Hackers Remove Flock Camera, Exposing People-Detection Software

A hacker collective has physically removed a Flock Safety camera from a roadside, copied its internal data, and shared the files with journalists, revealing the device's software and operational logs in unprecedented detail. The group, calling itself stegan0gram, recovered an encryption key stored on the camera, which unlocked videos of thousands of vehicle detections despite the company's claims of on-device encryption. A joint analysis of the recovered data by two news organizations found that the camera's software explicitly detects people, not just vehicles, license plates, and bicycles. When the system identifies a person, it records their location in the image and a confidence score for the detection. This capability has been largely absent from public discussions about the surveillance devices. The analysis of logs covering approximately 21 days of activity showed the single camera photographed roughly 50,200 vehicles and generated about 1.6 million images. On a typical day, it logged around 3,300 vehicles, with a peak of 4,454. The camera captured vehicles in rapid bursts, with a typical passing car generating about 28 images, though some triggered more than 100.