Security Specialist Pwns Police Cruiser

As a penetration tester Kevin Finisterre has hacked into everything from air-conditioning systems to some of the biggest banks in the world. But hacking into a police cruiser has to be one of his most unusual jobs. Hired by an unnamed municipal government, Kevin found that several IP addresses used by the city's police department would connect him into a Linux device carried in police cars. "Using little more than FTP and telnet commands, he then tapped into a digital video recorder used to record and stream audio and video captured from gear mounted on the vehicle's dashboard. He was shocked by the resulting live feed that eventually appeared on his computer screen."

Comments

Linux does bring more openness and transparency ;)

[sznupi]

(btw and a bit more seriously, why is Slashdot stuck on "Are Linux users lemmings collectively jumping off of the cliff of reliable, well-engineered commercial software? -- Matt Welsh" footer fortune, for the last week or so?)

Fortune

[Anonymous Coward]

about 15,300 results on slashdot!
Google
Something is wrong here. Definitely.

Re:Linux does bring more openness and transparency

[GameboyRMH]

I noticed the same thing. The quote on the bottom usually changes randomly on each page view.

Re:Linux does bring more openness and transparency

[GameboyRMH]

While we're having an off-topic meta-slashdot discussion, are your posts showing up on your user page a day late? I can't see any posts I made today on my user page. Yesterday's posts only became visible today.

Re:Linux does bring more openness and transparency

[AJWM]

Yeah, ditto that.

That, and wondering if "reliable, well-engineered commercial software" is an oxymoron or just missing a sarcasm tag.

OpenCop Project

[flyneye]

Frankly some specifics should be released about his hack.
There should be a GUI interface and we should ALL be able to watch through ANY cop camera ANY time. We pay for it. They better not have ANYTHING to hide.
Bullshit about criminals watching cops is moot. Too many to watch continuously.
We need MORE transparency. Then we don't have to worry about corruption quite as much.
WE will police the police.

Re:OpenCop Project

[Baron_Yam]

I like that, but I submit that it would be appropriate to have it be some kind of pay-per-view. Police cruisers don't have endless supplies of bandwidth, and what they do have costs money.

Most in-car video is DVR'd then downloaded upon return to the garage. You want live, you're going to do it over a secondary (and unnecessary) connection so as not to interfere with the police computers in the cars used for things like directing a cop to an incident and letting him know what he's getting into, as well as running various computer checks.

Also, there'd have to be some kind of system for a supervisor to shut down the live feed for some events - you don't need the bad guy getting a play-by-play of what the cops are doing to catch him.

Re:OpenCop Project

[WhiteDragon]

Frankly some specifics should be released about his hack.
There should be a GUI interface and we should ALL be able to watch through ANY cop camera ANY time. We pay for it. They better not have ANYTHING to hide.
Bullshit about criminals watching cops is moot. Too many to watch continuously.
We need MORE transparency. Then we don't have to worry about corruption quite as much.
WE will police the police.

true, but if the cops are on stakeout or something, and the criminals can see where they are, that really defeats the purpose.

Re:OpenCop Project

[godel_56]

Frankly some specifics should be released about his hack. There should be a GUI interface and we should ALL be able to watch through ANY cop camera ANY time. We pay for it. They better not have ANYTHING to hide.

From A-register article: “In reality, I'm pretty sure my ability as a random user to telnet into your DVR solution and use a default password and potentially delete or remove evidence is probably not a good thing.”

Re:OpenCop Project

[flyneye]

I'll go out there on a limb and say many cops don't carry a camera. It's the jock brain in the cruiser that concerns us most on a day to day basis.

Re:OpenCop Project

[flyneye]

Hey c'mon buddy, we're just exploring the possibility of keeping an eye on the cruiser cops we deal with from day to day. The Gestapo operating in a higher dept. than the street cops don't carry cameras anyway. What you gonna do, delete a speeding ticket? Tresspassing on a skateboard?

Re:Linux does bring more openness and transparency

[somersault]

I think it used to be more like every hour. It's stuck again now anyway, on:

  "To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. -- Thomas Edison".