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Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

alpr.watch

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

1. Challenges in Scraping Public Government Meeting Data

Users highlight fragmented platforms like Granicus/Legistar lacking unified APIs, relying on custom crawlers, yt-dlp, RSS, FOIA, and LLMs for extraction/transcription.
"tptacek: A huge number of municipalities all share the same tech stack: Granicus/Legistar. You can pull the agendas and minutes... From captioning information you can Whisper-transcribe..."
"phildini: Granicus is six providers in a trench coat... Legistar and CivicClerk have actual APIs... My experiments with using LLMs to write crawlers... has been extremely mixed."

2. ALPR Efficacy for Crime Reduction vs. Surveillance Risks

Proponents argue ALPR/Flock combats vehicle-related crime (stolen cars, no plates) enabling targeted enforcement without profiling; critics fear mass tracking, police abuse, and authoritarianism.
"jeffbee: 'Massive database of vehicles' is the best hope... If the only tactic the police knew was to pull over every Infiniti with tinted windows and no plates, the crime rate would drop to zero."
"kyboren: ...we'll end up sleepwalking into AI tyranny... turning our society into a panopticon..."
"kortex: ...why stop there? ...Lets put alpr on every Waymo and Tesla. Gait detection... face recognition on every Ring... name our panopticon... like a palantir."

3. Grassroots Efforts to Oppose ALPR Deployment

Successes in canceling Flock contracts via transparency reports, oversight, and activism in places like Oak Park IL, but proliferation elsewhere persists.
"sodality2: It’s so awesome to see more people making things to fight back against ALPRs. Deflock movements are gaining traction..."
"tptacek: Work I was involved in was instrumental in getting our Flock contract cancelled... Transparency reports... tell a dismal story about their utility..."

🚀 Project Ideas

CivicScraper: The "Universal Adapter" for Municipal Agendas

Summary

  • A framework of robust, resilient scrapers specifically designed for the "six providers in a trench coat" (Granicus, Legistar, IQM2, etc.) that power local government websites.
  • It solves the problem of "tripped" APIs and non-standardized data structures by using LLM-assisted crawling to handle weird pagination and PDF-heavy workflows.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Open-source contributors, journalists, and civic tech developers
Core Feature Standardized JSON output from fragmented municipal portals
Tech Stack Python, Playwright, Instructor (LLM structured data), or Claude MCP
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue-ready: B2B API access for law firms/developers

Notes

  • HN users noted that "even the ones that do have an API are sometimes misconfigured" and scrapers must be "written by hand" to handle the fragmentation of Granicus derivatives.
  • This creates the foundational layer for all other civic monitoring tools.

BeatBot: Automated Local Beat Reporter

Summary

  • An LLM-powered monitoring service that classifies municipal agenda items into topical buckets (e.g., "pensions," "surveillance," "public safety").
  • It solves the "noise" problem in public records by alerting users only when high-intent keywords or specific policy shifts occur.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Local activists, lobbyists, and community organizers
Core Feature Semantic alerting and automated meeting summarization
Tech Stack simonw’s LLM tool, GPT-4o/Claude, SQLite
Difficulty Low
Monetization Revenue-ready: Subscription-based alerts (SaaS)

Notes

  • Inspired by tptacek’s use case: "pass each agenda item to GPT-4o to classify them into topical buckets... tying them back to votes."
  • Solves the frustration of "search context being hard" due to unstructured text data.

TransparencyAudit: Automated Efficacy Reporting

Summary

  • A tool that cross-references police department "transparency logs" with actual crime outcomes to see if technologies like ALPR are delivering on their promises.
  • It provides the "true story" needed to challenge contracts during municipal renewal sessions.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience City Council members and Police Oversight Commissions
Core Feature Automated PDF parsing of PD logs vs. public crime stats
Tech Stack Python (Pandas), DocumentCloud API, R/Shiny for visualization
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • tptacek highlighted that "transparency reporting requirements... formed the case for killing the contract because it wasn't addressing real crime."
  • This product automates the "dismal story" needed for evidence-based policy.

PrivacyFirst NVR: Edge-Inference Security

Summary

  • A private-by-default Network Video Recorder (NVR) that uses local edge compute for object detection (people, cars) without uploading data to the cloud.
  • It directly competes with Ring/Nest by keeping the "data lake" on-premise and under the owner's control.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Privacy-conscious homeowners and "de-Flockers"
Core Feature Local YOLOv8 inference with end-to-end encrypted remote access
Tech Stack Frigate, Go2RTC, Coral TPU or integrated iGPU (YOLOv8)
Difficulty High
Monetization Revenue-ready: Hardware sales or "Pro" software license

Notes

  • Users expressed deep frustration with the "proliferation of surveillance devices" and local data being "uploaded and analyzed by various security companies."
  • Directly addresses the "Ring" problem mentioned by multiple commenters.

Sousveillance Mark: Public Camera Mapper (AR)

Summary

  • A mobile app or WebGL map that allows users to tag the location of ALPRs and CCTV cameras using their phone's GPS and camera.
  • It turns "passive recording" into a visible, public data layer to map the "panopticon."

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Civil liberty advocates and privacy activists
Core Feature Geotagged photo uploads with automated camera type classification
Tech Stack React Native, MapLibre, TensorFlow.js (for camera ID)
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • HN users wants to "track the trackers" and noted that "people can see the devices themselves... on rural roads in the middle of nowhere."
  • This gamifies the "deflock.me" concept and makes it community-driven.

FOIA-as-a-Service: Automated Public Records Requestor

Summary

  • A platform that automatically generates and tracks FOIA/Public Records Act requests for municipal meeting videos and ALPR contracts.
  • It handles the "bureaucratic friction" of dealing with local clerks who make data hard to get.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Investigative journalists and curious residents
Core Feature Templated request generation and automated follow-up tracking
Tech Stack MuckRock API integration, Node.js, SendGrid
Difficulty Low
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • Commenters noted that "public meeting video can be captured using yt-dlp (and if not made public, obtained with a FOIA request)."
  • This tool lowers the barrier for "regular people" to get the "actual data" which ChrisbyMe noted was "the hardest part."

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