A security researcher says he broke into Flock's license-plate camera network four separate times, which is bad news for the police departments, businesses, and communities that rely on it.

• Flock's CEO publicly said the company had never been hacked, but the break-ins happened repeatedly.
• The way in was a hardcoded API key — basically a password left sitting in the code where it should never be.
• That single key opened up everything Flock runs: about 5,000 police departments, 6,000 private communities, and 1,000 businesses.
• Leaving a password in code like that is a beginner-level mistake, not a sophisticated attack.
• A surveillance network this wide being readable by anyone who finds one key is a national security problem.

Outlook: Expect pressure on Flock to explain the gap and answer to the police agencies whose camera data was exposed.