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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."
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"?
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.
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.
The powerful already have all the tools they need to eliminate your privacy. This is a tool for us to eliminate their privacy.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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...
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
It's. Art.
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
Just because it's art does not mean that it isn't stupid.
Come to think of it, I need that printed up on a shirt....
Misery loves company. Online misery loves unsuspecting random strangers.
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.
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...
I remember when Linux was good... too...
Actually, I think their point was that they had or were developing a similar package which would use a smartphone instead of a grenade.
There are places (where it might be interesting to make recordings) that won't allow phones into certain meetings. DoD classified stuff is obvious. But I've worked at companies where some shifty stuff was going on. And anything that looked like it might record was looked on with suspicion*.
*I was in such a meeting once. When I walked in, my boss spied my MP3 player (just a player) and asked me to leave it at my desk. "No recording devices allowed." So I dropped it off, came back and laid my PDA on the table in plain sight (it can record). I didn't actually record anything. But I just wanted to see if he was really dumb as a rock. He is.
Have gnu, will travel.
Why is it always an "us" vs. "them" scenario?
This sort of rhetoric is necessary because Americans seem very reluctant to acknowledge the dynamic that is having an increasingly profound impact on their lives: the income disparity between a small group of individuals and everyone else. It's a combination of political correctness and a delusion that aristocracy is a "European" thing that can't happen here.
Your situation is hypothetical, but the transformation of this nation into a banana republic of haves and have nots is all too real.
“There’s class warfare, all right. But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” -- Warren Buffett
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
The grenade would report back absolutely no information.
Did you miss the part where it records network traffic and streams it all to the 'net?
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