Hackers tore down a Flock camera, exposing person detection and 1.6M images in 21 days
404 Media · rss · 2026-09-16
The hacker collective stegan0gram ripped down a Flock camera and dumped its software, partnering with 404 Media and WIRED for a joint investigation.
- Encryption bypassed: A key stored in the camera's unencrypted "media" partition unlocked thousands of vehicle detection videos, undermining Flock's on-device encryption claims.
- Hidden person detection: The software explicitly detects people alongside vehicles and plates—largely overlooked publicly. WIRED extracted the models and confirmed detection, including in test footage.
- Scale: 21 days of logs showed one camera photographing 50,200 vehicles and generating 1.6M images (3,300/day), with 28 multi-exposure shots per vehicle; plate recognition happens in the cloud.
- National network: Data from one Georgia city was searchable by 2,000+ agencies; past reporting exposed police lookups for ICE.
- The findings contradict Flock's earlier downplaying of 2025 root-access vulnerabilities disclosed by researcher Jon Gaines.
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