Unidentified Flock Cameras in Florida
St. Lucie County found a dozen unpermitted Flock cameras whose owner it cannot identify.
St. Lucie County, Florida, found about a dozen Flock license-plate cameras that it had not permitted and whose operator it cannot identify. Bruce Schneier compares the case to unidentified StingRay cell-site simulators previously reported in Washington, DC, and argues a local agency that skipped approval is more likely than a foreign operator. He says compromising an existing Flock network would be less risky than installing new cameras, and that normalized surveillance infrastructure can be abused by both allies and adversaries.
- About a dozen Flock cameras in St. Lucie County have no identified owner.
- The county government had not permitted the devices.
- Schneier suspects a local agency rather than a foreign operator.
- He warns normalized camera networks can be used by allies and adversaries.
Full article158 words · extracted from schneier.com · click to collapse
St. Lucie County in Florida discovered (alt link) a dozen Flock cameras whose ownership it can’t identify, and that the county government had not permitted.
I am reminded of the decade-old story of StingRay cell phone surveillance devices in Washington, DC, whose operators were also unknown.
My guess is that in the StingRay case, the devices were operated by foreign actors. This Flock case is more likely some local government entity that didn’t bother getting approval. Were I a foreign actor, I would rather hack the existing Flock network—like Israel did with Tehran’s surveillance cameras—than risk installing my own.
Regardless, once we normalize a surveillance infrastructure, both friends and foes will take advantage of it.
Once we normalize a surveillance infrastructure, the risk will be that everyone uses it.
Tags: cars, infrastructure, privacy, surveillance
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
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