this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2026
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privacy

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Big tech and governments are monitoring and recording your eating activities. c/Privacy provides tips and tricks to protect your privacy against global surveillance.

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[–] Railing5132@lemmy.world 209 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Your flock post reminder that they aren't just license plate readers. They capture Bluetooth and wifi MACs, NFC IDs, and cellphone IMEIs, scan for wifi ssids (exactly like a WiFi Pineapple, to further fingerprint a device) from every device within range. They also do facial recognition of everyone within view of the lens. All that information is sent to flock for sale to any government agency,

[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 39 points 1 week ago (3 children)

A couple of magnets and a small sheet of metal will not only block the camera, but also leave it fully enclosed in a metal box.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago (3 children)

A stiff wind or a jostle will knock that loose. Sometimes what you need is a hammer

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

A few neodymium magnets and that's a non issue. It also makes it harder to prove damages in front of a judge, if you're ever caught.

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[–] ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

Fuck the people in my town have just started running them over with their cars.

To the point it's making headlines in the news lmao

[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 10 points 1 week ago (4 children)
[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That doesn't stop the electronic surveillance.

[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

Sure, but it makes it a whole lot easier for the next activist to disable that

We work in teams. Each accoring to their own ability and risk appetite.

First, someone maps the location of the cameras on OSM. That's totally legal and extremely important for the whole effort.

Next, someone spray paints them. Then someone cuts them down and smashes them. Finally, scrappers come to collect the waste.

[–] bitjunkie@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

risk appetite

Ooh, what a good turn of phrase. I'm taking it.

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[–] CubitOom@infosec.pub 22 points 1 week ago

Also microphones

[–] BassTurd@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It would be a shame if someone much smarter than me used that knowledge to exploit these systems with ~~malware~~ freedomeware.

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[–] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 10 points 1 week ago (3 children)

How does it fetch NFC data when it's only readable within a few cm?

[–] plz1@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 week ago

I think the point is, they are scraping any possible data points they can over any tech/frequency/etc. NFC is unlikely unless that is pushed alongside BTLE, BT, or WiFi.

FWIW, businesses deploy tech that does this too, just for pure greed purposes, rather than mass surveillance.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You "can" read nfc from further away, the couple of cm limit is it's designed operation.

You need an emitter with enough field strength to power the remote chip that is also sensitive enough to read the modulation on the signal. You can buy commercial devices that go about a meter. You can get all hacky and push way past that, but you need antennas that are much larger than what would fit in a flock box

[–] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 4 points 1 week ago

That's really insightful, thanks 👍

[–] Railing5132@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

I questioned that too. Didn't get a satisfactory response. It was a in a presentation for mainly law enforcement to a generally non-technical audience. But I include it in my 'notification' anyway because those bastards are sneaky. The main push of the presentation is that if it emits a signal, it's leaving digital exhaust that can be tracked and correlated.

[–] imadethis@fedinsfw.app 7 points 1 week ago

Well fuck me sideways, I guess. I wonder how much diabetics are tracked by their stuff. My cousin has a pump and a glucose sensor that I'm pretty sure use bluetooth.

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[–] 0ndead@infosec.pub 81 points 1 week ago (3 children)

That one’s begging for some spray paint

[–] CubitOom@infosec.pub 44 points 1 week ago

A camera is only one of the many sensors in the surveillance system

[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca 21 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Might be fake but apparently those refillable K-lighters can be loaded with paint via a spray can and depressing the lighter shoots out a perfectly lens shaped spray of paint.

[–] jackal@infosec.pub 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well shit… let me go do some research. For science.

[–] ThouHastNoPizza@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] jackal@infosec.pub 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Not really. Now, I honestly got sidetracked after coming up short with a few different attempts.

Where are my people who can hunt down any information at? Because that sure as shit isn’t me lol

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[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 63 points 1 week ago

Land of the free home of the Surveillance State

[–] imadethis@fedinsfw.app 38 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

Just so everyone is aware, even the non-flock speed readers are almost certainly tracking you by your license plate, if not more. I helped try to find a missing elderly person a while ago, maybe five or so years ago, and the government had a record of his movements based on reading his license plate from static roadside devices. I also know that the local cops had a speed display thingie like shown on the video that would alert them to license plates that were listed as stolen vehicles. I wouldn't doubt that it also tracked every other license plate it read. That was, give or take, a decade ago.

Flock might have notoriety right now, but fuck if the 'littler' things like cops put up probably don't also have more than just cameras now. I'm especially thinking of the things that look like those shown 3 or four posts down on this old post

[–] quarkquasar@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think the government has a lot more information on citizens than they'll ever let on.

Hell, 20 years ago, a cop typed my name into his squad computer, and a quote of mine from an internet forum from about 5 years previous popped up on the screen momentarily.

[–] inmate_p01135809@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

People have no idea. I read an article a month ago or so that said that WiFi 7 can use radio/sound frequencies to identify individual people in its range. About 20 years ago a theory was proven to be 80+% accurate at capturing passwords by using a microphone to remotely listen to someone type on a keyboard for a while. Websites, applications, operating systems, hardware, carriers, satellites, vehicle manufacturers, payment processors, healthcare systems, watches, GPS, TVs, etc. are all collecting information whether in good faith or not, and various entities, including the government and private companies, are paying and/or using regulatory enforcement to gather it all. The fight for privacy has already been lost. And most people don't care or are willing to accept it. The silver lining the thought that it's not worth fighting it anymore is kind of relieving.

[–] DanceMomsSavedMe@lemmy.zip 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

In my friends city they use drones that do fly bys.

I remember visiting and we're all outside and smoking weed at night and a drone flies over the house next to us, goes down a line across other houses and makes a turn and flies down the row right next to the last one it made. Like it was mowing the lawn.

At first I thought it was a hobbyists until I noticed the pattern it was taking. It was a surveillance drone and when I asked my buddy if there was a manhunt or something going on for someone he replied that that's the local police stations drone and that they do that all the time.

I'll never forget the terror I felt when he said that. I don't smoke all the time either so I was just staring at them in disbelief while they were all laughing and just chilling about it while I was freaking the absolute hell out about it. I remember they told me I'm just being paranoid.

"ABOUT NIGHTLY DRONE FLY BYS BY THE POLICE DEPARTMENT!?" I still can't believe said I'm just being paranoid about being scared shirtless about that and what ur brings for the future.

Police surveillance has been overreaching for a long time

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[–] notabot@piefed.social 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is what's been confusing me about this whole situation. They've been tracking vehicle movements with ANPR cameras, the movements of your phone from its Bluetooth and wifi transmissions, and your movements with facial recognition for years now. Flock just stapled "AI" on to it and marketed it harder.

It's great to see communities finally speaking up about these issues, but it's going to take a lot of work to undo it all. In the meantime, if you have people around you that you can trust, maybe pool your vehicles and phones to increase the noise in their data.

[–] Jason2357@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

People like the EFF have been fighting these surveillance cameras that track plates for years and years. Flock specifically got notoriety because people started getting grabbed off the street and shipped off to camps or foreign Gulags and we learned Flock was providing the tracking data to do it. Families have been ripped apart and people have died in a reasonable connection with Flock.

[–] notabot@piefed.social 7 points 1 week ago

I guess what I should have said was that I'm confused as to why more people weren't up in arms before now. I'm not actually confused, as you say, the harm has now been made obvious when it could be ignored before, but I am frustrated. My biggest concern is that Flock will act as a lightening rod for people's anger and eventually be removed, leaving the rest of the system intact. It feels very much like a sacrificial move to get people to ignore the underlying problem, whilst exposing themselves if they take action, and allowing those in favour of tracking to say "see it's just those violent extremists who don't like being tracked, you're not like that, so you have nothing to fear, right?" The public pushback needs to be widened, somehow, to encompass all forms of tracking like this.

[–] bitjunkie@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Joke's on them, I can't afford car registration

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[–] BeUnique@lemmy.zip 33 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Wouldn't it be absolutely horrible if somebody accidentally swung a sledgehammer into the back of that from the other side before being filmed.

[–] devaly@ani.social 36 points 1 week ago

do not bring any phone or smart device with you

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[–] Smaile@lemmy.ca 31 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

still vulnerable to a hammer and a lock cutter

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[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 28 points 1 week ago

My. Local jackasses just put a speed reader like this right in one of the lanes on my street. It tells you your speed as you swerve around it into incoming traffic. It's infuriating.. Now I want to check to see if has a flock cam in it.

[–] SalamiDommie@lemmus.org 22 points 1 week ago

The game is now the people vs the unelected.

The elected feel entitled to their positions and are trying to established the unelected to attain their desires outside of the will of the people.

[–] cavitationfetishist2@quokk.au 17 points 1 week ago (12 children)

Dismantle the whole thing. Punish them.

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[–] Felis_Catus_Domesticus@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Put a little vaseline on the lens..

[–] nullspace@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

What's the legality of something like that? You aren't damaging property and you aren't defacing in the same way as spray paint.

[–] GarboDog@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Lil spray paint won’t hurt

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