A hacker collective calling itself stegan0gram removed a Flock Safety camera, copied its internal storage, and shared the files with 404 Media and WIRED.
The recovered data and device files show the camera ran an Android system with about 20 Flock-built applications handling motion detection, imaging, classification, uploads, and updates.
Hackers say they found two storage partitions, including unencrypted vendor and media partitions, and recovered an encryption key that unlocked much of the device media.
404 Media and WIRED examined the device files and logs and found the camera photographed roughly 50,200 vehicles and generated about 1.6 million images across roughly 21 days of recoverable activity.
According to the analysis, the camera takes rapid bursts of photos when motion is detected, typically producing about 28 images per passing vehicle, and sometimes more than 100 frames for a single pass.
The device creates both high-resolution stills and short MP4 clips about one to two seconds long at 1,024 by 768 pixels without audio, stored separately from burst images.
WIRED extracted the camera's machine learning models and ran them on recovered footage, finding the software explicitly detects people along with vehicles, license plates, and bicycles.
The models detected people in 11 of 27,321 short clips, all of which showed motorcycle riders, and the models also detected a reporter's selfie in test images, the analysis found.
The camera's license plate detector sometimes cropped bumper stickers, dealership frames, and other graphics as if they were plates, including an American flag patch on a motorcyclist's saddlebag.
Network Access Reactions Risks And Company Response
The files reinforce reporting that cameras upload images to Flock servers where license-plate reading and vehicle make, model, and color identification occur, according to WIRED and 404 Media.
404 Media reported that records from Flock cameras can be searched by many agencies nationwide, noting Alpharetta, Georgia data was accessible to more than 2,000 agencies, including police, colleges, airports, and the GSA Office of Inspector General.
The same reporting said some local officers have performed lookups on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and that a Texas officer searched the network in an abortion-related inquiry.
Local pushback has followed. Some towns have stopped using the cameras, and several people have been arrested for alleged tampering, while one police department used a fake Flock shell to bait vandals, reporting shows.
Security researcher Jon 'GainSec' Gaines previously reverse engineered a Flock unit and disclosed flaws, and Flock acknowledged the findings while saying physical access was required and images only remain briefly on devices.
A Flock spokesperson said unauthorized removal and tampering are illegal and urged researchers to use the company's public Vulnerability Disclosure Policy to report technical findings.
Recovered device logs show storage problems with more than 27,000 "no space left on device" errors, tens of thousands of related crashes and reboots, repeated two-minute health messages reading "Who's a good boy?!" and a final reboot message stating "A reboot was requested! ¡Adiós, Amigos!"
One stegan0gram member told WIRED their aim was to reverse engineer the cameras rather than simply destroy them, and a former police officer critic warned that sabotage could strengthen arguments for deploying such tools.
