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Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. 404 Media Tracked Themselves. (www.404media.co)
submitted 1 month ago by tonytins@pawb.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
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I am standing on the corner of Harris Road and Young Street outside of the Crossroads Business Park in Bakersfield, California, looking up at a Flock surveillance camera bolted high above a traffic signal. On my phone, I am watching myself in real time as the camera records and livestreams me—without any password or login—to the open internet. I wander into the intersection, stare at the camera and wave. On the livestream, I can see myself clearly. Hundreds of miles away, my colleagues are remotely watching me too through the exposed feed.

Flock left livestreams and administrator control panels for at least 60 of its AI-enabled Condor cameras around the country exposed to the open internet, where anyone could watch them, download 30 days worth of video archive, and change settings, see log files, and run diagnostics.

Archive: http://archive.today/IWMKe

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[-] W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 23 points 1 month ago

A city in the KC Metro just signed a contract with Flock for drone cameras. Fuck that Big Brother bullshit.

[-] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 1 month ago

red light companies most likely use some form of AI/facial recognition.

[-] pupbiru@aussie.zone 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

red light cameras - at least in australia - are stock standard canon DSLRs… they take images, but not video

there are some newer ones that do things like photos of people using their phones stopped at lights etc, but generally speed/red light and “single purpose” cameras will just be doing stills, and wouldn’t be too useful for anything other than a single photo when the sensor triggers it

[-] Funky_Beak@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

WA police just introduced cameras that recored the inside of a vehicle (including the backseat so yay to childrens privacy) and using AI deternine whether you are driving dangerously.

[-] pupbiru@aussie.zone 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

yeah they do certainly exist, but bog standard “red light cameras”… ie single purpose cameras are not that kind of problem… imo, as long as they’re deployed to combat actual issues they’re very much a beneficial tool

i think it’s important to differentiate these new kinds of cameras from the single purpose cameras so that arguments against them can be made independently

this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2025
948 points (99.2% liked)

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