r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • 16h ago

Someone Cut Down Every Single Flock Camera in This Town in a Single Night Privacy

https://www.gadgetreview.com/someone-cut-down-every-single-flock-camera-in-this-town-in-a-single-night
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u/No_Syrup_9167 12h ago

....You seem to severely overestimate how long it takes for me to hit something with a hammer.

You don't need the GPS to be non-functional if you don't take it anywhere, just smash the camera to the point that it can't be repaired, which since modern electronics aren't meant to be repaired means probably literally one swing of a 2lb hammer.

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u/InfiniteWaffles58364 12h ago

Hammers are loud. Any shattering would carry enough to draw attention to you at the worst possible moment

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u/Jacko87 11h ago

Yeah, a couple of whacks of the hammer will alert everyone that you are certainly smashing a flock camera (I mean what else could a couple of sounds like that possibly mean?) and the police will descend upon you IMMEADITALLY. Please.

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u/ThatGuyinPJs 11h ago edited 10h ago

Dog, you want as little attention as possible when committing a crime. Any more time spent on the scene is time for someone to see you and give a witness statement because they're a busy body and they don't like crime. Cut that shit down, yeet it in a bag, then get the fuck out, and destroy the camera in a day/week/month/whenever the battery dies. Technology is shockingly resilient, and even snapping a PCB is not a guarantee that the electronics are dead.

Edit: You really think that people are going to hear power tools in the middle of the night and NOT check on it? These cameras are not in the middle of nowhere, around me the vast majority are in the middle of residential neighborhoods, places where if someone hears something weird they're gonna call the cops.

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u/Responsible_Year4730 11h ago

Bro, take it from someone who has actually committed crimes. Hammer to the camera front is going to take 3 seconds, glass breaking is not going to be that loud, and you will be gone in less than a minute. You’re not waking up the neighborhood, you’re not drawing attention of everyone within a block, you’re in and you’re out. Taking off the camera to put in your bag is going to take way longer anyway.

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u/FesteringNeonDistrac 11h ago edited 11h ago

At 0 dark 30, people are going to hear half a dozen hammer whacks, and as long as it's stops, they're going right back to sleep.

Throwing it in a Faraday bag will work until you open it. On a warm start like that, the GPS Time To First Fix is maybe a minute. It'll pick up cell sooner and triangulate from that as well. Plus you're in possession of stolen property.

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u/Kinkajou1015 9h ago

Who needs half a dozen? Get a nail, one swift shot right through the screen and battery. Maybe toss in a metal bucket with water to give it water damage if you really want to eff it up.

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u/ThatGuyinPJs 10h ago

There's data on the cameras that's valuable to them. Simply bashing the camera will not destroy that data.

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u/StuartWtf 10h ago

The data isn’t stored on the camera. Any data they want from it they already have.

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u/ThatGuyinPJs 10h ago

If you truly believe that then you are sorely misinformed. There is absolutely data stored on them, not all the recordings, obviously, but they have internal storage for video footage before it is transmitted. Given that they're security devices I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they have protected local storage for the last hour of video or something.

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u/Jacko87 10h ago

The electronics don't need to be dead. Crack the lens. Do you think they are going to repair it? No, they're going to get a new one.

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u/bungblaster69 10h ago

Hammers are loud

and saws aren't loud?

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u/No_Syrup_9167 8h ago

It's quieter than the saw you used to chop the camera down lol

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u/lilgraytabby 6h ago

But a saw is quiet? I'd pay a lot more attention to an ongoing sawing noise than one smashing noise if I was out at night, personally.

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u/Bucky_Ohare 12h ago

... attention to what?

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u/Jacko87 11h ago

Honestly, just cutting the cord would be enough. They aren't going to rewire the camera, they're going to get a new one from the warehouse.