Cars Herman Yung Cars Herman Yung

1989 FBI surveillance van on eBay

A North Carolina man has a 1989 Dodge Ram 350 that he says he bought at police auction. This van is unique because he claims it was used as an FBI surveillance vehicle -- and it comes nearly complete with all the surveillance tech and cameras (he shows them working on the video).

Pretty amazing if this is truly an FBI surveillance van, but I'm cautious about that story because I feel like the FBI wouldn't leave the van like this for auction...right?

Anyway, you can buy this van on eBay.

Read More
New York City Herman Yung New York City Herman Yung

Video of how the NYPD's Domain Awareness System works

If you're already paranoid about NYC's increasing move towards a surveillance state, this video from 2012 certainly won't help you. It's a demonstration of the NYPD's Domain Awareness System, a highly sophisticated semi-automated toolset available to officers that ties together information from 911 operators, NYPD city cameras, Microsoft satellite maps, and lists of already-known criminals and terrorists. The system aggregates this information into relevant portions in real-time to ensure that the NYPD spends as little time as possible looking for information.

In the demonstration here, we can see how the system is able to automatically pull up live camera feeds from the area of a 911 call and also automatically pinpoint vehicle information. In addition to all of that being shown automatically, the system is also capable of filtering NYPD crime information very specifically (presumably to filter out false-positives for similar names or make of vehicles).

Overall, pretty state-of-the-art stuff. The cops really are watching you!

Read More