check too: https://www.atlasofsurveillance.org/

https://www.stopkillingtheinternet.com/

see also : https://www.techradar.com/tech/hackers-found-flock-cameras-can-track-more-than-just-cars-and-boston-officials-found-camera-data-was-shared-despite-being-told-it-wouldnt-be

404media.co Hackers Stole Flock’s Camera Software, Revealing How the Company Tracks Cars and People Joseph Cox 11–13 minutes

This article was produced in collaboration with WIRED. You can read their version of the article here.

Hackers ripped down a Flock camera above a roadway, made a near-complete copy of the data stored inside it, and shared the files with 404 Media and WIRED, revealing in new detail how exactly Flock Safety’s cameras track the movements of both vehicles and people. The hackers say they are also publishing details on how they managed to obtain the software, in the hopes that other people may copy them.

The breach provides an unprecedented look inside a system that Flock has described as protected by on-device encryption. The hackers were able to copy the camera’s storage and recover an encryption key stored on the device, which unlocked videos of thousands of vehicle detections. The hackers shared the material with 404 Media and the transparency nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets, which shared the data with WIRED. 404 Media and WIRED then analyzed those files as part of a joint investigation.

While much of the automatic license plate reader’s (ALPR) most sensitive storage remained encrypted and inaccessible, the joint analysis of the recovered data shows that software running on the device explicitly detects people as well as vehicles, license plates, and bicycles. The camera can produce dozens of images of a single passing vehicle and, according to several weeks of recovered logs, generated more than a million images. Its computer-vision software also sometimes isolated bumper stickers and other graphics, including, in one case, an American flag patch on a motorcyclist’s saddlebag.

The act of removing the camera and dumping its software shows that some people are not content with just destroying or removing the cameras. Across the country, multiple people have been arrested for allegedly tampering with or otherwise sabotaging Flock’s cameras. In response, some towns have announced that they are going to stop using Flock’s cameras altogether, and in one case, a police department even made a fake, 3D-printed Flock camera case in order to bait potential vandals.

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Do you know anything else about Flock? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.

“Why just destroy them when we can reverse engineer them and find the secrets of those spying on us?” one of the hackers, from a collective calling itself stegan0gram, said in an interview. “We liberated hardware in the field, disarmed them, and proceeded with reverse engineering of the cameras and associated solar equipment.”

Flock’s cameras photograph passing vehicles and send the images and other data to the company’s servers. There, Flock’s system presumably reads the license plate and can identify characteristics such as the vehicle’s color, make, and model. Flock then makes these timestamped records searchable by whichever local agency owns or has access to the cameras. But in many cases, Flock’s system also allows other police departments from all over the country to search those cameras too, as part of the company’s national network. In Alpharetta, Georgia, for example, WIRED found that records from the city’s Flock cameras were accessible to more than 2,000 agencies, including police departments, colleges, airports, and even inexplicably the Office of Inspector General for the federal General Services Administration. A screenshot from the analysis of the Flock camera. License plate redaction by 404 Media.

This national network has been a selling point for Flock, but also a deep source of controversy. 404 Media revealed that local cops were performing lookups in the national network on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including in areas that banned working with immigration authorities or transferring license plate data out of state. 404 Media also revealed a cop in Texas searched Flock cameras nationwide for a woman who self-administered an abortion. Those stories, among others, triggered a national conversation about whether people want Flock cameras, or ALPRs more generally, in their communities.

And in the case of stegan0gram, the answer is clearly, no.

The hackers said they were able to access the Android system on the camera, and found two partitions—sections of its hard-drive, essentially. A few of these were unencrypted, the hackers said, including one called “vendor” and another called “media.” The latter contained an encryption key that unlocked another part, which contained much of the media—think, the videos and stills—the camera took.

In early 2025, security researcher Jon “GainSec” Gaines reverse engineered a Flock license-plate reader and documented flaws that could be used to gain root-level access. After Gaines disclosed his findings, the company acknowledged the findings but downplayed their severity, writing that the flaws required physical access to the device and that even someone who gained access to a camera “would still not be able to gain access to footage” because images remained on the device only briefly after being transmitted to the cloud.

404 Media and WIRED analyzed the camera’s contents. The device’s processor is similar to those used in midrange smartphones, and it runs about 20 Flock-built apps that handle everything from detecting motion and taking pictures to classifying objects, uploading data and receiving remote updates. A screenshot of the analysis showing that Flock detects people.

According to the code, when something moves into view, the camera takes a rapid series of photos. A typical passing vehicle generated about 28 images, though some produced more than 100. The camera uses different exposures to capture both the license plate and the wider scene, then scans the images, selects and crops useful frames, and sends them with other data to Flock over the cellular network. The camera itself does not appear to read the plate or identify the vehicle’s make, model, and color. That appears to happen on Flock’s servers.

According to our analysis, the camera’s logs recorded about 21 days of activity across several periods. During those windows, the device photographed roughly 50,200 vehicles and generated about 1.6 million images. On a typical day, it logged around 3,300 vehicles, with a high of 4,454. Those figures would vary considerably depending on where a camera is installed and how much traffic passes in front of it. The camera was almost certainly operating outside those periods, but older logs had been overwritten or were no longer recoverable from the device.

The software running on the camera explicitly detects people, something which is typically overlooked in discussions around Flock cameras. When it spots a person, it records where they appear in the image and how confident it is in the detection.

To test what the software could actually see, WIRED extracted the models from the camera’s files and ran them against test images and footage recovered from the device. The models readily detected people, including a selfie of a reporter. WIRED then ran them across 27,321 short video clips stored on the camera. The clips were mp4 files, each about one to two seconds long, recorded at 1024 by 768 pixels without audio. They were separate from the rapid bursts of higher-resolution still images the camera also takes as vehicles pass. The models detected people in 11 of the clips, all of them riding motorcycles. The small number is likely due to the camera’s position above a roadway, pointed down at passing traffic where pedestrians were unlikely to appear.

The tests also showed how broadly the camera’s plate detector could interpret what it saw. In some cases, it mistook bumper stickers, dealership frames, and other graphics for license plates and cropped them out as if they were plates. In one video of a passing motorcycle, the detector cropped an American flag patch on the rider’s saddlebag as if it were a plate.

Flock insists its cameras do not perform face recognition. WIRED and 404 Media found no evidence of any face-recognition capabilities in the camera’s software beyond ones included by default in the Android operating system. Those capabilities did not appear to be enabled or in active use.

In August, WIRED obtained front-end code for Flock’s police software, now called OS Investigate and previously known as Nightshift, and reconstructed portions of the tool. That software showed how Flock can use the records generated by its cameras, along with police files and commercial data, to identify drivers, surface vehicles that repeatedly travel together, and search for people based on patterns of movement. The data provides a view of the other end of a system.

A Flock spokesperson said in a statement: “The unauthorized removal and tampering of a Flock camera is illegal.” When asked specifically about the encryption key stored on the camera, the company added, “Flock takes security seriously and maintains a public Vulnerability Disclosure Policy for security researchers to report potential vulnerabilities directly to us. We received no report through that process, and based on the limited information provided, we do not have enough detail to assess the claims being made. If the individuals identified legitimate vulnerabilities, we encourage them to submit their technical findings through our vulnerability reporting process so our security team can review them and take any appropriate action.”

One of the hackers said, “Being investigated is a legit concern and something we are trying to avoid. I'm sure our actions have attracted some attention as it is but we are careful and try to keep a low profile.”

Noel Pichardo, a former Pawtucket Rhode Island police officer who became an outspoken critic of Flock after challenging his department’s use of the cameras, says that he understands the activists’ frustration but worries that sabotaging devices could ultimately strengthen the case for them. “I think that type of vigilantism will only crystallize the police and the state at large in their belief that this tool is necessary,” Pichardo says. “The longer the state continues to ignore the groanings of their constituents who are against this type of surveillance, the more this will happen.”

The camera’s logs also show the camera struggling with storage. Its logs recorded more than 27,000 “no space left on device” errors while trying to save full-resolution images, along with tens of thousands of related errors, crashes, and reboots. At the same time, about every two minutes, code checked that the camera was still running and logged the message, “Who’s a good boy?!” More than 12,000 of those messages appear in the recovered logs.

When the camera did restart, another service left a final message in the logs: “A reboot was requested! ¡Adios Amigos!”

About the author

Joseph is an award-winning investigative journalist focused on generating impact. His work has triggered hundreds of millions of dollars worth of fines, shut down tech companies, and much more.

Joseph Cox

Flock Safety's CEO faces severe internet doxxing and congressional inquiries after publicly dismissing strict privacy concerns.

Fiza Ali Neowin @Fiza_Aliii · Aug 30, 2026 14:26 EDT

If you’ve been following the tech world over the last week or two, things just blew up around Flock Safety in a massive way. Their CEO, Garrett Langley, went on Fox News recently and argued that focusing too much on privacy "prioritizes the wrong thing" and that we all just need to accept a "compromise" between privacy and safety.

In case you aren't familiar, Flock is the company that installs those automated license plate reader cameras all over neighborhoods and cities to help police track cars. As you can imagine, the internet did not take the idea that privacy doesn't matter as much as safety well at all. The clip went viral on X, and almost immediately, people started posting what they claimed was Langley's home address online.

X’s moderation team has been scrambling to take those posts down, but users just tweak the text or put the address inside altered images to dodge the automated filters. Now, to be clear, doxxing someone is completely indefensible and dangerous because it puts real people in physical danger. But the irony here is thick.

Langley built a massive business on tracking ordinary people everywhere they drive, yet critics pointed out that his own neighborhood is blurred out on street view platforms. Furthermore, their cameras log millions of vehicle movements daily, creating a massive web of data that police departments and even federal agencies like Customs and Border Protection can search. Langley gets a level of location privacy that his cameras deny to millions of drivers every single day.

Under pressure, Flock recently lowered its default data retention period from 30 days down to 7, but digital rights groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which recently criticized Meta for removing opt-in encrypted chats on Instagram, called that fix a joke because local police can easily override it and keep the data longer anyway.

Now the whole situation has spilled over into Washington, and lawmakers are jumping in from both sides. Representative Keith Self introduced the PRIVACY Act to force federal agencies to get a warrant before searching license plate data, explicitly calling out Langley by saying the Fourth Amendment isn't up for "compromise." Meanwhile, Senator Josh Hawley launched a formal investigation into Flock's data practices.

Langley’s whole business model was built on the idea that your movements in public are free game to be recorded; however, now he is finding out what happens when that exact logic gets turned back around on him.

Source: Fox News via Gadget Review

NB: This is a reddit link. As long it is up, the reddit overlord must deem it fair game

salon.com The Flock uprising is just the beginning Amanda Marcotte 11–14 minutes

commentary People are sick of tech billionaires trying to control our lives

Senior Writer

Published August 14, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)

Flock Safety cameras have many Americans seeing red. (Illustration by Salon / Getty Images / The Washington Post / SOPA Images)

Flock Safety cameras have many Americans seeing red. (Illustration by Salon / Getty Images / The Washington Post / SOPA Images)

In era when so much about the news is just plain depressing, what stands out about the burgeoning public rebellion against Flock security cameras is just how fun it all is. The artificial intelligence-powered surveillance cameras, which are sold by Flock Safety as mere “license plate readers” to local governments, have spurred a national cat-and-mouse game between vandals and cops that is being merrily followed on social media, mostly by people rooting for the vandals. City council meetings in which citizens swarm to protest paying for the cameras are the new must-see TV.

In Huntington, West Virginia, a small city in the heart of Appalachia, one man became an internet folk hero when he stood up at a city council meeting and said, “I’m not gonna waste your time; I’m kinda hungry. But one last thing: Every single Flock camera has about 2-3 pounds of copper and about 1-2 grams of gold. Do with that information what you will.” He then walked off in triumph.

By targeting Flock cameras, activists are building momentum for a larger rebellion against the tech industry — and against political leaders who are complicit in their assault on our freedoms.

As with opposition to AI-fueling data centers, the revolt against Flock cameras is drawing support from across the political spectrum, uniting Republicans and Democrats in red and blue America. Their frustration isn’t just rooted in annoyance at having surprise speeding tickets show up in the mail. Flock cameras have become a symbol of growing anger over the efforts by technology oligarchs to impose their dystopian fantasies on the country, replacing liberal democracy with a surveillance state. As Jill Lepore recently noted in Wired, it’s as if tech leaders read George Orwell’s “1984,” Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” and other sci-fi classics “as instruction manuals” rather than “cautionary tales.” By targeting Flock cameras, activists are building momentum for a larger rebellion against the tech industry — and against political leaders who are complicit in their assault on our freedoms.

Flock Safety embodies the dishonesty that has been the prevailing theme of tech corporate communications and marketing for at least the past decade. While the cameras are sold to the public as a banal traffic safety measure, they have prompted an outpouring of stories about how they’re being used to violate civil liberties and undermine democracy.

“Flock from the first has been quite deliberate in sequestering decision making processes — where these things are placed, what they gather and for whom — and the data gathered through them from the general public,” Adrian Daub told me. A comparative literature professor at Stanford University, his forthcoming book, “What Tech Calls Governing,” examines the increasingly authoritarian politics of Silicon Valley.

“The intersection with state actors is particularly worrisome,” Daub said. “Governments can outsource the dodgier aspects of data collection and use, while the private sector gets to disavow the obvious political implications of this kind of massive surveillance.”

According to an exhaustive 10-month analysis by Electronic Foundation Frontier, a nonprofit dedicated to defending civil liberties in our digital age, local police were using the cameras to track protesters, such as those at No Kings rallies, who were then put in a national database to be used across all jurisdictions. Despite claims that the cameras only record license plates, the technology-focused outlet 404 Media found that the database is also being used to collect information on individual people whom cops can then search for using descriptions of clothing, race, gender and body type. In Johnson County, Texas, police officers fixated on a woman suspected of having an abortion, and used the database to track her movements in an effort to prove it — even though state law is supposed to exempt the patient from criminal prosecution. Police have been outed for using the cameras to stalk people for personal reasons, such as having a conflict — or even a sexual obsession — with them.

Flock has claimed the company will reform its policies to address these issues, but history suggests it would be unwise to trust them. One former Flock employee, Jonathan Paz, has accused the company of lying about its intentions to gain government contracts, which are then abused by law enforcement to harm the public. Paz told 404 Media that company management had assured him they weren’t feeding information to agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a falsehood he passed on to city governments in his sales pitch. After finding out about a secret pilot program to help track down and detain immigrants, Paz left the company.

Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Sign up for her free newsletter, Standing Room Only, now also on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

Flock’s behavior represents a microcosm of a larger trend in tech that should alarm freedom-loving Americans, regardless of political affiliation. Silicon Valley enriched itself with promises that the cyber revolution would mean more freedom and democracy by enabling the flow of information and communication. But in recent years, there has been a dramatic about-face as the C-suite class has become increasingly authoritarian. Algorithms and AI are used to choke off people’s access to information and make intra-human communication more difficult. Journalism is faltering as an industry, even as social media and search engines are being programmed to dissuade users from reading or watching real news sources. Surveillance is starting to feel ubiquitous, between online bots tracking our every move to cameras everywhere, including the faces of other people wearing AI glasses. Billionaires like New York Knicks owner James L. Dolan reportedly use spying tech to harass people who criticize them.

“Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on,” Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, a major donor to pro-Trump groups, observed at a recent meeting of financial analysts about the future of AI.

“There is a link between technology (whether it ‘works’ or not) and repressive state apparatuses,” Daub explained. For example, while Flock cameras expand the ability of the government to crack down on people, they also allow officials “to claim it’s not their fault when some poor sucker gets snared” unjustly by blaming poor technology. “It’s not an accident that their politics have tacked more openly to the right in recent years,” he said of the tech CEO class.

The goal of this isn’t mysterious. Tech CEOs, mimicking the villains of sci-fi, are telling the public that resistance is futile.

This can all feel overwhelming at times, which is very much by design. Silicon Valley’s hype machine portrays an AI-controlled future as inevitable, even equating the technology to a god that will overpower us humans, rendering democracy a quaint artifact of the past. AI was swiftly embedded in innumberable computer programs, often not even allowing a user to opt out. The goal of this isn’t mysterious. Tech CEOs, mimicking the villains of sci-fi, are telling the public that resistance is futile.

The Flock uprising, though, is the stirrings of public understanding that none of this inevitable — and we have the right to fight back. The public has some leverage points. Despite their elaborate efforts at secrecy and unaccountability, Flock works through government contracts. Citizens can petition leaders to avoid or drop contracts, a tactic that has been working across the country. There are still transparency laws that apply to Flock databases, which is how 404 Media and other media outlets have discovered abuses of the technology. Activists have been building maps alerting people where the cameras are.

The maps intersect with what has been the most controversial part of the Flock uprising: the vandalism. Although it appears the vandals aren’t organized in any meaningful way, they are being egged on by social media users who cheer from afar as people shoot, steal or otherwise disable the cameras. It’s understandable that the vandalism is the most compelling front of the rebellion, and not just because petty, victimless crime is a cheap thrill. Vandalizing the cameras is a sharp rebuttal to Silicon Valley talk about how technology will liberate us from the limitations of the physical world.

The reality is that bodies and physical space are still of paramount importance, which is why tracking and controlling people’s movement is a priority for tech-obsessed authoritarians. But while they’d like to pretend they are gods on an invisible mountain, bending us to their wills, the reality is that they need old-fashioned metal — copper and gold, even! — to get it done. Destroying a camera sends a strong and unmistakable message: They are finite, physical entities, just like us.

Like it or not, the vandalism sends an emboldening signal to the public that tech oligarchs are not omnipotent. If you toss a brick at their expensive cameras, they squawk. It’s crass and illegal, and yes, the cameras are insured and immediately get replaced. But the boost to human self-esteem and the reminder that our squishy bodies still matter more than all the data in the cloud? It’s hard to argue against it.

There are still plenty of pitfalls. MAGA leaders like Tucker Carlson are clocking the anti-Flock movement and trying to hijack it. Using conspiracy theories, he and others can redirect attention away from real enemies — tech oligarchs and compliant politicians — and toward blaming phantasms like the “deep state,” falsely insinuating that the tech spies are left-wingers doing some poorly defined socialism. This has the twin benefits of ginning up outrage at innocent people, while also shielding the very right-wing forces that are actually the source of the problem.

Still, it’s promising sign that people are rebelling against Flock cameras. Along with protests against data centers, it’s a sign that the public is desperate for a way to fight back against not just AI, but also the anti-democratic forces fueling this latest tech wave.

By Amanda Marcotte

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https://www.twitch.tv/settings/security

just in time for a fascist government