Flock Exposes Its AI-Enabled Surveillance Cameras

404 Media has the story:

Unlike many of Flock’s cameras, which are designed to capture license plates as people drive by, Flock’s Condor cameras are pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras designed to record and track people, not vehicles. Condor cameras can be set to automatically zoom in on people’s faces as they walk through a parking lot, down a public street, or play on a playground, or they can be controlled manually, according to marketing material on Flock’s website. We watched Condor cameras zoom in on a woman walking her dog on a bike path in suburban Atlanta; a camera followed a man walking through a Macy’s parking lot in Bakersfield; surveil children swinging on a swingset at a playground; and film high-res video of people sitting at a stoplight in traffic. In one case, we were able to watch a man rollerblade down Brookhaven, Georgia’s Peachtree Creek Greenway bike path. The Flock camera zoomed in on him and tracked him as he rolled past. Minutes later, he showed up on another exposed camera livestream further down the bike path. The camera’s resolution was good enough that we were able to see that, when he stopped beneath one of the cameras, he was watching rollerblading videos on his phone…

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House GOP leaders seek government probe, restrictions on Chinese-made tech

They cited past cyberattacks from Beijing as evidence of the threats posed by Chinese tech in areas like AI or energy generation.

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Flok License Plate Surveillance

The company Flok is surveilling us as we drive:

A retired veteran named Lee Schmidt wanted to know how often Norfolk, Virginia’s 176 Flock Safety automated license-plate-reader cameras were tracking him. The answer, according to a U.S. District Court lawsuit filed in September, was more than four times a day, or 526 times from mid-February to early July. No, there’s no warrant out for Schmidt’s arrest, nor is there a warrant for Schmidt’s co-plaintiff, Crystal Arrington, whom the system tagged 849 times in roughly the same period.

You might think this sounds like it violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects American citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause. Well, so does the American Civil Liberties Union. Norfolk, Virginia Judge Jamilah LeCruise also agrees, and in 2024 she ruled that plate-reader data obtained without a search warrant couldn’t be used against a defendant in a robbery case…

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Hacker helped kill FBI sources, witnesses in El Chapo case, according to watchdog report

A cartel affiliate notified an FBI agent about a hacker who infiltrated cameras and phones to track an FBI official’s meetings, the DOJ inspector general said.

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Review: The $349 DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro comes for GoPro’s crown

What do you want from an action cam? It should be rugged, reliable, and able to capture great video and audio. But that’s just the bare minimum for DJI and its all-new Action 5 Pro – a serious big hitter that might just displace GoPro from its throne.C… Continue reading Review: The $349 DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro comes for GoPro’s crown

Night-vision monocular reveals dark secrets in “true full color”

Duovox has followed its successful Kickstarter for a military-grade night-vision monocular with a Pro version that promises to bring the hidden darkness into “true full color.” The nocturnal adventure gadget is also joined by a teeny smartphone camera…. Continue reading Night-vision monocular reveals dark secrets in “true full color”

Review: Seemor 200 combines infrared with full-color night vision

Akaso’s Seemor 200 night-vision scope uses AI to blur the dividing line between color day imaging and infrared black-and-white night imaging. We waited for sundown and put one through its paces. Here’s what we found.Continue ReadingCategory: Technology… Continue reading Review: Seemor 200 combines infrared with full-color night vision