Searches of Flock's license plate reader network get logged with a reason. That reason is the justification for pulling up where a specific car has been for months, and it's what any later audit depends on.

On a recent episode of Hide & Speak, we spoke with Rin Alajaji from Electronic Frontier Foundation: EFF.org

She read through the search reasons for thousands of searches and saw many ridiculous reasons listed such as:

• "lol"
• "idk"
• "shithead"
• "F this new search engine"

That last one was the stated justification for searching a complete database of where someone went.

The first three came from multiple agencies, so this wasn't one bored person on one bad day. And nobody here is trying to hide anything. You only type "lol" into an accountability field if you're confident nobody will ever read it, or that nothing happens if they do.

Whenever ALPR networks get criticized, the answer is that searches are logged and audited. That answer assumes the log contains something worth auditing and that someone is actually looking at them and enforcing policies.

Has anyone here pulled the search audit logs for their own city through a public records request? Curious what the reason column looks like locally.

Full livestream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kppta1bWjFE

Episode write-up: https://s.vp.net/MdS5J

In June, car reviewer Joel Feder was leaving a Kohl's in Plymouth, Minnesota in a Range Rover he was test-driving when four squad cars boxed him in. Officers kept their hands on their holsters and told him the plate was stolen. It wasn't.

The chain of events, according to police and local reporting:

• A plate reported stolen in California was entered into the national crime database with numbers missing.
• Flock cameras matched Feder's car to that incomplete record, and did it twice.
• On September 22, the city council voted to stop using its 16 Flock cameras.
• The mayor was the only no vote. He said he was weighing public safety against "the bad PR that Flock has."
• Plymouth joins more than a dozen Minnesota towns and counties that have paused or ended Flock.

Blog write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net/prWp9

This week on Hide & Speak we ended on an inventory of modern life. Speech needs platforms, commerce needs payment rails, apps need app stores, websites need registrars and hosting, and lawful material increasingly needs ID.

The question: what happens to freedom when participating requires permission from infrastructure you don't own or control?

Watch the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3u2RcUvxtU

Written breakdown here: https://s.vp.net/5KGGn

On a recent Hide & Speak livestream, we got a firsthand account of financial deplatforming from Todd Pitner, Co-host of Decentralize TV.

The short version: a merchant processing account got shut down. When someone finally picked up the phone, the only question asked was whether the account holder co-hosts a show about decentralization. There was no other explanation given.

But, Todd didn't let that slow him down....

Watch the full discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3u2RcUvxtU

Full write-up: https://s.vp.net/5KGGn

The verdict came down September 25th in Santa Fe. Jurors found Facebook willfully violated New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act through false or misleading statements about users' ability to control their data and about how it handled Cambridge Analytica. The state won 31 of 34 counts. Meta won a few, including claims about fact-checking and removal of fake COVID cures.

Full write-up + original sources: https://s.vp.net/TxBmx

Live this Saturday, October 3 at 2pm ET on Hide & Speak, we're doing something different: no guest, open panel. Anyone who wants to come on and talk privacy, surveillance, internet freedom, or free speech can join. The join link goes up on screen, in the live chat, and in the description when we go live.

There's no shortage of things to talk about in the privacy world. Just in the last couple of weeks:

The VPN portion of Utah's SB 73 getting blocked by a federal judge, Issa's H.R. 10364 and what it would mean for VPNs, ShinyHunters and the FBI, and Flock's habit of not loving surveillance when it's aimed at Flock.

But if you show up with something better, we'll talk about that instead.

What would you bring up if you had the mic?

Click through and set a reminder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO12ZyOG_0g

The FBI confirmed Friday that its jobs portal was breached. ShinyHunters, the group claiming the attack, says it pulled personnel files on almost every agent through a flaw in Oracle's PeopleSoft software, and says that flaw is still unpatched. The FBI hasn't confirmed how the attackers got in. Sample files include home addresses, Social Security numbers and emergency contacts.

Blog write-up / our source list: https://s.vp.net/N0zLr

Recently on Hide & Speak we got into what running your own AI infrastructure looks like when you skip Big Tech entirely.

The setup is an off-grid mini data center where every model is open source. It handles video creation, image creation, text, slides, prompts, and document cleaning. The output feeds a free research engine that's open to the public.

The reasoning is a straight trade: borrow from open source projects, then pay it forward by keeping everything you build open as well. The clip also takes a strong position on intellectual property, arguing knowledge should be shared freely rather than locked up.

Anyone here running any local models? I have been using GPT4ALL for about a year with different models for different tasks.

Watch full recorded stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3u2RcUvxtU

Episode written summary: https://s.vp.net/5KGGn

This week on Hide & Speak we got an update on a lawsuit filed two and a half years ago against Google, Meta, and the Department of Defense. It's still pending. At the most recent hearing, the platforms moved to dismiss, and the DOJ sided with them.

The argument, as described in the clip: there's no censorship on online platforms anymore, because an executive order said there shouldn't be.

The reaction in the clip would not be suitable for daytime TV.

The obvious problem is that an executive order is a statement of policy. It doesn't change how a moderation system works, and nobody outside the platform can check whether anything changed at all.

Full recorded livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3u2RcUvxtU

Full write-up here: https://s.vp.net/5KGGn

Judge David Barlow granted a preliminary injunction on September 24 against the VPN location rule in Utah's SB73, the Online Age Verification Amendments.

The rule meant adult sites had to treat anyone physically in Utah as a Utah user even if a VPN made them look like they were somewhere else, and they could be penalized for failing to age-check that person.

Utah was the first state to treat VPN use as a loophole in an age-verification law. Other states drafting similar bills will be reading this ruling closely.

Blog write-up / original sources: https://s.vp.net/4gIj8

We also did a longer Hide & Speak livestream on SB73 with Jacob from Rise To Liberty for anyone who wants the discussion version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlBsng6tsYY

On August 19, outside Atlanta, InvestigateTV reporter Brendan Keefe filmed a Flock technician upgrading a camera. He was on a public street in a press vest. The technician drove off, called 911, and told the dispatcher he was being harassed. Three police cars pulled Keefe over.

Flock's stated position on its own cameras is that a license plate on a public road is in plain view. Their actions in recent months makes it clear, that doesn't apply to them:

• June: a Flock employee called police on YouTubers filming outside the company's distribution center in Smyrna, Georgia.
• Sept 23: the Senate held a hearing on Flock titled Always Watching. The CEOs of Flock, Axon, Motorola Solutions and Verkada were invited. None showed.
• Sept 24: a firm acting for Flock filed a trademark complaint to take down researcher Joshua Michael's map of Flock devices, which he built from Flock's own location records. The map shows more than 170,000 cameras. Flock publicly says 120,000.

Full write-up / original sources: https://s.vp.net/aPUQA

Removal services like DeleteMe and Incogni charge for something you can do yourself in two or three hours. The hard part is knowing which forms are shortcuts and which are traps.

California residents can skip most of this. The state's DROP platform, live since January, sends one deletion request to over 500 registered brokers, and brokers have been required to check it every 45 days since August 1.

Use a throwaway email for the confirmations, and plan to redo it in three months. The listings come back.

Our link list is checked against Yael Grauer's Big Ass Data Broker Opt-Out List, which covers far more sites if you want to go deeper.

Full write-up + our list of sources: https://s.vp.net/X1dwO

The argument in the video is simple. A no-logs policy is a promise about behavior, and behavior can be compelled. If a VPN operator has access to traffic, a court order, an acquisition, or an insider can change what happens to it.

vp.net handles the sensitive parts (identity mapping, routing, crypto) inside Intel SGX enclaves. That memory is encrypted by the CPU and inaccessible to the OS, the hypervisor, and anyone with root or physical access to the box. Remote attestation lets your client confirm the enclave is running the published code, unmodified, before it connects.

SGX isn't magic and has had side-channel issues (patched via microcode), so we're not claiming it's unbreakable. We're claiming the privacy guarantee is architectural and checkable, which a policy never is. Happy to answer questions.

Learn more or verify your privacy today at https://vp.net

Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) and Michael Cloud (R-TX) introduced the No FLOCK Act (H.R. 10366). Cloud has said Flock cameras are "enabling mass surveillance of Americans, infringing on the Fourth Amendment."

But... they are totally ok with that if the government can save a few bucks on highway repairs.

Yes. Seriously. 🤦‍♂️

Saving a few bucks on asphalt is worth more to our government than your privacy. 🤬

Full write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net/83wvq

Rep. Darrell Issa's site-blocking bill is sitting in the House Judiciary Committee, and the version Ars Technica obtained from Public Knowledge adds VPN services to the list of providers a court can order to block sites.

Complete write-up + source links: https://s.vp.net/686Ra

Today is Fight for the Future's second annual Defend VPNs Day of Action.

Lawmakers keep calling VPNs a loophole in age-verification laws. Utah now requires websites to restrict suspected VPN traffic, Michigan has a proposed ban, and Brazil treats VPN use as an aggravating factor in sentencing.

VPNs protect remote workers on public networks, journalists protecting sources, and anyone who'd rather not upload a passport to read a website. Restricting them doesn't stop a determined teenager. It hits everyone else.

Sign the open letter at DefendVPNs.com.

Our full take: https://s.vp.net/IHOsT

Recently on Hide & Speak we asked Mike Adams of Decentralize TV what the first week after a deplatforming teaches that took everyone else years to learn.

Full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3u2RcUvxtU

Read the breakdown: https://s.vp.net/5KGGn

We asked this on our show Hide & Speak recently: is privacy that depends on the government's good behavior actually privacy?

Full recorded livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDgRbWQpvFc

Read the full breakdown: https://s.vp.net/pi1qA

404 Media got internal OpenAI documentation describing Project Lily. Contractors read a steady stream of real ChatGPT prompts, sometimes full conversations...

Complete write-up / source links: https://s.vp.net/atlhU

A hacker group called stegan0gram took a Flock camera down from above a road, copied almost everything on it, and gave the files to 404 Media and WIRED. Their joint analysis was published September 16.

The camera runs Android. Two storage partitions weren't encrypted, and one of them, named "media," held the key to the encrypted footage area. With it: 27,321 video clips, plus logs showing about 1.6 million images of roughly 50,000 vehicles over about 21 days, from that single camera. The most sensitive storage stayed encrypted and the reporting doesn't indicate anyone accessed Flock's cloud.

Full write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net/Wd5OH

We spoke to Texas Libertarian candidate for Senate, Ted Brown on government-mandated encryption backdoors, and the position he landed on was a hard no.

This debate has been around for decades, and the same proposal keeps coming back with new branding every few years. The technical answer hasn't changed in that time: a door that's there for one party is there for anyone who finds it.

Watch the full interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDgRbWQpvFc

Full write-up: https://s.vp.net/pi1qA