my neighbor hood has one right at the entrance. I make a point of flipping it off every time i pass it. Also, If you were curious how many of these violations of privacy are around you. Here you go- https://deflock.org/map
Everyone should start 3d printing faces of Epstein and take them everywhere they go
No curiosity here. I just assume I’m being monitored everywhere I go now, though I keep my phone in a faraday bag when I’m not using it, so that at least is something.
All a person can do now is manage the problem incrementally. I love the idea of people sabotaging doorbell cams though.
This is too defeatist for me. I am upset to see these all over town, but too small minded to do anything about it. I want to start something to pressure community leaders to change, but i worry that i’ll make a lot of noise then drop it like i do with everything. I’d love to join with a group.
Follow that link above. There’s a few great online communities around this. One involves keeping these camera out of places that don’t have them yet, for example.
Check out Benn Jordan and Louis Rossman on YT as they are two people spearheading this from a social standpoint. Louis specifically regularly provides links to contacting your legislators about it, including things to say to them. It’s faster and easier than you’d think to do.
A black trash bag, a roll of duct tape, and a ladder are not destructive but still very effective.
Just be aware, many of these cameras have multiple other cameras pointing at eachother. Also the map cant be trusted to show all cameras. my neighborhood alone, has at least 4 that dont show up on the map.
Multiple black trash bags, then.
Also, if you know of some that aren’t mapped (and are actually flock cameras, not city) you should add them.
On a macro scale I do think the privacy ship has sailed. Seeing the leaked illegal footage in the Guthrie case confirmed that the big tech companies are spying on us, storing the footage permanently, and leaking it to the government covertly upon request. I don’t think it’s unfair to presume that both ruling parties know and love this, which means we’re never turning back that clock.
On the local level, though, change is still eminently possible. I actually drafted an email to my HOA this morning about getting these doorbell cams banned in my building.
Yeah, I don’t think it’s reasonable to give up in the face of it.
You should make it as hard as possible for them to track you, use private OpenSource software, advocate for it and don’t be afraid if direct action, like destroying these cameras. The more people that do it, the harder it will be for them to do something about it.
Oh, I do.
I just don’t trust the majority to do anything meaningful themselves. It’s why recycling doesn’t work and why Democrats and Republicans keep getting elected. Our only power now is local.
Yup. And also we should advocate for our rights more locally. Organize with other people, raise awareness and do direct action.
I think the most effective form of resistance is relationships and new local organisations and new structures that resist the forces of the state and of capitalism.
If you are looking for some ideas, maybey you can look here or do your own research.
Can you share the email draft? How does one convince a bunch of (most likely) MAGA morons to restrict doorbell cams? They love surveillance and ICE.
Ehh then your destroying a persons property. And they might not know how bad they are.
Well, that’s actually better than I thought. I wonder if Seattle got rid of them? Home Depot (Pieces of Shit) and an Amazon building that overlooks the interstate seem to be the only ones in Seattle proper.
Seems to be an American thing only.
China and the UK lead the surveillance world.
Just gonna leave this here for anyone so inclined
Yeah I’m based in one of the highest density ALPR regions in the country, this would just be going off constantly lol
Fun fact: lots of them have exposed cables that should not be cut with a long arm pruning pole found in your grandmother’s shed.
Another thing you should never ever do: mix paint and dot3 in a handheld pressurized garden poison sprayer.
Be aware brake fluid is like antifreeze, it tastes good to animals if they don’t put bad taste in it, and kills them.
They’re dying for an honorable cause. /s
Why not?
Because that would be illegal, and advice in easy-to-acess ways to sabotage fascism should not be shared anywhere.
What would brake fluid do?
Similar to what happened in Hong Kong a few years back when the CCP introduced metal telephone poles chock full of monitoring equipment and cameras.
Offtopic, but it’s sad how all discussion about Hong Kong just slipped away into the void. I think this is the first time I’ve seen it mentioned in almost a year.
One of my friends just didn’t even remember it happening, he thought I was making it up at first.
It’s sad, but I don’t think there’s much else that can be done. I guess it’s all running how the CCP wants it now? (Or are there still protests we just don’t hear about?)
Beijing inserted candidates into the local elections, won power and passed sweeping National Security laws which allowed for mass arrests and the breaking up of pro-democracy institutions. The key people in the movement were jailed. New laws, mass arrests and detainment effectively ended protests.
TL;DR: it was crushed.
That’s a microcosm of what they want to do in Taiwan.
Hong Kong’s now just another Mainlander city… with British characteristics.
Well, the CEO did openly invite and approve of this. In his own words, Flock cameras aren’t forced on anyone. So the only logical conclusion is to destroy them if so desired.
I just learned HGTV has a Jan 7 2026 show called “Neighborhood Watch”. It’s like America’s Funniest Home Videos, but it’s all doorbell/security cameras. User-submitted, I think. I absolutely refuse to believe this was a casual idea from HGTV as they struggle to maintain viewership. There’s no way this isn’t funded by one of these companies, meant to continue making everyone comfortable with constant surveillance and increasing the desire to have constant recording devices to catch these one-off comedic moments.
Tagline: “Everywhere you go, cameras are recording. Your neighbors are watching.”
How would you take such a camera down without being spotted and tracked? Do they not look in all directions?
Not asking for all the technical details on how to take one down, just curious how so many can be taken down with so few arrests after. I guess it’s a matter of good disguises?
Leave your phone at home.
Don’t drive your own car there, and don’t get an uber.
Ride a scooter, bicycle, or walk.
Wear a dust mask, headphones (to prevent ear pattern recognition) and safety glasses.
Wear a high vis vest while working on the camera. The retro reflective strips show up as dazzling white on infrared cameras, washing out the image. It also helps make any witness assume you’re a legitimate worker
Wear dark clothing with no logos over the top of something dorky, like a white Ralph Lauren shirt and golf shorts. Ditch the dark clothing if you even sense you might be stopped on the way home.
Put duct tape on the soles of your shoes to make the shoe prints indistinct.
Wear gloves, rigger gloves are fine, latex if you have nothing else.
Work quickly, never run (unless your under disguise is a jogging outfit).
if you see a cop, security, or any person that suspects you, believe in your heart and soul that you haven’t committed a crime. Find a way to delete the act from your memory, become an innocent person in your own mind.
Emotional escalation to cop should be indifference, confusion, irritation, indignant, suspicion, and when detained or arrested, lawful but otherwise silent cooperation. That’s how innocent people behave when suspected or accused of a crime. Once detained, say nothing except your name, age, DOB, address, license number ect and “I don’t know, I need to speak to a lawyer.” Even though they will ask you a thousand questions to try to get you to implicate yourself. There is nothing you can say that will talk you out of cuffs.
Yeah, don’t say you don’t know if you do, that’s lying, which is a crime in this situation. You can answer crime related questions with questions (avoidance). But don’t do that for everything. If they push, start asking if you’re free to go. If they say no, invoke the 5th.
Don’t do their jobs for them.
Don’t answer any questions that could incriminate you. Or talk to them in general. But be polite when you do speak.
Only tell them your name or provide other required identity information. Don’t say where you are going or coming from. Don’t explain anything. Don’t tell stories. Don’t lie.
One thing missing from the list is disguising your gait/walk. I don’t know how far along they are with reconciling databases about it, but the technology to identify you by the way you walk already exists. I hear adding a pebble in your shoe helps.
Damn I knew I forgot something. Good point. I’ve also heard of wearing a different shoe on each foot, like sneaker on one foot and hiking boot on the other, both to fuss up you gate and leave even more conflicting prints.
They usually face one direction. And don’t place them to watch each other afaik.
Well, that might change after this though.
The idea of a bunch of surveillance cameras watching other surveillance cameras only to prevent vandalism of the surveillance cameras…
it’s sorta like llm agents in a social network talking amongst themselves, innit?
Who watches the watcher’s watcher?
I’ve seen them installed in pairs that watch each other. I also see them in the vicinity of store security cams or intersection cams. I don’t know of one in my area that isn’t in range of another camera.
I would wonder if it would be illegal to promote your live of the country by hanging a giant flag directly in the viewing path of the camera. Would you get arrested for being too patriotic?
Wear appropriate clothing/face covering. Bring paint. Paint lenses. Then dismantle camera.
Balaclava and crowbar combo?
They are beginning to disguise them in cones, barrels and small ones on a pole as small as rebar.
Yes, that’s why we have https://github.com/colonelpanichacks/flock-you
Just like everyone is quitting facebook, ChatGPT, and all the other things people are boycotting that seem to never have anything happen to them.
Already deleted my FB. Instagram is getting close with how many “suggested” posts they cram into my feed that should be just my friends.
Not sure the lemmy crowd is representative of the general public trends.
Most likely not.
Yeah, I was actually thinking about acquiring one myself. I want to dissect it, hook it up to some monitoring equipment/ software, see what I can learn about it… functionality, vulnerability, anything. But I’m also worried about the potential I accidentally show up on a video feed stored somewhere remote. I’ve been checking eBay for them, but honestly… there are several right by my home. We’ll see what happens, in time.
I’d recommend caution. No idea if these things have a built in GPS, but I wouldn’t be surprised considering how easy/cheap it is for electronics hobbyists to add GPS functionality to their projects. Take it home and fire it up and you may potentially be telling the gestapo right where you live.
Agreed. To do properly, you would probably want a verified screen room / faraday cage room. What they use for professional EMC testing. Might be able to jerry rig one I guess, but you’d want to test it for leaks if personal safety is on the line.
Thank you for saying “jerry rig” and not “jury rig”. I
looselose my shit everytime I “hear it”.Why would you get upset at jury rig? It’s the original term and older than jerry rig.
I always thought “jury-rig” was a nautical term that fell out of use centuries ago and has only reappeared because some people who heard the phrase “jerry-rigged” and were not familiar with the word “jerry” thought they must have said “jury”. Meh, wouldn’t be the first time I didn’t know what I was talking about.
They’ve already been analyzed and their security is atrocious. It’s ancient android nonsense. It’s theoretically possible to break into the wirelessly, that’s how bad these are.
The whole thing is about grabbing as much data as fast as thy can. There’s damn near nothing keeping it restricted or secure. Might as well be an open IP cam on the internet.
A city near me has installed a device that tracks vehicles based on their tpms (Tire Pressure Monitoring System) sensors.
All cars after 2008 in the US have TPMS. Inside the tire, integrated with the vale stem, are little pressure sensors with a radio that broadcasts on the 315Mhz band. Each one uses a slightly different frequency so that your vehicle can tell which of the four tires is low.
So each vehicle in the US made after 2008 has four unique radio signals being broadcast from it, and now there are police departments with equipment that can track those signals, and can assign each car a signature based on the frequencies the sensors are broadcasting on.
Good.
Heartwarming.
I vandalized my own Ring cameras. It didn’t feel right to resell them just so they can spy on me from someone else’s front porch.
Would a pellet gun be powerful enough to damage the lens from a distance?
The answer is almost certainly, but the followup question is how much pellet gun?
Some of them certainly are. You can also get air rifles with built in “moderators” (i.e. suppressors) that are surprisingly quiet. Precharged pneumatic air rifles can be very powerful and also extremely accurate. I have a relatively cheap Hatsan that can, provided I’m using pellets that it likes, repeatably put pellets through the same hole in my target from as far away as I can get from it in my yard (probably about 20 yards) and do so about 30 times in succession before I have to pump it back up again. Its built in moderator makes it quiet enough at the muzzle that the sound of the hammer hitting the gas valve is actually louder than the report from firing.
Watch out: Researching this type of thing may send you tumbling down the rabbit hole of big bore air rifles and entice you to spend a lot of money. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…
Big bore pcp air guns - for those who like things that go fwump.
Oh man. Silent rifle that can damage those cameras from 20 yards. Wow.
Hm… Does anyone know if the glass it uses is tough like gorilla glass?
How about a nice coat of paint or a nice coat of rhino liner.
This is 'muricha you can use 9mm \s
