If Flock truly believed that the domain name infringes on their trademark, they would file an ICANN UDRP complaint instead of Cloudflare and Hetzner abuse reports.
But they don't, because the former would require them to perjure themselves, and the latter just requires them to lie to a hosting company.
Cloudflare would have to bring that suit since they were the ones defrauded. The site owners probably can't sue Cloudflare because of their contract. So the site owners probably have to go basic "tortious interference" and be ready to show actual damages.
No, if the site owners have been harmed by Flock + Cyble knowingly filing a false takedown notice then they can sue Flock + Cyble. If Cloudflare's reputation has also been harmed then they could sue Flock + Cyble as well.
The local credit union in Eugene had installed Flock cams at the entrances to all their branches. They took em down after only a few of our community members began protests out front a few branches and emailing with the CU's leadership before our city terminated our contract and removed the cams
> The site’s only input fields accept license plate numbers (which are hashed client-side before transmission and cannot be harvested)
License plates are trivially short, hashing them accomplishes no additional level of privacy if the hashes could be bruted in seconds on an antique GPU.
Being able to say "Our server never sees user-input license plate numbers", even though from a technical perspective the hash is just as identifiable, does have value. Even though it offers no additional privacy, it does let non-technically-minded users and so on feel safer, and that's valuable.
If these folks get in trouble, they might try hosting with Freedom.nl . It's +/- the old xs4all crew, and they might be in for some more fun in the 21st century.
dang/tomhow, does Y Combinator have a code of ethics that comes into play when one of your funding recipients does something unethical and/or illegal like this?
So these are the scumbags putting cameras in front of schools and sending tickets to people on Sundays. Thank you for making peoples lives materially WORSE.
Absolutely unacceptable behavior. Wild that Americans are so distracted by pointless social issues that they haven’t even realized the ruling elite are treating them like cattle. Absolutely pathetic.
the fact that these majority do accept the distraction points to lack of intelligence and discipline in critical thinking and future planning. The populous has half the blame - not just those who do these manufacturing of distractions.
That's an easy trap to fall in. This industry costs trillions every year to operate for a reason. The people never really stood a chance. It's not as if school educated them to live in the world we actually inhabit.
People with advanced degrees accumulate in those specific states, despite not significantly different rates of HS graduation from other states.
Smart people, as measured by educational attainment, live in the NE coastal states and exceptionally stupid people (by the same metric) live in the South and Midwest. As a guy from Iowa, I was offended, but humbled by the reality of the numbers.
Remember when Zuck called his fellow students at harvard who used facebook “Dumb fucks”? The US is accelerating into techno-authoritarianism, and all of these tech companies adopted “companies over countries” motto since the start, it’s not a surprise now.
it is fairly evident that contextualisation is paramount in objectively assessing a situation ... in the context of having god like power over billions , it seems entirely moot to debate the merits of why such a god like individual would label his subjects as idiots ...
The context is given, it’s all about users’ data. facebook, google, plantir, flock, you name it, the end goal is to harvest data as much as possible to sell it, profile the individuals, manipulate the public opinion (facebook did a mood-manipulation “experiment” back in 2012, you can only imagine now in the era of social media dependency and AI), invade people’s privacy, among many other things. Now add to that mix a mandatory digital ID, and let’s hear what these CEOs will call the public behind closed doors, I’m sure it’s worse than “dumb fucks”. Fun fact: Zuck early days business card printed with “I’M THE CEO, BITCH.”
In the sense that the US has been anti-intellectualist for decades, I'm kind of ok with it. All the kids who fucked around in school and picked on the nerds for just existing are kind of getting their comeuppance. It's definitely cut off your nose to spite your face type shit, but does give me a little bit of joy. "You stuffed me in a locker and destroyed my social life because I read a book at lunch. I'm going to automate your job away and help billionaires make sure you'll never rise out of poverty."
All the kids who fucked around in school and picked on the nerds for just existing are running the government. Not sure this is the win you're painting it as?
I don't think "the nerds" are really dishing out much comeuppance here.
Professionally, they're marginalized by finance-bros, who actually decide what gets built and which morals get followed. Privately, everything you might want to repair or tweak or invent is still getting locked down or patented or criminalized.
How much does food and electricity cost you (if the electricity is even on for you at all)? Also, uh, this isn't high school anymore, and the "nerds vs. jocks" framing says a lot more about your own internal state than it does about the state of the world, which is being run into the ground by wealthy oligarchs. If you have bad high school memories to process, that can be done elsewhere.
They don't actually allege anything. They add in the keywords without going so far as to say "this website is doing X." It's enough to trip the keyword filters at Cloudflare and other hosting providers and reverse the burden of proof.
Problem is they have way more money to fight and that’s basically their whole playbook. I was caught up in a fraudulent libel claim that had to settle* back in the Twitter days. When those companies want to come after you, it’s really hard to fight back.
* no money was exchanged just some guarantees to not disclose their client and remove tweets.
But they don't, because the former would require them to perjure themselves, and the latter just requires them to lie to a hosting company.
But I think the real issue with Flock will be private security. Random Home Depot parking lots, etc.
https://www.29news.com/2025/12/17/charlottesville-ends-flock...
License plates are trivially short, hashing them accomplishes no additional level of privacy if the hashes could be bruted in seconds on an antique GPU.
I think it'd sound pretty dumb.
https://haveibeenflocked.com/news/cyble-part2
I don't support this decision but I respect it.
Curious what the Cloudflare HNers have to say about this debacle.
dang/tomhow, does Y Combinator have a code of ethics that comes into play when one of your funding recipients does something unethical and/or illegal like this?
To HN's credit I haven't seen this rule violated.
For example I wouldn't have known it was a YC company if not for your comment.
Well, that’s what dang says he does. There’s no transparency and no publicly available data that would demonstrate adherence to the rule.
> To HN's credit I haven't seen this rule violated.
I don’t think you’d observe anything different if it were violated.
* how I will now always refer to them
the fact that these majority do accept the distraction points to lack of intelligence and discipline in critical thinking and future planning. The populous has half the blame - not just those who do these manufacturing of distractions.
Flock does this well in terms of bios spinlock releases, whereas a secure measure is stress-testing network traffic.
There is a tonne of civic action against Flock, specifically, in the works, in many cases with successful results.
Not much I can do about that over here in the coastal Northeast.
said without an ounce irony as the proverbial rug is yanked right out from under your feet
I'm still offended though.
Fucking a lot of smart people in Mass., Vermont, Conn., New York, Maryland, DC.
Smart people, as measured by educational attainment, live in the NE coastal states and exceptionally stupid people (by the same metric) live in the South and Midwest. As a guy from Iowa, I was offended, but humbled by the reality of the numbers.
Professionally, they're marginalized by finance-bros, who actually decide what gets built and which morals get followed. Privately, everything you might want to repair or tweak or invent is still getting locked down or patented or criminalized.
* no money was exchanged just some guarantees to not disclose their client and remove tweets.