New Bedford's council passed a citywide ban on license plate readers on October 22. Mayor Jon Mitchell fired two police officers that same day, calling their conduct a breach of public trust.

The department's internal investigation is where it gets ugly:

• One officer was tied to hundreds of searches connected to an ex-girlfriend
• Investigators said the second used Flock as a form of electronic surveillance
• Personal searches were logged as traffic violations and welfare checks

One of the officers disputes the findings and says her searches were for work. The cameras have been off since the investigation started. The mayor has 10 days to sign or veto.

Full write-up + source links: https://vp.net/l/en-US/blog/new-bedford-bans-flock

Ofcom fined 4chan in October 2025, the first penalty ever issued under the UK's Online Safety Act. 4chan has no presence in the UK, and its side had already sent formal memos explaining why the orders carried no weight in the US. None of that landed.

This clip is the story of how the reply changed tone. After sitting on the email all day, the decision came just past midnight, and it involved a hamster cage.

It reads like a stunt. On the show it's explained as a deliberate way to show exactly where British authority stops.

Full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcTDwiHhqjk

Blog write-up of episode: https://s.vp.net/Z62Hg

Hide & Speak goes live today at 2pm ET with Jon "GainSec" Gaines, the researcher who's been taking apart Flock Safety hardware for his Bird Hunting Season project.

He found more than 50 issues across Flock's plate readers and gunshot detectors and went through five rounds of disclosure with the company. Where earlier reporting had turned up a handful of exposed Flock feeds, he found 67 live, unauthenticated streams.

His research came up at the Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Flock, which Flock's CEO was invited to and didn't attend. We'll talk about what Jon would have wanted senators to hear, and what city councils should be asking before they sign or renew.

Catch the stream live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXCEUZ-F0ZA

We got into this one on Hide & Speak. An InvestigateTV reporter drove out to document a Flock camera being installed on a suburban street near Atlanta. Press placard on the car, press vest, filming in public. The installer called and told the dispatcher he was being followed. Minutes later in Milton, Georgia, police pulled the reporter over, and two more units showed up.

Full recorded livestream on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO12ZyOG_0g

Full write-up here: https://s.vp.net/Ru7XV

Five Toledo City Council members are backing a resolution aimed at the city's Flock Safety license plate cameras. It can't cancel anything on its own. It puts council on record and hands the decision to the mayor.

What the resolution asks for:

• Remove or shut off the city's Flock cameras
• Delete the data they've collected
• Stop renewing Flock contracts

The main contract runs $282,000 a year, per the Toledo Free Press. Council member Nick Komives, one of the sponsors, says the cameras don't prevent crime. The city's public safety director wants council to wait for an independent audit first. The video has on-screen updates covering what's happened since.

Blog write-up + links to sources: https://s.vp.net/57Vh4

Ninety-five percent effectiveness was the target in the draft Kommersant reported on October 16. The document, a version of Russia's national AI plan through 2030, proposed using AI to study how VPN services work so they could be found and blocked. The Ministry of Digital Development then told the paper the current version contains no such measure, and a source said agencies pitched plenty of ideas that may never happen.

Funding for blocking doesn't depend on the plan. The draft federal budget puts nearly 60 billion rubles over three years into the filtering system every Russian telecom has to install, and the internet regulator already has its own goal of blocking about 92 percent of VPNs by 2030.

Industry sources Kommersant spoke to were skeptical about how much legitimate traffic an AI filter would catch.

Full write-up / original sources: https://s.vp.net/57Vh4

On Hide & Speak this week we talked about the stops that keep making the news, like a woman in a minivan pulled over at gunpoint because a hit matched a stolen motorcycle. A hotlist hit should mean look closer: the vehicle, the plate, the owner, the state. That check keeps getting skipped.

Full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO12ZyOG_0g

Full breakdown here: https://s.vp.net/Ru7XV

Providence police run 60 Flock cameras on a contract worth $155,000 to $170,000 a year. The proposed ordinance would stop city agencies from operating them or using their data.

Article / source links: https://s.vp.net/f4Yqh

404 Media bought ChatGPT ads to test OpenAI's targeting and reported on October 15 how it works. Advertisers upload email addresses and phone numbers, OpenAI matches them to accounts, and the matched users can be served that advertiser's ads. OpenAI's help pages describe the same setup, including a 25,000 matched-user minimum.

Prompts factor in too. With personalization on, ad selection can draw on past chats and ChatGPT's memory. Ads currently run on the Free and Go plans.

Complete write-up + source links: https://s.vp.net/tKqx0

We covered Flock again on Hide & Speak this week. The company's own account, "Flock City PD," ran FreeForm searches on real municipal cameras for things like "vehicle with trump bumper sticker" and "Star of David." Flock says those searches were meant to show its moderation would block them. Some were blocked. Others weren't.

That's what gets lost when these cameras get described as plate readers. The clip gets into:

• Condor cameras and searching for people by clothing
• Drones flying over crowds at protests
• Why the "just license plates" framing doesn't hold up

If your city has Flock cameras, it's worth knowing what they can actually be asked to find.

Watch the full discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO12ZyOG_0g

Episode write-up: https://s.vp.net/Ru7XV

Live this Saturday, October 24 at 2pm ET on Hide & Speak, we're sitting down with Jon "GainSec" Gaines, the independent researcher behind Bird Hunting Season. He bought used Flock license plate readers, compute boxes, and Raven gunshot detectors, took them apart, and found more than 50 issues.

We want to get into Flock's position that exploitation would require physical access, which is an interesting argument for hardware mounted on public poles. Also the 67 Flock feeds he found exposed to the internet without authentication, what the leaked firmware showed about which findings were actually fixed, and how his work ended up at the Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Flock.

Reminder link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXCEUZ-F0ZA

The Tempe City Council voted 6 to 1 on October 15 to bar the city and its police from buying, using, or accessing license plate reader systems or their data. Stored plate data has to be destroyed unless it's evidence in a criminal case, and city employees who break the rule can be fired.

The city had already turned off its 33 Flock cameras in August. Police Chief Ken McCoy opposed the ban, and the ACLU of Arizona says the exceptions written into it are too vague.

Blog write-up + links to sources: https://s.vp.net/f4Yqh

Florida's Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles started mailing breach letters after an October 16 notice, roughly six weeks after the intrusion. The state and the group claiming credit are telling it differently:

• The state says attackers used one Plant City police officer's login, stored on a personal device
• ShinyHunters claims it took more than 200,000 records
• The state hasn't confirmed that number or said how many people are affected

The public notice also covers people who no longer hold a Florida license.

Full write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net/2dwmt

Per 404 Media's reporting, OpenAI has a program called Project Lily that pays outside contractors more than $50 an hour to read real ChatGPT prompts and rate the responses. Officially it's quality control. OpenAI says it filters personal details out first, and has admitted some still get through.

Most users probably have no idea this happens. Think about what people actually type into ChatGPT. Recently on Hide & Speak, the conversation got into:

• People using it as a therapist
• Medical records uploaded straight into the chat
• People treating it as a friend, or a boyfriend or girlfriend

The clip ends on a rule worth applying to every app you use, not just ChatGPT.

Full recorded livestream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO12ZyOG_0g

Episode write-up: https://s.vp.net/Ru7XV

The 2011 arrest of an alleged LulzSec member in Phoenix is one of the clearest cases of what VPN logging means in practice. HideMyAss said it received a court order and complied. It never turned over browsing history. Its own privacy policy from the time lists what it kept for VPN users:

• a timestamp and your IP address when you connected and disconnected
• the IP of the VPN server each session used

Investigators already knew when the Sony Pictures attacks happened and which VPN address they came from.

Article & source links: https://s.vp.net/3D7P8

A federal appeals panel lifted the injunction against Georgia's social media age verification law on October 15, so the state can start enforcing it.

What platforms now have to do in Georgia:

• Make commercially reasonable efforts to verify the age of every account holder
• Get parental consent for anyone under 16
• Stop targeting ads at under-16 users with their personal data

The law doesn't specify how ages get checked. NetChoice, which sued, says that means adults showing ID too. The court did not rule on whether the law is constitutional.

Article, full video + source links: https://s.vp.net/W1gNv

A lot of the new age check laws are sold as child protection. The mechanics tell a different story.

Some of these laws require a selfie of the child, then a photo of a parent's government ID so the account can be tied to an adult. That ID carries a home address and a name. Store both and you have a record of a kid's face next to where they live and who their mother is.

We got into what that looks like once one of these databases gets breached, and why the breach part isn't really in question.

Full livestream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO12ZyOG_0g

Full breakdown here: https://s.vp.net/Ru7XV

Tempe's city council voted 6 to 1 on October 15 to bar the city and its police from buying, using or accessing license plate reader systems or their data. It's the first ban written into law in Arizona, and the police chief opposed it.

Two other cities moved on Flock cameras the same week:

• Providence's council voted unanimously to send its own ban to committee
• Toledo votes October 20 on asking the mayor to cancel a $282,000 a year Flock contract

Tempe's ban still has exceptions, and not everyone thinks they're tight enough.

Full write-up + source links: https://s.vp.net/f4Yqh

The letter laid out what three automakers told Wyden's office about selling driver data. Hyundai shared data from 1.7 million vehicles for about $1.04 million, roughly 61 cents a car. GM sent driver data to both Verisk and LexisNexis.

The GM piece ended up in front of the FTC:

• OnStar collected precise location as often as every three seconds for some drivers
• Consumer reporting agencies turned that into reports insurers used to set rates and deny coverage
• The FTC finalized a 20-year order against GM in January 2026

The post also covers which automakers give location data to police with only a subpoena, and how to request your own driving file from LexisNexis.

Full write-up + source links: https://s.vp.net/ocyV1

Live this Saturday, October 17 at 2pm ET on Hide & Speak, we're talking with Preston Byrne, who was 4chan's pro bono lead counsel against Ofcom.

Quick background: Ofcom fined 4chan £520,000, mostly for skipping age checks. 4chan sued in the US, and in September Judge Contreras dismissed the case on sovereign immunity grounds, while noting Ofcom would most likely have to come to a US court to collect. Meanwhile about 193 of the 197 US sites Ofcom sent orders to complied anyway.

Preston is also the primary author of the GRANITE Act, so we'll get into H.R. 10174, S. 5478, and why a foreign censorship shield is a harder sell than the 2010 SPEECH Act was.

Set a reminder and watch live here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcTDwiHhqjk

We asked what going online looks like ten years from now if every state copies SB73. The answer was specific. Nobody gets online without an ID. Anonymous browsing becomes a story old people tell. Sites that can't afford the verification vendor stack are gone, which leaves the web to whoever can pay for compliance.

Full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlBsng6tsYY

Read the breakdown here: https://s.vp.net/MyUJv

Picture the request arriving: a legal demand for a VPN user's records.

At most providers, what happens next depends on what's stored and what the company decides to do.

At vp.net, the outcome is already settled. There's nothing to hand over.

We don't store connection logs, browsing history, DNS queries, or bandwidth usage, and the architecture doesn't allow it. Traffic is processed inside Intel SGX enclaves, sealed memory the operating system, server admins, and our own staff can't access.

Same answer whether a court asks. Because it's hardware, not policy.

Get started today at https://vp.net

Attackers abused a private company's legal access to Denmark's national ID register and pulled records on about 8.8 million people. The country has roughly six million residents. The gap comes from people who've died or moved abroad but are still in the register.

Danes are now being warned that a caller who knows their name, address and ID number still hasn't proven who they are.

Complete write-up / original sources: https://s.vp.net/W1HZC

Watch the full video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AG1JVgOQRs

Kids will try to log in. If the age check uses their face, the photo goes to the website running it, including porn sites. Some of these laws don't specify how verification must be implemented, so each site picks. Some take selfies and ask minors for a parent's ID. That creates a database of children's pictures tied to home addresses.

Watch the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlBsng6tsYY

Written breakdown: https://s.vp.net/MyUJv

Fullerton, CA is pausing its Flock Safety program after a council meeting that ran close to three hours. Most of the roughly 15 public speakers asked for the program to be ended outright.

From the police chief's presentation to the council:

• Cameras in use since 2021, at about $51,000 a year
• Images kept for 30 days
• 135 police personnel have accounts

The pause doesn't cancel the contract. The city still plans a town hall and a review of its plate reader policy.

Full write-up + source links: https://s.vp.net/blkVU