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."

Comments

Re:I can't believe they aren't in jail yet...

[tr0llb4rt0]

feed the troll .... :-D

rtfa gives you

"This kind of snooping doesn't violate federal wiretap laws, which generally protect audio communication, but not video, says Joseph Metcalf, an assistant professor at the University of Oregon law school. Moreover, the law keeps it legal to monitor radio transmissions that aren't encrypted or scrambled in any way, unless they're in a band specifically protected by statute, like analog cell phone signals. "If a communication is readily accessible to the general public, that communication is not protected by the federal Wiretap Act," says Metcalf. "

Basically if you don't encrypt it it's your fault that someone else can read the signal.

Re:Encrypted Wireless Video

[macemoneta]

The D-Link DCS-1000W is an Ethernet/802.11b wired/wireless camera than can use 128-bit WEP. It's only $200 at CompUSA (the lowest price I could find, even comparing mail order when I purchased it). It has an on-board web server and can even email/ftp date/time stamped images when motion or switch closure is detected (or time based). More here:

http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=41

If you'd like to use it as a time-lapse security camera, I have a script on Sourceforge:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dcs1000w