Proton hosts Flock map revealing over 300,000 cameras, defying cease-and-desist threats against creator — privacy-focused company hosts site on Swiss servers
says users have the right to know who’s recording them
https://www.tomshardware.com/software/maps/proton-hosts-flock-map-revealing-over-300-000-cameras-defying-cease-and-desist-threats-against-creator-privacy-focused-company-hosts-site-on-swiss-servers-says-users-have-the-right-to-know-whos-recording-themOpen linkView original on feddit.uk
11 replies
its nice and all.. but why arent they working with mapquest to host a live version instead of a one-year old snapshot?
id think timeliness and veracity matters in these kinds of maps
Because it is only a PR gig. Look at all the news. It is working. No one gives a shit if the data is correct. Sad shit show
The only reason we have this snapshot is because of that leaked API token. Flock has since patched that screw up.
ahh so likely mapquest isnt sharing its data.
No.
These are two separate datasets, where one (OSM) is unofficial, incomplete, and volunteer-made while another is the official data as of November 2025.
There are pros and cons to each, but what Proton is trying to fight is that Flock has sent a cease-and-desist to the person who published the leaked data.
cool, very interesting.
its 2026... no reason these cant be merged (conceptually). lets work together people!
To be absolutely, 100% clear, do not go to the leaked Flock map and start plopping down cameras in OpenStreetMap where the leak says they are.
OpenStreetMap uses the Open Database License (ODL), which is a very permissive copyright license. Because the people who maintain it want it to be widely usable. The leaked map, on the other hand, is illegally obtained proprietary data. You might think you're helping, but you're in fact polluting the dataset and showing immense disrespect for the people who actually go out and work to survey/use datasets with compatible licenses. If you're wanting to help with ALPRs specifically, I again highly recommend checking out DeFlock which heavily streamlines this.
If you want to look at the leaked data to decide on places to survey (either in-person or via compatible street-level imagery like on Mapillary) and use that survey as your source, that's your prerogative. It's also easy to simply note down ALPRs you see in your day-to-day-life and see if they're already present on the map.
Otherwise, though, please don't bother. It's about as respectful (maybe even less so) as making a documentation PR to an open-source project where all you did is run it through an AI for a rewrite. If we wanted that, we would simply have done it ourselves already.
why the fuck would you dirty the og datasets wtafiwwy??
Sorry, I got the impression that this is what you might've been referring to (or what someone else would've read it as) when you called for merging the two datasets.
Edit: To clarify, I've seen my fair share of people on Wikipedia in my day whose first instinct is that this Wikipedia article would be so much better if they just plagiarized it from somewhere else. I've been traumatized too many times; nothing against you specifically.
Mapquest is likely using this same dataset and mixing it with what's available in OSM, unless they have some reporting service.