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Transparency Grenade Collects and Leaks Sensitive Data
Zothecula writes "If you thought WikiLeaks was a disruptive idea, the transparency grenade is going to blow you away. This tiny bit of hardware hidden under the shell shaped like a classic Soviet F1 hand grenade allows you to leak information from anywhere just by pulling a pin. The device is essentially a small computer with a powerful wireless antenna and a microphone. Following 'detonation,' the grenade intercepts local network traffic and captures audio data, then makes the information immediately available online."
In before wiretapping laws...
Can I throw one into CmdrTaco's bedroom?
They put some bugging hardware in a cool looking case, they're probably selling it (I tuned out after looking at the pictures) and somehow they got on Slashdot. What I want to know is, where do I purchase the marketing grenade? They're not telling. That's where the real money is.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
But if you do, maybe it coud sniff out the RFID data in passports:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/02/21/1933213/damaged-us-passport-chip-strands-travelers
Combine this with intel's solar powered chips and you can spread them like johnny appleseed where they're needed. Or, as a variation, set them up as fileservers with copies of music, movie, and media files and seed them everywhere until the *IAA's give up the ghost for good.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
"He had a weapon in his hand."
You are making it to easy for them.
Another device that screws with your privacy. Film at 10.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
To actually be useful, it should like like a cell phone, a pad of post-it notes, a small notebook, a random piece of garbage like a crumpled up paper or something similarly inconspicuous. Making it look like a grenade is just dumb.
It will cause you to quite literally be blown away by law enforcement when they see you holding what appears to be a grenade.
Joking aside, I fail to see how this is supposed to be comparable to wikileaks. While wikileaks is undeniably intended to help whistleblowers, this is a tool suitable for multiple (not not necessarily ethical) purposes. Mind, I don't see too many corporate espionage agents actually using this as is...
Open up a dictation and it will record everything to text. The 4S has a special processor to even handle the filtering of noise. There's really nothing new here...
Holy shit, I've finally seen it, the WORST IDEA ON THE INTERNET.
Because when you need to sneak in electronics to discreetly leak something and get away, there's nothing better to hide your tools in than a grenade. Nope, a suspicious guard might confiscate your fake MP3 player or cell phone - better hide it in a grenade!
Soon to be joined by the fire extinguisher flamethrower and handgun checkbook!
Bloody silly. Nice one slashdot. This device guarantees upload anonymity does it. I wonder how. I can't see one of these ever being misused.
As far as I can tell this idea is neither disruptive nor in any way similar to Wikileaks. Am I missing something?
Here's the asterisk that's missing from the end: :-P
* not if it's on an AT&T data connection though, then it won't find a signal in any respectable amount of time
I think I will quietly document this potentially incriminating meeting by WHIPPING OUT A GRENADE AND SLAMMING IT ON THE CONFERENCE TABLE.
Actually, I think their point was that they had or were developing a similar package which would use a smartphone instead of a grenade.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Small, off-the-shelf hardware, runs Linux, build it and collect/attack networks. Can be placed by hand or dropped from an unspecialised UAV.
"Sacrificial Computing for Land and Sky"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm_cHb8Mm9w
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Can we make that word a capital offence, now that it's been taken over by cocksucker 2.0 douchebags?
So you need access to the ap and the device poisons the arp table then forwards to another server. Seems that only traffic on the ap is at risk.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
It's a cute idea but if you really want to do something like this, figure out a way for the hardware to sit inside (and draw power from) a desktop component like a monitor or a desktop switch. Better yet, a power strip or UPS. wifi would suffer but the power would never go out. If the UPS also handled phone/eth/coax surge protection, you've also got another way to get the data out.
bah.
As TFA says, an Android port is on its way.
I can understand the fascination with "covert" leaks - there might appear to be a certain emotionally sensational quality about it, to the uninvolved and/or uninformed observer. When someone takes the security of a country, a governmental branch, or even a private enterprise as if it was "fair game" to breach the security of which for their own personal political statement, then it becomes dangerous. Considering so far as such statements would ultimately backfire, can we not learn to be more responsible as citizens and as people?
If there's a matter of transparency one wishes for, one really should "talk it out", and talk it out patiently, before so much as attempting to open up, to the public, what is not one's own to open up, in the first place - and furthermore, before endangering anyone whom the information would affect directly and personally. If one talks it out, beforehand, one really might come to recognize one's own naivete, before having us all pay a cost for one's own little wish to make a political statement.
I cannot argue to dreams and wishes, I can only argue to facts. Private information is private information. That, itself, should be fact enough.
Looks like a way cool idea- obviously the "grenade" form is just a gimmick, but TFA says they're working on an Android app that does the same thing as well. It is things like these that will make us encrypt our data streams better.
What really blew my mind though was in the first source there's a pic of him holding a torch in his mouth! And I thought I was BA for holding the soldering iron in my mouth...
don't let the TSA see this they may have clear the airport and make a big mess with having rebook lot's people.
This is the internet. Text is cheap. You can go ahead and splurge on an appropriate four-letter word with out having to use mere three-letter space-savers.
So it's a network analyzer and an audio bugging device?
As long as we're breaking laws, why not bug the video as well?
I do like the idea though....
"If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet"
Isn't the point of a discrete information-gathering device to NOT immediately alert anyone nearby?
the Nethack Terminus.
This device is seriously a must-have for every well-equipped probe team.
Due to the fact that the innovative hardware is packaged in an actual grenade shaped case, a person attempting to use the device could be easily charged under various terrorism laws. Add the authentication needed to get its signal out and this seems like a pretty stupid toy.
Now if it looked like a harmless desk calculator and could actually emulate one, then it would be a really useful covert device. It could have a solar panel and nobody would notice. You could simply borrow it if it failed to authenticate, or use the passphrase ShELLOIL (71077345) to enter a configuration mode.
Mmuu-ha-ha
How exactly does it upload all this data onto the web if there are no nearby open access points?
I mean if you say it "makes the information immediately available online." I'd be stupid to believe in it blindly without an explanation as to how it manages to do this. TFA links to two pages, none of which mention how this incredible feat is accomplished. :)
If anyone happens to have an idea about how this is being done, I'd like to know.
Geekism is your _only_ God!
for a smartphone. Push a button and it streams A/V and location live to the internet where it is recorded.
1. so next time you're assaulted, or see a police beating, or witness a payoff of an official,
2. start streaming, and
3. when challenged, point out it's all going LIVE to the internet.
4. be amazed how quickly the situation evaporates.
5. if you're beaten up anyway, and your phone stomped underfoot, at least you have a record of the incident, so you can
6. SUE SUE SUE
7. Profit
Using a device the size of a USB stick, we can sequence your entire DNA nowadays.
That's got a LOT more information in it.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Why is it always an "us" vs. "them" scenario? What happens if I, a lowly geek, eventually through career progression and knowing the right people, finds myself in a position of corporate power? Will you come after me too? I'm aware of the (correctly-quoted) saying "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", but just going after those in power just because they ARE in power seems foolish. Not everyone in power is a dick. I admit the list of those who aren't is extraordinary low but still...[emphasis added]
And that there is why; answered by a trustworthy source, your own experience. (And I look forward to trusting you as your career progresses, as you start hanging with the right people, as those right people decide you demonstrate profitable corporate power skills.)
Sure looks cool. But the "grenade" design might cause you a lot more trouble (including getting shot) than the transparency thingy itself. Think about "panic", "terror", "obviously armed with...". So it's by definition an example for bad design. Even the worst possible design, to be more specific..
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
How can we make institutions publicly accountable, and yet protect individual privacy? Institutions accumulate detailed information about individuals, and institutions can use individuals as catspaws, so it is not easy to create separate rules for institutions and individuals. We have two contradictory ethical priorities, and no clear way to resolve the problem.
This news story arguably violates US law, and as such the Terms of Service of Slashdot.
.. Except as otherwise specifically provided in this chapter, any person who intentionally [..]
Under U.S. Federal Code 18 Crimes and Criminal Procedure 2512. Manufacture, distribution, possession, and advertising of wire, oral, or electronic communication intercepting devices prohibited
c) places in any newspaper, magazine, handbill, or other publication or disseminates by electronic means any advertisement of:
(i) any electronic, mechanical, or other device knowing or having reason to know that the design of such device renders it primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications;
I am all for transparency, but this is an indiscriminate privacy violator, and there seems to be little question about the surreptitious primary purpose of this device.
Spider Jerusalem is impressed.
I dig this stuff...