Slashdot Mirror
Ready, Aim, HACK!
KD5YPT writes "According to a story on Wired, Adam Laurie and Martin Herfurt demonstrated that they can hack a Bluetooth enabled phone from up to a mile away using a sniper rifle with yagi antenna. Kinda gives a new meaning to '1337 hAx0r2'."
The sand color for this topic sucks. My eyes are burning.
Remove the "it." from the beginning of the web address and press enter. You'll get the nice green back.
After I RTFA, I found that a sniper rifle was not used
The BlueSniper "rifle," created by John Hering and colleagues at Flexilis as a proof-of-concept device, resembles a rifle. It has a vision scope and a yagi antenna with a cable that runs to a Bluetooth-enabled laptop or PDA in a backpack.
The BlueSniper "rifle," created by John Hering and colleagues at Flexilis as a proof-of-concept device, resembles a rifle.
How much does it resemble a rifle? People get shot here in NYC when wallets and candy bars get mistaken for weapons...
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
You're right, here are the pictures.
-------
Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
Was covered in brief on tomshardware in a post on /. yestarday
All spelling mistakes are due to solar flares...honest
It isn't a real sniper rifle It'd still make someone nervous if it was pointed at them I imagine . . .
It actually makes a lot of sense, no? The device resembles a rifle- not just out of some "cool" factor, but because use of the device requires aim, and the rifle form is suitable. It also has metaphorical relation to the rifle, in that it's a "weapon of attack", so to speak. Further, insofar as the attack is a long range attack from a concealed location, it makes a certain amount of sense to call it "sniping".
So, insofar as it lead to you believe people were firing bullets through a sniper rifle as a means to hack cell-phones, yes, it was misleading. However, I think it was only intended to draw the obvious metaphorical comparison between what these guys were doing and what a sniper does.
How much does it resemble a rifle?
From even a moderate distance, very closely. I think part of it is simply the stance, the way it's held. But it's also colored like a rifle, the same length as a rifle, and has a similar handle on one end. It's very convincing. Actually aiming the thing, and pointing it at somebody, would be more than enough to create some seriously panicked people.
Concept is cool, but anybody that uses this thing in public would be in serious danger of being shot by a SWAT team.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
I think you're going to be in trouble from Homeland Security, but not necessarily the regular police. You have a right to bear arms. While you can carry a rifle without a license in plain sight downtown (barring municipal codes), it's illegal to have a handgun in a safe at your home unless you're licensed, registered, and have passed a background check.
But Homeland Security throws that out the window; any "terrorist activity", as they define it, is susceptible to their rules.
One of the reasons why laws should be written as precisely as possible...
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
http://www.tomshardware.com/business/200408021/ima ges/bluesniper.jpg
Yagi si pretty much line of sight. Objects in the way cause a huge degradation in signal and aften make a unidirectional antenna better.
Also, with a yagi antenna you best be right on where you aim it. A feew degrees also causes a huge signal degridation.
You've got to be kidding!!!!!!!!! how is this funny? The idiot did not even take the time to click on the article before articulating a kharma whoring response. What are the mods doing here, rewarding laziness? I smell abuse, someone meta-moderate this.
You don't gain karma for a Funny mod.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
It surprises me how retarded people on a technology site can be.
Do you avoid those stupid computers and just buy 4-function calculators to avoid all those viruses, trojans, spam and all the other crap associated with the internet and modern computing? I guess not.
If you look closely, people being hax0r3d are almost always the ones who don't understand what they're doing.
-Don't enable full read/write access to all files while using broadband without a firewall.
-Don't leave bluetooth enabled when not using it.
-Don't park your car with the keys in the ignition and the doors open.
If any of the above didn't seem blatantly obvious to you, you are ignorant about the technology involved. Any problems you have are your own fault and do not make the technology bad.
If you would run around with your bluetooth turned on and advertising itself, of course there's a risk. Lots of features on phones are silly, but bluetooth is genuinely useful. I sit at my PC at work, and my address book syncs with my phone while it's still in my pocket. When I'm listening to music from my computer on my headphones, I can make calls on my phone, and use my microphone and headphones as a headset. I already mentioned the networking.
Bag on polyphonic ringtones if you want, but bluetooth is an excellent technology.
Don't leave bluetooth enabled when not using it? Jesus christ... we're talking about a PHONE here? That's entirely too complicated. That's like saying that you should disconnect your computer from the Net when you're not using it. It's very simple... bluetooth is insecure, and is not used by probably 99% of people with cellphones. Thus, the smart thing to do is to avoid it like the plauge.
We used a high gain, 19dBi, panel antenna attached to a Linksys Class 1 Bluetooth adapter - picture.
Using this equipment, last week we transferred a few pictures from 3300 feet (1 km). This week we bluesnarfed from about 5300 feet (1.08 miles).
The whole point of these experiments is to show that Bluetooth can go a lot further than previously suspected. Witness the 55.1 mile link using 30 mw wifi.
Lack of details is because it's in Wired News. Look for a writeup on www.wifi-toys.com later today.
--
Carbolic
wifi-toys.com
bluedriving.com
The "rifle" design with a scope actually makes sense. If there's a moving target at a decent enough distance, all you have to do it keep them in the sights while you communicate with the device. Otherwise, a yagi on a stick without sights is probably a little harder to aim precisely, especially if your target is far away. Well, it doesn't make that much sense. A 14dbi Yagi has a beamwidth of about 30 degrees or so. A 4x sniper scope probably has a field of 10 degrees or so, an 8x scope, more like 7 degrees. You simply don't need to aim it that accurately. A simple peep sight would work just fine, and probably draw less attention.
There is much pleasure to be gained in useless knowledge.