Surveillance in America, Pt 2: Flock You Very Much - What the Hack Ep. 242
The short version: DeleteMe's Benn Jordan and 404 Media's Jason Koebler poke holes in Flock's 'never been hacked' claim by watching themselves on camera, exposing how fragile the trust-us model really is.
Our Take
Flock Safety loves to say its system has never been hacked, as if that settles the matter. Benn Jordan and Jason Koebler's segment on What the Hack does something more useful than taking the company's word for it: they actually tested the claim by watching themselves show up on a camera's feed. That's the kind of hands-on scrutiny this industry almost never gets, because Flock would rather you trust the brand than look at the architecture.
The deeper issue isn't whether this particular exploit is catastrophic. It's that a nationwide network of plate-reading cameras, feeding a searchable database shared across thousands of agencies, is only as safe as its weakest login, API, or vendor contract. 'Never been hacked' is a marketing line, not a security audit, and the public has no independent way to verify it because Flock controls the disclosure. When journalists and researchers have to reverse-engineer access just to see what the system sees, that tells you who the data really belongs to.
Credit to Jordan and Koebler for doing the work instead of repeating press releases. If you want to know whether this kind of camera is already watching your street, check our map, and if you're ready to push back on your city council or state legislature, our take-action page has concrete next steps.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of DeleteMe, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.