Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves (404media.co)
> 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-...
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."
The argument for these cameras is that they save lives. The argument against them is that they destroy freedom.
> 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-...
With such surveillance, administration can slice and dice population and entertain disappearance of "undesirables" on an industrial scale.
This is actually nothing new, but people think there is some magic invisible hand that will prevent atrocities of WWII from never happening again.
FFS you have your own president favouring a war criminal and protecting nonces.
We didn't sleep walk into it, we ran into it because of poor basic civics education and a cynical media cycle that biases towards making everyone terrified of crime.
The latter is driven by two forces - a profit motive (sensational, gruesome stories sell), and a political motive (media carrying water for far-right-wing candidates loves to keep you scared on this issue).
The optimal level of crime or unsolved crime in a society is not zero, but a lot of people will look at you like you've got three eyes if you tell them that. Talk to them for another ten minutes, and most of them will see why what you say makes sense, but that's not a conversation their television will ever have with them.
>With such surveillance, administration can [...]
Have you missed all the cries of "fascism" back in 2016/2017? The problem isn't "people are too afraid to admit". It's that "wolf!" was cried too many times and people tuned it out. Ironically this invocation "fascism" is arguably also crying wolf. From wikipedia:
>Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
Is an ANPR network terrible for privacy? Yes, obviously. Is it authoritarian? Maybe[1]. Is everything vaguely authoritarian "fascism"? No.
[1] Consider cell phones. They're terrible for privacy, but nobody would seriously consider them "authoritarian".
These things don't just happen overnight. It's not crying wolf when you see the wolf on the horizon running towards you.
So were vaccine mandates and passports "fascism" as well, even though they melted away after the pandemic ended, contrary to some who thought it was going to be part of some new world order?
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
While both are a problem I am far more concerned about the power this gives our, increasingly authoritarian, government than about individual stalkers/creeps.
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.
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.
Is basically zero.
> You're thinking Chinese surveillance
> US-based surveillance helps victims and prevents more victims
> Flock Safety currently solves 700,000 reported cases of crime per year, which is about 10% of reported crime nationwide
> And they're just getting started
His profile also says:
>President & CEO @ycombinator —Founder @Initialized—designer/engineer who helps founders—SF Dem accelerating the boom loop—haters not allowed in my sauna
pg, what happened? Ycombinator used to be a beacon of sense in a sea of uselessness, but now uselessness is running Ycombinator?
Generally speaking, today, surveillance capitalism is the foundation of both our political culture, economy, and the tech industry that backs them.
In polite circles we call surveillance "user telemetry" and the like. It's not just Palantir and FLock; where does Meta's money come from...? Google's for that matter...?
the big irony, of course, is that i'm much more comfortable with China surveilling me than the US, since the latter can throw me in jail, seize my assets, and ruin my family's life, while the former cannot.
I’m not trying to say the US government is faultless but it amazes me how often I see this kind of anti-democratic institition sentiment.
leeoniya didn't say anything about democracy. The practical reality is that regardless of what forms of government are involved, whichever government has the ability to arrest you is the government which is the greatest threat in your day-to-day life.
Assuming every government is the same, which I'm not so sure about. I rather be arrested by the German government than the US government, mainly because I don't want to disappear to black site and be made to disappear for years while I'm t̶o̶r̶t̶u̶r̶e̶d̶ receiving enhanced discussion techniques. At least I know I'll be treated relatively OK by Germany, while my fear is pretty much the opposite from a lot of other governments out there.
I'm not sure this is as axiomatic as many think, in 2025
Yes the US is a democracy, but a lot of our systems suck ass and are also close in proximity. You DO NOT want to get into legal trouble in the US. Our justice system is beyond fucked. If there's one way to permanently ruin your life in the US, it's getting into legal trouble. You're better off smoking crack cocaine, that's probably healthier for your livelihood.
I don't know about China's legal system, but even assuming it's more fucked, it's all the way over there. Not here.
The main trouble with Flock and companies like them is that they attach to our broken systems like a tumor. If the system fails, which it often does, these accelerate it and make it worse. If you get falsely accused of something or piss off the wrong PD, this shit can ruin your life. Permanently and expeditiously.
Even if you are the most Moral Orel you should be skeptical of these crime reduction claims. They don't just beat down crime, they beat down regular people, too. And if you ask them, they don't know the difference.
i could almost admire the transparency of these people, the way they're apparently okay accepting collateral damage of their schemes, up to the complete destruction of the fabric of society... as long as there's money to be made.
Blues create the chaos to justify the surveillance so they can selectively enforce who gets charged. They revoke self protection laws and tell people to wait for the police they defunded. They rarely target criminals, overwhelmingly political dissidents.
It's usually prosecutors and judges who drop the ball.
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.
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.
Am I right to understand that all those cams are pointed to the street / public places? I am not aware that there is any expectation of privacy, legally or otherwise, when you walk down the street. Sure, it is lame that those camera are unprotected, and shows how amateurish most of those IoT companies are. 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.
The author then uses face search engines to find personal information on the individuals. That is the creepy part, but has little to do with Flock, and you could have pulled those faces from any social network or any random video on youtube.
Just because something is legal doesn’t make it right. Anyone deploying or involved with this technology should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves.
- 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.
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
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.
It's a map of all city council meetings in the US whose agenda mentions Flock
SamInTheShell•1h ago
embedding-shape•1h ago
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•1h ago
Anyone that cares about their perspective has missed the point.
MSFT_Edging•1h ago
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•1h ago
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.
yunwal•1h ago
> 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.
They obviously meant that we ought to be holding these people responsible.
SamInTheShell•24m ago
Congrats you spotted the thing we agreed on between comments. If you fail to see the agreement through parity of the part that was echoed, idk what to tell you. Education system is failing everyone in it these days.
hrimfaxi•1h ago
eptcyka•1h ago
Fix the corporate incentives and engineers will be able to do the right thing without suffering. Not everyone gets the luxury of a secure career doing morally ok things.
embedding-shape•1h ago
Don't know how you reached that conclusion, I obviously isn't trying to justify anything. But maybe something I said was unclear? What exactly gave you the idea I'm trying to justify anything of this?
jandrese•1h ago
embedding-shape•1h ago
jandrese•59m ago
Remember that ISPs often have people who come to your home to hook stuff up.
embedding-shape•55m ago
> Remember that ISPs often have people who come to your home to hook stuff up.
I can't recall a single time a technician wasn't required to come to my flat/house to install a new router. I'm based in Spain, maybe it's different elsewhere, but I think it's pretty much a requirement, you can't setup the WAN endpoint or ISP router yourself.
jandrese•46m ago
embedding-shape•14m ago
braingravy•1h ago
TheRealPomax•1h ago
salawat•43m ago
t. Former QA veteran