Tag: technology

Flock’s Optional Gunshot Detection Feature Has Fourth Amendment Implications for Gun Owners

Flock is just one of many suppliers in the global gunshot detection market, which has an estimated total value of $1.5 billion. But the company’s marketing material raises concerns about the technology’s capabilities, which go beyond simply detecting gunfire. In Flock’s own words, a confirmed gunshot “can surface the vehicles seen entering or leaving the area around the time of the sound, using nearby Flock license plate reader cameras.” That statement deserves scrutiny, since it describes a mechanism for turning suspected gunfire into a list of nearby vehicles.

Innocent gun owners could end up on such lists. Suppose a bang recorded by one of these microphones gets classified as gunfire (which it may not actually be, given the possibility of a false positive from a similar noise). That “confirmed event” can trigger an ALPR [automated license plate recognition] inquiry that sweeps in drivers who had nothing to do with the noise. In a country where more than 20 million people have carry permits and 29 states do not require them, some of those drivers will be lawfully armed. The proximity of those innocent drivers could be mistaken for evidence that they fired the shot.

This possibility raises two legal concerns for lawful gun owners. First, what justifies stopping a person on one of these lists? Second, is querying the database a search under the Fourth Amendment? Recent cases provide some answers.

The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen protects lawful public carry. In the 2024 case United States v. Daniels, which involved the detention of an unarmed man who did not match a 911 caller’s description of armed men, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit noted that no crime was reported. Citing Bruen, the court said it “cannot look with suspicion on citizens presumably exercising their Second Amendment rights in a lawful way.”

Last May in Commonwealth v. Foster, by contrast, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld a stop where police responded within seconds to late-night alerts from a gunfire microphone, found only two people, and observed conduct the court considered evasive. An investigative stop requires reasonable suspicion based on specific facts connecting someone to suspected criminal activity. The risk here is that an alert combined with a plate match could be treated as sufficient for reasonable suspicion even though it only establishes proximity.

A recent case from New Jersey illustrates that risk. Last March, in State v. Carrillo, a state appeals court ordered suppression of evidence (an unlawfully possessed handgun) discovered in a minivan after a traffic stop. The police searched the minivan after obtaining a warrant. But the court held that a gunshot alert and an ALPR hit did not adequately connect the minivan to a shooting the day before. Prosecutors conceded that video supposedly showing muzzle flashes from the minivan at the time of the gunfire actually showed none.

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OpenAI admits another rogue agent incident

OpenAI’s agents have leaked 53 images uploaded by ChatGPT users, the company has said, without specifying whether the pictures were AI-generated or depictions of real people, or when they were posted online.

The incident comes amid a series of cases in recent months involving autonomous AI agents, which can independently plan and carry out tasks using external tools. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google have all revealed instances in which their models accessed real systems during testing, including coordinated cyberattacks against government resources.

In a post on X on Friday, OpenAI said most of the leaked pictures had been removed, adding that it was working with hosting providers to take down the remaining content.

The agents had access to the images because OpenAI relies on anonymized user data for part of its model-training process, Reuters reported on Friday, citing the company, its former employees and outside researchers.

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Chinese Hacking Groups Used Shared Attack Tool Against US Aerospace Firms, NGOs

Chinese cyber-espionage groups used the same sophisticated hacking tool in campaigns targeting U.S. aerospace companies, nongovernmental organizations, mining companies, and commodity traders, according to two cybersecurity firms that separately investigated the activity.

Volexity, a Virginia-based cybersecurity firm, said on Sept. 21 its discovery of another Chinese hacking group using the same tool added to evidence of coordinated sharing within China’s cyber-espionage community.

The company said the widespread adoption “suggests a coordinated effort within the Chinese CNE community,” referring to computer network exploitation, and assessed that the core tool was likely shared, customized, and used by multiple groups.

Proofpoint, a U.S. cybersecurity company, separately documented on Sept. 9 the same capability in campaigns against a small number of U.S. NGOs, mining companies, commodity-trading firms, and multiple U.S. aerospace companies. It found several espionage groups adopting the tool within days of one another, with most of the observed clusters having a suspected China nexus.

Neither company has publicly identified who developed the tool or how it reached the different hacking groups.

The Epoch Times asked both companies whether they had identified its developer or distributor and whether they had found additional U.S. targets. Neither responded by publication time.

Same Tool, Different Targets

The hacking groups pursued different victims and installed different spying software after gaining access, but researchers found that they relied on the same underlying break-in capability.

The attacks took advantage of previously unknown weaknesses in Google Chrome and Microsoft Windows. If successful, they could allow hackers to install spying software and maintain access to a victim’s computer.

Volexity said the additional Chinese operator it identified used the same attack chain on Sept. 3 and 4, when the vulnerabilities were still unpatched.

The company cautioned that what Volexity and Proofpoint have observed may represent only part of the activity.

“The full scope and impact are likely far broader,” Volexity said.

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Try Not to Laugh as Kamala Harris Explains Artificial Intelligence and Algorithms 

During a recent podcast appearance, former Vice President Kamala Harris tried to explain artificial intelligence and algorithms. You can probably guess how well things went.

It is amazing to remember that when Joe Biden was president, he actually put her in charge of AI. She was his AI czar.

When you see this clip, you will fully realize what a disastrous decision that really was.

From Breitbart News:

Harris, the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nominee told the “Big Boy’s Neighborhood” podcast this week it’s time to “psyche it out a bit,” contending that algorithms are basically trying to diminish social media user’s curiosity.

“They’re trying to dumb people down with the assumption that people don’t have any interest beyond what they have already seen,” she said. “Think about that.”

The host nodded: “Oh yeah, the algorithm.”

Then Harris took a deep dive into the subject, launching into a flower metaphor to make her point.

“But the algorithm suggesting I have no more interest because I’m looking at this yellow flower,” she said. “I’m only interested in yellow flowers… as though my brain can’t handle the fact that there may be a pink flower, right, right, that I might be interested in looking at, right?”

It wasn’t immediately clear what the point was, but the Washington Times interpreted the words as “algorithms are manipulating people.”

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Energy Secretary Announces $2 Billion For Improving Electric Grid With Smart Technology

The U.S. Department of Energy has committed $2 billion for smart technology improvements to the nation’s electric grid, aiming to address concerns about artificial intelligence power usage, blackouts, and higher utility bills heading into the colder seasons.

During a press conference on Sept. 24, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the investment would affect around 100 million Americans. Nationally, the spending would be distributed across 31 projects in 26 states and is expected to produce more than 23 gigawatts of electricity annually, enough to power about 16 million homes.

“This is a quick way to lower electricity prices and increase reliability: using fibers that are already in the transmission lines to analyze what’s the temperature out, what’s the wind out, how can we use this transmission line to distribute more power, but safely and only in the right conditions,” Wright said, speaking at a PPL Corp. facility in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

As Jeremy Lott reports further for The Epoch Times, PPL owns one of those projects at the local level. It’s a $71.5 million effort to modernize an existing high-voltage transmission line across roughly 30 miles in northern Pennsylvania.

The state has a few data centers now online and a half-dozen more under construction, with grid improvements that could help facilitate them.

Future data center construction in the state has been slowed by an executive order issued by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in August, which affects the construction of all data centers that will use 25 megawatts or more, or enough energy to power about 18,000 homes.

Shapiro said the order was about “implementing the strictest standards in the nation for AI data centers – because I will not allow Pennsylvanians to be bullied by greedy developers and bulldozed by the lawyers working for these big tech companies.”

Manufacturing Grid Components

AI has been in the spotlight in much of the recent electricity news, from the latest grid upgrades to a recent executive order by President Donald Trump.

The “bulk-power system” executive order, issued in late August, aimed to ensure that key components of the grid are not manufactured in nations under arms embargoes or other U.S. sanctions, particularly China, but are instead manufactured domestically whenever possible.

The text of the order said that the new restrictions were necessary because AI and AI-related production, including defense technology, has increased America’s “dependence on abundant, reliable electricity.”

Smart technology improvements to the grid can help reduce electricity waste and thereby free up more supply, but those improvements also increase vulnerability to hackers.

America’s energy needs have heightened the consequences of a “successful attack or supply disruption on the bulk-power system,” the order warned.

The concern is that components manufactured in regimes hostile to certain U.S. interests might contain “backdoors” or other features that make it easier to sabotage the grid, the order stated.

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The Pentagon Flocked Itself. Should Big Brother Be Worried?

As the headquarters to the U.S. military, the Pentagon is surrounded by billions of dollars worth of surveillance and security technology.

These systems provide multiple layers of protection for the building but they also carry a risk of backfiring: any surveillance system that is vulnerable to intruders could potentially provide unauthorized users with details about the activities of the Defense Department (DOD) and its employees. This risk is higher than usual right now because of the decision to install a controversial piece of equipment all over the Pentagon grounds: Flock cameras.

There are at least nine Flock automated license plate readers (ALPRs) currently monitoring the traffic lanes used by drivers entering the Pentagon’s parking lots, including many of the DOD’s own employees. The purpose of these cameras is to give the Pentagon’s security forces the ability to automatically record information about incoming vehicles that may pose a security risk. But if the alleged vulnerabilities of Flock cameras are as serious as the company’s critics allege, then this equipment could be exploited to obtain a detailed list of the national security officials seen entering the Pentagon each day. In this way, the Pentagon’s rush to obtain security equipment from private contractors may pose a national security risk of its own.

Concerns about the ability of Flock products to track people alongside cars has produced backlash from privacy-minded citizens, resulting in both protests and contract cancellations. Others have criticized Flock’s devices for security vulnerabilities that expose them to unauthorized users, flaws which could be especially dangerous in the context of military facilities. Flock Safety has sought to downplay these issues, insisting that they have “never been hacked.” Critics dispute this claim, pointing to multiple different ways that Flock’s devices can be accessed by unauthorized users.

These concerns prompted two members of Congress’ Intelligence committees – Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) – to write a letter last year asking for an investigation into Flock’s “negligent cybersecurity practices.” The duo alleged that the company “needlessly exposes Americans to the threat of hackers and foreign spies tapping this data.” When asked about the Pentagon’s Flock cameras, Sen. Wyden said that “Installing internet-connected cameras in the Pentagon parking lot is obviously a dumb idea. In particular, given Flock’s troubling cybersecurity track record, the Pentagon might as well send the data from those cameras directly to China, Russia and Iran.”

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Flock Safety Wants the Map of Its Cameras Taken Down After Researcher Exposes 300,000-Device Dragnet

A surveillance company is reportedly trying to pull offline a public map showing the reach of its own network. The map, created by cybersecurity researcher Joshua Michael, identifies roughly 300,000 devices tied to Flock Safety across the country.

According to The Intercept, the map draws on location data from a snapshot of Flock’s records archived by Michael in December 2025.

It lists more than 170,000 cameras and over 130,000 other devices, including acoustic sensors and equipment that connects third-party cameras.

Flock has publicly said it operates more than 120,000 cameras. The figures reflect different counts and methods, The Intercept reported.

On Thursday, Michael received a trademark complaint from Doppel, an AI “social-engineering defense” firm that said it was acting on Flock’s behalf.

The demand: stop using the “FLOCK SAFETY” mark and take the map down, citing supposed customer confusion. The site already carries a disclaimer that it is not affiliated with Flock.

Gadget Review reported the complaint arrived less than 24 hours after the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism held its hearing titled “Always Watching: Flock’s Nationwide AI Surveillance Network.”

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How Silicon Valley Became Part of Ukraine’s Military Machine

American Big Tech has become both a sponsor and a direct participant in the Ukrainian conflict. US companies are testing military AI, autonomous systems and battlefield software under combat conditions, effectively using Ukrainian troops as guinea pigs for systems that may later be adopted by the US military.

Russia has already exposed serious weaknesses in some of that technology. Early Anduril drones struggled under Russian electronic warfare, while Starlink-dependent Ukrainian drone operations have faced dedicated Russian efforts to disrupt satellite communications. Equipment that works smoothly on an American test range can fail once Russian forces begin jamming its navigation, breaking its links and finding ways to neutralize it.

The companies developing these systems then get the failure reports, battlefield data and operator feedback needed to rework them. Ukraine gives them a combat environment no peacetime trial can reproduce, while Russian forces keep forcing those technologies to prove whether they actually work.

But which corporations are behind it — and how did they gain access to the highest levels of the Ukrainian state?

Palantir: The AI Layer Behind Ukraine’s Targeting System

Palantir is a US software company specializing in artificial intelligence, data analysis and defense applications, led by CEO Alex Karp. When Karp returned to Kiev on May 12, 2026, Palantir was already deeply integrated into Ukraine’s military infrastructure, with its technology used to analyze battlefield data, process intelligence and support military planning, including operations involving targets inside Russia.

The relationship began in June 2022, when Karp became the first CEO of a major Western company to meet Zelensky in person after the conflict began. By February 2023, Karp said Palantir was “responsible for most of the targeting in Ukraine,” highlighting the company’s role in the intelligence and targeting process used by Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine has accumulated a vast stock of battlefield data. By the end of 2024, the OCHI system alone had collected more than 2 million hours of drone footage, while other military databases contained millions of labeled images by 2026. Russian camouflage, decoys, electronic warfare and disrupted communications make these datasets valuable because Western systems are being tested under conditions no US range can fully reproduce.

In January 2026, Ukraine and Palantir formalized this cooperation through Brave1 Dataroom. The platform allows military AI models to be trained and tested on structured visual and thermal battlefield data, primarily for detecting and intercepting aerial targets, with results used to refine later versions.

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OpenAI Claims Rogue AI Agent Hacked Australian Government Site, Prime Minister Warns of ‘Legal Consequences’

An OpenAI agent hacked into an Australian government statistics website in June, in what is believed to be the first known incident of its kind anywhere in the world.

BBC News reports that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the agent “infiltrated” the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal, a site holding “non-sensitive” data and statistics from Medicare, Australia’s universal healthcare scheme. He raised the matter directly with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during a “very frank discussion” in New York, telling reporters the company had taken “too long” to disclose the breach and warning there would be “legal consequences”.

OpenAI said it only discovered the incident in August, while reviewing “misaligned model activity” internally. On September 10, the company emailed a general inbox belonging to an Australian government agency. Five days later, Services Australia escalated the email to Australia’s cybersecurity center. A government minister was notified, and the prime minister was alerted soon after.

Speaking in New York, Albanese said he had conveyed “Australia’s extreme concern about this incident” to Altman. He described his “disappointment” over “the nature of the way” OpenAI disclosed the breach and the months it took to come forward. According to Albanese, Altman acknowledged there were “issues with protocols” within the company.

A forensic investigation led by Australia’s cybersecurity agency is now under way to determine whether other government systems were compromised, and whether police need to get involved. Albanese said there “will obviously be legal consequences” depending on what the probe finds. The breach itself involved “public and non-public files” on the Medicare portal. Three other government bodies may also have been affected: the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, and the Victorian Department of Health.

“No personal information is believed to have been accessed at this stage, but investigations are ongoing,” Albanese said. He added: “Nonetheless this situation is obviously unacceptable.”

OpenAI, in its own statement, said it had “identified activity involving several Australian government websites and services as our models attempted to look up answers, and available statistics for questions about Australia during an internal evaluation.” The company said, “In the course of that, our models took actions we did not intend.”

Dr Hammond Pearce, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales’ Institute for Cyber Security, told the BBC the incident was significant precisely because it was the first of its kind. “I expect that these kinds of attacks will keep occurring,” he said.

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