Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves

Posted by chaps 12/22/2025

Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves(www.404media.co)

Archive Link: https://archive.ph/IWMKe

Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-uiUlHTo – This Flock Camera Leak is like Netflix For Stalkers

827 points | 471 commentspage 3

performative 12/22/2025|

benn jordan has been on an absolute tear recently. one of my favorite people nowadays

mvkel 12/23/2025||

the main summary of 1984: "neighbors are encouraged, via telesecreens, to spy on one another to enforce conformity."

There thing to fear isn't some higher state; it's each other. We happily will surveil each other under the auspices of safety.

Hell, these days, our kids grow up with cameras pointing at them in their own rooms. What did we expect?

Until we are willing to accept more "risk" in exchange for more privacy, this will only get worse. (It's why I believe most tech/services that tout privacy are DoA, because nobody actually cares)

ck2 12/22/2025||

remember when people first started experiencing TSA and there were massive protests at how obscene and violating it all was, then uncovering how useless they were as fake security theater

and they were going to get it all shut down

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS NOW

so good luck getting rid of flock where people don't even know it's happening

Not sure if people realize that cellphone locations, several layers in the firmware and software, can be had without warrant by anyone YEARS LATER

kjkjadksj 12/23/2025||

Wasn’t the first edition of the TSA scanner straight up showing pretty much nude photos of people? I seem to remember something like that. Now a days at least it just flags a region on a generic human model for more investigation.

The funniest part though is you pay $80 every five years and just bypass it entirely. I guess they assume terrorists are too stupid to figure out TSA precheck is available.

gnabgib 12/23/2025||

All my pre-check friends have to go through the nude scanner. And gave up bio-metrics. It's a two tiered security line - theirs is faster, but you need money to get into it (or fly business class+, or a flight crew, or know someone in the airport, or win the entrance-line direction lottery).

kjkjadksj 12/23/2025||

Most of the time they just send you through a standard metal detector. The state already has my prints from the dmv.

stackedinserter 12/22/2025|||

Moreover, people are pissed off when someone's angry because of TSA bs. "Don't be an asshole, they're just doing their jobs". "Oh someone's first week on this planet".

vatsachak 12/22/2025||

That's why it's good to use GrapheneOS*. In the future, hopefully the pinebook project succeeds

gruez 12/22/2025|||

How does using GrapheneOS prevent license plate readers from tracking where you are, or from you being groped at the airport?

vatsachak 12/22/2025||

I responded to the last point of the parent comment

gruez 12/22/2025||

Grapheneos doesn't stop cellphone tracking either. Cell carriers keeping track of where you are (or at least which cell you're in) is fundamental to how cell phone networks work, so a privacy focused android distribution can't fix that.

ck2 12/23/2025||

Exactly, the tracking has to happen and there's no law to discard the data ever

It's how we know even YEARS later EVERYONE who went to Epstein Island

They didn't even have smartphones then, just regular cellphones

Wired just bought all the tracking from a databroker, no warrant needed

https://www.wired.com/video/watch/we-tracked-every-visitor-t...

rfl890 12/22/2025|||

You mean GrapheneOS?

KurSix 12/23/2025||

The most terrifying part here is the synergy between the AI feature and the security hole. An open stream from a static camera is one thing, but it's entirely different when you have an open-access AI agent that autonomously finds "interesting" targets, zooms in on faces, and tracks people between cameras. This transforms a passive data leak into an active, real-time stalking tool

grugagag 12/23/2025|

1984

rsync 12/22/2025||

There's an interesting idea here that is tangentially related to "common carrier" regulations ...

Specifically:

If a flock (or similar) camera is deployed on public land/infra there should exist default permission for any alternate vendor to deploy a camera in the same location.

I wonder how that could be used and/or abused and, further, what the response from a company like flock would be ...

chaps 12/22/2025|

Not directly an answer to your question, but installed Shotspotter locations are generally "not shared with police" and installations are done in a way where the location is obfuscated away from the police/city through Shotspotter contractors. It's not actually true that the device locations aren't shared with the police, but shotspotter/police testimonies in shotspotter cases say so anyway.

FireBeyond 12/22/2025||

I have absolutely zero faith in any of this.

Multiple cases have revealed that it seemed like police and Shotspotter worked hand-in-glove to tweak Shotspotter data and demographics to help shore up a case and make things appear more reliable than they were.

And multiple cases where, sufficiently pushed, DAs have dropped cases or dropped Shotspotter as evidence rather than have the narrative challenged too closely.

bpiche 12/22/2025||

Kirlian Selections rocks

guiltygatorade 12/22/2025|

Wild to see the Flashbulb on top of HN

everdrive 12/22/2025||

It's getting pretty crazy out there. What's your recourse for this? Avoid most populated areas?

kelnos 12/22/2025||

Work with your municipality to pass laws banning cameras like this. I'm sure it isn't easy (and I'm not sure I have the stomach for working through that process in my city), but people have done it in some places.

murderingmurloc 12/22/2025|||

I live in a town of 6,000 and we have 5 Flock cameras

JKCalhoun 12/22/2025|||

deflock.me has a map. (I recently contributed a few flock cameras I spotted.)

I notice they generally watch busy roads and intersections, off and on ramps to highways, retail malls…

Smaller roads through neighborhoods were mostly unmolested.

potato3732842 12/22/2025|||

It's a quality of people problem not a quantity of people problem.

potzemizer 12/22/2025||

I mean. There are solutions...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46822472

insane_dreamer 12/23/2025||

US becoming more like China by the day, where the freedoms of the Constitution aren't worth more than the paper they're written on. (For those who don't know, the Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press.)

fortran77 12/22/2025||

Interesting, but nothing new. Shodan users have known about clueless IP camera owners that leave their cameras on the public internet for years. This is a little more interesting because it's from a well-funded startup rather than independently owned Chinese IP cameras.

achillean 12/23/2025|

Searching for ALPR was also one of the popular early queries: https://github.com/jakejarvis/awesome-shodan-queries?tab=rea...

The old PIPS ALPR devices aren't online anymore but they had horrible security as well. Just sending a newline to their UDP port would cause them to send you all images as they were being collected in real-time - no authentication needed. And the images had the license plate information encoded in the JPG metadata. I did a talk about it at some point (https://imgur.com/HHcpJOr) and worked with EFF to take them offline

jrochkind1 12/23/2025|

Part of me says if there's going to be universal surveillance, it might as well be universally accessible to view, not just accessible to the state and the wealthy.

chasd00 12/23/2025||

I agree, if we’re going have universal surveillance then the data must be universally accessible.

_DeadFred_ 12/23/2025||

I think society must protect it's most valuable citizens. I feel like we should be able to watch out for our politicians and billionaire class by monitoring their every move. Since they have nothing to hide and everything gain from addition caring oversight.

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