These days, surveillance cameras are all around us, and they’re smarter than ever. In particular, many of them are running advanced algorithms to recognize faces and scan license plates, compiling ever-greater databases on the movements and lives of individuals. Flock You is a project that aims to, at the very least, catalogue this part of the surveillance state, by detecting these cameras out in the wild.
The system is most specifically set up to detect surveillance cameras from Flock Safety, though it’s worth noting a wide range of companies produce plate-reading cameras and associated surveillance systems these days. The device uses an ESP32 microcontroller to detect these devices, relying on the in-built wireless hardware to do the job. The project can be built on a Oui-Spy device from Colonel Panic, or just by using a standard Xiao ESP32 S3 if so desired. By looking at Wi-Fi probe requests and beacon frames, as well as Bluetooth advertisements, it’s possible for the device to pick up telltale transmissions from a range of these cameras, with various pattern-matching techniques and MAC addresses used to filter results in this regard. When the device finds a camera, it sounds a buzzer notifying the user of this fact.
Meanwhile, if you’re interested in just how prevalent plate-reading cameras really are, you might also find deflock.me interesting. It’s a map of ALPR camera locations all over the world, and you can submit your own findings if so desired. The techniques used by in the Flock You project are based on learnings from the DeFlock project. Meanwhile, if you want to join the surveillance state on your own terms, you can always build your own license plate reader instead!
[Thanks to Eric for the tip!]
I wonder how long it takes for one of these devices to detect a flock camera. Having one in a car might be nice.
What about finding these little spy cameras that are available everywhere can someone build a reliable finder for them that actually works
WiFi ? Is Flock building out their own network ? Are they using, and paying for, someone else’s network ? In urban areas I might expect either but some of these are on roadsides where I wouldn’t expect a WLAN to reach and so, wouldn’t they be “phoning home” ?
Some Flock cameras have WiFi enabled, it is used for setup, it is unusual though for it to be left on. Additionally, Flock cameras with external batteries use BLE to monitor battery health.
Additionally, I wouldn’t be surprised if Flock cameras do, or will start soon doing BLE sniffing since everyone just leaves bluetooth turned on on their phone and it is an easy way to track someone’s movements with sufficient sniffing devices.
It’s easy to spot Flock ALPR cameras in my municipality, just look for the solar panel! The other model is the tow behind, Generac-esque looking thing. But interesting article for future use I’m sure… Besides I just use my smart phone and go Wardriving with the wiggle wifi app. Easy to spot with the help of Deflock!
In china there are plate reading cameras every 100m…
It’s not that big a town, so one each end of Highway 90 should do it. One near the (very pretty) church and one near Douget’s Crawfish Farm perhaps. For complete coverage a third up where North Broadway joins with Westbury will complete their coverage.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/9eLCFwWBzZbiYrdo7
The other China, the one in Maine, doesn’t really have that much of a town to cover.
One guy was tracked 540 times in 3 months, this should be against the law.
FedEx is reported to be installing flock cameras on their trucks!
All of this is not alright in my book.