this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2026
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A brief recap: a few weeks ago I’d taken the $155,000 Range Rover I was testing out to run some errands with my wife in Plymouth, Minnesota. I was backing out of a parking space in front of my local Kohl’s when four cop cars came screaming up and “initiated a box and pin on the vehicle,” as the police report says. Hands on their guns, the officers ordered us out of the vehicle, patted us down, and eventually told us the Range Rover’s license plate—New Jersey 34 10 DTM—was stolen, they suspected the vehicle itself was stolen too, and they’d used Flock cameras to track me down over the last two days.

The scenario involving my wife and I is just one of many like it. Thomas noted that the system is 99% accurate today, but it’s performing 20 billion reads a month. That 1% error rate, of which I was a part of in June, makes for two hundred million misreads a month.

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[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 18 points 2 hours ago

Fascists don't particularly care about false positives. The cameras are operating as intended.

[–] Kissaki@feddit.org 7 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

They drove up and didn't check/verify the plate before engaging? That seems stupid and lacking responsibility.

What was it, two cop cars? Then I assume four cops? Always makes me wonder if the engagement is in a warranted amount. I assume it's the norm in the US, maybe it's necessary for "stolen car", although I'm skeptical, and it certainly makes it worse for the falsely accused exposed to it. And it makes the lack of verification, making it not just a flock false positive but an engagement false positive, victimizing civilians, worse.

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago

and then bragged 'you're lucky we didn't come out with guns drawn'

fucking yokel shitbags

[–] ToiletFlushShowerScream@piefed.world 29 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

False positives are your problem, not the cops. You should try not being unlucky next time.
Also - I'm so sorry you had to go through that, fuck flock.

[–] 0x0@infosec.pub 4 points 1 hour ago

Lol no, cops are definitely part of the problem. This reaction over fake plates is not sane

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 5 points 4 hours ago

time for some target practice. sorry if they get in my bullets way while it's headed towards the practice target.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 75 points 9 hours ago

👉 The system is working exactly as intended and must be destroyed

[–] xenomor@lemmy.world 28 points 9 hours ago

It is working perfectly as intended. It is intended to facilitate fascist authority, siphon wealth from municipalities, and help make cops feel tough so they can more efficiently lord over their communities.

[–] 73QjabParc34Vebq@piefed.blahaj.zone 135 points 12 hours ago (4 children)

A- USA doesn't have standardised plates? Not even 1 per state, but 8000?!
2- Fuck mass survalance, fuck armed cops, fuck Flock.

[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 29 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

A - The USA is 50 countries in a trench coat

2 - Correct

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 8 points 6 hours ago

Tribal nations also have their own plates in some cases. Mine does.

[–] Bbbbbbbbbbb@lemmy.world 52 points 12 hours ago (22 children)

Each state has different levels of customization with different background images. I like plate customization, its a form of self expression.

[–] Snapz@lemmy.world 10 points 4 hours ago

You have bigger problems if you're relying on a custom license plate to express a personality...

Risk isn't worth "reward', especially when you hear things like certain backwards states trying to mandate a default " in god we trust" of other biblical theme so that people then need to opt out intentionally, in turn their vehicles becoming potential targets for zealots and cops to harass.

Just mandate national design with black text on white background

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 15 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Customized images, yes. Overlapping alphanumeric codes (two vehicles with the same sequence?) NO. Maybe it was necessary in the 1960s, but it is long since past time for issuance of alpha-numeric unique identifiers to become... unique throughout the states.

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 7 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (2 children)

How many digits to we need for 297,500,000 plates (as of 2026).

Plus we should probably include Canada and Mexico, since they have the same sized plates and cross the borders regularly.

Canada also has custom plates and different designs in each province too.

Also unless I’m mistaken, when Britain was in the EU, it didn’t use standardized plates like the rest of the member states, right?

[–] JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 16 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

There are no standard plates in the EU. The only matching thing is the country code on the left side.

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 11 points 6 hours ago

That’s a lot closer to standardized than the Canada or the US.

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 11 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (5 children)

6 characters (A-Z 0-9) gives you 2,176,782,336 combinations.

Even if you take out some confusing combos like O0, 1I, 5S, 8B ... 6 characters of 31 different kinds gives you 887,503,681

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[–] snooggums@piefed.world 9 points 8 hours ago (8 children)

Plates should be standardized. Bumper stickers and other things can be used for personalization.

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[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 92 points 11 hours ago

Yes, the Flock system is working correctly, as a tool for police to stalk and harass innocent people.

[–] WingsofLove03@retrolemmy.com 5 points 7 hours ago

Oh I live in MN too very close to Plymouth this stinks. MN cops can be so mean

[–] minorkeys@sh.itjust.works 41 points 11 hours ago

They always claim everything they do is correct and working. To admit otherwise means opening the department up to a lawsuit they may actually lose their jobs over.

[–] crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

For comparison, if you were hosting some kind of platform or service that only has a 99% uptime, you'd have to pay people to use it.

[–] Zarobi@aussie.zone 1 points 35 minutes ago

Yep, even 0.01% error rate looks great, until you run the numbers and it's 100 fuck ups per day… percentages stop being intuitive at mass scale like this

[–] IAmYouButYouDontKnowYet@reddthat.com 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I wonder how many people that are "gangstalked" are really being gangstalked.

I don't understand why people put so much faith in their government.

[–] Ordinary_Person@lemmy.ca 9 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Who? At this point, aside from Wacko fanatics who suck orange cock, who has so much faith in their government?

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[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 8 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I like license plates as I think some degree of accountability is important when you are controlling a highly deadly machine. If you make moves that endanger people they should have a way to identify you. I've always felt those tinted plate covers were the sign of being a real asshole driver. Now I think if there is anyway to block your plate from flock cameras you should try to do it. Has any coating been effective for this?

[–] TwitchingCheese@lemmy.world 10 points 7 hours ago

Doesn't matter, they don't rely on just the plates. They match on make/model, color, condition (specific dents, scratches, damage, repairs, etc), bumper stickers, face matching on the driver and/or passengers, sound, bluetooth and/or radio IDs, and more.

You can make things that fool it, Benn Jordan demonstrates doing this with something that is hard to even notice as a human. But all that's going to do is draw extra attention to you. In a surveillance state anyone trying to maintain privacy is clearly guilty after all.

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