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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'."
Now all the people that hack Counter-Strike will be out on the streets with Snipers hacking Bluetooth devices, leaving CS hack-free. Thank god.
I'm not impressed. If you really want to impress me, use a Cap'n Crunch whistle over a Bluetooth-enabled phone to switch your neighbor's TV to the Spice channel with the volume up to 50.
Fun.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Kinda gives a new meaning to '1337 hAx0r2'.
What, so instead of "Fucking tool" it now will mean "Fucking tool who's in jail for aiming a sniper rifle at someone"?
Casual Games/Downloads
If I saw a guy pointing a gun at me from far away (or close), I wouldn't be worried about him taking my contacts out of my phone.
Now in real life too. Too bad you can't toss the occasional opportunistic grenade like in Half Life.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
No more paying for those pricey 900 numbers... I'll just hack some poor schmuck's phone and whack o..err... talk for free.
Hey, guys. Big gulps, huh? Cool. All right! Well, see ya later.
to use this same setup to look down into a city and pick up individual wireless networks.
War Sniping?
up 12 days, 22:30, 2 users, load averages: 993.20, 994.21, 994.56
*makes note to limit user processes...
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.
...that you have to call the guy at the other end and ask him to stand very very still :)
... or something to make it look like a toy. They're going to have real guns pointed at them if they keep carrying that around, and I'd say anyone that shoots back would be entirely justified.
That's why you should turn bluetooth off when you're not using it.
Is there really any need to have bluetooth turned on all the time? I would think that it just wastes batteries.
To understand recursion,
you must first understand recursion.
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.
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Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
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.
this is my sig
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 . . .
Surviving the 21st century:
Pencil
Pocket knife
Pad of paper
Water bottle
&
Towel
BTW the Hitchhikers Guide is now considered a bad idea, as even it has proven to be hackable, particularly by those who consider themselves to be hoopy froods (though inaccurate entries may be inserted, and attempts to modify the operating system of all versions of the Guide result in the brief appearance of a hungry ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal, followed shortly by the departure of a not quite as hungry ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If deployed in the field, special ops soldiers can approach a terrorist safehouse, and activate this device to hack into any cell phone that may be vulnerable. Then they could simply listen in on the safehouse without ever being even 500 feet away, and can discern their movement if necessary.
All this translates into being able not to tip off the bad guys that you are coming, and still able to glean important intel.
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.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
This is yet another reason NOT to buy those stupid phones with 14 different features. Every time I buy a cell phone, I buy the cheapest one available, so it doesn't have all of this crap associated with it. I just want a cell phone that *works*. The last thing I want is a phone with so many useless features that it actually has *security* holes! That's insane. So if it comes to the point where the only phone I can get has this stupid Bluetooth stuff, then I have to worry about feds wiretapping me AND kids hacking in? Great. I'm going back to cans and string.
I wondered why my phone's display kept changing to "OMG PWN3D U FAG". I thought it was Verizon getting uppity.
Some researchers found a way to completely destroy bluetooth-enabled cellphones from up to a mile away with a sniper rifle by failing to RTFA.
I thank you.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I'd think a pringles or coke can would be a bit less conspicuous..
On the other hand you know those security video cameras used in public places which can be remote controlled to rotate and zoom in on someone's face? They are usually hidden in smoked glass domes in ceiling or, I suppose, in less conspicuous ways in places like casinos or board rooms. Sounds like another good aiming device, I saw one $500 dollar model in Akihabara recently you can operate from a web page. Same shop for a few hundred bucks also sold remote cameras accessible via UHF.
I'd be worried if I carried anything with Bluetooth (so far I've resisted..) The more it penetrates it seems the more tiny yagi antennas you'll see. Only saving grace I could imagine is if the yagi antenna is left powered up maybe you could detect it as the camera pans across you... IANA EM Engineer but would not a yagi antenna also transmit towards you any noise from say the video camera's motor or power supply? If so a detector might be in order..
As I was reading the only thing I could think about was James Bond standing on top of a building and spying on someone's conversation using the Bluetooth rifle...now that is an awesome hack.
SIGFAULT
I could care less if you hack my BlueTooth phone.
:-[
If some asshat need in you arises that demands that you must listen in on a conversation with my wife as she bitches at me for buying ROMA TOMATOES instead of CHERRY TOMATOES (they're fucking red, for Christ's sake), you go right ahead.
And if it gets your lollies off to hear that, wait until she calls me to inform me that I, once again, forgot to let the dog shit before going to work. And I must clean up what ensued.
Yeah -- hack that. All you want.
IronChefMorimoto
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