4 ms·

This is a bit off topic, but how could I do this at home? Seems like it could be a great addition to home security systems. Criminals know to cover their faces

This is a bit off topic, but how could I do this at home? Seems like it could be a great addition to home security systems. Criminals know to cover their faces with all the cameras and they use stolen vehicles that can’t be traced back to them. I bet they still have their phones with them. I’m not sure the police would take action on a device’s MAC address- but it’s still another data point. Perhaps there are hardware/usb sticks designed for this purpose?

tacLog 7y ago
I do wifi tracking for a living and no there is no off the shelve solution for consumers that I have ever seen. You can accomplish this with a raspberry pi, a wifi adapter that supports monitor mode, and tcpdump set to the right filters. However, I don't see why anyone ever would. As others have mentioned many of the top wifi brands, Cisco, Aruba, and Meraki (now owned by Cisco) provide this kind of information to clients at their enterprise level. The reason this doesn't exist for consumers for security at least is that in the use case you described it is hard to tell what MAC address belongs to each device. Even in a neighborhood, you will detect hundreds of macs a day due to mac spoofing that modern phones do.
- move-on-by 7y ago
  Built-in RaspberryPi WiFi can do monitor mode. Kali Linux even has a raspberry pi image. RaspberryPi also has built in Bluetooth that supports 4.1 and low energy. Since Bluetooth is a less powerful signal, is there anything I could do with that?
  - tacLog 7y ago
    I haven't tried to track phones with bluetooth, it seems like it wouldn't be possible because phones aren't always announcing themsleves. A by product of battery limitations I would guess. The more common use is tracking powered tags for the purpose of asset tracking in say hospitals or similar. I didn't know the onboard adapter supported monitor mode, that is ligitmately useful knownledge for me. Thanks, it should be simple to build your own sniffer to just plan around with. Carefull if you are in the EU though, not that it is removely possible to catch a silent sniffer.

tacLog 7y ago

I do wifi tracking for a living and no there is no off the shelve solution for consumers that I have ever seen. You can accomplish this with a raspberry pi, a wifi adapter that supports monitor mode, and tcpdump set to the right filters. However, I don't see why anyone ever would. As others have mentioned many of the top wifi brands, Cisco, Aruba, and Meraki (now owned by Cisco) provide this kind of information to clients at their enterprise level. The reason this doesn't exist for consumers for security at least is that in the use case you described it is hard to tell what MAC address belongs to each device. Even in a neighborhood, you will detect hundreds of macs a day due to mac spoofing that modern phones do.

move-on-by 7y ago
Built-in RaspberryPi WiFi can do monitor mode. Kali Linux even has a raspberry pi image. RaspberryPi also has built in Bluetooth that supports 4.1 and low energy. Since Bluetooth is a less powerful signal, is there anything I could do with that?
- tacLog 7y ago
  I haven't tried to track phones with bluetooth, it seems like it wouldn't be possible because phones aren't always announcing themsleves. A by product of battery limitations I would guess. The more common use is tracking powered tags for the purpose of asset tracking in say hospitals or similar. I didn't know the onboard adapter supported monitor mode, that is ligitmately useful knownledge for me. Thanks, it should be simple to build your own sniffer to just plan around with. Carefull if you are in the EU though, not that it is removely possible to catch a silent sniffer.