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Warspying in San Francisco

hak_fan writes "SecurityFocus has a story on a group of radio hobbiests in San Francisco who occasionally go out warspying for wireless cameras in the 2.4GHz band, using some customized equipment. Their latest expedition turned up some interesting finds."

16 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. Ugh. by DarkHelmet · · Score: 4, Funny
    It's stories like this that make me never want to go naked on webcam ever ever again.

    Not that you slashdotters would want to know such a thing.

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    1. Re:Ugh. by El+Torico · · Score: 5, Funny

      The risk of seeing naked slashdotters makes me never want to go warspying.

      --
      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
    2. Re:Ugh. by B'Trey · · Score: 4, Funny

      This kind doesn't count!

      --

      "The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.

    3. Re:Ugh. by pyr0 · · Score: 5, Funny

      You mean like this guy? And no, it's not goatse or tubgirl, although possibly just as disturbing because the guy is an idiot!

    4. Re:Ugh. by digitalsushi · · Score: 4, Funny

      See, now, I'd go in the other direction. Let's say I found an office broadcasting with an X10 camera that was monitoring an empty executives's office.

      I'd grab some footage, go home, set up my place to look the same way, invite some interesting people over, do some interesting things, and then go back to outside the office, and broadcast MY signal at 10 times the power, overriding the original one and have my image be the one that gets recorded.

      I'd know it works when I read about it in the papers the next day...

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  2. Interesting Finds? by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 5, Funny

    If they found some interesting finds, they left them out of the article. They found exactally what you would think they would find... cameras pointed at places in offices... not the hot lesbian orgy that you would hope for. Besides, isnt this a dupe?

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  3. interesting finds alright... by I+Be+Hatin' · · Score: 5, Funny
    Their latest expedition turned up some interesting finds.

    From the article:

    A few other cameras pop up, but nothing exciting -- until the financial district, where on the same block as the office cam, MWD's receiver picks up the very freeway camera that marked the start of the expedition. The camera is more than two miles away, while most wireless video cameras have trouble reaching the curb. The appearance of the signal so far from its source energizes the team. "That's definitely the catch of the night there," says MWD.

    So the "catch of the night" is a freeway camera. Woo-hoo! Oh well, at least now I know there are bigger dorks than myself.

    --
    I know god exists. I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
  4. Quote of the Day by sysadmn · · Score: 4, Funny
    This has got to be the quote of the day:
    The problem is, if the cops take an interest in you while you're doing something like this, the only way to get out of the situation is to admit that you're a dork," says MWD. "I'd almost rather be taken back to the station."
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    1. Re:Quote of the Day by El · · Score: 4, Funny

      I have a simular situation. "Honey, are you surfing slashdot again?" "Uh, no... I'm just downloading porn!"

      --

      "Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney

  5. Re:Interesting. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Umm, that was just a Law & Order on the other night. Law & Order != Real Life. Step outside and take a deep breath of fresh air dude.

  6. Massive White Dude? by Jon+Abbott · · Score: 4, Funny

    I don't know what's funnier -- the fact that the warspying guy's name was "Massive White Dude" (or "MWD" for short), or the fact that the reporter misspelled it as "WMD" in the second to last paragraph...

  7. Dear Slashdot... by ShaggyZet · · Score: 4, Funny

    I never thought this would happen to me. I was warspying around Clevland and found myself in a low-rent part of town. I didn't want to stop for long, but I glanced at my equipment while stopped at a red light and saw the most beautiful girl in the world. She must have forgotten to turn off the camera, because the things she was doing.... Well, let's just say it was even more exciting than the goats.cx guy, or the thought of Natalie Portman with hot grits down her pants. I went right up to her place, and secured that camera for her by setting up a linux firewall. But the really good part is, I put in a backdoor for myself!

    1. Re:Dear Slashdot... by pboulang · · Score: 4, Funny
      Letter back from Penthouse editors:

      In the future, could you please not reference "goats.cx" and "put in a backdoor for myself" in the same paragraph? We are now busy trying to poke out our inner eyes.
      --

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      *not guaranteed

  8. Re:I call movie rights! by The+I+Shing · · Score: 4, Funny

    But my movie will have a talking pie.

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  9. Re:Maybe no lesbian orgies, but by swb · · Score: 5, Funny

    With a little detective work, MWD will eventually discover that the signal is a directional transmission from the camera to a local TV station that features the feed on its website and in its nightly newscast.

    So really the trick is to override their feed during the nightly news with more provocative content. It might be amusing to be real subtle about it, such as periodically putting footage from the wrong season or another time of day, CGI-ing the skyline (burning buildings, missing buildings, buildings that aren't really there, etc), using a different city skyline, etc. Just putting the goatse guy on would be a little less interesting.

    Ideally you'd have a reachable PC generating the video, with the ability to remotely switch between the real camera's feed and your feed to keep 'em guessing.

    All the more ironic that "The Conversation" was filmed in SF.

  10. War prefix now means roaming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wardialing was coined after Matthew Broderick did that activity in the 1983 movie War Games. It was a little bit clever to mutate that into wardriving, but that took the prefix right up to the edge of Fonzie's ramp.