10 ms·

1. Alice installs app on smartphone. Alice puts smartphone in cradle on dashboard. Smartphone captures license plates Alice drives by on way to work. Alice d

by eck 11y ago

1. Alice installs app on smartphone. Alice puts smartphone in cradle on dashboard. Smartphone captures license plates Alice drives by on way to work. Alice drives by Bob. 2. Carol goes to website. Carol enters Bob's license plate number. Website says, "25 hits found. Enter credit card number to see times and locations". Carol enters credit card. Carol finds Bob. 3. Alice gets some of Carol's money, since she took the photos. Why is that not a thing yet? License plate reading, unlike, say, tapping undersea fiber, is not something you need either a government's resources or a government's ability to skirt the law to do. This is easy stuff.

fixermark 11y ago
That will end up becoming an interesting court case, followed by a set of laws, followed by a court case, until such a thing is almost certainly illegal (in the United States), by pressure of societal desire alone. One could do something similar with facial recognition software, but if someone tried to make a large business out of it, I'm sure there would be significant friction.
- redstripe 11y ago
  Which is why it should be done in the most outrageous fashion by someone who cares about privacy. Maybe that's what is needed to get people to realize just what the next decade or two have in store.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    You're trying to get the frog to jump out of the pot before it is too late but you're underestimating the degree to which it has already become drowsy.
- balabaster 11y ago
  there may be significant friction and even laws against it, but the government, behind closed doors would pay you a significant sum for your company to continue doing it and I would wager would lobby the government to pass bills to not only make it legal, but protect its legality.
joering2 11y ago
It's already been done. PIs, LE and insurance companies utilizes data of a few companies that have scanners all around US; it's just not a social thing at the moment because when most drive they either text or check email or browse net or listen to the music. Dashcams are still not popular here but the services like you mention could be a huge hit in Russia when dashcams are extremely popular. Here only few would actually go into lengths to set it up on their dashboard and be capturing licenses with the hope to make a dollar. Good start to read more: http://consumerist.com/2014/03/05/the-repo-man-might-be-scanning-your-cars-license-plate-and-location-selling-the-data/ http://consumerist.com/2014/03/05/the-repo-man-might-be-scan...
- Kronopath 11y ago
  Exactly right. This isn't a hypothetical. This is already being done by repo companies. Here's another link: http://www.betaboston.com/news/2014/03/05/a-vast-hidden-surveillance-network-runs-across-america-powered-by-the-repo-industry/ http://www.betaboston.com/news/2014/03/05/a-vast-hidden-surv...
elevensies 11y ago
I'm sure there are various tracking networks that track browsing across websites, it is sort of a logical extension. UPS or Fedex could easily build out a big tracking network.
- emidln 11y ago
  This is trivial to do for a number of feedback/analytics/cdn/socialnetwork companies. Basically, the people who have JS living on large swaths of the web. There are some names you sorta expect (Facebook, Google, Twitter) and other names like Mixpanel, Foresee, Opinionlab, Survey Monkey that might not be as obvious. It would be pretty easy for a Foresee to deliver a customer profile aligned on verticals in near real-time to clients based on data their network captures from major websites around the world.
orik 11y ago
The value proposition for the user is very weak - too weak to get people to spy on each other. What are the odds that I'm going to get a payout? That someone out there is interested and willing to pay for one of the license plates I've seen? Probably very low. Do I really want to waste my smartphone battery doing this? I'd rather have maps and music on.
- beamatronic 11y ago
  That's why you would pay the drivers to run this app. Then via the Long Tail, they could get royalties every time the data they collected is re-sold.
  - anigbrowl 11y ago
    This might work for fleet purchases, but the economics for individual motorists don't look favorable.
  - Retra 11y ago
    You would spend more charging your phone than you would get from the service.
- eck 11y ago
  > What are the odds that I'm going to get a payout? The expected value of slot machines is negative too. Humans have a psychological weakness for "Just one more, I haven't won in a while, I'm due." In this case though it wouldn't even cost money to play.
  - shortstuffsushi 11y ago
    The expected value of slot machines is negative, but there is that slight chance of making a significant amount of money. That sort of "lottery odds" behavior doesn't really work here, imo.
    - rsuelzer 11y ago
josu 11y ago
I believe that in many European countries the data protection laws offer a certain degree of protection against this.
Torgo 11y ago
>Alice installs app on smartphone. Alice puts smartphone in cradle on dashboard. I tried this, but camera phones are (currently) too terrible. I would be curious if anybody more skilled than me (I'm just tinkering) could make it work.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  Not all cameras in all phones are too terrible, that said having done the experiment, I found it is much easier to do license plate extraction from a video rather than from some sort of stills. Using an off the shelf "GoPro equivalent" on the dash of my car, post processing the video for plates was relatively straight forward with OCV[1] and now that I think of it, would make for an excellent tutorial on the technology. Were I to do it again I would provide a copy of GPS co-ordinates on the screen to make it a bit easier to tie the two together. For me the interesting bit I was trying to figure out was this technique (car mounted) gave you license plate 'segments' which is to say the car in front of you may have been there for two blocks and then turned right giving you a segment that was two blocks long with a right turn at the end. If you had multiple subscribers, then you could match that segment up with a segment from another vehicle and then interpolate the path of any observed plate through an urban area. Since the general color and shape of the car is trackable, you can actually create a number of segments for different cars if you've captured their plate at any time, and if you manage 'untagged' segments (cars seen but you have yet to see a plate for) then you can add those as well. Needless to say, the taller vehicles are a "win" here for more complete surveillance. [1] http://opencv.org/ http://opencv.org/
  - Torgo 11y ago
    I was also using opencv, but I had a ton of trouble getting clean video from a couple different cellphones and a tablet (lot of blurring from movement) and was putting off buying a gopro to try. This is great info, thank you. Some commercial units apparently have tail-light detection to narrow down scanning for plates.
    - karambahh 11y ago
ctdonath 11y ago
Mistake is #2. Don't make people search for the info, give it to them without friction. "Pay" them by providing more info. Real money would be in paid data mining. Add ability to comment on other drivers. "Idiot cut me off!!!" turns into automatic notification when any instance of the app sees that plate ("Warning: 8 reports of risky behavior for vehicle"). Include automatic marking of "seen before" ("augmented familiarity").
- karambahh 11y ago
  I think you actually have a fundable idea there. You've also accidentally found a very interesting side business model for Mapillary. (except that afaik they've done considerable amount of work on actually detecting and blurring license plates, so I guess Peter would rather sink Mapillary than entering this business ;-) )
  - bwilliams18 11y ago
    I think the actual reading of the plates is a much harder problem than "Smartphone captures license plates" otherwise, I concur, fundable.
    - xai3luGi 11y ago
      There are a number of open source libraries for this. Here is one: http://www.openalpr.com/ http://www.openalpr.com/
      - telmnstr 11y ago
        Eh, recognizing state versus state has to be difficult. Can't rely on color.
  - meric 11y ago
    Could work in Russia, massive existing installed base of dashboard cameras.
    - 11y ago
downandout 11y ago
Maybe tie the the back end into repossession company databases. Have the user turn it on when in parking lots and they get a commission when found. A local repo service is instantly alerted with GPS coordinates whenever there is a hit. The app could even alert them to stop and observe until the repo company gets there. Certainly not a mass consumer thing, just like most people won't become Uber drivers, but some people would do it and there is potential for making decent money.
onewaystreet 11y ago
This is already being done by companies and police forces using their own vehicles. It's more efficient than outsourcing it through an app because cameras mounted on the roof of a vehicle can scan license plates in 360 degrees.
- basseq 11y ago
  This is very common with towing, repossession, or "recovery" companies, who can drive around with automated cameras looking for "hits": cars with repo orders. Companies (ex: Digital Recognition Network [DRN]) sell cameras, provide a database of "wanted" vehicles, and collect the incoming scans—which they also turn around and sell. DRN "claims to collect plate scans of 40 percent of all US vehicles annually." You don't need to crowdsource because there's already a critical mass of users willing to pay YOU for the privilege of collecting information. Read More: http://www.betaboston.com/news/2014/03/05/a-vast-hidden-surveillance-network-runs-across-america-powered-by-the-repo-industry/ http://www.betaboston.com/news/2014/03/05/a-vast-hidden-surv...
jhayward 11y ago
There are a lot of business models in crowdsourced image data. For instance, Google could give away high resolution dashboard cameras in return for the right to use the video for ground truth data. With sufficient intelligence onboard higher-level information like signage, license plates, or even faces could be uploaded on demand. You'd probably even be able to bundle an insurance premium discount in.
GoodIntentions 11y ago
>Why is that not a thing yet? Seems sort of like crowd-sourcing data that would be used to infringe on the freedoms and happiness of people without restraint beyond "did the payment clear?" Count me out, thanks.
- possibilistic 11y ago
  Sadly, I do not think your willing participation would a requirement. This seems like the sort of thing that would be imposed upon you by the sheer force of adoption.
rmc 11y ago
In the EU, that's illegal under the Data Privacy Directive.

by eck 11y ago

fixermark 11y ago

That will end up becoming an interesting court case, followed by a set of laws, followed by a court case, until such a thing is almost certainly illegal (in the United States), by pressure of societal desire alone. One could do something similar with facial recognition software, but if someone tried to make a large business out of it, I'm sure there would be significant friction.

redstripe 11y ago
Which is why it should be done in the most outrageous fashion by someone who cares about privacy. Maybe that's what is needed to get people to realize just what the next decade or two have in store.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  You're trying to get the frog to jump out of the pot before it is too late but you're underestimating the degree to which it has already become drowsy.
balabaster 11y ago
there may be significant friction and even laws against it, but the government, behind closed doors would pay you a significant sum for your company to continue doing it and I would wager would lobby the government to pass bills to not only make it legal, but protect its legality.

joering2 11y ago

It's already been done. PIs, LE and insurance companies utilizes data of a few companies that have scanners all around US; it's just not a social thing at the moment because when most drive they either text or check email or browse net or listen to the music. Dashcams are still not popular here but the services like you mention could be a huge hit in Russia when dashcams are extremely popular. Here only few would actually go into lengths to set it up on their dashboard and be capturing licenses with the hope to make a dollar. Good start to read more: http://consumerist.com/2014/03/05/the-repo-man-might-be-scanning-your-cars-license-plate-and-location-selling-the-data/ http://consumerist.com/2014/03/05/the-repo-man-might-be-scan...

Kronopath 11y ago
Exactly right. This isn't a hypothetical. This is already being done by repo companies. Here's another link: http://www.betaboston.com/news/2014/03/05/a-vast-hidden-surveillance-network-runs-across-america-powered-by-the-repo-industry/ http://www.betaboston.com/news/2014/03/05/a-vast-hidden-surv...

elevensies 11y ago

I'm sure there are various tracking networks that track browsing across websites, it is sort of a logical extension. UPS or Fedex could easily build out a big tracking network.

emidln 11y ago
This is trivial to do for a number of feedback/analytics/cdn/socialnetwork companies. Basically, the people who have JS living on large swaths of the web. There are some names you sorta expect (Facebook, Google, Twitter) and other names like Mixpanel, Foresee, Opinionlab, Survey Monkey that might not be as obvious. It would be pretty easy for a Foresee to deliver a customer profile aligned on verticals in near real-time to clients based on data their network captures from major websites around the world.

orik 11y ago

The value proposition for the user is very weak - too weak to get people to spy on each other. What are the odds that I'm going to get a payout? That someone out there is interested and willing to pay for one of the license plates I've seen? Probably very low. Do I really want to waste my smartphone battery doing this? I'd rather have maps and music on.

beamatronic 11y ago
That's why you would pay the drivers to run this app. Then via the Long Tail, they could get royalties every time the data they collected is re-sold.
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  This might work for fleet purchases, but the economics for individual motorists don't look favorable.
- Retra 11y ago
  You would spend more charging your phone than you would get from the service.
eck 11y ago
> What are the odds that I'm going to get a payout? The expected value of slot machines is negative too. Humans have a psychological weakness for "Just one more, I haven't won in a while, I'm due." In this case though it wouldn't even cost money to play.
- shortstuffsushi 11y ago
  The expected value of slot machines is negative, but there is that slight chance of making a significant amount of money. That sort of "lottery odds" behavior doesn't really work here, imo.
  - rsuelzer 11y ago

josu 11y ago

I believe that in many European countries the data protection laws offer a certain degree of protection against this.

Torgo 11y ago

>Alice installs app on smartphone. Alice puts smartphone in cradle on dashboard. I tried this, but camera phones are (currently) too terrible. I would be curious if anybody more skilled than me (I'm just tinkering) could make it work.

ChuckMcM 11y ago
Not all cameras in all phones are too terrible, that said having done the experiment, I found it is much easier to do license plate extraction from a video rather than from some sort of stills. Using an off the shelf "GoPro equivalent" on the dash of my car, post processing the video for plates was relatively straight forward with OCV[1] and now that I think of it, would make for an excellent tutorial on the technology. Were I to do it again I would provide a copy of GPS co-ordinates on the screen to make it a bit easier to tie the two together. For me the interesting bit I was trying to figure out was this technique (car mounted) gave you license plate 'segments' which is to say the car in front of you may have been there for two blocks and then turned right giving you a segment that was two blocks long with a right turn at the end. If you had multiple subscribers, then you could match that segment up with a segment from another vehicle and then interpolate the path of any observed plate through an urban area. Since the general color and shape of the car is trackable, you can actually create a number of segments for different cars if you've captured their plate at any time, and if you manage 'untagged' segments (cars seen but you have yet to see a plate for) then you can add those as well. Needless to say, the taller vehicles are a "win" here for more complete surveillance. [1] http://opencv.org/ http://opencv.org/
- Torgo 11y ago
  I was also using opencv, but I had a ton of trouble getting clean video from a couple different cellphones and a tablet (lot of blurring from movement) and was putting off buying a gopro to try. This is great info, thank you. Some commercial units apparently have tail-light detection to narrow down scanning for plates.
  - karambahh 11y ago

ctdonath 11y ago

Mistake is #2. Don't make people search for the info, give it to them without friction. "Pay" them by providing more info. Real money would be in paid data mining. Add ability to comment on other drivers. "Idiot cut me off!!!" turns into automatic notification when any instance of the app sees that plate ("Warning: 8 reports of risky behavior for vehicle"). Include automatic marking of "seen before" ("augmented familiarity").

karambahh 11y ago
I think you actually have a fundable idea there. You've also accidentally found a very interesting side business model for Mapillary. (except that afaik they've done considerable amount of work on actually detecting and blurring license plates, so I guess Peter would rather sink Mapillary than entering this business ;-) )
- bwilliams18 11y ago
  I think the actual reading of the plates is a much harder problem than "Smartphone captures license plates" otherwise, I concur, fundable.
  - xai3luGi 11y ago
    There are a number of open source libraries for this. Here is one: http://www.openalpr.com/ http://www.openalpr.com/
    - telmnstr 11y ago
      Eh, recognizing state versus state has to be difficult. Can't rely on color.
- meric 11y ago
  Could work in Russia, massive existing installed base of dashboard cameras.
  - 11y ago

downandout 11y ago

Maybe tie the the back end into repossession company databases. Have the user turn it on when in parking lots and they get a commission when found. A local repo service is instantly alerted with GPS coordinates whenever there is a hit. The app could even alert them to stop and observe until the repo company gets there. Certainly not a mass consumer thing, just like most people won't become Uber drivers, but some people would do it and there is potential for making decent money.

onewaystreet 11y ago

This is already being done by companies and police forces using their own vehicles. It's more efficient than outsourcing it through an app because cameras mounted on the roof of a vehicle can scan license plates in 360 degrees.

basseq 11y ago
This is very common with towing, repossession, or "recovery" companies, who can drive around with automated cameras looking for "hits": cars with repo orders. Companies (ex: Digital Recognition Network [DRN]) sell cameras, provide a database of "wanted" vehicles, and collect the incoming scans—which they also turn around and sell. DRN "claims to collect plate scans of 40 percent of all US vehicles annually." You don't need to crowdsource because there's already a critical mass of users willing to pay YOU for the privilege of collecting information. Read More: http://www.betaboston.com/news/2014/03/05/a-vast-hidden-surveillance-network-runs-across-america-powered-by-the-repo-industry/ http://www.betaboston.com/news/2014/03/05/a-vast-hidden-surv...

jhayward 11y ago

There are a lot of business models in crowdsourced image data. For instance, Google could give away high resolution dashboard cameras in return for the right to use the video for ground truth data. With sufficient intelligence onboard higher-level information like signage, license plates, or even faces could be uploaded on demand. You'd probably even be able to bundle an insurance premium discount in.

GoodIntentions 11y ago

>Why is that not a thing yet? Seems sort of like crowd-sourcing data that would be used to infringe on the freedoms and happiness of people without restraint beyond "did the payment clear?" Count me out, thanks.

possibilistic 11y ago
Sadly, I do not think your willing participation would a requirement. This seems like the sort of thing that would be imposed upon you by the sheer force of adoption.

rmc 11y ago

In the EU, that's illegal under the Data Privacy Directive.