While people around the U.S. are tearing down Flock cameras, one group of hackers went a step further: extracting the camera's software too.
  • TrackinDaKraken@lemmy.worldEnglish
    681·
    20 hours ago

    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.

    No, the servers the images are sent to do. Weasel words.

    • cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works
      33·
      16 hours ago

      Ya why would they put anything in the application layer when it can be done on the back end? This is standard for anything connected to the internet as long as latency is not an issue.

    • violentfart@lemmy.world
      10·
      19 hours ago

      Reminds me of that time our product caught fire because of a damaged battery, and the suits bullied the in-house regulator for an hour until he officially recorded it as not using the word “fire”

        • violentfart@lemmy.world
          4·
          10 hours ago

          I don’t remember his actual title. He’s certified by whatever regulatory organization and our company needed one because of the type of devices we sold.

          But yea you basically described his role.

          We did UL listed stuff and his role, by comparison, seemed like a notary public.

      • IMALlama@lemmy.world
        4·
        14 hours ago

        Ah, a thermal event. The company I work for had a similar policy, but we’re now free to say the f-word again.

  • WanderWisley@lemmy.world
    4·
    15 hours ago

    I live in rural Nevada and they just installed 2 flock cameras here in my town of less than 4k people. Pretty much everyone is so happy about it saying it will help with all the crime here.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
      2·
      9 hours ago

      Gosh dammit, neighbor, here too! I really can’t stand how freaking camera-happy people are. They simply assume the law will always be on their side and are happy to “follow the rules” no matter what those actually are. It’s disgusting.

      I get we’re sick of things like porch pirates and vandalism, but this private infrastructure will still exist when they decide they want to throw you in jail because you “seemed suspicious”, or suddenly decide to “crack down” on something most people consider a cultural norm.

    • paraphrand@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      15 hours ago

      I’d demand a list of all the crime and a list of all the “helped with crime” to start being kept.

      I’m tired of such claims never being followed up on. We need some sort of Flock cameras for that meta-problem.

  • Tiral@lemmy.world
    4·
    15 hours ago

    Water is wet, and cigarettes cause lung cancer, just in case anyone didn’t already know Flock cameras are absolute bullshit.

  • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
    3·
    14 hours ago

    Someone on here is always saying that they also log Bluetooth and wifi MACs and associate these with images. Doesn’t sound like that’s the case though.

    • Manjushri@piefed.socialEnglish
      6·
      14 hours ago

      Some people are jumping the gun. The newest versions of the cameras are supposed to be able to do that , but they have not been deployed yet. Or at least not deployed widely.

      as my colleague here at The Drive unfortunately discovered first-hand last month. Leonardo has more recently marketed a new product called SignalTrace that isn’t an ALPR but can be paired with them to correlate plates with various wireless signals, including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as well as frequencies emitted by everything from tire pressure monitoring sensors to pet microchips.

      Mind you, I personally take these claims with a grain of salt. I know personally that you have to hold a normal scanner right against a dog or cat’s skin to pick up the microchip. I don’t believe a roadside sensor is going to pick up a pet’s microchip as you drive by.