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War Driving Version 2.0
asv108 writes: "There is an interesting article in the New York Times about the popularity of wireless cameras from X10 and how easy it is to easedrop on the feeds with relatively inexpensive equipment from up to a 1/4 mile away." I wonder if they're doing the things the X10 ads imply they might be doing.
Wasn't this the point of all those annoying X10 ads? :)
i think that if it wasnt for the ads, the idea of eavesdroping with the x10s might not be so prevelent. imho
Don't you just love how uninformed the general population is?
After X10 spends all this money selling such an easy to use product, some dumb ass journalist stumbles accross the fact that
[GASP] These things are really easy to use!!!
And they work so well, they are really easy to use!!! by anyone!!!
OH MY GHOD!!! It's one channel garage door openers all over again!!
I wonder if they're doing the things the X10 ads imply they might be doing.
Yeah, because hot chicks in skimpy outfits love guys with nothing better to do than fuck around with obscure protocols.
That's one of the many reasons RMS gets all the ladies, right?
--saint
I bet they'll suddenly be more car accidents, with bored students driving round trying to pick up 'dodgy' webcams
They're again pr0n driving wouldn't have the same 'ring' to it (oops excuse the pun)
wonderful.
and of course, no one is running to plug the legal hole.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
This is a very interesting observation.
l. slashdot12345
p. slashdot12345
in case you need it
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
The ads are actually made from images the company got by eavesdropping on their customers. Ha ha.
the ads made me think that that was the whole point.
shrug.
I wonder if they're doing the things the X10 ads imply they might be doing.
You've got it all wrong; X10 is meant to protect and safeguard your family. All those half-dressed women in the ads are simply burglars, removing their bulky clothing so they can slither in through your window and steal your stuff.
this is not a troll, but what does "War Driving Version 2.0" mean? I don't understand. Don't mod, I start at 0 anyway, just reply with an explanation.
Every X10 ad that I have seen looks like some of those "Voyeur" porn ads that are all too present on the net.
We're X10, we give you FREE porn!
If only it was true...
Was this discovered by people looking for 802.11b APs around the city, encountering interfearance and pulling out an X10 camera reciever?
-Rusty
You never know...
Call 1-800-564-8982
/. editors should be very familiar with it...
Press 2, then 5228. Enjoy!
I'm sure all
It's "eavesdrop", not "easedrop" for Jon Cutz sake!
Thousands of people who have installed a popular wireless video camera, intending to increase the security of their homes and offices, have instead unknowingly opened a window on their activities to anyone equipped with a cheap receiver.
The wireless video camera, which is heavily advertised on the Internet, is intended to send its video signal to a nearby base station, allowing it to be viewed on a computer or a television. But its signal can be intercepted from more than a quarter-mile away by off-the-shelf electronic equipment costing less than $250.
A recent drive around the New Jersey suburbs with two security experts underscored the ease with which a digital eavesdropper can peek into homes where the cameras are put to use as video baby monitors and inexpensive security cameras.
The rangy young driver pulled his truck around a corner in the well-to-do suburban town of Chatham and stopped in front of an unpretentious home. A window on his laptop's screen that had been flickering suddenly showed a crisp black-and-white video image: a living room, seen from somewhere near the floor. Baby toys were strewn across the floor, and a woman sat on a couch.
After showing the nanny-cam images, the man, a privacy advocate who asked that his name not be used, drove on, scanning other homes and finding a view from above a back door and of an empty crib.
In the nearby town of Madison, from the parking lot of a Staples store, workers could be observed behind the cash register. The driver walked into the Staples and pointed up at a corner of the room. "Take a look," he said. Above the folded-back steel security shutters was a nubbin of technology: a barely perceptible video camera looking down on the employees.
"I can only imagine driving around the Bay Area with one of these," said Aviel D. Rubin, a security researcher at AT&T Labs who was along for the ride.
Around San Francisco, high-technology toys like security cameras are likely to be far more common. Mr. Rubin tries to help the business world recognize security threats and address them. He knows the man with the truck, who brought this latest wrinkle of wireless insecurity to his attention. Although there is no evidence that video snooping is widespread, it is so easy and the opportunity to do it is so great that it is a cause for concern, Mr. Rubin said.
Such digital peeping is apparently legal, said Clifford S. Fishman, a law professor at the Catholic University of America and the author of a leading work on surveillance law, "Wiretapping and Eavesdropping."
When told of the novel form of high-technology prying, Professor Fishman said, "That is astonishing and appalling." But he said that wiretap laws generally applied to intercepting sound, not video. Legal prohibitions on telephone eavesdropping, he said, were passed at the urging of the telecommunications industry, which wanted to ensure that consumers would feel safe using its products. "There's no corresponding lobby out there protecting people from digital surveillance," he said.
Some states have passed laws that prohibit placing surreptitious cameras in places like dressing rooms, but legislatures have generally not considered the legality of intercepting those signals. Nor have they considered that the signals would be intercepted from cameras that people planted themselves. "There's no clear law that protects us," Professor Fishman said. "You put it all together, the implications are pretty horrifying." With no federal law and no consensus among the states on the legality of tapping video signals, Professor Fishman said, "The nanny who decided to take off her dress and clean up the house in her underwear would probably have no recourse" against someone tapping the signal. Police with search warrants could use the technology for investigative purposes, as well, he suggested.
Surveillance has been a growing part of American life, especially since Sept. 11. Video cameras have been installed on city streets, and some cities and airports have tried to tie cameras into facial recognition systems, with mixed results. Privacy activists argue that the benefit to security is questionable and the cost to privacy is high. But the cameras continue to proliferate -- with many people buying them for personal use. Surveillance cameras have also sprouted at intersections to catch drivers who speed or run red lights and as a part of many voyeur-oriented pornographic Web sites.
Ads for the "Amazing X10 Camera" have been popping up all over the World Wide Web for months. The ads for the device, the XCam2, carry a taste of cheesecake -- usually a photo of a glamorous-looking woman in a swimming pool or on the edge of a couch. But, in fact, many people have bought the cameras for far more pedestrian purposes.
"Frankly, a lot of it is kind of dull," and most of the women being surreptitiously observed are probably nannies, said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. He calls the X10 ads "one of the weird artifacts of the Internet age."
The company that sells the cameras, X10 Wireless Technology Inc. of Seattle, was created in 1999 by an American subsidiary of X10 Ltd., a Hong Kong company. It is privately held and does not release sales figures. A spokesman, Jeff Denenholz, said the company had no comment for this article.
Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public stock offering that was later withdrawn provide some figures, however. X10 lost $8.1 million on revenue of $21.3 million for the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2000, and said that 52 percent of its revenue came from wireless camera kits. At the camera's current retail price of about $80, that would translate to sales of more than 138,000 cameras in those nine months alone.
Rob Enderle, an analyst at the Giga Information Group, a technology consulting business, said he was a big fan of X10 -- which sells the most popular wireless cameras on the consumer market -- and its wares. "Theirs is the least expensive option out there, and they actually do a good job," he said.
It is really easy, but no matter how many I set up around my house I just can't seem to find any hot half-naked women lounging around for me to spy on.
Maybe I just need to buy more cameras...
------
Today's Top Deals
In the nearby town of Madison, from the parking lot of a Staples store, workers could be observed behind the cash register.
I doubt it, but I wonder if the resolution was good enough to read the credit card numbers of the customers, when they put it on the counter.
Mr. Enderle was surprised to hear of the cameras' lack of security, but said he did not see a cause for great concern. "Clearly, if you are pointing that at areas like your bathroom or shower, there may be people enjoying that view with you," he said. "But fundamentally, you shouldn't be pointing it that way anyway."
The vulnerability of wireless products has been well understood for decades. The radio spectrum is crowded, and broadcast is an inherently leaky medium; baby monitors would sometimes receive signals from early cordless phones (most are scrambled today to prevent monitoring). A subculture of enthusiasts grew up around inexpensive scanning equipment that could pick up signals from cordless and cellular phones, as former Speaker Newt Gingrich discovered when recordings of a 1996 conference call strategy session were released by Democratic foes.
More recently, with the advent of wireless computer networks based on the increasingly popular technology known as WiFi, yet another new subculture has emerged: people known as "war drivers" who enter poorly safeguarded wireless networks while driving or walking around with laptops.
In the case of the XCam2, the cameras transmit an unscrambled analog radio signal that can be picked up by receivers sold with the cameras. Replacing the receiver's small antenna with a more powerful one and adding a signal amplifier to pick up transmissions over greater distances is a trivial task for anyone who knows his way around a RadioShack and can use a soldering iron.
Products designed for the consumer market rarely include strong security, said Gary McGraw, the chief technology officer of Cigital, a software risk management company. That is because security costs money, and even pennies of added expense eat into profits. "When you're talking about a cheap thing that's consumer grade that you're supposed to sell lots and lots of copies of, that really matters," he said.
Refitting an X10 camera with encryption technology would be beyond the skills of most consumers. It is best for manufacturers to design security features into products from the start, because adding them after the fact is far more difficult, Mr. McGraw said. The cameras are only the latest example of systems that are too insecure in their first versions, he said, and cited other examples, including Microsoft's Windows operating system. "It's going to take a long time for consumer goods to have any security wedged into them at all," he said.
Another wireless camera, the DCS-1000W from D-Link Systems Inc., does offer encrypted transmission and ties into standard WiFi networks -- but it costs at least $350.
As a security expert, Mr. Rubin said he was concerned about the kinds of mischief that a criminal could carry out by substituting one video image for another. In one scenario, a robber or kidnapper wanting to get past a security camera at the front door could secretly record the video image of a trusted neighbor knocking. Later, the robber could force that image into the victim's receiver with a more powerful signal. "I have my computer retransmit these images while I come by," he said, explaining the view of a would-be robber.
Far-fetched, perhaps. That is the way security experts think. But those who use the cameras and find out about the security hole seem to grasp the implications quickly.
Back at the Staples store in Madison, employees said they did not know that they were being watched by security monitors. The manager of the store, when asked whether he knew that his cameras were broadcasting to the outside world, seemed somewhat shaken, and excused himself to go into his office, he said, to put down the small display carousel he was carrying.
He did not return.
I thought the ladies come with the cameras. I guess I will cancel my order for those 10 X10 cameras.
I should have thought over how they would get 10 hot females shipped via courier.
that's not encrypted can be intercepted. Just like scanning for cordless phones, this is not really that hard. If you don't want someone to see/hear personal information you're transmitting, ENCRYPT it! Of course, most consumers either don't know enough about encryption to use it or just don't care. Then again, if you've ever gotten bored and scanned the wireless phone frequencies you know how inane and boring most conversations are. I'm betting the average "nanny-cam" would be just as boring :)
...More grainy porn featuring ugly nerds humping their bovine "webmistresses"....Yeesh. At $1.39 a gallon, i've got better things to do with a tank of gas than to drive around looking for things I don't really want to see.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
apparently the next james bond movie has signed on X10 for 5 special effects... more on this later....
"The nanny who decided to take off her dress and clean up the house in her underwear would probably have no recourse against someone tapping the signal"
I'll be outside Tiger Woods' house with a scanner.
"There's no corresponding lobby out there protecting people from digital surveillance," he said.
Digital eavesdropping? The cameras send an analog signal just like a TV station does. Sheesh..
Or you could just order a reciever from X10 for $49. Maybe he was buying the 6 camera pack with eagle eye motion sensors and the auto vcr kit for the $250.
If you order from X10, what ever you do, make sure you give them a disposable e-mail address because they will send you so much spam, you will long for the days when all you received was viagra and porn e-mails.
-Bingo
Eavesdrop perhaps? That NYTimes web-registration hell was so annoying I decided not to read that original article.
...with out registering with The New York Times:
8 &ncid=68&e=1&u=/nyt/20020413/ts_nyt/nanny_cam_may_ leave_a_home_exposed
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=6
Orange
In the case of the XCam2, the cameras transmit an unscrambled analog radio signal that can be picked up by receivers sold with the cameras. Replacing the receiver's small antenna with a more powerful one and adding a signal amplifier to pick up transmissions over greater distances is a trivial task for anyone who knows his way around a RadioShack and can use a soldering iron.
:^)
It looks like the obvious answer is to ban Radio Shack from selling soldering irons.
I bought an X-cam about a year ago to catch neighbors dumping garbage on our property. The camera was mounted upstairs, pointing out toward the street. Imagine my surprise when I turned on the receiver for the first time, and the image I saw was..a view of my own house from across the street! Apparently another neighbor had bought an X-cam, and was operating it pointed in our direction. (This was not entirely coincidence since I'd mentioned the garbage cam to them a few weeks back, but still.. ) This was a distance of about maybe 100 feet. (Also, for some reason, our camera signal did not interfere with theirs.)
A man, a plan, a canal: Suez!
Here's How XCam2 Works, and
X10 cameras and Video Senders use the following frequencies: 2.411GHz, 2.434GHz, 2.453GHz, 2.473GHz. So something like this (the Icom IC-R3) might work, as it can quickly scan the frequencies you're looking for and lock on one once a signal is found.
Also, from the XCam2 manual: "Refer to the setup and operating instructions that came with the 2.4 GHz Video Receiver, Model VR31A or
VR36A (sold separately) to set up the Receiver.". In other words, one only needs to buy said on of the suggested receivers for $50-$90 and scan those four channels manually.
Are you telling me that wireless devices advertised as inexpensive and aimed at home consumers don't have super-secure encryption built in?? I am shocked and amazed! I mean, If I'm paying 50 bucks for a wireless color video camera, I'd expect some government-level security on those things!!
Next thing you tell me, it will be easy to eavesdrop on cordless phones and walkie-talkies!!
so windows is as insecure as a $80 camera? Who could have guessed that one?
I want 2D games back.
In the nearby town of Madison, from the parking lot of a Staples store, workers could be observed behind the cash register.
Anyone whos been to a Staples knows that there are NEVER any employees at the registers!
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Yeah, noticeably on YOUR site, NYTimes-heads!
Precisely what people have been complaining about!
i've been trying to read the NYTimes article but those damned X10 ads keep popping up!!
If this is Heaven I'm bailin out! I cant tolerate this ol tin-tub, so fulla trash and rats...
So, someone might go driving by and spot the transmitted image of my mailman? Unless, of course, the ham operator neighbor's keying up again, and obliterating the signal. Or the other neighbor's using his 2.4GHz cordless phone. Or the neighbor on the other side is trying his 802.11 gateway again.
I have only one question for anyone who's actually trying this - why bother? The picture generated by an XCam is *crap,* and useless for anything but really grainy and poorly-saturated "surveillance" (and half the time it's useless for that, too!)
The CMOS module that the XCam uses is crap. The optics are plastic (or really crappy glass), and generate some really funky chromatic distortion, so I replaced the module with a Panasonic CCD module. Much better picture, but you still have to deal with the really nasty interference.
Specialization is for insects. - R.A.H.
another one, classic
i'm using mozilla and i don't get any pop up ads.
free (as in mp3s) electronic music
"Another wireless camera, the DCS-1000W from D-Link Systems Inc., does offer encrypted transmission and ties into standard WiFi networks -- but it costs at least $350."
next time you see the ad click on it and go to their site. on their page theirs a link that will give you a cookie that prevents the ads from apearing. id tell you exactly what the site is and where the thing on the site is, but since i dont see the ads anymore, i cant find out. i think its on their faq, but im not sure. i just know its there.
And also smugly cynical. But WTF. Some of the more tightly wound Slashdotters really do need to know this stuff!
Heck, I'm still waiting for a good program to use with OSX to do WarDriving with 802.11b. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any decent software out there that'll do anything with my AirPort card.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
As for the cameras themselves they operate in the 2.4GHz ISM band. That band has always been crowded because it doesn't require a license from the FCC to operate in. There has always been information available to anyone that took the effort to listen in. Only now that it has become popular with the public and you have a chance to see a naked nanny has anyone even noticed.
Let them eavesdrop on the X10 cameras. We all know that the real danger lies in the alien mind rays that my tinfoil hat stops.
I had a funny sig but a large corporation trademarked it and sued me into poverty.
Karma: Positive. Mostly affected by the lack of a karma joke in your sig.
I wonder if they're doing the things the X10 ads imply they might be doing.
Spying on the neighbors? Probably.
And you thought you could spy without anyone watching...
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
The R3 is an all-band receiver with built-in video, and can receive broadcast TV, ATV, and wireless video, including 900Mhz and 2.4Ghz transmissions.
Unfortunately, the 2.4Ghz range only covers three of the four XCAM frequencies, and the receiver is deaf as a post above 2Ghz, even with a good antenna.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
from what they say when you go to that page...
i don't read slashdot anymore.
I have a lot of professional wireless video equipment. We do all of our transmits at my work in the 2.4ghz range. It's kind of funny, when a certain local TV station does live remotes from the downtown area, we get their signal on our antennas, reminiscent of finding a backhaul feed in my B.U.D. satellite days.
Anyways, along with receiving equipment, I have a lot of high-gain Yagi directional antennas. I know the antennas would be good for this sort of thing, but is the x10 receiver just a standard 2.4ghz video transmitter? Should I be able to pick up x10 cameras with my receiver, or even worse, can our broadcasts be picked up by people sitting at home with a cheap x10 receiver?
People can set up their own mini TV stations. Most of it will probably be crap, but then that's the same case with the web letting everybody publish idiotic opinions like this one.
___
The ends are ape-chosen, only the means are man's. -- Aldous Huxley
Somebody's gotta hack up some sw to do this-- don't make me go out and ACTUALLY BUY HARDWARE!
The horror!
Get to work! I'll be checking freshmeat tomorrow!
-- I speak only for myself.
I bought the X10 camera, and i use it to spy on my hot neighbor. for some reason she takes a shower with it. its great. i never leave the house.
Does anyone have any alternate sources for the equipment sold on X10.com? Several years ago, before they even started their pop-up campaign, I placed an order from these guys and called three weeks later to ask where my order was (and why they charged my credit card as soon as the order was placed weeks before). The sales rep I talked to was such a flaming asshole that I vowed never to do business with them again. So, does anyone else (reputable) sell this equipment?
chris
KOMPRESSOR mp3 downloads
If I remember right, The Screen Savers (TechTV) had a little blurb about surfing the area to pick up on stray x10 signals. Good idea, expose this flaw to the world. A quick search of their site turned up nothing. Maybe someone else could provide a little insite. I could be wrong. ~ops
Urgo: "I want to live. I want to experience the universe and I want to eat pie!"
Jack: "Who doesn't??"
You mean I've been missing out on this kinda thing? When did this come about? I always wondered what my 40gb's of porn was for.
I'm so sick of this NYT enforced registration bullshit... Even the falsified email address I wanted to use (fuckyou@youstupidassholes.com) was "in use" already...
Anyway, I was finally able to create an account, use it till it blows up...
uid: eatmypussy0
pw: eatmypussy
(apparently 'eatmypussy' was already in use too)
http://lists.dachb0den.com/pipermail/bat/2002-Apri l/000202.html
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Back when I was about 6 or 7, I had a couple of toy walkie-talkies. I have no idea how it happened, but when walking past a telephone pole, I could pick up my neighbour's telephone call. I'm still weirded out by it.
Sorry to get all pedantic but what kind of a word is 'easedrop'? Surely you mean 'eavesdrop'?
:)
This is the part where someone points out that it's actually a clever play on words as regards how 'easy' is it to 'eavesdrop' and I've missed the point completely
You could get POW from www.analogx.com - a small (and very stable) proggie that kills all those stupid popups - just select them once and they are for all time instantly closed.
This may be the most informative thread on slashdot.
In this thread, in just 5 minutes, I learned:
* How to disable X10 pop-up ads (but only for 30 days)
* That masturbation has a wide range of uses
* How to generate a random login for the NY Times website
Though it is unfortunate that almost nothing in the comments had any direct relevance to the topic at hand.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
The solution is simple, an EM hardened house.
:(
By building wire mesh into all the walls and turning the house into a Faraday cage, most of the radiated signal can be blocked and also make the house more impervious to EM disturbance.
If you were really paranoid you can also do the windows, but if you still want light to get in, all you could do is use real fly-wire (not the cheap plastic crap) and figure out some way to ground it, probably by just grounding the frame.
The only disadvantage is if you want to go outside and use you cordless phone while gardening or some such. But otherwise, it lessens the chances of somebody snooping you X10, cordless phone and even TEMPEST (totally obliterates the risk if you go hardcore).
It also has the advantage of cleaning up the airwaves outside for 802.11 comms. It would make everybody happy, except for those trying to gather TEMPEST data, but there are other alternatives for them anyway.
Just my $A0.005 worth, damn Aussie dollar
it's the author!! and a sub 100K slashdot id too, so he must be k3w1 :)
you really should ask better questions with a uid that low
I submitted this quite a while ago, and instead of the ny times page, I submitted the Yahoo versions which didn't require registration for all the whiny ass /. people who think everyone is tracking them, and I got it rejected.
Fuckers...Guess next time I'll include that cmdr taco is king or some shit to kissup to the dumbasses.
After a month of driving around the Nutmeg State with a Wavecom receiver hooked up to the trusty portable boob-tube, the signals intercepted were either broadcast TV signals from Wavecoms being used as a "VCR Rabbit" (remember those circa 1990s that operated on 902-928 Mhz?), a lot of parking lots, and the occassional driveway. All in all, the 2.4 Ghz. ISM band is becoming yet another garbage band with all the cordless phones, 802.11 LANS, microwave ovens, and Wireless Cameras.
I've had more fun putting the transmitter on an R/C car and driving it around the back '40, or aiming it at the bird feeder. I think eventually I'll have it watch the dog run. Any Connectucut War Drivers (2.0) are more than welcome to help me babysit my Keeshound. I'll even give you a QSL card!
Just as an FYI, wireless video is found at places other than 2.4 Ghz. I've seen stuff on 433 Mhz. (mostly ham radio "ATV" stuff, but not always), UHF TV (Chs 14-69), and of course 902-928 Mhz.
Intercept New England