Edit: Only 2 of these were actually installed.
…these cameras contain a hardcoded list of Russian phone numbers, which can be used to open a backdoor. An SMS from one of these numbers can open shell and network access.
…the web management portal can be accessed, exposing live streams, by anyone with the camera IP.
Reports also suggest that pressure from the opposition political party in Slovakia led to the NBU investigations. The current government of the country, led by populist Robert Fico, initially denied reports that the cameras were of Russian origin and rebuffed any security concerns. Fico has what some would describe as a pro-Russia tilt, but you can read more about that elsewhere, if you are interested.
Ye… Russian and Chinese infiltration are exactly the reason why leftists and centrist blocs in the EU introduced things like the GDPR snd Cybersecurity laws.
And why right wing extremists are constantly subverting efforts for more control and regulation.
Does make you wonder about all those Flock Cameras going up in the US and Europe.
I wonder how the public would respond if they believed the cameras were accessible by the nefarious Russians or the insidious Chinese?
I as well wonder. I also wonder why we don’t start a rumour that that is the case.
It’s not unethical, because we should all know the US did make sure there are back doors they can spy through. It’s true, even if we don’t know how it’s true. Same with the kill switches in high value military gear they sell, like fighter jets and bombers.
Benn Jordan exposed their utter cybersecurity failure. His videos are in great part responsible for why the deflock movement took off.
Or the fascist US, which they very likely are.
That’s not a backdoor though, that’s their stated purpose
What’s the difference?
They are accessible by the Russians. They’re accessible from Joe Smoe, as evidenced by Benn Jordan. The cameras don’t discriminate in their discrimination and securities.
I remember seeing articles that there are/were security vulnerabilities that went unpatched.
Since the american government is already abusing them, there’s less of a conversation about how foreign governments might abuse them
The public has been generally brainwashed into believing the Russians aren’t a threat, or are even a savior of right wing anti-gay gun-toting wife-beating conservatism.
But considering Trump is working with Russia, and Russia is working with China, it’s probably not that far out of reality.
The public has been generally brainwashed into believing the Russians aren’t a threat
Are you fucking joking?
Dude they sent congressmen to Russia on the 4th of July.
They hand out t-shirts that say “I’d rather be a Russian than a Democrat”.
The current American president said that he trusts Putin over his own intelligence agencies.
Are you fucking asleep?
Or do you think they just haven’t gone far enough?
The Stephen Crowder tier of right-wing hucksters make money on the “Buy My Merch To Make The Libs Mad” gambit precisely because you’ve got a full panel at MSNBC screaming about Russians being behind everything from Black Lives Matter to InfoWars. This kind of annoying Own-The-Libs bullshit only works because Liberals eat the Evil Foreigners Behind Everything line up with a spoon. It works because so many people are panicked about Russians hiding in the weeds.
“They” also happily parade around with “Trump 2028” hats and bumper stickers that gloat about contributing to climate change, because these things are unsettling to a liberal audience. If nobody cared about Russia, conservatives wouldn’t try to enrage their Lib neighbors by claiming the love Putin so much.
The conservatives owning the libs aside, you make a good point in that the establishment democrats have used Russia to justify their losses after they nominate the most unpopular candidates they can find to run status quo campaigns against a republican party running as reform in an angry electorate.
But Russia is helping fascists across the west seize control, and it’s very dangerous. Very very dangerous, the fascists were already poised to seize control, and Russia’s help can be enough to put them over the edge seeing as we still trust the controlled opposition to stop them.
In fact, unless we get some real populists across the west, liberal deocracies are going to fall like fucking dominoes the next couple of decades.
Reminds me of Flock in the US. They claim to have no access to outside users when requested, and yet in Denver they kept them up and running and only took them down when bagged so the data would be useless to other users. I feel like at some point we’re going to find the justice department or something like Palantir had unlimited access to the whole network the entire time.
They both certainly do, that’s not even a question in my mind. There’s no other reason you build a “disruptive” surveillance camera system and guerrilla-install them even in places that had no contract, other than to give eyes to the intelligence industrial nightmare that is addicted to total control of all humans everywhere
As if they’d bother to bring peace if they ever accomplished this
Maybe it would be a good idea to spread the rumor that the Russian and china were using flock cameras to help Iran plan a terror attack. But that would be so wrong….
We really should start some rumours, idk if that’s the one I would go with, but yeah, something(s) like that. I said the same further up the page actually.
learns basic propaganda techniques
forgets that right wing Americans have been convinced Russia is actually the good guy
Someone is going to Die Hard 4 someone else eventually. In fact, didn’t Russia knock a bunch of Ukrainian millitary communications satellites off before they invaded?
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260730-satellite-killers-what-a-war-in-space-might-look-like
The Liberals I argued with the other day promise me this was physically impossible and that any objection to these cameras just means you want to speed and run red lights. Turns out leftists were right again
