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Build Your Own Bluetooth Sniper Rifle
Jim Buzbee writes "I don't think I'd do it, but these guys built a Bluetooth Sniper rifle, went to the roof of a downtown Los Angles skyscraper and pointed it at nearby buildings. See what they found, and if you're so inclined, they'll show how to build your own and maybe, just maybe, you too can snag Paris Hilton's address book." (Which was not snagged via Bluetooth snooping, as the article points out.) This version looks a bit more polished than the one mentioned last August.
From the article:
We decided to quickly conclude the scan, given police activity in the area earlier in the day from a bomb scare.
You too can get shot for looking like a terrorist!
A latent existence
...is human curiosity. Yes, there are many dangers from snooping, and there have been recent reports of prototype Bluetooth viruses - but even upgraded and securer versions of the protocol won't stop the fact that you just won't be able to refuse opening that interesting looking picture somebody is trying to send you.
I've seen it a lot at my school, whereby a particularly dodgy or deprecating picture (no goatse yet, but can't be long) is passed along in the lounges by somebody simply searching for Bluetooth phones and sending a pic, which simply can't be refused ("because it might be something important!!!"). I'd say it's even more tempting to accept a Bluetoothed file than an email attachment, because in Bluetooth you're only getting the bare information about a file (ie, the size of it and file type), whereas you can generally filter out automatically generated email viruses with ease...
The solution is to turn Bluetooth off all the time except when you want to use it (something I do anyway, since it conserves battery power), but a surprisingly large number of people seem to have it on all the time.
It's not even funny any more how fast these sites go down. It doesn't do the site owner or us any good - once again, what will it take for Slashdot to implement a mirror system?
For example... this one.
Meep meep
They made the think look like a rifle with collapsing stock etc... A kid almost got killed outside detroit about a year ago for hanging around on a roof with a paintball gun.
So let me get this straight, if you have your device always on and discoverable you are vulnerable? Jesus, I would never expect that. Next thing you know it will be dangerous to be connected to the web without a firewall installed.
Bluetooth is nice, but the security measure do seem pretty weak, no minimum pin length etc.
...this is idiotic. Not their little invention (which is pretty slick), but their test on top of a skyscraper. Are you really that fucking stupid? A couple of guys with a sniper rifle sitting on top of a tall building is just asking for trouble. Probably doesn't even have a license for it. This is even more stupid than that guy who shined a laser into an airplane cockpit on more than one occasion. I've done some dumb things in my life, but Jesus Fucking Christ. Cops have killed people for less than that.
Seriously though, I wonder how many people do auto-accept BT connections? My PDA only accepts known pairs, so you need to physically talk to me to pair you up for the first time.
I imagine most people just use the default setting...
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Really, they should of called it something besides a 'Sniper Rifle' I'm sure that'd go down well when the cops ask what you're doing.
."
"Oh i'm just pointing my Bluetooth Sniper Rifle at that crowded building of . .
*insert police beatdown here*
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
It would make interesting news if he tried this in, oh, say Washington, DC. He would been carried off the roof in a black rubber bag. I'm surprised downtown LA doesn't have better surveillance. However, I'm sure he'll be getting a visit from the FBI in 5..4..3...
Crazy.
It is not a matter of hindsight. You can say that if you are talking of SMTP or something alike. When BT was developed, it should have known that allowing any device to connect to yours is a security risk. And it should have been known that 90% of the users won't RTFM if its device just works. So, by default, BT devices should have been set by default to connect only to known devices. Or, at least, the first time a customer uses it, he should be asked. The reason it was not done was probably it would make easier for John Doe to connect his devices without really knowing not even the most basic things about them, and to make people think that the technology was "easy to use" and "secure" ("if I do not need to do anything to keep my BT configured to be safe, then it must be safe, isn'it?")
Why can't
You are right, of course. However, I believe BT designers were not geeks and their thinking was not twisted enough. The were operating within the "very very local connections" mindset - I'm totally sure no one even considered the possibility of any sort of attack on such device coming from a mile away or so. BT was supposed to create the "PAN" or Personal Area Network - in other words to communicate within few feet.
Now, I wonder if designers of the Zigbee would pay attention.
I understand that using a gun stock makes it look "cooler", but the article makes it seem like it wouldn't work if you didn't put it together in the same way. You really only have to buy the antenna and a connector for your card in your laptop to get it to work fine, its not as mobile as with the gumstick computer, but you could probably mount that gumstick computer on the side of the antenna if you really wanted something that mobile.
Yes, indeed! Let's make something that looks like a heavy rifle with a scope on it. Then climb up on a skyscraper in downtown LA and start pointing it round at other buildings and pedestrians down on the street, etc.
Double bonus points if Schwarzenegger or some other high profile politician is in town that day.
Guys, don't be stupid. When you call something like this a "sniper rifle" or "bluetooth sniping", then politicians will have an easy time walking all over our civil liberties and banning anything other than government or Microsoft-approved hardware and software. Names like "sniping" and "wardriving" just make political rhetoric too easy.
Call it a "security enforcement sensor" or a "privacy alert device" or "child protection wand" and politicians will have a much harder time banning it and throwing you in jail for using it.
Either way someone will notice. If you looked out your window and saw a bunch of nerds with a telescope looking back at you, you'd be pissed that people were spying on you.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
You can pay a quarter to use public telescopes in many parks and public attractions, and have been able to for many years, so I don't think anyone is all that concerned about telescopes pointed at downtown buildings, even if it's from the roof of another building. Besides, if there's a significant altitude difference, it's going to be craptacular seeing anyhow, as ceilings and floors are going to limit the view into any single window tremendously.
The whole point of this was that they are far enough away that you WON'T see them staring back at you if you look out the window. If they were that close, they wouldn't need equipment this elaborate in the first place.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
If I were going to build on of those I'd do it in something a little less conspicuous, say maybe a pair of binoculars. A good pair can do range calculations, etch the lenses with cross hairs. You're less likely to get shot at looking someone through binoculars than a high powered rifle thing.
Though you've been modded down for the flamebait monger you are, and I know I shouldn't feed trolls, I feel compelled to address this idiocy. First, murder is a legal term, roughly defined as "the unlawful taking a human life". Now, since hunting animals is neither unlawful nor taking human life, you're an idiot (actually the correct conclusion is that it's not murder, but I like the idiot one better). Second, even if we ignore the misuse of the word murder and get to the premise of your position, i.e. that killing animals is a bad thing, this leads to other flaws in your position. Are coyotes "bad" for killing rabbits? Are house cats "bad" for killing birds? Humans hunt ungulates like deer and elk to keep their populations down. If we didn't, they'd overpopulate and starve to death in the winter. But I guess sensitive people like you would rather see hundreds of deer die of malnutrition and those that survive suffer the pain of hunger, rather than hunt enough of them to keep there numbers stable.
Moron.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Ten thousand? Try 2 million.
Animals in general have been around a lot longer, so you need to consider that animals clearly can take care of themselves
We're animals too. Us hunting is as natural as a coyote hunting. We do not exist outside of nature. We are part of nature.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
How about a "snooper rifle"?
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
We could decide that it's not wise to guard a 200 lb unshackled man with a 50 year old woman.
Geeks feeling that aligning themselves with gun culture makes them harder, more like big men? If I ever build one of these and want to drive round London with it, you can be sure it will be fluffy, happy coloured and definitely not gun shaped. Surely the gun shape is heavy on the arms? Why not put most of the guts of this thing in a backpack, and run a cable out to a light handheld unit?
Library tower? Obviously the sixth floor window in the Book Depository was already taken.
My other SIG is a Sauer.
That's a REALLY silly idea.
So I go out and buy a gun, and I bear no responsibility for what happens with it?
How am *I* supposed to know that I shouldn't jerk the steering wheel to one side while doing 90 on the freeway?
You mean I'm not supposed to reach inside the toaster and grab the bread with my bare hands?
Maybe manufacturer or seller of the device should be bothered with "why it is broadcasting personal info", but certainly not the end user.
The consumer should have gone out and read a product review. If they can't be bothered to do even the slightest research, they're asking for trouble and they need to learn that.
The end user has a right to be technologically ignorant and still have his privacy protected.
If you were actually arguing for a fundamental right to privacy, I'd agree with you, but you're not. You're arguing for some crazy restriction of others rights. One much, much worse than current cellphone laws.
You have a really messed up view of what "rights" are:
What's even better is that a non-idiot can take advantage of this new law to start what look to the other party like regular, consensual communications and then later claim they we're.
If you really get into it, thinking like yours would actually destroy the whole damned internet, since it would no longer be safe to connect to public servers, as the server could later claim you "violated it's privacy".
Never mind the fact that they obviously were actively making the information availible to anyone who wanted it, and have absolutely NO security measures in place, we're now supposed to be mind readers and guess whether they "really, really mean to".
After all, what if I actually WANT to give you my phone number?
How are you going to prove that in court when you piss me off later and claim I "stole" it?
Life is too short to proofread.