> 00:27:51.200 from D-Flock for really expanding on all of these issues, covering what you guys can do about it, 00:27:51.320 --> 00:27:54.920 why he personally got invested in this. If you like these kind of discussions, of course, 00:27:55.160 --> 00:27:59.380 subscribe to Techlore Talks, give it a rating, like it, share it around with friends and family. 00:27:59.640 --> 00:28:03.040 But if you want to keep up to date with the latest threats and what's going on, 00:28:03.320 --> 00:28:06.640 make sure to follow Surveillance Report. That's where I pretty much send out a weekly newsletter 00:28:06.830 --> 00:28:11.460 for all of you to make it super easy and simple to keep up with what's going on. This stuff changes 00:28:11.980 --> 00:28:15.620 literally all the time. And so if you want to stay in the loop, that's the best way to do it. 00:28:15.820 --> 00:28:18.740 Thank you all for watching. Thank you all for taking your digital safety a little bit more 00:28:19.080 --> 00:28:22.500 seriously. And I will see you next time on Techlore. 00:28:51.620 --> 00:28:51.640 Субтитры сделал DimaTorzok