This reporting was done in collaboration with 404media. Here's the discussion for 404's article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49726577

Distributed Denial of Secrets has published the partition images: https://ddosecrets.org/article/flock-alpr-camera

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fullstop 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I poked around in the boot partition. The kernel is ancient!

Linux version 3.18.71-perf-gaf770dc

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incee 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

3.18.71-perf-gaf770dc is a Qualcomm Android vendor kernel from roughly late 2017. The 3.18 branch went fully EOL in 2019, so nothing after that was ever backported to it.

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tyrabound 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

2017 was also the year Flock was funded and founded and went through the YConbinator cohort.

But you would have thought that by 2021 when Andreessen Horowitz funded them or at least by 2025 [1] when both further funded them, someone would have actually done some minor due diligence. Coincidentally too, 2025 was when the flock surveillance matrix went up all over the country almost immediately.

We constantly hear that the magic of tech funding lies in the people, not even the product/service. These types of things always seem to uncover that that is effectively just a lie to cover up the ulterior motives of setting up a tyrannical surveillance matrix all around you … to protect the children, of course.

[1] https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-safety-secures-major-...

	▲	Arrowmaster 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's almost as if they paid a contractor to design the hardware back in 2017 and put all the funding into marketing(bribes) since then. Shocker.

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samudrijan 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Security through obsolescence!

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datakan 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The oldest supported kernel is 5.10 and that loses support in December. That's wild they are using a 3.X kernel

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tushar-r an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

>gaf770dc

missing a d(gaf)

sorry, had to get that out!

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Barbing 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Thanks. Few saw that post: https://news.social-protocols.org/stats?id=49726577

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john_strinlai 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

do the articles have significantly different information/coverage to warrant two submissions?

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driverdan 39 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

No, they're the same article. I had only read 404's when I submitted them and I assumed they'd both be submitted regardless.

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incee 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I can't read the Wired article because I'm only allowed three excerpts and 15 ads a day at Wired.com

	▲	john_strinlai 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		same, but i'm not sure how that's related to my comment. workarounds or alternate articles without significant new information are typically posted within the same submission, not separate ones.
	▲	driverdan 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Use the Bypass Paywalls Clean extension https://gitflic.ru/project/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-fire...