14 ms·

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

• deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
• dvtkrlbs 10mo ago
  I just watched the Benn Jordan's video on this. Even if this is just configuration error on some of their cameras this is terrifying and I think they should be held accountable for this and their previous myriad of CVEs.
  • chaps 10mo ago
    Here's the video for interested folk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-uiUlHTo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-uiUlHTo
  • tencentshill 10mo ago
    It's amazing that any vendor, let alone a CJIS vendor even allows unsecured deployments of their software in 2025.
• edot 10mo ago
  Flock or their defenders will lock in on the excuse that “oh these are misconfigured” or “yeah hacking is illegal, only cops should have this data”. The issue is neither of the above. The issue is the collection and collation of this footage in the first place! I don’t want hackers watching me all the time, sure, but I DEFINITELY don’t trust the state or megacorps to watch me all the time. Hackers concern me less, actually. I’m glad that Benn Jordan and others are giving this the airtime it needs, but they’re focusing the messaging on security vulnerabilities and not state surveillance. Thus Flock can go “ok we will do better about security” and the bureaucrats, average suburbanites, and law enforcement agencies will go “ok good they fixed the vulnerabilities I’m happy now”
  • dvtkrlbs 10mo ago
    Yes and the biggest problem with this kind of ALPRs are they bypass the due process. Most of the time police can just pull up data without any warrant and there has been instances where this was abused (I think some cops used this for stalking their exes [1]) and also the most worrying Flock seems to really okay with giving ICE unlimited access to this data [2] [3] (which I speculate for loose regulations). [1]: https://lookout.co/georgia-police-chief-arrested-for-using-flock-cameras-for-stalking-and-harassment-searched-capitola-data-earlier-this-year/story https://lookout.co/georgia-police-chief-arrested-for-using-f... [2]: https://www.404media.co/emails-reveal-the-casual-surveillance-alliance-between-ice-and-local-police/ https://www.404media.co/emails-reveal-the-casual-surveillanc... [3]: https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-camera-network-data-shows/ https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-...
    • throwway120385 10mo ago
      When you give access to any system that collects the personal information including location data for people in the US to the police, a percentage of the police will always use those systems for stalking their exes.
      • hugo1789 10mo ago
        What is not only true for police but for every sufficiently big group of people.
        • kcatskcolbdi 10mo ago
          Cops do have some unique tendencies but I think the real issue is the cops are able to leverage the power of the government in ways other large groups cannot.
          • djtango 10mo ago
            The problem with police is a) that police have to deal with bad people and it is very hard to stay untainted when you constantly deal with bad people, and b) being a cop is no longer a desirable or rewarding job which not only causes applicant pool issues but also polarises the job and police force itself. Then the nature of polarisation is that it is self reinforcing. So if your job isn't rewarding financially or socially, the "perks" must come from somewhere and so it attracts people who seek to abuse power etc
• SamInTheShell 10mo ago
  It's 2025. The ISP gateway I got comes with more default security than these cameras. The barrier to entry on security is lower than it ever has been in history. Whoever let this past the QC phase is an idiot.
  • embedding-shape 10mo ago
    > Whoever let this past the QC phase is an idiot. It's all a matter of perspective. I'm sure to some executive somewhere, the person/s who approved all of this is seen as heroes, as they shaved of 0.7% or whatever from the costs of the development, and therefore made shareholders more money. Until there are laws in place that makes people actually responsible for creating these situations, it'll continue, as for a company, profits goes above all.
    • SamInTheShell 10mo ago
      So you're trying to justify this type of rampant negligence in tech? Do you think justifying such malfeasance makes up for fact we literally have surveillance networks that bad actors can tap to do really awful things? Anyone that cares about their perspective has missed the point.
      • MSFT_Edging 10mo ago
        I don't think the person you're replying to is justifying it, but saying there's no laws to prevent the abuse. Personally I think tech CEOs should be put in stocks in the town square on the regular but they're protected from any form of repercussions besides extreme cases of fraud. Even then, they're only held accountable when the money people have their money effected, not when normal people are bulldozed by the abuse.
        • SamInTheShell 10mo ago
          If I was 10 years younger, I might agree that they aren't justifying it, but I have enough experience with passive speech to just not let it pass anymore. Regarding remedy, we really need laws on this stuff yesterday. The problem is that we have to gut first amendment freedoms for some of this stuff, which wont go anywhere because there will always be too much overreach with today's representatives.
• bromuk 10mo ago
  Really great investigation, what's the URL of the "vibe coded" site with the access links?
• eightysixfour 10mo ago
  I don't want these cameras to exist but, if they're going to, might we be better off if they are openly accessible? At the very least, that would make the power they grant more diffuse and people would be more cognizant of their existence and capabilities.
  • hrimfaxi 10mo ago
    Is it more symmetrical? I know in theory we all can continuously download and datamine these video feeds but can everyone really?
    • eightysixfour 10mo ago
      No, but the same argument could be made for things like open source software. We assume/hope that someone more aligned with our outcomes is actively looking. Or, at the very least, that we can go back and look later.
      • hrimfaxi 10mo ago
        I don't think they are similar. Public feeds would enable someone to document and sell people's whereabouts in real time. The fact that I could do the same or go back and look later is no defense.
        • eightysixfour 10mo ago
          This is a different argument than what I was responding to. > I know in theory we all can continuously download and datamine these video feeds but can everyone really? To which my response is "this is like OSS." What I mean by that is that, in theory, people audit and review code submitted to OSS software, in reality most people trust that there are other people who do it. > Public feeds would enable someone to document and sell people's whereabouts in real time. The fact that I could do the same or go back and look later is no defense. This is a different argument to me and one that I'm still torn about. I think that if the feeds exist and the government and private entities have access to them, the trade-offs may be better if everyone has access to them. In my mind this results in a few things: 1. Diffusion of power - You said public feeds would "enable someone to document and sell people's whereabouts in real time." Well, private feeds allow this too. I'd rather have everyone know about some misdeed than Flock or the local PD blackmail someone with it. 2. Second guessing deployment - I think if the people making the decisions know that the data will be publicly available, they're more likely to second guess deploying it in the first place. 3. Awareness - if you can just open an app on your phone and look at the feed from a camera then you become aware of the amount of surveillance you are subject to. I think being aware of it is better than not. There's trade-offs to this. The cameras become less effective if everyone knows where they are. It doesn't help with the location selection bias - if they're only installed in areas of town where decision makers don't live and don't go, the power is asymmetric again. Plenty of other reasons it is bad. None of them worse than the original sin of installing them in the first place.
• givemeethekeys 10mo ago
  At what point does the top brass at Flock get arrested?
  • reactordev 10mo ago
    Oh they’re buddies with all the departments. Fat chance.
  • SamInTheShell 10mo ago
    Rather just see them get Flocked honestly. Seems like the type of tech a child would dream up only to realize when it's too late that it's dystopian, creepy, and a detriment to society.
    • zrobotics 10mo ago
      Building the torment nexus...
  • cons0le 10mo ago
    In your dreams maybe
  • deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  • fuckflock 10mo ago
    By top brass do you mean the people behind this website? > The financing was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with backing from Greenoaks Capital, Bedrock Capital. Meritech Capital, Matrix Partners, Sands Capital, Founders Fund, Kleiner Perkins, Tiger Global, and Y Combinator also participated. https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-safety-secures-major-funding https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-safety-secures-major-...
  • gruez 10mo ago
    For what? Under current jurisprudence collecting license plates images isn't illegal, because there's no expectation of privacy in public. They could post the information online if they wanted to and they'd be in the clear. It's fine to object to ANPR networks on the basis of "mass surveillance" or whatever, but screaming for people to be arrested without legal basis, just because you don't like what they're doing is childish and counterproductive to the conversation.
• j3s 10mo ago
  flock is the most heinous reflection of the ills of our current socioeconomic structure. absolutely nobody should be okay with mass surveillance, much less mass surveillance enabled by a private company.
  • simlevesque 10mo ago
    It's what happens when we rank private property over human lives. We deserve this.
    • esseph 10mo ago
      No, we do not "deserve this". The universe has no concept of "deserve".
      • riversflow 10mo ago
        People are part of the universe, and they have a concept of deserving.
      • overfeed 10mo ago
        "Deserving" not in the sense of dharma/karma, but as a natural consequence of prior actions.
    • ordinaryradical 10mo ago
      Agree. If you find yourself sympathetic to Flock, you should ask yourself: do we have a right to any kind of privacy in a public space or is public space by definition a denial of any sort of privacy? This is the inherent premise in this technology that's problematic. In Japan, for instance, there are very strict laws about broadcasting people's faces in public because there is a cultural assumption that one deserves anonymity as a form of privacy, regardless of the public visibility of their person. I think I'd prefer to live in a place where I have some sort of recourse over when and how I'm recorded. Something more than "avoid that public intersection if you don't like it."
    • Ajedi32 10mo ago
• ck2 10mo ago
  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
  • vatsachak 10mo ago
    That's why it's good to use GrapheneOS*. In the future, hopefully the pinebook project succeeds
    • rfl890 10mo ago
      You mean GrapheneOS?
    • gruez 10mo ago
      How does using GrapheneOS prevent license plate readers from tracking where you are, or from you being groped at the airport?
      • vatsachak 10mo ago
        I responded to the last point of the parent comment
        • gruez 10mo ago
          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 10mo ago
            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-to-epstein-island https://www.wired.com/video/watch/we-tracked-every-visitor-t...
• monkaiju 10mo ago
  i guess that while it is alarming that these feeds were "unsecured" I'm just as concerned that they exist at all. Folks worry about it getting into the "wrong hands" but from my POV it was put up by the wrong hands. While both are a problem I am far more concerned about the power this gives our, increasingly authoritarian, government than about individual stalkers/creeps.
• tptacek 10mo ago
  I would love to watch a shorter version of this video that just discussed the deltas between the status quo and Flock, rather than breathlessly reporting the implications of cameras as if they were distinctive to Flock. He'll spend 30 seconds talking about how you can see every activity and every person on the camera --- yeah, that's how cameras work. There are thousands of public IP cameras on the Internet, aimed at intersections, public streets, houses, playgrounds, schools; most of them operated that way deliberately. There are Flock-specific bad things happening here, but you have to dig through the video to get to them, and they're not intuitive. The new Flock "Condor" cameras are apparently auto-PTZ, meaning that when they detect motion, they zoom in on it. That's new! I want to hear more about that, and less about "I had tears in my eyes watching this camera footage of a children's playground", which is something you could have done last week or last year or last decade, or about a mental health police wellness detention somewhere where all the cops were already wearing FOIA-able body cams. If open Flock cameras gave you the Flock search bar, that would be the end of the world. And the possibility that could happen is a good reason to push back on Flock. But that's not what happened here.
  • jkestner 10mo ago
    In my experience, people respond much more strongly to naming a specific company or person. Clearer plan of action than a resigned “This tech is old news.”
    • akerl_ 10mo ago
      If your takeaway from that comment is that ‘tptacek thinks Flock’s tech is old news and he’s resigned about it, I think you’re going to be in for a treat.
    • tptacek 10mo ago
      Is the plan of action "eliminate all public IP cameras"? That's coherent, I'd get it, but that doesn't seem to be what he's saying at all. He used a Google search to find exposed Flock admin consoles (interesting! say more about that!) but he could just as easily have just searched "open IP cameras"; there's sites that do nothing but index those.
• Bender 10mo ago
  Children could go missing thanks to Flock default settings. HN would tell me to never attribute to malice ... but there may be criminal negligence. To cover their butts I strongly suggest Flock implement a default "grading system" that will show a city in a banner at the top of their management and monitoring system that based on their camera and network configuration they get an A+ to F-. If the grade is below a C then it must be impossible to get rid of the banner and it must be blinking red. The grading system must be both free, mandatory and a part of the core management code. This assumes Flock will have the willpower to say no when a city demands removal of the flashing red banner. Instead up-sell professional services to secure their mess. I would like to see the NCC Group review their security and future grading system.
  • fuckflock 10mo ago
    HN is the malice in this instance. > The financing was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with backing from Greenoaks Capital, Bedrock Capital. Meritech Capital, Matrix Partners, Sands Capital, Founders Fund, Kleiner Perkins, Tiger Global, and Y Combinator also participated. https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-safety-secures-major-funding https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-safety-secures-major-...
    • canyp 10mo ago
      Does it take that much funding to make such a poorly-secured system? God, these guys must be real noobs.
  • NietzscheanNull 10mo ago
    I always found Hanlon's Razor a bit too optimistic in tone. I prefer it restated in the form of Clarke's third law: "Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice."
  • array_key_first 10mo ago
    Hanlons razor is stupid and we should stop using it. First off, we don't actually know how ignorant someone is or is not, but from what I see people GREATLY underestimate ignorance. Rich people building state-sponsored surveillance are not ignorant. They absolutely know the consequences. They either don't care, or they are actually targeting those consequences. Secondly, it falls apart in organizations. When we apply hanlons razor to an organization, we're claiming EVERYONE there must be ignorant. Which is just obviously not true. Someone knows, probably lots of people know. And they choose not to act - that is malice. Choosing not to do something is a form of malice.
• huflungdung 10mo ago
  Oh no. Someone can view cctv data and delete it. Always blown out of proportion. The likelihood of someone a) committing a crime or otherwise b) knowing there was this specific brand of camera software being run on a camera in that area c) knowing how to access these portals Is basically zero.
• kklisura 10mo ago
  For more context here Flock Safety is a YC-backed company [1][2] [1] https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety [2] https://x.com/garrytan/status/1856016868580151615 https://x.com/garrytan/status/1856016868580151615
  • kklisura 10mo ago
    And let me share this reply by Garry Tan, CEO of YC, after someone made a comment that Flock might be _pretty dystopian_ [1][2]: > You're thinking Chinese surveillance > US-based surveillance helps victims and prevents more victims [1] https://x.com/neurajordan/status/1963303084609966288 https://x.com/neurajordan/status/1963303084609966288 [2] https://x.com/garrytan/status/1963310592615485955 https://x.com/garrytan/status/1963310592615485955
    • devwastaken 10mo ago
      [flagged]
      • 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 10mo ago
        If the police protected and served as they're asked they could get some funding. Not for tanks and spy cameras, but for trained officers.
        • mikkupikku 10mo ago
          The police are usually pretty good at their jobs, within reason. It's almost always going to take them several minutes at least to respond to your call, but when they do manage to arrive on the scene they are usually pretty good about eliminating the threat and rendering first aid/etc. There are some infamous cases where this severely broke down, instances of cops not entering an active crime scene and instead seeing fit to stop the public from taking matters into their own hands, but these instances are so notorious because of how unusual and counter to American values they were. It's usually prosecutors and judges who drop the ball.
• eddyg 10mo ago
  Yes, they should be secured so they can only be accessed by law enforcement. But if your spouse/SO/sister/mother/girlfriend/whatever was assaulted while jogging in a park that had Flock cameras, and it allowed law enforcement to quickly identify, track, apprehend and charge the criminal, you'd absolutely be grateful for the technology. There's nothing worse than being told "we don't have any leads" when someone you care about has been attacked.
  • estimator7292 10mo ago
    What about when ICE uses this data to abduct and deport your spouse and family members? Will you be grateful then?
    • kernal 10mo ago
      [flagged]
      • Cornbilly 10mo ago
        Are you grateful for all of the legal immigrants and citizens that ICE has swept off the streets?
  • gs17 10mo ago
    They should also require a warrant at least, especially for any data sharing. With "they can only be accessed by law enforcement", we've already had plenty of police harassing their exes. If they couldn't convince a judge to let them use the camera, there's really no hope of the case going anywhere. > There's nothing worse than being told "we don't have any leads" when someone you care about is attacked. I'd argue worse is "we know exactly who did it and we're not going to do anything about it (but we would do something if you try to do something about it yourself)".
  • fzeroracer 10mo ago
    What if your spouse/SO/whatever was wrongfully arrested because they were on a Flock camera and conveniently matched what the police were looking for? Or if they ran whatever dogshit AI algorithm over it looking for suspects? We can make up situations all day where it can or can not be validated but the reality is that this is a defacto surveillance state. If every move you make can be monitored, you should assume that the state can and will abuse it to hurt innocent people in the name of politics or whatever.
• kirykl 10mo ago
  If the cameras are recoding public areas, isn’t it better the recorded footage stays public
  • butlike 10mo ago
    They shouldn't be recording at all is the point.
  • esseph 10mo ago
    Would you want your partner or child stalked, raped, and murdered? You don't even need to drop an air tag now, you can use the license plate reader to track them everywhere they go. There is no hiding.
    • adamthegoalie 10mo ago
      At first I thought you were defending flock. Seems clear the cameras make it harder to commit crimes and easier to go after the offenders, despite all the side effects most people are upset about here.
      • esseph 10mo ago
        It makes it easy for a random person to track anyone, regardless of which states they go to. It also makes it easy to say, track a person's movements to an abortion clinic if your state would like to prosecute that (this is happening).
      • rainonmoon 10mo ago
        How does a camera make it harder to commit a crime? If I bash your skull in on camera, did the camera make that more difficult? Would your family be less aggrieved?
  • eightysixfour 10mo ago
    I think so, but it is a loosely held opinion at this point. Fundamentally, I think it is a huge, asymmetric power grab by Flock and local police to install these systems. It only takes one officer looking up their local politician and finding them doing something that could even look like a bad deed (or to fake it in the era of AI videogen...) to enable blackmail and personal/professional gain. If they're going to exist, it may be better for that to be spread among the public than to be left in the hands of the few.
• everdrive 10mo ago
  It's getting pretty crazy out there. What's your recourse for this? Avoid most populated areas?
  • murderingmurloc 10mo ago
    I live in a town of 6,000 and we have 5 Flock cameras
  • potato3732842 10mo ago
    It's a quality of people problem not a quantity of people problem.
  • potzemizer 10mo ago
    I mean. There are solutions... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46822472 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46822472
  • JKCalhoun 10mo ago
    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.
  • kelnos 10mo ago
    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.
• e40 10mo ago
  Him reading the Flock statement on a Flock camera open on the internet was just so good. I love and support Benn Jordan.
  • grantmuller 10mo ago
    I agree, this was the peak experience of watching this video, and somehow the most "chef's kiss" summation of 2025.
• cm2187 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  • SamInTheShell 10mo ago
    You miss the point. This is a law enforcement tool. The average American doesn’t want a surveillance state and that’s literally what’s happening. The legal aspect of it is not in question here. Just because something is legal doesn’t make it right. Anyone deploying or involved with this technology should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves.
    • cm2187 10mo ago
      That's not the point the video makes. Flock didn't invent CCTV. Not that I am trying to defend mass surveillance or incompetent silicon valley companies.
      • goda90 10mo ago
        Flock "invented" CCTV in the USA that doesn't requiring going to multiple locations and asking for their tapes in order to track someone across locations.
        • 15155 10mo ago
          I mean - no, they didn't, Ring existed long before Flock (but has since removed the police "request everything in the area" feature.) Flock just brought this to the public right-of-way.
  • fecal_henge 10mo ago
    Am I right to understand that all those cams are pointed to the street / public places? - I think you would be wrong to understand that. How on earth did you reach that conclusion? But how is that different from the thousands of live cams over youtube or the wider internet? Or the poorly secured CCTV watching every angle of any street in most big cities. - More than one thing can be wrong at once. Requires nuanced thought I accept. The author then uses face search engines to find personal information on the individuals. That is the creepy part. - I think he is demonstrating the creepy opportinities. Did he share any of that information? I think anyone with bad intent probably probably not make a video explaining what they did.
• neogodless 10mo ago
  Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46356182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46356182 Benn Jordan – This Flock Camera Leak Is Like Netflix for Stalkers [video] (youtube.com)
  • dang 10mo ago
    We merged that thread into this one. (Edit: and put that video's link in the toptext above.)
• vatsachak 10mo ago
  You could kinda already do this with all kinds of security cameras. There are only so many people who are computer proficient, and that number is lower than the number of camera installers. There have been cases of people getting into baby monitors and yelling at the baby. But as a tech company, this is extremely irresponsible BTW, Benn Jordan is also known as The Flashbulb, an ambient legend
• fortran77 10mo ago
  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 10mo ago
    Searching for ALPR was also one of the popular early queries: https://github.com/jakejarvis/awesome-shodan-queries?tab=readme-ov-file#automatic-license-plate-readers-- 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 https://imgur.com/HHcpJOr) and worked with EFF to take them offline
• stackedinserter 10mo ago
  Easy solution for Flock problem: get rid of visible license plates. Make them 2x1" of size and RFID-readable, give readers to police, problem solved. Not-that-easy solution is legal ban for such surveillance. None of these both will happen though. You accepted TSA and PRISM, you will get used to Flock too. Next is Flock but for people, with face recognition.
  • phyzome 10mo ago
    Fantastic, now I can't report a hit-and-run.
    • stackedinserter 10mo ago
      You never have, anyways.
      • phyzome 10mo ago
        What kind of silly comment is this? In fact I have, and they found the person responsible.
        • stackedinserter 10mo ago
          Why not obligate people to wear license plate on their clothes then? It will help identify and found persons responsible, right? Don't complain when it eventually happens.
  • DetectDefect 10mo ago
    Flock works without license plates. Also, what do you mean "next"? > if the object class of the identified object is that of a human being, then the object detection module 154 may further analyze the image 501 using a neural network module 507B configured to identify different classes of people (male, female, race, etc.) https://patents.google.com/patent/US11416545B1 https://patents.google.com/patent/US11416545B1
• bpiche 10mo ago
  Kirlian Selections rocks
  • guiltygatorade 10mo ago
    Wild to see the Flashbulb on top of HN
• ChrisArchitect 10mo ago
  Associated Benn Jordan video post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-uiUlHTo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-uiUlHTo
• culi 10mo ago
  This was posted to HN a week ago but didn't get enough attention due to the weird title. It's a map of all city council meetings in the US whose agenda mentions Flock https://alpr.watch/ https://alpr.watch/
  • deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  • dang 10mo ago
    alpr.watch - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46290916 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46290916 - Dec 2025 (444 comments) That post was literally the #1 story on HN for the entire day: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2025-12-16 https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2025-12-16. It was on the frontpage for 25 hours. That's about as much attention as any thread gets - well above the 99th percentile.
    • culi 10mo ago
      you're right I misremembered. I still feel the enigmatic title of the post made it hard to realize its importance. Maybe I'm just biased because it took me way too long to find it even with the algolia front-end
      • dang 10mo ago
        Yeah, finding it after-the-fact with search is not a trivial undertaking. I do feel somewhat proud that an article with that title did so well on HN.
• therobots927 10mo ago
  Flock is cooked. They didn’t even implement basic security features for an extremely sensitive database. More ammo for those of us trying to get our local authorities to cut ties with this disgusting excuse for a startup.
  • tonymet 10mo ago
    Have breaches like this had a meaningful impact on businesses before? If there has been a case where the public cared , and the business was terminated, it’s definitely been an exception to the rule.
    • therobots927 10mo ago
      We’ll see. Benn Jordan is doing the Lords work and providing a lot of evidence peopl can bring along to their local council meetings.
      • tonymet 10mo ago
        I appreciate his activism
• fusslo 10mo ago
  I wonder what our founders would think about tools like Flock. From what I understand these systems are legal because there is no expectation of privacy in public. Therefore any time you go in public you cannot expect NOT to be tracked, photographed, and entered into a database (which may now outlive us). I think the argument comes from the 1st amendment. Weaponizing the Bill of Rights (BoR) for the government against the people does not seem to align with my understanding of why the Bill of Rights was cemented into our constitution in the first place. I wonder what Adams or Madison would make of it. I wonder if Benjamin Franklin would be appalled. I wonder if they'd consider every license plate reading a violation of the 4th amendment.
  • haskellandrust 10mo ago
    [dead]
  • fooqux 10mo ago
    > From what I understand these systems are legal because there is no expectation of privacy in public. Not quite. There's been precedent set that seems to imply flock and other mass surveillance drag net operations such as this do violate the forth.
    • snazz 10mo ago
      Defendants trying to exclude ALPR evidence often invoke Carpenter v. U.S. (or U.S. v. Jones, but that’s questionable because the majority decision is based on the trespass interpretation of the 4th Amendment rather than the Katz test). Judges have not generally agreed with defendants that ALPR (either the license plate capture itself or the database lookup) resembles the CSLI in Carpenter or the GPS tracker in Jones. A high enough density of Flock cameras may make the Carpenter-like arguments more compelling, though.
      • NoGravitas 10mo ago
        Yeah, I don't think capturing your license plate at a light falls afoul of Carpenter, but aggregating timestamped records of your license plate all over town to build a complete picture of your movements probably does.
• EcommerceFlow 10mo ago
  [flagged]
• tonymet 10mo ago
  I’m baffled by the state of law enforcement. On one hand we are spending loads on surveillance, but on the other we refuse to enforce violent, property & drugs-abuse crimes. Gross violent offenders are being allowed to walk. So what is the point of all the CCTV ? As major investors in Flock, being aware of the long term law enforcement strategy, I’m guessing ycombinator can comment on what all of this investment is for.
  • fzeroracer 10mo ago
    The surveillance state is there to benefit the rich and wealthy whom not only wield disproportionate power but are increasingly scared of their own shadow. The rest of us get nothing but crickets if we ask the police to do anything.
    • tonymet 10mo ago
      It’s a nice theory but still doesn’t explain why the laws aren’t being enforced. Presumably these rich, powerful and paranoid also control the AG’s and judges. Why aren’t they locking these people up?
      • fzeroracer 10mo ago
        Because it doesn't affect them directly, it's really that simple. Look at how quickly the entire media and police apparatus mobilized when Brian Thompson was killed.
• jjwiseman 10mo ago
  The CEO of Flock, Garrett Langley, called Deflock a terrorist group. It's unhinged. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-kZGrDz7PU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-kZGrDz7PU
  • therobots927 10mo ago
    Expect more of this. The masks are coming off. “Are the fires of Hell a-glowing? Is the grisly reaper mowing? Yes! The danger must be growing For the rowers keep on rowing And they're certainly not showing Any signs that they are slowing!” - Willie Wonka
  • whycombinetor 10mo ago
    [flagged]
    • BobaFloutist 10mo ago
      How are they conspiring to destroy it? Are you saying that coordinating attempts to change policy counts as destroying the previous policy, or are you drawing a line from identifying and locating the cameras to (possibly other) people actively vandalizing them?
    • jjwiseman 10mo ago
      If they were doing that, that would be a criminal conspiracy, not terrorism. Authoritarians often like to call ordinary criminals, political opponents, and dissenters terrorists to delegitimize them and justify harsher behavior against them. I assume that's what Garrett Langley was trying to do when he called them a "terroristic organization". Luckily for DeFlock they're not doing anything "terroristic" or even criminal.
    • brendoelfrendo 10mo ago
      As another commenter said, it's a criminal conspiracy or something to that effect. If terrorism is supposed to be the use of violence against non-combatants to attain a political or ideological goal... then would de-Flock be anti-terrorism? Removing Flock cameras makes me feel less terrorized.
• GaryBluto 10mo ago
  I'm not sure if it's better or worse to have it publicly accessible or only accessible to an elite group.
• afarah1 10mo ago
  In Brazil there is a similar problem, but it's not as widely discussed. Here, police investigations revealed that a website sold access for less than $4 to the nation-wide surveillance system, which included live feed of public safety cameras and person search by tax identifier. It was also shown that criminal organizations used it to locate their targets. Access was through the open internet, with leaked credentials, the federal government's system requires no VPN for access. Source (Portuguese): https://mpmt.mp.br/portalcao/news/1217/164630/pf-expoe-invasao-de-ia-espia-do-governo-federal-e-uso-pelo-pcc-para-monitorar-moro-promotor-e-stf/16 https://mpmt.mp.br/portalcao/news/1217/164630/pf-expoe-invas...
  • aucisson_masque 10mo ago
    That definitely wouldn't happen in the states. Corruption only happens in poor countries.
    • kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 10mo ago
      laughs in Ukrainian board of directors
      • tomrod 10mo ago
        Wasn't there a whole impeachment or two about that?
      • _DeadFred_ 10mo ago
        Trump Coin seems way way more flagrant.
• mmaunder 10mo ago
  Really valuable research. A benefit to public safety, and drawing attention to a sloppy vendor in the security space, claiming to secure the public, but instead putting the public at risk. However I'm deeply concerned for the researcher and all involved because this may be a criminal violation under the CFAA - accessing these systems without authorization, even if they don't have authentication.
  • argomo 10mo ago
    They should have gone all in and published the travel history of elite politicians, CEOs, and celebrities. That'd get a lot more media attention and potential for consequential legislation.
• chzblck 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  • canyp 10mo ago
    Right, because cameras exposed to public Internet access without authentication cannot at all be used to aid in crime. You must have very little imagination to not see the irony of your own comment.
  • class3shock 10mo ago
    People who demand others sacrifice their privacy to allow a private company to collect unlimited data on public spaces, to be used, sold, and profited off of as they see fit, with no oversight or constraints, should not be taken seriously.
• btbuildem 10mo ago
  glock > flock Is mass vandalism the final answer to this problem?
• rsync 10mo ago
  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 10mo ago
    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 10mo ago
      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.
• crumpled 10mo ago
  Yes. This looks bad for Flock security. Good thing nobody tried to pop a shell on the camera OS and move laterally through the network. That would be bad. I'm sure it's all very secure though.
• sneak 10mo ago
  We really should be referring to them as “Flock (YC S17)”. Credit where credit is due.
• dogman144 10mo ago
  Was fortunate to talk to a security lead who built the data-driven policing network for a major American city that was an early adopter. ALPR vendors like Flock either heavily augment and/or anchor the tech setups. What was notable to me is the following, and it’s why I think a career spent on either security researching, or going to law school and suing, these vendors into the ground over 20 years would be the ultimate act of civil service: 1. It’s not just Flock cams. It’s the data eng into these networks - 18 wheeler feed cams, flock cams, retail user nest cams, traffic cams, ISP data sales 2. All in one hub, all searchable by your local PD and also the local PD across state lines who doesn’t like your abortion/marijuana/gun/whatever laws, and relying on: 3. The PD to setup and maintain proper RBAC in a nationwide surveillance network that is 100%, for sure, no doubt about it (wait how did that Texas cop track the abortion into Indiana/Illinois…?), configured for least privilege. 4. Or if the PD doesn’t want flock in town, they reinstall cameras against the ruling (Illinois iirc?) or just say “we have the feeds for the DoT cameras in/out of town and the truckers through town so might as well have control over it, PD!” Layer the above with the current trend in the US, and 2025 model Nissan uploading stop-by-stop geolocation and telematics to cloud (then, sold into flock? Does even knowing for sure if it does or doesn’t even matter?) Very bad line of companies. Again all is from primary sources who helped implement it over the years. If you spend enough time at cybersecurity conferences you’ll meet people with these jobs.
  • tehlike 10mo ago
    Now you have scale with ai hardware becoming cheaper and software incentives aligning.
    • mysterydip 10mo ago
      I always thought that show "person of interest" was a bit far fetched. how could one system have access to that much data? privacy concerns would surely stop it.
      • bakies 10mo ago
        Along with all the cop shows I'm thinking it's almost intentional at this point to normalize things.
• performative 10mo ago
  benn jordan has been on an absolute tear recently. one of my favorite people nowadays
• kjkjadksj 10mo ago
  Flock cameras would be so easy to disable by motivated people. Dress in nondescript clothing, mask, sunglasses, and just spraypaint over the lenses. This is completely asymmetric warfare because it is trivial how long it would take for you to do this. You could hit dozens of cameras across an area overnight. Meanwhile, flock or the city, whoever maintains this stuff, needs to identify the vandalized cameras, flag them for repair, pay a technician to go out and presumably repair the unit outright. You pay cents and they are paying potentially thousands in labor and hardware costs. And this would absolutely work at scale too. Streetlights are already being vandalized for their copper and most cities cannot afford to hire more technicians to even keep up with streetlight repair. I believe I’ve seen the backlog for streetlight repair in LA is over 10x what the current street services crew is capable of repairing in a year of constant work and growing by the day. Municipalities and these technology companies cannot keep up against a motivated crew and can’t afford to scale either. Totally asymmetric.
  • mothballed 10mo ago
    The initial disabling might be asymmetric but when/if you're caught you go to jail for years for something that cost the state maybe an hour tops to fix. Therefore if only say one of a thousand gets caught, it still costs the people doing it more than the state on average (unless their life/time is worth basically nothing for years on end).
    • kjkjadksj 10mo ago
      They are making literal zero progress catching copper theft so I doubt flock would be any better. Yeah it takes them hours to fix but they still need to send out a technician and pay for a technician. Maybe you can do this well out of the pov of the camera with a paintball gun.
      • mothballed 10mo ago
        Zero progress catching copper theft from private persons; because they do not care. They get basically nothing for solving that. If you robbed a cop or the mayor they'd have you found out within a week. Whether they care about vandalizing a camera depends very much on whether the whole thing is a graft or they have something else they want out of the camera. If the goal is just to enrich their contractors, they might even be happy they're getting vandalized.
• mvkel 10mo ago
  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)
• deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
• catoc 10mo ago
  What I don’t understand is how you can work at a company like Flock and look yourself in the mirror. Seriously. You must be aware of the inherent evil, of the privacy invasive nature of your product, of how it’s being actively abused. How do you rationalize this for yourself?
  • Klaster_1 10mo ago
    There's this book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt that explores the topic.
  • deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  • throwaway_7274 10mo ago
    An old friend of mine went to work at a similar company, seemingly with no qualms. He praised how “nice” the ceo was. It was a sad and eye-opening experience of losing respect for someone. The thing is, a lot of ordinary people in tech are naive, gullible, more intelligent than wise, easily flattered, limited to first-order thinking socially-speaking, and obsessed with rules and systems. Then there’s another stratum of actors on top who are all of the above, and sociopathic to boot. I don’t know, I think it’s just the way it is. I’ve become very disillusioned with the ability of ‘tech people’ as a class to work for good.
• KurSix 10mo ago
  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 10mo ago
    1984
• potato3732842 10mo ago
  Systems like this that exist to facilitate dispatching government violence will never be "good" by whatever the standards of the time is because they don't need to be. They have "at-cost" access to nearly infinite government violence they can dispatch capriciously and an unequally good relationship with any system that would hold them accountable for any misuse of their stuff.
• insane_dreamer 10mo ago
  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.)
• jrochkind1 10mo ago
  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 10mo ago
    I agree, if we’re going have universal surveillance then the data must be universally accessible.
  • _DeadFred_ 10mo ago
    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.
• jrochkind1 10mo ago
  > I think the one that affected me most was as playground. You could see unattended kids, and that’s something I want people to know about so they can understand how dangerous this is So... you could also just walk or drive by the playground to see "unattended kids"?
  • prophesi 10mo ago
    Ironically, these cameras are marketed to help catch predators walking/driving by playgrounds. What's concerning here is that they're connected to the internet and can be viewed remotely, which said predators would use to know when and where to strike off-camera.
• bearjaws 10mo ago
  You just know other nation states are all inside these camera systems and probably buried deep at this point. Of course no liability will be faced by the company, and none for the police departments who violate our constitutional rights.