this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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I think someone needs to develop a portable, focusable beam-EMP device. So, you know, those soft, vulnerable electronics inside certain devices can be disabled remotely, invisibly, without such the need for inelegant tools such as angle-grinders and box-cutters.
I'd also say re-used Bluray/DVD lasers to burn out the camera CCD, but that would need to be done very carefully, only angling from above, to avoid risk to aircraft and definitely care to avoid any people nearby.
(I wonder if Flock cameras have some sort of laser-filtering on their lenses?)
Do Flock Camera towers use aluminum in any critical, ground-accessible parts? I hear mercury does nasty things to aluminum. But it's also toxic so would need to be handled carefully.
Someone mentioned gallium in another thread. Safer than mercury to handle, but you'll 1.) have to hope that the pipe is aluminum, and 2.) have to expose the aluminum because it will likely have a coating on that would prevent the gallium from weakening the aluminum.
Oh, and 3.) it will likely take a while for any effect to show.
Complicated methods don't scale well and tend to amp up the punishment you'll get if caught. They also make it easy to develop a profile of you.
A slingshot can be easily hidden/disposed, is stealthy when used, and dirt cheap.
Don't do this off of your Roblox server. And don't do it if you don't know where the person who'd be stopping you is. Alibi should be established before hand.
Not sure if EMP is practical, but a small drone with a laser requires much less power and wouldn't do the camera's sensor any good. A drone with a can of spray paint could also cause problems. So I hope no one does either of these.
With all the cameras being re-patriated by good citizens, I'm sure a number of them already made their way to skilled hackers, tinkerers.
And given how amateurish Flock was with their most recent PR event (a reporter tried to attend, got rejected almost last minute, Flock even went behind his back to cancel his hotel booking, so our guy went full out and with a metric fuckton of RF equipment, monitored the event's signals. WiFi, Bluetooth, wireless mics (which they often left on and just broadcasting out into the wild), I have a feeling that the whole Flock ecosystem is riddled with security issues.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's some incredibly dumb stupid kill switch built into the firmware that can be triggered by something as simple as an ESP32.
What about a drone with a can of thermite
Okay, but seriously, who has enough rust just sitting around to make that shit? You're like the third person I've seen talk about thermite, and that shit is ridiculous to make.
Then you have to go through all the trouble of somehow igniting the thermite and getting it away from your drone...
The same can really be said for a can of spray paint. I want to see someone actually design that shit before I'd believe it's possible. Maybe someone with a lot of tinkering time, but not the majority of us just trying to buy parts from a hobby store.
It's literally just rust and aluminum powder in a 1:1 ratio
Drone with a water balloon full of paint. Aim for the solar panel.
Block the panel, the batteries don't charge, the camera doesn't work.
What about a satellite with an array of nuclear weapons? Thermite is such overkill, and risks harming the surroundings.
Good idea, if we blot out the sun with nuclear winter they can’t recharge.
Most EMPs only cause momentary disruption, usually causing the device to reboot. To cause permanent damage, you need a massive amount of power in that EMP device. (Also, the strength of the EMP falls off very quickly with distance, so if you want it to work at any significant range, then you'll need exponentially more power.)
And by a lot of power, I mean this thing is going to at least be backpack-sized. It will probably end up being too big and too heavy for one person to easily carry.
Unless maybe you want to get really fancy with some chemically generated EMP? But that's going to be a lot harder to make directional, and it will probably be a one time use device.
(Also, if you get caught, this strategy may earn you some extra-spicy federal charges.)
Sources I've been able to find put a bluray laser diode's power at about 0.0126W.
To maybe cause damage to camera sensors, you're going to need at least 1W, more likely 3-5W before you start seeing any real damage. To cause damage to a camera CCD at distance, you're going to need hundreds of watts and you'll need to focus the beam far better than most high-power lasers do.
Again, a device capable of disabling cameras at range will be large. Lasers with that kind of power are at least the size of a large suitcase, and that's without adding in the necessary batteries and power supply.
And it would be highly irresponsible to go shining such a high-powered laser in an uncontrolled public setting. Stray reflections could easily cause permanent eye damage to yourself and/or innocent bystanders.
(And even when a camera is damaged by lasers, it tends to result in only a few dead pixels. The camera's image might still remain usable unless you blast it very thoroughly.)
If you want a technological means to disable Flock cameras, I'd recommend trying to hack them instead. Every single one of them has a wireless connection that could -- at least in theory -- be used to hijack control of the device and shut it down. Though that will only disable it until someone turns it back on.
For an actual, practical way to disable them at a distance, you're going to want projectiles.
Paintball to the lens
Pellet gun to the lens (hoping a cracked lens will make the camera's image unusable)
Shotgun loaded with birdshot (birdshot is generally safe to shoot at an upward angle because it won't have enough energy to harm anyone when it comes back down)
Just throw rocks and bricks at it
With the latter two, I'd actually recommend aiming at the solar panel rather than the camera itself. These cameras are known to track phones and other devices, and damaging/blocking the camera lens won't stop that. But damaging the solar panel will stop that -- once the batteries run out, all of the camera's functions will shut down.
And on that note -- if you're going camera hunting, of course leave your phone at home! Preferably, leave it playing a long youtube playlist. The youtube play history combined with the phone's location history could give you a convincing alibi.
Or double-tap with the shotgun. Or triple tap to hit the control box as well
Great info. I only vaguely recall seeing some youtube videos or something showing that DVD or Bluray lasers could damage CCDs, but it was almost certainly in a desktop-lab situation, at a range of only a few meters. Inverse-square law strikes again!
Solar panels.. yes, target the power source not the electronics themselves (then again, why not both?)
Small kamikaze drones launched from a safely out-of-view location? Now we're getting into full insurrection territory.
No matter what the method, they're going to get legislation classifying it as 'terrorism' I am sure.
Drones have a registration number attached to it so that would need to be removed. They're also FAA regulated so they'll slap some felony charges on there.
For a 'small' kamikaze drone, I'd recommend experimenting with lighter-than-air flight -- balloons/blimps. You could make a small radio controlled blimp with significant lift capacity for far cheaper than you could build a quadcopter-style drone with the same payload capacity. And they should work well as long as you're not dealing with excessive wind.
And your balloon/blimp can be filled with cheaper, more effective hydrogen rather than helium (much more expensive and less lifting capacity) or hot air (much less lifting capacity). Since it's meant to be disposable, nobody cares about the risk of it catching fire and burning/exploding. Hell, that might actually contribute to its destructive capabilities. Hydrogen is so easy to get that you can feasibly just make it yourself with simple hardware store parts.
You don't need fancy control electronics, either. Any toy RC car's parts could be repurposed for it, including battery and motors.
Just look behind it and don't point it at aircraft. If you can't see them they're either not there or behind clouds that will block a laser beam.
I bought a high powered green laser for this.