this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2026
1476 points (99.3% liked)
Technology
81709 readers
4236 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.
Specifically say you are invoking your right to silence and specifically say you are invoking your right to council.
If they continue to pester you after this, it's a violation of your rights and a lawyer will have more ammunition to defend you.
If they come back hours later and try talking to you again, you invoke them again. After a significant period of time (whatever the cop decides) they can try again to "see if you've changed your mind."
But just staying silent is not the same in the courts as invoking your right to remain silent.
People tend to want to talk and fill silence. You'll have to control your urges and learn to be comfortable in silence.
Also, don't sweat too hard because covering/uninstalling cameras like this is misdemenor-level vandalism (don't take the cameras, they cost enough to warrant felony grand theft charges).
You'll have a bond and the bond will be low enough that most bail bondsmen will bond you out on promise of payment even if you don't have someone outside ready to come get you.
If you're caught, you're looking at a few months of probation and restitution. If confronted by police, stay calm, follow orders, "I don't want to answer questions without a lawyer" and "" are all you need to say. Do that an you'll be right back home opening a gofundme in no time.
Don't do crimes though, obviously.
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.
They usually face one direction. And don't place them to watch each other afaik.
Well, that might change after this though.
Even if they do, don't be a dumbass and have your phone on you and be completely covered and approach the device via analogue method (e.g. walking, bicycle without a serial, etc).
As an aside, I’ve been toying with the following idea:
I like to refurbish bicycles for my own use. The idea I’ve had is to buy cheap Facebook marketplace / Craigslist bikes, disassemble, grind off the serial, and paint in a uniform and non identifiable (or at least less so) and reassemble, replacing wear parts. Put them into the community to use however they see fit, cheap enough to ditch without caring.
Community bikes are not a new thing. They had them in my hometown through most of my youth and teen years, and may still. I don't live there anymore. 🙁
They had a strong bike community, and a bike store and repair shop off a main ped/cycle path through town, just outside downtown. It had a lounge and was the primary source of the community bikes and their maintenance.
Paint the bikes all a similar bright color, not white, and get stickers made with info about use and contact info for pickup and repair.
Like, "I'm a community bike, use me as you like, leave me somewhere responsibly when you're done with me, so somebody else can use me too. Contact for pickup or repairs 555 RIDE 4ME"
What's the business model of the repair shop in that situation?
It's going to get picked up by a kid or a drunk guy and end up in the nearest body of water.
Thank you for that. I love it. But can I ask why paint a bright color? I would think flat black is what the current environment calls for.
The idea of a bunch of surveillance cameras watching other surveillance cameras only to prevent vandalism of the surveillance cameras…
Who watches the watcher's watcher?
it’s sorta like llm agents in a social network talking amongst themselves, innit?
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.
Wear appropriate clothing/face covering. Bring paint. Paint lenses. Then dismantle 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?
Balaclava and crowbar combo?
They're not omnidirectional. You can just walk up from behind it.
right, but you do have to approach it. I think the question is more "how are people not being tracked from blocks away"
Use Deflock maps to avoid them. Ride a bike. My city is full of rogue natural trails so I can get around pretty easy without coming across them. Even if I did I have an indistinct bike with no logos. Typical balaclava, hat, sunglasses, etc.
Yep, that's the direction I was thinking. The whole point of these cameras is to track people, including you, meaning that they can track everyone in the area before and after a camera is destroyed. It seems to me that the logical time to destroy a camera is when few other people are arround to stop/witness someone destroying a camera, but that also means there are few people to track and therefore it's easier to single out whoever did it.
Dress like an ice agent (but only for a brief moment please)
You mean wear something generic, unidentifiable and add some body armor?
Yeah but skip the axe body spray so people know you aren't really an ice agent.
Uhhhh I think the better question is how are they?