[MrDrMcCoy]

Better yet, dismantle them without harm and send them back with no return address. Reduces what you can be charged with, prevents Flock from getting insurance benefits, and is all the more frustrating for them to deal with.

> I found this on the side of the road and thought you might want it back.

[ssl-3]

> Better yet, dismantle them without harm and send them back with no return address.

This definitely takes more effort than smashing them does.

> Reduces what you can be charged with,

Does it? How? There's not even a return address to show that a person sent the parts back to Flock instead of just disappearing it.

> prevents Flock from getting insurance benefits

How? The camera doesn't repair itself. It still takes money to turn a pile of camera parts into a working camera on some street corner somewhere.

> and is all the more frustrating for them to deal with.

Is it? Is corporate frustration the goal? (Is corporate frustration even possible?)

[MrDrMcCoy]

I think my choice of the word "dismantle" has caused some confusion. "Cleanly dismount, and ship back whole" is what I meant. If nothing is destroyed, they can't charge your with destruction. If the item is returned, it is not stolen. There surely will be some lesser things one could be charged with here, but I doubt they would be worth the effort and expense of a lawsuit, and unlikely to sway a jury to convict.

Frustrating them is not the goal per-se, but it feels good, and may make them consider that market as not worth the cost of maintaining a presence there.

[ssl-3]

When I take your things, I have quite clearly stolen from you. That's theft.

When I take your things and then mail them back to you, I have still stolen from you. That's still theft.

It's the taking part that constitutes theft.

---

If I instead just smash your things in-situ, then that can be a different crime like vandalism.

[cortesoft]

> If the item is returned, it is not stolen.

This isn't how the law works at all. You can absolutely still be charged with theft even if you return the item.

[MrDrMcCoy]

[Shrug] that's for the jury to decide.

[itsdavesanders]

I'd like to see some software that can be used to connect and hack them (which has been already proven possible), erase any data, then fill their memory with tons and tons of out of place images. Take real traffic images, flip them in different orientations to slow down future training, throw in nonsense, etc. Leaving them in place and making them unreliable is a better solution - they can always put up another camera.

A Little Brother solution: they want data, give them so much bad data the rest of their data becomes worthless. But it only works on a mass scale.