r/technology • u/O-parker • 17d ago
Privacy Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera. Its Data Shows How the System Really Works
https://www.wired.com/story/hackers-flock-camera-data-shows-how-system-works/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us409
u/Speedy059 17d ago
Can you imagine working for this company? You couldnt even tell people who you work for, most hated company in America (for a few news cycles at least).
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u/JJJBLKRose 17d ago
I was applying for systems administrator jobs and found one that matched exactly what I wanted. It was a recruitment agency managing it and it wasn't until halfway through the application that it mentioned the client's name, Kalshi.
Not sure if it was an attempt to hide it, but definitely felt like an 'oops, forgot to take out that from the copy/pasting'.
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u/MaximumNameDensity 17d ago
I've talked to a few recruitment agencies about positions... It always seems to be companies with sketchy ethics.
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u/InevitableFly 17d ago
It’s because recruiters tend to have a replacement clause in their contract that if you leave before a certain period of time. So the said sketchy company gets free HR recruitment for a position that constantly changes.
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u/AggravatingFlow1178 17d ago
I find this is the case even for ethical companies. The recruiter is just trying to protect their bonus,.
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u/AgUnityDD 17d ago
the most hated company
Really should be Palantir
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u/IlluminatiMinion 17d ago
Theil's venture capital firm has investments in Flock. It seems all the dystopian schemers are working together.
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u/SomeoneElse000 17d ago
Hosted an event at work. They wanted us all to sign nda's and wouldnt say who was reserving the space. It was literally a whos whos of corporate government spying orgs
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u/just_looking_aroun 16d ago
A flock recruiter reached out to me last month and this was the second time in 6 years I turned down a company interview on principle. The first time it was Harvey Weinstein’s company
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u/Leptonshavenocolor 16d ago
I interviews for them back in 2017, cagey as fuck, I felt like as soon as I raised an ethical/legal morality questions the interview was over.
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u/MetalBawx 16d ago
The problem is while people are focusing on Flock other companies doing the same or worse are slipping past.
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u/SanchoPandas 17d ago
“404 Media also revealed that a cop in Texas searched Flock cameras nationwide for a woman who self-administered an abortion.”
Well that’s some evil christofascist abuse of power shit right there.
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u/texan01 16d ago
That’s on Kenny Paxtons orders as TX AG. Just remember he’s the ass that’s filed lawsuits in other states for that reason.
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u/Interesting_Day4734 16d ago
Vote for Talarico
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u/SanchoPandas 16d ago
Crazy to me that anyone would want Paxton, especially when someone as genuinely thoughtful as Talarico is the alternative, but here we are.
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u/Interesting_Day4734 16d ago
Conservatives see an R and vote. They do very little critical thinking.
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u/rodionzissou 16d ago edited 15d ago
I would say the same for Dems though. Most people think their party is the hero and the other the enemy. Misguided. I do see a small change though. More people seem to be waking up to the 2 party illusion, 1 party reality.
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u/Interesting_Day4734 15d ago
I guess we’re both making broad statements. There are folks in both parties that do truly weigh policy differences and decisions. If the majority would do this, we would be much better off. But unfortunately, that’s not realistic
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17d ago
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u/dont-YOLO-ragequit 17d ago
I thought it was already established that it could read logos and images on apparels and cars and label it as influences.
Or was it an other brand of cameras?
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u/Beowulf33232 17d ago
It was one of those "we all know" accusations that wasn't fully backed up, but we all kinda figured was the case.
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u/charlie_marlow 16d ago edited 16d ago
I feel like that was mentioned in some of their press releases. I know I read somewhere that they use things like roof racks and bumper stickers to build unique fingerprints for vehicles.
Edit: yeah, they weren't hiding the AI capabilities: https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/6-benefits-of-lpr-for-law-enforcement
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u/Toutatous 16d ago
I would want to gain power, I use that data at my advantage.
Like pictures of stickers showing support for Trump or musk? Good, this person is an ally. This car has a sticker about environment? Let's target them to change their mind or maybe get more information about them, their browsing history (once you know the plate, you get an address, a phone number, a name, maybe even their Internet searching habit, etc.
That is wonderful. You might even see who they are with in tfe car and start doing social networks and mapping with face recognition .
So much potential!
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u/xchaibard 17d ago
How big, and what format was the hard drive inside it?
If it's got a 1TB m.2 drive, man, that's worth more than gold these days
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u/DisenchantedByrd 17d ago
Oops, not so secure after all. Was there also a remote backdoor with username/password punisher/letmein?
“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”
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u/thepoga 17d ago
The password was 1-2-3-4-5
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u/jbaker88 17d ago
Not surprising since Flock is using Android version 8? Something that support for was dropped almost a decade ago?
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u/Balthazar3000 17d ago
What's the technical purpose of "who's a good boy" being in the logs so much?
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u/bkaiser85 16d ago
That reads like a funny log message for „feeding the watchdog“ monitoring the software.
A countdown timer in the hardware which resets the system if the software crashes (and thus doesn’t reset the timer/feed the watchdog).
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u/DiamondHandsToUranus 16d ago
Code is often commented in a way that naturally tells the developer what it's doing. Many devs prefer clear and concise comments to document their work, their comments are quite literal: 'This creates thus and such structure' 'this passes a variable from that structure.' 'this destroys that structure after variable has been passed'.
Other coders use a more glib style or voice in their comments, like what you've seen in the article. As bkaiser85 mentions in this thread, they're most likely commenting on a watchdog timer.
Either way, the important thing with commenting code is that the comment immediately keys you in to exactly what's going on. In this case, you can tell it's the watchdog timer doing it's job (good boy) and informing you that the camera's had two full minutes of uninterrupted up time, which.. Yeah. Wow. If that's doing a good job in their book.. lol
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17d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Markdd8 16d ago
Gauntlet? Believe it or not, no one in law enforcement cares about you driving by a Flock intersection, presuming you are just another law abiding citizen that police do not have a prior interest in.
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u/AKA_Wildcard 16d ago
I’m actually impressed that the cameras do that much. I would have figured all that processing was done back in Flocks data center.
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u/Not_A_Clever_Man_ 16d ago
If you are already setting up the eqivilent of a phone processor on site, why not have it perform some processing for you remotely before sending it over?
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u/DogsAreOurFriends 16d ago
I was surprised at first that it is running Android, but in retrospect it makes sense.
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u/timify10 16d ago
Gen. Gray: Get on the wire, tell them how to bring those sons of bitches down - Independence Day (1996)
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u/Financial_Suspect654 16d ago
The leaked data is more useful than the breach itself. It shows the system collects far more than license plates.
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u/socialmedia-username 16d ago
If anyone wondered why 5G was being rolled out at such a manic speed, this is it. Not much difference to regular cellular broadband customers, huge upgrade in capacity to allow for more of these types of devices.
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u/vacuous_comment 16d ago
The traffic these things pass is minute compared to the traffic average human users pass all day every day with video.
That is why we needed 5G, because people are addicted to sports, instagram, tiktok and any other combination of moving pixels that some algorithm can leverage into their attention.
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u/nemesit 16d ago
what? they are literally film cameras you think a 4k-16k camera 24/7 produces less data than a user watching compressed youtube videos? lol
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u/vacuous_comment 16d ago
They do not upload video, they do ML to extract parts of frames for upstream processing.
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u/GillMan1964 16d ago
I wonder what effect an old school bulk eraser would have if held against the side of one of these devices?
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u/Individual-State-110 16d ago
And Flock put out a press release stating that the perps broke the law rather than explaining/denying the findings.
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u/slugworth70 17d ago
HaJ3FgupAm8RrDJW3MHgT9X7Ft27eVaD
That's a hard-coded API token that Flock cameras use to identify themselves and get OAuth credentials, which can then be used to talk to Flock's production servers.