What the Flock? It’s probably just some quirk of The Almighty Algorithm, but ever since we featured a story on Flock’s crime-fighting drones last week, we’ve been flooded with other stories about the company, some of which aren’t very flattering. The first thing that we were pushed was this handy interactive map of the company’s network of automatic license plate readers. We had no idea how extensive the network was, and while our location is relatively free from these devices, at least ones operated on behalf of state, county, or local law enforcement, we did learn to our dismay that our local Lowe’s saw fit to install three of these cameras on the entrances to their parking lot. Not wishing to have our coming and goings documented, we’ll be taking our home improvement dollars elsewhere for now.
But it’s a new feature being rolled out by Flock that really got our attention: the addition of “human distress” detection to their Raven acoustic gunshot detection system. From what we understand, gunshot detection systems use the sudden acoustic impulse generated by the supersonic passage of a bullet, the shock wave from the rapidly expanding powder charge of a fired round, or both to detect a gunshot, and then use the time-of-arrival difference between multiple sensors to estimate the shot’s point of origin. Those impulses carry a fair amount of information, but little of it is personally identifiable, at least directly. On the other hand, human voices carry a lot of personal information, and detecting the sounds of distress, such as screaming, would require very different monitoring techniques. We’d imagine it would be akin to what digital assistants use to monitor for wake words, which would mean turning the world — or at least pockets of it — into a gigantic Alex. We don’t much like the idea of having our every public utterance recorded and analyzed, even with the inevitable assurances from the company that the “non-distress” parts of the audio stream will never be listened to. Yeah, right.
Botnets are bad enough when it’s just routers or smart TVs that are exploited to mine crypto or spam comments on social media. But what if a botnet were made of, you know, actual robots? That might be something to watch out for with the announcement of a vulnerability in certain Unitree robots, including several of their humanoid robots. The vulnerability, still unpatched at the time of the Spectrum story, lies in the Bluetooth system used to set up the robots’ WiFi configuration. It sounds like an attacker can easily craft a BLE packet to become an authenticated user, after which the WiFi SSID and password fields can be used to inject arbitrary code. The fun doesn’t end there, though, since a compromised robot could then go on to infect any other nearby Unitree bots via BLE. And since Unitree seems to be staking out a market position as the leader in affordable humanoid robots, who’s to say what could happen? If you want a zombie robot apocalypse, this seems like a great way to get it.
Also from the “Bad Optics for Robots” files comes this story about a Waymo car that went just a little off course. Or rather, on course — a golf course, to be precise. Viral video shows a Waymo self-driving Jaguar creeping slowly across a golf course fairway as bemused golfers look on. But you can relax, because the robotaxi company says that this isn’t a case of their AI driving system going awry, but rather a human-driven robotaxi preparing for an event at the golf course. The company seems to think this absolves them, and perhaps it does officially and legally. But a very distinctive car that’s well-known for getting into self-driving mischief, appearing in a place one doesn’t typically associate with vehicles larger than golf carts, seems like a bad look for the company.
And finally, back in December of 2023, we dropped a link to My Mechanics’ restoration of a 1973 Datsun 240Z. He’s been making slow but steady progress on the car since then, with the most recent video covering his painstaking restoration of the rear axle and suspension. Where most car rebuild projects use as many replacement parts as possible, My Mechanics prefers to restore the original parts wherever possible. So, where a normal person might look at the chipped cooling fins on the original Z-car’s brake drums and order new ones, My Mechanics instead pulls out the TIG welder and lays up some beads to patch the broken fins. He used a similar technique to restore the severely chowdered compression fittings on the brake lines, something we’ve never seen down before. Over the top? You bet it is, but it still makes for great watching. Enjoy!
I remember reading an article about the Raven system – it heard a gunshot and successfully located the shot to a car stopped at a railway crossing, the car was caught on camera, and the license plate led to the arrest of the owner.
Win win.
Except that the Raven systems were not sync’d to GPS time, some of them were “off by a little”, and as a result the car was a false positive.
The same thing happened with a woman whose image was caught on an ATM camera using a stolen credit card. After everything settled out it was found that the timestamp in the ATM was off, and the actual culprit had used the ATM several seconds before the woman who was arrested.
I suppose the moral is that we shouldn’t allow arrests or trials without corroborating information, or maybe just don’t use the high tech as direct evidence.
Flock is downright evil. Authoritarian mass surveillance.
I’d love to see HaD articles on defeating or disabling these systems, honestly.
They are ultimately just glorified android phones zip tied to a post alongside a solar panel. Tech stack involving OpenCV and YOLO… The edge devices are straightforward. The real evil happens in the cloud with the data collection, analysis… And resale to highest bidder.
There was an article about exactly this not long ago. Mainly about avoidign License Plate detection but its a start.
Maia leaked some of the apps running on that ALPR system https://maia.crimew.gay/files/posts/fckice/flock-safety.zip
OK I’ll download a mystery .zip, what could go wrong!
Here’s the full post if you want to check it out: https://maia.crimew.gay/posts/fckice/
Agree. Flock is truly AWFUL. And the CEO is incredibly slimy, if you want the motivation to do something about them, go watch a few interviews of Garrett Langley.
Hackaday understandably isn’t going to publish guides on how to destroy the cams, but, thanks to the work of the DeFlock folks and others, you can go find them, or towns using them, and advocate for having them removed.
That “authoritarian mass surveillance” captures great video of ICE abuse of our freedoms. Might come in handy latter if sanity ever returns.
Try to read a little more – and not so much of the liberal press.
ICE only abuses the freedom of illegal immigrants to the USA.
Preserving the freedom and safety of legitimate citizens of the USA.
Can we please STOP HAD from going down the cesspool of Reddit by removing all tin-foil political hack posts? It really is getting bad and will only result in more hate being spread.
Wow! triggered much? There are many examples of ICE violating the constitutional rights of US citizens. You must be one of those snow flakes that accused others of being a snow flake. F^(k your feelings. you should use your pacman to gobble on deez….
We’re… just ignoring the widely-reported South Shore raid last week in Chicago, which saw more than 20 people, most of whom were lawful natural-born citizens of the United States, detained for multiple hours in the middle of the night until ICE agents could verify their legal status?
That raid in particular was sparked by a real estate dispute over the building and the administration’s hostile approach toward the city’s mayor.
Surely we’re not going to believe everything one of the 3-letter agencies publishes on its own letterhead about its own conduct and reasoning, right? Surely we’re not going to shill for the government just because they say they’re doing “the right thing?”
The biggest reason people take issue with flock:
LE needs Probable Cause for a Warrant which includes Surveillance. Flock conducts surveillance as a private company than sells that information to LE and everyone else, while doing so from public property.
It is absolutely illegal tracking and spying with no way to avoid it.
Its Orwellian, and I am waiting for someone to challenge its legality in court (since Flock takes money from LE they are, infact, “Acting as an Agent of Law Enforcement”….aka the same evidence/warrant rules apply.)
Don’t hold your breath waiting. Just saying
I remember a browser called Flock which was supposed to be the next chrome killer back in the early 2010’s it was bloated and I think it needed Adobe Air to run which was a nightmare on Linux at the time so I genearlly stay away from things called “Flock” these days
The latest court snafu with flock determined that they are not violating the fourth amendment. I believe the case argument was flawed in that it does track you because the camera itself is located with a GPS coordinate. Is not this the same as putting a gps tracker on a car? I think the judge in the case ruled incorrectly because they misunderstand the technology is likely being lobbied by the industry to move on.