ESP32 vs. Flock Cameras: Your Privacy Edge #shorts
The short version: A DEF CON-rooted project turns cheap ESP32 boards into DIY tools for spotting and studying Flock ALPR cameras, repackaged as the commercial FlockYou kit.
Our Take
This short from STS Technologies LLC distills a DEF CON 34 talk by Cybertiger, Colonel Panic, and The Wrew, who showed how five-dollar ESP32 microcontrollers can be turned into RF-sniffing, hardware-hacking tools for probing surveillance gear like Flock Safety's ALPR cameras. The underlying research matters: it's a reminder that license plate readers are just networked devices with radios, firmware, and attack surfaces — not untouchable black boxes bolted to a pole. When independent researchers and hobbyists can analyze the signals these cameras emit, it shifts some power back to the communities being watched.
We're always cautious about commercial spin-offs of research like this. 'FlockYou' is being sold as a ready-made product, and we can't vouch for its technical claims or effectiveness — that's on STS Collective to prove, not on us to hype. What we can say is that the broader trend of grassroots counter-surveillance tooling, from RF analysis to open-source detection scripts, is exactly the kind of citizen pushback that keeps ALPR vendors honest about what their hardware actually does.
If you want to know where these cameras are actually deployed near you before you start building countermeasures, check our camera map, and if you'd rather fight this battle through policy instead of soldering irons, our take-action page has tools for that too.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of STS Technologies LLC, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.