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Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera

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Re: Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera

#171

Post by Grimeton »

petcat wrote: post #164
Grimeton wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The images were deleted the moment they were uploaded. But the record in the log files persisted. The camera doesn't have enough memory to store that many data.

> The images were deleted the moment they were uploaded. ??? > VIII. Records of number plates read by each LPR shall not be recorded or transmitted anywhere and shall be purged from the system within 3 minutes of their capture [...] But you're saying that these non-hit image captures were uploaded somewhere?

- Camera takes picture

- Camera pre-checks the picture for quality and that there's something on there that they want

- Camera uploads picture to flock servers

- Camera deletes picture locally

- Rinse and repeat

I could actually see this being done by three jobs in parallel.

If there are a lot of images found on the camera then that's probably because the upload wasn't able to keep up with the amount of data that was created or they have a buffer of a few days or there's a cronjob that deletes these files every now and then...

Unless they actually use the camera also as the storage, which would be really stupid, but sometimes people to stupid things.

Re: Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera

#172

Post by imthatsteve »

Tyranny of government invites terrorism from its constituents.

We have all heard the argument that when corporations intentionally make the legal option worse it drives otherwise law abiding customers to pirate the content instead because piracy provides a better service than paying the corporation for their kneecapped product.

I dont see how the same thing doesnt apply to governments.

The people tell you over and over they dont want to live under a surveilance police state. So natually the corporations and government work together to create a fascist police state and they expect the people to be good little slaves and simply sell their souls to their government.

Especially in the day of ai when they could just fake those images incredibly easily to frame someone. They dont need a patsy the next time they jfk someone they just find some sucker with a weak alibi from a list of potential suckers and then fake some cctv images and cell phone data and they can put you where ever they want to.

The only real defence is to buy your own body cam and document every moment of your life so you can have competing evidence.

At this point im surprised damaging the cameras is the only thing these activists are doing.

I wouldnt be surprised to see flock employees and corrupt politicians finding bombs under their cars. Which will likely be used to justify more cameras which will only intensify the terrorist activity.

The tree of liberty is long overdue for a good watering.

Re: Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera

#173

Post by toomuchtodo »

QuiEgo wrote: post #167
teraflop wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flip side of this laziness is that now, when my elected representatives tell me "these are just license-plate readers that don't record video", I have evidence to show them that's false. If Flock had done a more competent job of securing their system, it would be harder to demonstrate this in a compelling way. To a technically-inclined person, it's obvious from the get-go that somewhere in Flock's pipeline, video…

Don’t worry, your elected representatives won’t be bothered by trivialities such as facts either way.

They can be recalled and/or replaced, as many have who voted for data centers.

They fought against datacenters. Now they are running for local offices - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/15/datacenters-... - September 15th, 2026

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49375000 (citations)

Re: Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera

#174

Post by SlightlyLeftPad »

mring33621 wrote: post #96
writtenone wrote: post #43

A friend in China built a Flock overlay network that sends live video and audio from ~100 cameras near me to an AWS server for processing and search.

This is one of the most interesting comments on here. Hints at unauthorized, illegal mass surveillance riding on top of authorized (but also possibly illegal) mass surveillance

Totally agree, we already know Flock is inept and lies about obvious truths. I want to know more about this.

Re: Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera

#175

Post by imthatsteve »

sumeno wrote: post #116
leonidasrup wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The man who would choose security over freedom deserves neither. - Thomas Jefferson

Didn’t realize Jefferson misquoted Franklin

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants"

Re: Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera

#177

Post by petcat »

Grimeton wrote: post #171
petcat wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The images were deleted the moment they were uploaded. ??? > VIII. Records of number plates read by each LPR shall not be recorded or transmitted anywhere and shall be purged from the system within 3 minutes of their capture [...] But you're saying that these non-hit image captures were uploaded somewhere?

- Camera takes picture - Camera pre-checks the picture for quality and that there's something on there that they want - Camera uploads picture to flock servers - Camera deletes picture locally - Rinse and repeat I could actually see this being done by three jobs in parallel. If there are a lot of images found on the camera then that's probably because the upload wasn't able to keep up with the amount of data that was…

It sounds like this whole thing is just in violation of New Hampshire state law.

Re: Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera

#178

Post by Grimeton »

petcat wrote: post #177
Grimeton wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Camera takes picture - Camera pre-checks the picture for quality and that there's something on there that they want - Camera uploads picture to flock servers - Camera deletes picture locally - Rinse and repeat I could actually see this being done by three jobs in parallel. If there are a lot of images found on the camera then that's probably because the upload wasn't able to keep up with the amount of data that was…

It sounds like this whole thing is just in violation of New Hampshire state law.

IANAL. So that's something I cannot tell.

Re: Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera

#179

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

inanutshellus wrote: post #109

Curious how/why all this negative attention is focused directly on the Flock brand (current example notwithstanding)? Seems like if I were a competitor of Flock I'd be pretty happy right now and all this negative press is making them artificially cheap to buyout right now. Motorola/Vigilant, Rekor, Leonardo/ELSAG, and Axon are huge companies making mint off the same thing and no once in 20 years have I seen this leve…

1) Flock developed a nationwide network to track innocent people, tried to get in as many places as possible, and handed law enforcement agencies carte blanche access with virtually no oversight. Their whole schtick was being the mass surveillance company, and striking fear into people's hearts, in order to prevent crime. Despite being founded in 2017, they quickly reached hundreds of thousands of cameras installed.

2) The US Executive branch formed concentration camps and a private army, and started using this nationwide mass surveillance network to track down any brown people with a Spanish accent to lock them up in dangerous squalid conditions and/or deport them with no trial. This is an immediate, nation-wide harm being done to millions of Americans, and this new company is enabling it.

Re: Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera

#180

Post by jquery »

overfeed wrote: post #159
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree. But there is some old rule about, even the best security can fail if the device is physically accessible.

There are levels to defending against physical attacks, and Flock half-assed theirs by leaving the encryption key right on the file system, according to the reporting. Those more serious about security — like Apple — store keys in an "enclave" chip so it can't be easily extracted by an attacker doing the bare minimum

Apple did that… eventually. Early iPhones weren’t very secure. Apple only got serious after they dominated the market and reducing the theft value of iPhones became a priority.
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