Body Cam with Military Police Footage Sold on Ebay (azmirror.com) 17
"A security researcher was able to access files on a Axon body-worn camera he purchased from eBay that had video files of Fort Huachuca Military Police officers conducting investigations and filling out paperwork," reports the Arizona Mirror:
The files were able to be extracted after the researcher, who goes by KF on Twitter, was able to remove a microSD card from the body-worn camera. KF was then able to extract the un-encrypted files, which were not protected by a password, using a tool called Foremost. KF shared screenshots of the footage he was able to pull from the cards that appeared to show members of the Fort Huachuca Military Police entering a person's home and filling out paperwork.
"We are aware of this issue and have launched an investigation looking into the matter," a statement from Scottsdale-based Axon said to Arizona Mirror. "We are also reevaluating our processes to better emphasize proper disposal procedures for our customers."
The camera that was purchased by KF was an Axon Body 1, one of the company's earliest generation models that launched in 2013. The company said it stopped the model in 2015. "Our latest generation camera, Axon Body 3, offers enhanced security measures such as storage encryption to protect video from being retrieved from lost or improperly disposed cameras," the statement said.
Friday the original security researcher posted an update on Twitter, saying he'd offered to send the body cam's SD card back to the military police -- an offer that was eventually accepted by Axon itself -- and "I only listened to a few seconds of audio merely to verify its presence. I've since removed all extracted data in full."
In an earlier tweet he'd added, "Those of you asking... NO, I won't dump the card for you. Procure your own BWC (Body Worn Cam), and dump it yourself " But it looks like they already are. Earlier on Twitter, one Security Operations Center analyst posted, "I just ordered two myself.
"I'd actually really like to get a fund going to buy literally all of them and dump them to an open cloud storage bucket... Freedom of Information Act through the secondhand market."
"We are aware of this issue and have launched an investigation looking into the matter," a statement from Scottsdale-based Axon said to Arizona Mirror. "We are also reevaluating our processes to better emphasize proper disposal procedures for our customers."
The camera that was purchased by KF was an Axon Body 1, one of the company's earliest generation models that launched in 2013. The company said it stopped the model in 2015. "Our latest generation camera, Axon Body 3, offers enhanced security measures such as storage encryption to protect video from being retrieved from lost or improperly disposed cameras," the statement said.
Friday the original security researcher posted an update on Twitter, saying he'd offered to send the body cam's SD card back to the military police -- an offer that was eventually accepted by Axon itself -- and "I only listened to a few seconds of audio merely to verify its presence. I've since removed all extracted data in full."
In an earlier tweet he'd added, "Those of you asking... NO, I won't dump the card for you. Procure your own BWC (Body Worn Cam), and dump it yourself " But it looks like they already are. Earlier on Twitter, one Security Operations Center analyst posted, "I just ordered two myself.
"I'd actually really like to get a fund going to buy literally all of them and dump them to an open cloud storage bucket... Freedom of Information Act through the secondhand market."
Freedom of Information Act? (Score:5, Insightful)
More like freedom of privacy invasion.
If you publish footage of police body cams, you are not just publishing police action, you are publishing footage of whoever the police interacted with. The summary mentions police entering someone's home and filling out paperwork. I'm quite sure the homeowner doesn't want that to be on the internet. The police made a mistake allowing the video to leak, which may warrant disciplinary action, but let's not make things worse by putting it on the web.
I didn't see the video, obviously, and I don't want to see it. But filling out paperwork is not exactly prime evidence of police misconduct, but it is certainly a privacy violation for the person being filmed if published.
Re:Freedom of Information Act? (Score:5, Insightful)
Been checking out /. since about '98. No real reason to interact until now.
Yo, shitstain. Based on how it's been proven a multitude of times (!!!on video!!!) that the police are trampling all over our (that is, citizen's) constitutional rights, putting body cam footage under a FOIA classification is an extreeeemely appropriate way of shining the light of accountability on them.
You can't take without giving something in return and expect things to go your way for as long as you want.
I'm going to explain why you're getting moderated down.
The person you're replying to isn't objecting to the existence of the FoIA itself. They're objecting to the quote in the summary: "I'd actually really like to get a fund going to buy literally all of them and dump them to an open cloud storage bucket... Freedom of Information Act through the secondhand market."
That's not FoIA. That's privacy-invasion, because it bypasses the FoIA. There is a world of difference between "my client requests the footage from X O'clock to Y o'clock involving the police interaction on their property to be released to them" and "hey, let's watch footage of people who haven't given consent."
While police accountability is critical, what is suggested in the original quote is one step sideways from revenge-porn.
Now you have context, and now you know why you should read a little more before freaking out.
Re: (Score:1)
While police accountability is critical, what is suggested in the original quote is one step sideways from revenge-porn. Now you have context, and now you know why you should read a little more before freaking out.
You made an assumption, and I'll point it out. The assumption is that the OP cares about your privacy when you are interacting with the police or when the police are filling out paperwork with your private information.
Given the tone of the message and the fact that is starts with an ad-hominem attack, I would suggest that the OP knew this and simply does not care.
The information wants to be free! (Score:1)
As long as it's someone else's information.
Sure, let's "punish" the military by destroying the privacy of some random people they interacted with who had nothing at all to do with this.
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't want to publish it to the world. On the other hand, if I could think of a responsible party who would go through them, I'd like them to see them on the off chance that there was evidence of some inappropriate action recorded there.
Re: (Score:2)
You can't violate someone's privacy on a fishing expedition, first there needs to be evidence that a crime even occurred or at least a credible complaint of some kind.
End of used computer market? (Score:2)
that uber hacker extracted (Score:2)
removed SD card and copied files, 1337
Re: (Score:1)
Just Sayin.
Re: (Score:2)
1337 enough that it's beyond mental horizon of the cop that sold the thing.
There was a time when I hoped things would get gradually better as people who grew up with technology aged into the workplace, but that apparently isn't going to happen.
Re: (Score:1)
Body cam data needs to be treated like evidence (Score:3)
Body cams should be encrypted by default.
The encryption keys should be held by a third party, NOT the police, and be accessible only with a warrant.
Encrypted video should be dumped and archived at the end of each shift. Ideally there should be a different key for each shift - hard to do logistically but does not sound impossible.
Going on duty without a running body cam should be a firing offense.
Doing this removes the primary excuse for letting the wearer turn the camera off - nobody gets to see the officer's bathroom footage unless there is a credible accusation that they beat someone up in the bathroom.
It also makes a cam-wearing officer less like a mobile transgression recording station.
Re: (Score:3)
The footage should be constantly real-time uploaded to the cloud. They should have a "virtual off" switch that marks the video timestamps of when they were using the bathroom. That way if the video is being reviewed for adminstrative purposes it can be automatically skipped over unless a warrant exists for that part of the footage.