Attorneys for Taylor Swift are threatening legal action against the Florida college student who tracks the private jets of celebrities and public figures, including Swift.
Anyone can write a trivially simple program to analyze license plates (or even car profiles) and feed it traffic cam footage. I’ve done that for poops and giggles (never pushed since it was sketchy). Have broadband and a few medium sized computers and you can process the entirety of a state’s traffic cameras. At which point, it is trivial to track 455M4N’s '92 buick.
Where can I find live traffic cameras with high enough resolution to read license plates? I’ve only seen traffic cameras with something like 320x240 max.
You know how back in the day, Mythbusters would joke about “adding blah”? Or how a lot of chemistry and engineering youtubers won’t provide the exact specifics once they start working with a gun or something meth adjacent?
Its one of those things where if you have the basic understanding of how these systems work, you can find it pretty trivially (or work around things). And if you don’t? Then you really don’t need to know.
That’s still not the same thing because the FAA is a federal organization and you’re talking about something you can only do in certain municipalities. Traffic camera footage is not available universally and a city may not even use them.
But I also think this is something that we need to actually consider from a legal and privacy standpoint and it is a lot more complex than that.
Just because you can do something or it is even legal to do something doesn’t mean you “should”. That is why it is important to reassess laws and the like from time to time.
Anyone can write a trivially simple program to analyze license plates (or even car profiles) and feed it traffic cam footage. I’ve done that for poops and giggles (never pushed since it was sketchy). Have broadband and a few medium sized computers and you can process the entirety of a state’s traffic cameras. At which point, it is trivial to track 455M4N’s '92 buick.
Where can I find live traffic cameras with high enough resolution to read license plates? I’ve only seen traffic cameras with something like 320x240 max.
You know how back in the day, Mythbusters would joke about “adding blah”? Or how a lot of chemistry and engineering youtubers won’t provide the exact specifics once they start working with a gun or something meth adjacent?
Its one of those things where if you have the basic understanding of how these systems work, you can find it pretty trivially (or work around things). And if you don’t? Then you really don’t need to know.
That’s a lot of words to avoid saying you’re talking out your ass.
“Yeah, I could totally tell you. Honest. Promise. No I can’t because… uh… I’d have to kill you.”
That’s still not the same thing because the FAA is a federal organization and you’re talking about something you can only do in certain municipalities. Traffic camera footage is not available universally and a city may not even use them.
Hmm. Its almost like
Just because you can do something or it is even legal to do something doesn’t mean you “should”. That is why it is important to reassess laws and the like from time to time.