Extracting video and audio from used police body cam

https://twitter.com/d0tslash/status/1278414895487365121

by alexfromapex • 6 years ago

108 87 6 years ago

twitter.com

icholy• 6 years ago

I just see two pictures of a disassembled camera. Is there more info?

Kaze4043• 6 years ago

There's an entire thread under the linked tweet.

emilfihlman4• 6 years ago

Twitter UX sucks pretty badly, especially for those who have not used it much.

MaxBarraclough• 6 years ago

Which may or may not show. I had to refresh to see that thread. (I loaded the URL again in a fresh Private Browsing window, and sure enough, I didn't see the thread.)

Another reason Twitter is a poor substitute for a blog post.

Jaruzel2• 6 years ago

It's all unrolled here:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1278413772680507392.html

Personally, I think this is bad form. He should have quietly told the seller that the data is recoverable rather than broadcast it all over Twitter. The last thing we need is the Police finding reasons NOT to wear bodycams.

grawprog2• 6 years ago

All police body cam footage should be public. Their work is paid for by tax money, they are supposed to be public servants. Governments, including their police force should be transparent to public they're supposed to be serving.

morpheuskafka• 6 years ago

Not sure what telling the seller would do, they are just some third party reseller.

I suspect that there probably is a way to wipe these, although I don't know for sure, and the manufacturer should take this as an opportunity to remind agencies to do so before disposal.

bathtub3652• 6 years ago

It would be great if police found ways to do their jobs that didn't require them to wear body cams because they can't be trusted not to lie, kill, steal, and torture citizens.

MasterScrat• 6 years ago

You need to follow the twitter thread. Click the first tweet (or go to https://mobile.twitter.com/d0tslash/status/12784137726805073...). Then scroll down and click on "more replies" to keep going. Feel free to curse Twitter's UI/UX along the way.

pininja• 6 years ago

A little further down the thread they post the success! https://twitter.com/d0tslash/status/1278458524742361089?s=21

TheChaplain2• 6 years ago

Uh, I'm not sure it's a good idea to post pictures of the camera footage on Twitter? Especially as one also have military personnel in it...

LockAndLol2• 6 years ago

I this guy opening himself up to a lawsuit by publishing everything like that? Last I remember, people got nailed for simply pointing out there was an issue on a server and with anti-repair laws out there, you never know what's gonna happen.

loeg• 6 years ago

This isn't a remote server; the cameras were acquired legally by the tweeter.

bathtub3652• 6 years ago

Given that police are fine with torturing and killing people illegally, I don't know that this will mean anything.

LockAndLol2• 6 years ago

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please, read the guidelines. It should be pretty clear that I know an SD-card isn't a server.

colejohnson66• 6 years ago

Was it legally obtained? Purchasing an illegally obtained good is still illegal in the US.

damagednoob• 6 years ago

There's a few comments about the legal status of doing this. In the US, wouldn't this be considered dumpster diving(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpster_diving) and lawful?

jcrawfordor• 6 years ago

There's plenty of precedent to find dumpster diving (or more specifically using sensitive information obtained that way) unlawful in a variety of situations. Most precedent in support of dumpster diving for sensitive information is in the context of law enforcement searches which are regarded somewhat differently by courts than a random individual obtaining sensitive information with questionable intent. Just Wikipedia mentions a case in which the dumpster-diver was ordered to pay damages in response to sensitive information retrieved by dumpster diving. It's just doesn't seem at all clear-cut that what the person here did is legal.

bob10294• 6 years ago

I believe if the device is obtained lawfully, there isn't much anyone can do regarding what you then decide to do with it or any of its contents.

This is precisely why you should drill through hard drives and flash media before removing them from your secure areas.

GhostVII• 6 years ago

Seems crazy to me that they don't encrypt the videos on the device given how much personal information about other people can be on there. There is a full video of the inside of someone's house in that feed. Couldn't they just have some kind of public/private key encryption, where they put the public key on the bodycam and have it encrypt all the videos it takes? Then you could just decrypt them at the station with the private key.

bob10294• 6 years ago

PKI is insufficient protection in this case. If someone obtains the hardware and has a few years to sit on it, it is possible that private keys can eventually be broken (or compromised via other channels).

Wowfunhappy• 6 years ago

Maybe so, but not using encryption at all is clearly worse.

What would be a better system?

vczf• 6 years ago

I think symmetric encryption would be fine here for simplicity. When it's time to wipe the drive, securely erase the key.

I'm curious as to who is responsible for not properly erasing the files: the IT department, or the manufacturer. It could be that the station didn't wipe/reset the cameras before selling them. Or they only reinitialized the file system. Or the firmware's reset function only reinitializes the file system rather than shredding the contents.

floatingatoll6• 6 years ago

Ethically, it’s inappropriate to post some of these photos without blurring identifying details that are not material to the newsworthiness at hand.

We don’t need to see the officers’ unblurred faces to confirm that these were successfully extracted from a random eBay purchase, as their precise identities are not relevant to the story.

We do need to see the cop cruiser unblurred, because that’s materially relevant to the story and serves as likely (but not certain) evidence of the source of the images.

We don’t need to see the exterior shot of someone random person’s house, because that could result in their location being identified and the press mobbing them pointlessly.

We do need to see the safe interior shot of someone’s house, that doesn’t reveal any identifying information, since that protects their identity while supporting the story at hand.

dependenttypes4• 6 years ago

I disagree, ethically it is not only fully appropriate but also mandatory to post everything that said cameras contain.

GTP• 6 years ago

What would have we lost if he burred the faces?

VWWHFSfQ3• 6 years ago

Body camera footage has to be reviewed and made public if appropriate. But not all body camera footage should be made public. To protect the rights and privacy of the innocent.

floatingatoll6• 6 years ago

I'm having trouble grasping what common good you see coming from your proposal. I would accept "independent review board chosen from the jury duty pool must review all bodycam fotage", but your position as you represent it is far too easy to abuse.

By this logic, if the police break into your house while you're having an affair, you have no right to deny them publication of it immediately to a public website. There is tremendous potential for abuse here. For example, corrupt cops would immediately begin 'accidentally' (wink, wink) recording bodycam footage while 'not on duty' (wink, wink) when paid to by their buyers, or whenever someone is naked, since publication would be automatic and they would be immune to prosecution for their corrupt and abusive actions.

From a societal injustice standpoint, it would be an extremely effective way for abusive police to enforce white male privilege upon citizens (in the same way that doxxing does). If you aren't white and male, you're at a much higher risk of being killed or driven to suicide by this "publish everything" approach capturing some behavior that abusive people can use to justify attacking you. If you are white and male, you can just shrug it off and other white men (the most likely attackers in this scenario) will give you a pass so they can get away with it too. Statistically, significantly fewer white men will suffer as a result relative to other subgroups.

If you're able to see a way forward that does not have a high risk of doing damage to US society (including to people other than white men), please share it.

nimbius• 6 years ago

We don’t need to see the officers’ unblurred faces to confirm that these were successfully extracted from a random eBay purchase

This feels like bootlicking. Officers are legally allowed to be filmed while doing their job. It may not be relevant to the story, but its irrelevant to blur them at all.

We don’t need to see the exterior shot of someone random person’s house, because that could result in their location being identified and the press mobbing them pointlessly.

Sorry but this too is considered public photography. photos of a persons house exist on google maps and generally across the internet as a whole.

We do need to see the safe interior shot of someone’s house, that doesn’t reveal any identifying information, since that protects their identity while supporting the story at hand.

Nope, not at all. You generally cannot just film a private home or business, and police filming a home is a pretty shady area for anything but the purportedly advertised use for a bodycam. the TV show COPS learned the hard way that just because the police can enter a home, doesnt mean you get to film it without permission or consent. places like Disneyland and concert halls routinely have legal standing to enforce a restriction on flash photography as it is again, private property.

x87678r• 6 years ago

From the link it isn't clear. The guy bought a cam from ebay and found the pictures still on there, which is what he's posting on twitter.

https://www.azmirror.com/blog/fort-huachuca-police-body-cam-...

Its kinda sad, I love the idea of reusing old electronics instead of dumping them, but is usually too difficult to secure.

david422• 6 years ago

Yea, this is why companies destroy perfectly good hardware- so this doesn't happen :(

mothsonasloth• 6 years ago

A more appropriate medium would have been a technical blog post, with redacted information and blurred photos.

Not an attention seeking twitter thread with lolspeak...

WarOnPrivacy• 6 years ago

Completely made my day. I can just gush with love for stuff like this.

coronadisaster• 6 years ago

I'd be scared for my life if I was him... hopefully he posted that stuff anonymously. I've seen some white people getting killed on video in a similar manner to George Floyd's killing, but even worst (i.e.: The police have the medic inject the victim with strong drugs right after he passes out from getting choked to death). This video is very troubling but if someone wants to see it I will post it (what is even more troubling is that no one lost their job).

lsh• 6 years ago

what a doofus.

Me trying to extract video from this body cam like: OHHHH please work!

more like: "me putting my head in a lion's mouth"

Extracting video and audio from used police body cam

Related Stories