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Ayzaa@Ayzacoder · Sep 19, 2026

Hackers pulled a Flock camera off its pole and copied everything inside it. Then they handed the files to reporters.…

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Summary

Hackers obtained internal data from Flock automated license plate reader cameras, revealing they capture around 28 photos per vehicle and 1.6 million images in three weeks, with the plate recognition happening on Flock's servers rather than the camera itself. The investigation found the camera's encryption key was stored unencrypted on the device, misidentifies objects like bumper stickers as license plates, and raises concerns about the reliability of police stops based on these camera alerts.

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  1. #1

    Hackers pulled a Flock camera off its pole and copied everything inside it. Then they handed the files to reporters. This morning 404 Media and WIRED published what one of these cameras does when your car goes by 🧵

  2. #2

    Picture your car passing one. You’d guess it snaps your plate. The logs say a typical car triggered about 28 photos. Some triggered more than 100. In 21 days, one camera photographed about 50,200 vehicles and made about 1.6 million images.

  3. #3

    The software detects people, along with vehicles, plates, and bicycles. When it spots a person, it logs where they are in the frame. It logs how sure it is, too. The reporters found no face recognition running.

  4. #4

    The camera doesn’t read your plate. It crops frames and sends them to Flock’s servers over a cell connection. Your plate number gets decided there. So do your car’s make, model, and color.

  5. #5

    The plate detector cropped bumper stickers as if they were plates. Dealership frames too. In one clip it cropped an American flag patch on a motorcycle rider’s saddlebag.

  6. #6

    Flock has said the cameras use on-device encryption. The hackers found the key on an unencrypted part of the same device. Flock’s response: removing a camera is illegal. And it hasn’t seen enough detail to assess the claims.

  7. #7

    A former Rhode Island officer objected to Flock and got investigated for it. He told the reporters sabotage will only convince police the cameras are necessary.

  8. #8

    Here’s why it matters if a camera hit started your case. The report says the plate reader flagged your car. That hit is a server’s read of a few cropped frames out of dozens. The same detector will crop a bumper sticker.

  9. #9

    So ask for three things: every frame the camera took of your car, the confidence score on the read, and what the officer did to check the alert before the stop. A misread is a stop with nothing under it.