Flok License Plate Surveillance

The company Flok is surveilling us as we drive:

A retired veteran named Lee Schmidt wanted to know how often Norfolk, Virginia’s 176 Flock Safety automated license-plate-reader cameras were tracking him. The answer, according to a U.S. District Court lawsuit filed in September, was more than four times a day, or 526 times from mid-February to early July. No, there’s no warrant out for Schmidt’s arrest, nor is there a warrant for Schmidt’s co-plaintiff, Crystal Arrington, whom the system tagged 849 times in roughly the same period.

You might think this sounds like it violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects American citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause. Well, so does the American Civil Liberties Union. Norfolk, Virginia Judge Jamilah LeCruise also agrees, and in 2024 she ruled that plate-reader data obtained without a search warrant couldn’t be used against a defendant in a robbery case.

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Posted on October 8, 2025 at 12:10 PM • 33 Comments

Comments

BMS • October 8, 2025 1:04 PM

I’m a bit mixed on this – I mean if you’re driving on a public street your license plate is plainly visible so is there really any expectation of privacy?

I suppose the real devil is in the data retention/tracking. It’s one thing to glance at your license plate, confirm if the car is wanted for something, then discard the record if not and another entirely to build a profile of your movements over a period of time.

EO • October 8, 2025 1:21 PM

The real devil is in the implications of ubiquitous surveillance of ‘public’ data for the entire population. Yes, your car is in public. So is your face. But do you want the government (and any private actor, including stalkers or other traditional criminals) to be able to get the movement of you and your family, over time?

Is this legal? Maybe so (although the courts may take a dim view of private actors selling surveillance data to law enforcement without a warrant). Should it be legal? Do we want policies and laws enacted to protect the privacy of our citizens?

Certainly the information being collected in this way will be abused in nearly every way you can imagine. A functioning legislature (either on a state of federal level) would listen to the legitimate concerns of their constituents and enact meaningful privacy legislation.

Clive Robinson • October 8, 2025 1:34 PM

@ ALL,

From the article,

“Norfolk, Virginia Judge Jamilah LeCruise also agrees, and in 2024 she ruled that plate-reader data obtained without a search warrant couldn’t be used against a defendant in a robbery case.”

The judge was right to do so for a manner of legal reasons but more importantly social reasons.

The first thing people really really need to understand is you as an individual are none of the three authentication factors of,

1, Something you have.
2, Something you are.
3, Something you know.

Because it applies much more broadly than “authentication” and much as politicians and guard labour would like to force that on society it can never be the case.

Because their can be no actual tie between “information objects” and “physical objects”

Whilst information can modulate the physical entities of energy and matter information has no actual physical form that we can demonstrate.

For instance a picture of your face is not your face. It is light from one or more sources reflecting off of your face and being brought into focus on a chemical recording plate or film/paper.

Your face is modulating the individual photons and the photons on mass each with their own tiny modulation when brought to focus give rise to an image that your eye can see by a similar process.

Now consider a film projector, it projects an image onto a plate or paper. Ask yourself the question,

“How do I tell one source of photons from another thus have positive proof that it is actually your face?”

The answer is aside from system defects you can not.

The same with every other physical object, the process of turning it into information always has a “gap”.

This “gap” is where fabrication or falsification can take place.

It’s why “experts” give “opinion” not “facts” as testimony as it’s not possible for them to actually do so to the standard of “beyond reasonable doubt”.

So testifying that somebody’s mobile phone was at the scene of the crime at the time of the crime, actually means very little.

It might be “your phone” because you payed for it, and you pay the bill for the SIM that gives the phone service access.

But neither the service access or the phone are you, nor is the phone somehow welded/glued to you irremovably.

Further and more importantly, nor are the service provider records actually proof that what “they recorded” from “over the air” information is actually the physical SIM or Phone or that they were in your physical possession at the time of the crime.

Now flip it around, this means that “phone records” can not prove a phone was at the scene of a crime, and thus no proof that any given person was there either.

That “gap” between fully mutable information on the SIM and fully mutable information of Phone serial number can not be crossed to the “burden of proof” required.

No amount of arguing otherwise can change that.

So understand fully two things,

Firstly the understanding that,

“There will always be a gap between physical and information objects, that means you can not in any way link them uniquely together.

Secondly it follows that,

“If a “unique link” is not possible, and it’s not, then the door to “reasonable doubt” is wide open.

If you are one of those “nothing to hide nothing to fear” types consider the process the Police and other Guard Labour are trying to use these days.

The argue that rather than investigate the crime and follow evidence, they should just treat every mobile phone in the area at the time as being suspect…

Then they can ask for the name of ALL the bill payers of ALL the phones and make them ALL suspects guilty of the crime, or obstructing a criminal investigation…

It’s why I advise people to,

“Not be attached at the hip to their phone.”

For those that want to take things further there are “technical measures” you can take.

In the past with “National Paging” and cellular phone battery times measured in a couple of hours standby or half an hour talk it was relatively easy to use a “call service” to get around the short battery life issue.

The Call Service would take an incoming call and page you. You would on receiving the page turn the cell phone on and call the Call Service. Which could then link you to the caller if they were still on hold, or give you their number to call back.

Implementing a similar process can still be done, but most ways have the failing that all “commercial and consumer” radio services are nolonger “Broadcast based” thus the user and their location is still “tracked” in some way in “Third Party Business Records”, that Guard labour can access without legal oversight.

Which means all sorts of unlawful activity by Guard Labour can be carried out and gets swept under the rug called “Parallel Construction”.

The same “Third Party Records” and “Parallel Construction” applies to nearly all modern “Societal Systems” for two reasons,

1, There is a free “back haul” called the Internet to the Corporate servers.
2, Corporate management have for quite some time now seen “user surveillance” as more lucrative than the official “advertised activity”.

Have a look at the business model behind “Ring” and similar.

Amazon are well known for bringing out “Internet Connected Products” that they then use for surveillance. If they don’t get the “Surveillance Income” then the “axe the product” by cutting of the Internet servers the products were,

Deliberately designed to use specifically for user surveillance, so can not function without them.

BB • October 8, 2025 1:57 PM

How is a license plate a matter of privacy? It’s not. It’s a registration number that the state uses to authorize a vehicle to use public roadways. You may own said vehicle (or it may be registered in your name), but tracking the whereabouts of the vehicle is not, per se, tracking you, nor does it reveal must-conceal information that you should feel compelled to control or obfuscate in your social media posts.

CC • October 8, 2025 2:38 PM

BB, with all due respect, when I signed up to drive and get license plates I agreed to share my data with the state, not with some third party corporation that does heaven knows what with it. I’ll bet my insurance company wants flock data. I suspect there’s some MBA on staff right now figuring out how they can use it to create a new revenue stream. No, sorry Hoss. Lick all the boots you want. Just dont try to convince those of us who have been paying attention that it’s benign. It’s not. Not even close.

Just another "CC" • October 8, 2025 3:22 PM

@CC,
but do not worry, very soon, they’ll sneak that line somewhere at the bottom of their 100-page Terms and Conditions which nobody reads anyway, just to cover their behinds, in case more people like you and I begin questioning where the data gets forwarded/sold for money. Them LOYAZ did not get the reputation they have for nothing.

Anders Eurenius Runvald • October 8, 2025 3:22 PM

I think a word I’m missing here, is ‘reciprocity’.

Being the victim of a crime is often also a serious breach of integrity. I’m not against using technology, and I’m not against police being present in the street, but the cameras are still unsettling. The reason seems to be being observed by hidden observers. (An aversion to being stalked by something unidentified seems like a trait that evolution would favor)

Ok, so, how about, instead of surveillance cameras, police telepresence? I like that idea a lot better. What would that look like for ALPR? A registry where queries are publicly audited, and a ban otherwise?

Whatever the form, if you are watching me, I should be able to see you seems like a sensible principle.

BCS • October 8, 2025 3:35 PM

A beat cop on uniform keeping an eye out for crimes committed in front of them is clearly something we as a society want to allow. That same cop doing door to door inventories of people’s homes without any attempt at probable cause is clearly not something to be allowed. Drawing a sharp line between those that balances the interests of society in general with those of the individual members of society is going to become an increasingly hard problem as more and more of the “potential evidence” that comes into being before any investigation starts is something more technical than an eye witness.

I wonder if part of the solution will involve “Chinese wall warrants” where the police could get a warrant for data that matches a given query (but not the whole database) that a judge approves as sufficiently selective?

Clive Robinson • October 8, 2025 4:05 PM

@ Anders Eurenius Runvald,

With regards,

“The reason seems to be being observed by hidden observers. (An aversion to being stalked by something unidentified seems like a trait that evolution would favor)”

The word you might actually be looking for, for this is “Panopticon”,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

Thought up in the mind of 18th century English social theorist and utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham.

As it happens both the host of this blog and myself have actually met both the body and head of Jeremy Bentham. Let’s just say he was not a particularly good looker back in the 18th Century, and neither time nor a dip in sulfuric acid to dry him out has improved his looks any…

Untll fairly recently his head got wheeled out from time to time for important meetings…

Kind of ironically it used to be “out and about” more often but students from King’s “borrowed it” half a century ago and when it came home it was put under lock and key imprisoned where nobody could surreptitiously observe it or nick it.

The body however just got left in a hallway where anyone could see it.

However to some peoples upset it’s been wheeled somewhere else,

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-edition-1.4320308/why-philosopher-jeremy-bentham-s-severed-stolen-and-poorly-preserved-head-is-back-on-display-1.4320319

For more photos including one with Jeremy attending a meeting on the side lines,

https://animalia-life.club/qa/pictures/jeremy-bentham-head-stolen

David • October 9, 2025 12:36 AM

ANPR captures are in the same league as speed cameras and red light cameras. They prove a given vehicle was on that piece of road, or committed the traffic offense, but they don’t show who was driving. It cannot be assumed that the owner of the car was driving, especially in the case of rentals and company cars.

Such captures are only as good as the OCR software used. We had a classic case in Queensland, Australia some years back, where a car owner received a penalty notice for speeding past a fixed camera. The photo showed that the “offending” car was actually on the back of a truck at the time.

lurker • October 9, 2025 2:19 AM

@David

Chinese highway cameras capture driver, front seat passenger & number plate. Curiously the map linked by @DS (at the first comment above) shows a few Flock cameras in China.

Ian Stewart • October 9, 2025 3:03 AM

As usual, I wonder if anyone cares. Last week I went into a Waitrose supermarket in London and there waṡ a large video screen as you entered, a warning ‘video recording in progress’ flashing on and off, the video then froze and your face is enclosed in a square box to isolate you.
I found this invasive and threatening but most people didn’t even notice it.

Kamera • October 9, 2025 4:33 AM

In Norway, traffic camera footage can only be used for fines if the driver is visible and recognizable, or if the driver doesn’t question the fine.

I’m all for traffic cameras used to stop speeding. Especially the dual linked camera systems that track average speed over a given distance. Put them everywhere, provided that the photos are deleted once it’s clear there was no violation. And this would have to be verified by the national data protection authority, which is independent from the police.

(Sure, verification can be circumvented, but if the police were to do that, then they couldn’t use the footage in court, or they’d expose their own crime. It’s not perfect, it can’t be, but it’s better than giving homicidal drivers free rule of the streets. Far too many people are killed or maimed by bad drivers.)

K.S • October 9, 2025 8:21 AM

>I’m all for traffic cameras used to stop speeding. Especially the dual linked camera systems that track average speed over a given distance. Put them everywhere…

The issue with putting them everywhere is that a system designed for road safety get turned into a municipal revenue stream and these goals conflict (i.e., if road safety is the main purpose, then zero tickets should be the goal). Instead of raising taxes, that is politically unpopular, politicians lower speed limits into unreasonableness. Where I live, statistics showed that the last year there were ~0.7 automated speed camera tickets per registered auto. Meaning most people got one.

You know who might be looking... • October 9, 2025 9:36 AM

@ Ian Stewart, ALL

With regards,

Last week I went into a Waitrose supermarket in London and there waṡ a large video screen as you entered…

You might have heard the joke that,

“Sainsbury’s only exist to keep the riff-raff out of Waitrose…”

Well there is a reason to stay out of Sainsbury’s shops. Every till and especially the self checkouts take high definition video of your face.

The excuse given on the self checkout machines is that people are making fake-refund claims.

The implication of that statement is at least,

1, They are keeping the video indefinitely.
2, They are making any and all of it available to ordinary “shop-floor” and “till-jockey” staff…

The thing to note is that unless Sainsburys have significantly changed their employment policies you used to be able to work there from age 14.

Even if they have upped it, recently I’ve seen “Saturday staff” that look like School Children, and certainly look less than 18years or “adult status”.

I therefore have reason to think that their system may not be,

1, Lawfull
2, Being used Lawfully

Either way since I’ve spotted it I’ve a habit of putting a yellow post-it note up with my shopping list so I can check my purchases off. The fact the only place I can conveniently put it and still use the machine is on the black plastic about where a high def camera might be is not my problem, but that of their system designers…

If they get arsey,

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/arsy

I can always start using a small clip board that “hangs over”…

DBA • October 9, 2025 11:03 AM

@David:

Back in my days of directing chess tournaments, we were prepping for one and my friend/co-director needed to borrow my car to do a supply run or something. A couple of weeks later I receive a photo radar ticket notice from an adjacent city that I hadn’t been driving in.

I go out there to find out what’s going on. I look at the first photo the clerk pulls out, and say “That’s not my car.” They look at it, compare numbers, apologize and go back to the drawer. Pulls out a photo of my car with my friend behind the wheel. I say “That’s not me.” They say ‘No, it isn’t. Would you care to identify the person?’ I say no, they have me sign a piece of paper, and that’s it.

I told my friend about it and she was amused. The funniest part is that a month later, she got busted in her car by the same camera! Couldn’t get out of that one.

@Kamera/@K.S.:

I worked for a major police department as a civilian doing IT through the ’90s, pretty much the beginning of the speed and red light cameras. I have no problem with red light cameras, that’s a pretty clear violation. Speed cameras, I have a problem with. You might be going fast trying to not impede the traffic flow, or you might just be stupid. There’s a lot of circumstantials about it.

When an officer pulls you over for speeding, they’re not just looking to write a ticket. They’re also looking to see if the car is stolen, are you intoxicated, is there a kidnap victim tied up in the back floorboard or in the boot, etc. There’s a lot more going on than is obvious. It’s a complex interaction. Traffic enforcement isn’t just about traffic, it’s still full-on law enforcement and public protection.

But in the end, it all turns into revenue generation as it’s so easy a stream.

Clive Robinson • October 9, 2025 6:32 PM

@ DBA, ALL,

With regards,

“But in the end, it all turns into revenue generation as it’s so easy a stream.”

You left out the part I’ve mentioned hear for years,

As the politicians can not raise taxes but can make “blame the victim legislation”. The only way they can get more money to “buy votes” is

1, Pass new “No Defence” legislation
2, With low thresholds
3, With 1-2 days medium income equivalent as a fine.
4, Let agency keep 20-30%
5, Cut agency funding back by 5-10%

Wait for the money to roll into the treasury…

The only problem, in the UK they have done so much of it, it’s nolonger working…

So a “Tony Policy Girl” has gone after the old standby

“Demonize those who can least defend themselves,

1, The dying
2, The disabled
3, The old
4, The disadvantaged.

And anyone else they can whip up the beast of “public ire” against with “dog whistles”. The same beast that used to cause “Witch Trials”, “Vigilantly Hangings”, and similar.

That Twentieth Century Horror movies used to depict with pitch forks and burning torch lit processions through town. That in reality did not happen, because it’s so much easier to be done by the stroke of a magistrates pen in the light of day.

And so for those who watch international news will know in the UK it’s moved into protests and riots outside of “Hotels and Hostels” the Government have put refugees and similar in. Thus making them “easy targets” then whipping up more political nonsense off of the mess they’ve created to easy the passage of new legislation such as “Digital ID” and worse like “Online Safety Act”(OSA) to squeeze money out of tax avoiding Internet Corporates and dramatically increase surveillance on the world population.

So two birds with one stone, cheap at twice the price.

ResearcherZero • October 10, 2025 12:21 AM

The digital ID system will be “designed with security at its core”.

‘https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/digital-id-scheme-explainer/digital-id-scheme-explainer

Just pop your REAL ID into the government wallet on your smartphone. Problem solved. You may need it to avoid being detained multiple times while you are at work, doing your job.

If you show your REAL ID to the police they might ‘mistakenly’ arrest you again and again.
Perhaps. I don’t know. They might do it on purpose because they might not have any sense.If you served in the military that may elicit a negative police response. You can imagine the filth being a little confused about your ID if you are Native American or Puerto Rican.

The AI camera may become a little confused as it also lacks any capacity for intelligence.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/10/03/us-citizen-detained-immigration-agents-sues-dhs/86479653007/

The following paper explores vulnerabilities in digital wallets which may risk data exfiltration. This may be handy if you want to examine or clone data within a wallet.

https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/14/12/2436

ResearcherZero • October 10, 2025 12:41 AM

@Clive Robinson, ALL

There is no way of proving the police didn’t know an ID was not fake or that a camera system misidentified a face. At least perhaps until a later point after the consequences. It is subjective. Physical harm might result and it also may not happen.

What is sure is that it certainly helps when you are grabbing people off the street. You can hold it up against their face to see if the photo matches and take it as an insurance. It does not matter if the name is correct or not, as long as the photo matches for a range of reasons that I will not get it into. Only proof matters on your end, not the poor sod.

There are laws around these kinds of things which can easily be circumvented by authority.
The testimony of a single individual rarely stands up against that of multiple others who are all in a trusted position. Accounts far more credible than hearsay of the individual.

ResearcherZero • October 10, 2025 1:50 AM

Even if you were to find a trail of Polonium 210 through city streets. Perhaps a dash of nerve agent here or there and video surveillance of a couple of suspicious individuals in the area at the time. This is not evidence that anything took place. The media might make a bit of a fuss. The families and individuals harmed might feel as if they were under some kind of personal assault. That may not move those burdened with responsibility to action.

Bystanders at a public event identifying a pair of shooters putting their rifle bag into the boot of a car following a shooting is not grounds fro the police to search the car on suspicion that a crime may have been committed. Not if the police officers present at the scene do not believe that shooting into a crowd with a high powered rifle caused any harm.

Motivation is the determining factor for any search for a body that might hold information in the form of potential evidence left at the scene. If it is not searched for, does the body in fact exist? An object may not exist if were to lead to inconvenient truths.

There are archives filled with uncomfortably large quantities of evidence about very serious matters of concern and certainly no-one is looking at the contents, although police are publicly conducting inquiries asking for information they already know and have confirmed within. Outside however, the public is not aware and therefor unmotivated. What is and what is not apparent, exists in two opposite states depending on the observers position. Don’t get confused. You are unlikely to be able to throw a tennis ball through a brick wall, certainly not one built by law enforcement, but you can try if you like.

The Josephson effect

‘https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2025/popular-information/

Joker • October 11, 2025 3:11 AM

Flock Safety and Texas Sheriff Claimed License Plate Search Was for a Missing Person. It Was an Abortion Investigation.

New documents and court records obtained by EFF show that Texas deputies queried Flock Safety’s surveillance data in an abortion investigation, contradicting the narrative promoted by the company and the Johnson County Sheriff that she was “being searched for as a missing person,” and that “it was about her safety.”

The new information shows that deputies had initiated a “death investigation” of a “non-viable fetus,” logged evidence of a woman’s self-managed abortion, and consulted prosecutors about possibly charging her.

Johnson County Sheriff Adam King repeatedly denied the automated license plate reader (ALPR) search was related to enforcing Texas’s abortion ban, and Flock Safety called media accounts “false,” “misleading” and “clickbait.” However, according to a sworn affidavit by the lead detective, the case was in fact a death investigation in response to a report of an abortion, and deputies collected documentation of the abortion from the “reporting person,” her alleged romantic partner. The death investigation remained open for weeks, with detectives interviewing the woman and reviewing her text messages about the abortion.

The documents show that the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office informed deputies that “the State could not statutorily charge [her] for taking the pill to cause the abortion or miscarriage of the non-viable fetus.”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/flock-safety-and-texas-sheriff-claimed-license-plate-search-was-missing-person-it

Kamera • October 13, 2025 3:15 AM

@DBA
“Speed cameras, I have a problem with. You might be going fast trying to not impede the traffic flow, or you might just be stupid. There’s a lot of circumstantials about it.”

Regardless of the reason for the speeding, that driver is endangering themselves and everyone around them. There are very few valid excuses, aside from e.g. that you have a passenger that needs to get to a hospital immediately, no time to wait for an ambulance.

If the traffic flow is above the speed limit, then cameras that ticket “everyone” will resolve that problem pretty quickly. If the problem is stupidity, then that person should perhaps not have a driving license. If it’s a rare slip-up, then you pay the fine and do better next time.

So many dead would still be alive today if people could only stick to the speed limits. So many of them young people who could have had long lives ahead of them. Car culture is pervasive, but we shouldn’t accept the status quo where “everyone” is speeding all the time.

This is one of the few cases where safety is more important than privacy imho, because there is just so much preventable carnage out there. Far, far more than with terrorism attacks against airlines, a mode of travel with zero privacy.

Clippy • October 15, 2025 5:14 AM

Louis Rossmann has taken an interest in this lately.

Many citizens managed to bother the Austin, Texas Mayor by mentioning they’re against purchasing these cameras – they were always cut-off as being out of order. In the same session Flok representatives spoke, uninterrupted, twice.

More recently the Mayor of Denver, Colorado side-stepped a 12-0 vote against using Flok to still use them.

Ted Skandy • October 16, 2025 4:27 PM

My Wife went into Whole Foods the other day and bought a bottle of wine. When she was checking out the cashier asked her for her license to scan the back. Never before and let’s say that she is not 21 or close to it. When she asked why, the answer was “corporate policy”. Ah, corporate policy. She then went to the customer service and then the store manager. All said the same thing. However, she was able to retrieve a “corporate” phone number. Got home and made the call to an off shore center who said that they don’t know why or what information is pulled from the back of the driver’s license. She now filed a complaint with the AG office and is awaiting a disposition. All that said, do you really think that you or anyone is not being surveilled. What is the parking meter person doing with your information? I could go on and on. IT IS THE WAY OF THE WORLD AND IS NOT CHANGING. At least you know that the cameras are working.

mojozart • November 17, 2025 12:07 PM

One angle of the Flock story that has not been covered here is the security of the devices themselves.

Benn Jordan (layperson) has recently posted two YouTube clips about this, citing the work of Jon GainSec Gaines and Joshua Michael.

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has been looking into this, for example:

https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-krishnamoorthi-urge-ftc-to-investigate-surveillance-tech-company-on-negligently-handling-americans-personal-data

Clive Robinson • November 17, 2025 5:17 PM

@ mojozart, ALL,

Got “held for moderation AKA bit bucketed… So,

Part 1,

With regards,

“One angle of the Flock story that has not been covered here is the security of the devices themselves.”

As far as I’m aware none of the major Licence Plate Reader systems are in any way secure.

Most of the cameras output a digital video signal that is then at best compressed before being set to other parts of the system. The other parts of the system produce other standard unencrypted signals that get communicated towards a central point.

Nearly all have fairly easily accessable “test points” along these paths. Just like in the days of the “Plain Old Telephone System”(POTS) every analogue phone pair was available at the frame in the street cabinet and other cabinets untill it reached the first of the central office switches (similar onwards after being “connected” and routed through the switches and onto the trunk lines).

As a general rule there is no security on such systems because of “Test and Maintenance”.

Clive Robinson • November 17, 2025 5:19 PM

@ mojozart, ALL,

Part 2,

Most modern communications test equipment is eye wateringly expensive, and for historical reasons can not deal with encryption or other sensible security measures.

The same logic applies to the derived data in further backend systems. That is derived data is easily available at “test ports” and almost certainly not “encrypted”.

About the only time any information or data derived from it is encrypted in consumer or commercial systems is when the encryption is used for “data at rest” on storage media for back up etc.

Clive Robinson • November 17, 2025 5:20 PM

@ mojozart, ALL,

Part 3,

The reason for this is that handling “Key Material”(KeyMat) is at best difficult and few can implement reliable “Key Managment”(KeyMan) and audit systems. As a general rule they are seen as at best “An expensive liability” that eats profit and reduces competitiveness.

So the best you can expect is “security by obscurity” where the location of test points is “kept confidential” and sometimes the wiring of such ports is “secret source” hidden inside the connectors.

It takes very little effort for someone who is of “electronic technician” knowledge level to see where the test ports are most likely to be and use inexpensive test equipment such as a 100MHz dual or quad channel oscilloscope to work out what signals are on what pins. If RF signals are involved you can now buy inexpensive “Spectrum Analysers”(SAs), “Vector Network Analysers”(VNAs) that will fit easily in a shirt pocket, or “Software Defined Radio”(SDR) dongles and similar that can be used with “Open Source Software” that runs on a PC. One such that enables you to “build as needed” is GnuRadio,

https://wiki.gnuradio.org/index.php?title=Tutorials

That is used by engineers and scientists especially those developing embedded and space payload systems to build prototypes or bespoke systems.

Clive Robinson • November 17, 2025 5:22 PM

@ mojozart, ALL,

Part 4,

It’s an area that more “pen-testers” should get involved with as you would be surprised at just how much “information” is leaked even with supposedly “secure systems” or from satellite and similar point to point systems.

For those thinking about a future involving ElInt, SigInt, or the various forms of EW, or just the rising fields of Aerospace and Space Payload systems it’s a very inexpensive way to get your toes wet.

You can even do such things for fun and self education, look up the Windy Tan web site,

https://www.windytan.com/

Or some pages on Hackaday.

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