How hackers are fighting back against ICE surveillance tech

While watching us now seems like the least of its sins, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was once best known (and despised) for its multi-billion-dollar surveillance tech budget.

Clever hackers and digital privacy advocates are fighting back against the snooping activities of Kristi Noem's masked agents. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has rounded up several of these counter surveillance projects, and perhaps unsurprisingly many of these have to do with Flock, best known for its automated license plate reader (ALPR).

Flock operates the largest network of surveillance cameras in America, and, while it has contracts with thousands of police departments and municipalities across the US, sometimes ICE gains access to this footage, according to US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and those who have looked into Flock's misuse.

We should also note that EFF and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have sued the city of San Jose, California, over its alleged abuses of this technology.

One YouTuber discovered a way to prevent your license plate being recorded and logged by Flock's AI readers by screen printing "tiny bits" of adversarial noise and putting the sticker on your license plate. These "abstract invisible license plate overlay patterns … cannot be detected by humans but make license plate recognition systems utterly shit the bed," Benn Jordan said on his video.

We'll note that this is illegal in California and some other states, and The Register does not advocate breaking the law.

Jordan also uncovered a massive Flock security snafu involving hundreds of misconfigured Flock cameras that exposed non-password protected admin interfaces to the public internet, allowing anyone to view live surveillance feeds, download videos, and view logs. "Like a Netflix for stalkers," is how Jordan described it.

There are also open source tools like deflock.me, which has mapped more than 61,000 license plate readers in the US, and alpr.watch, which scans local city council and other meeting agendas for keywords like "flock," "license plate reader," and "alpr," and more. It then maps where these meetings are happening so people can attend, and you can sign up for email alerts in your area.

Plus, apps including Stop ICE Alerts, ICEOUT.org, and ICEBlock allow users to report local ICE sightings.

Apple delisted ICEBlock from the App Store in the fall after the Trump administration turned up the heat on the iThings maker. Its developer, Joshua Aaron, has sued Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, ICE director Todd Lyons, and others, accusing them of infringing on his First Amendment right to free speech.

Also in response to the ban, the EFF filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to disclose federal government officials' communications with tech companies aimed at removing immigration enforcement apps and websites.

In October, Apple also banned Eyes Up, an app to securely record and archive ICE raids. But it's still available on Google Play.

"It's important to remember that we are not powerless," EFF security researcher Cooper Quintin wrote. "Even in the face of a domestic law enforcement presence with massive surveillance capabilities and military-esque technologies, there are still ways to engage in surveillance self-defense."

Now, if ICE would just stop shooting people. ®

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How hackers are fighting back against ICE surveillance tech