7 ms·
A low budget consumer hardware espionage implant (2018)
- rado 2y agoTLDR; a GSM listening and location device hidden inside the plug of a standard USB data/charging cable
- morjom 2y agoSo pretty run of the mill stuff for cable mods?
- no_time 2y agoUsing SMS as the control protocol seems like a bad idea. You are generating evidence with each command sent that may or may not be stored practically forever by the telcos.
- Maxious 2y agoNote that SMS is the protocol advertised to buyers but the unadvertised login credentials for the web portal let you manage the device without SMS
- no_time 2y agoIf I understand correctly you need atleast one sms to know the credentials to the web portal. that's probably enough to get caught if someone finds the device.
- franga2000 2y agoIf you can get an unidentifiable SIM for the tracker, you can also get one + a burner phone for yourself. And if someone is stupid enough to not do that or to turn on either device in an identifiable location, they're beyond help.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- axegon_ 2y agoThat is valid for any centralized service in general. Fun fact: I am working on something in that field in my spare time(whenever I have both time and motivation) and I opted for LoRa instead specifically for that reason, even though it comes with a wide range of limitations: payload, range is determined by line of sight, no multiplexing and all that. But did make some real world testing late last year and the range I got was REALLY impressive. Easily 20% above what the manufacturer had put in the spec sheet - 12 and a half kilometers with an off the shelf dev board.
- snovv_crash 2y agoThe 900MHz bands also have much better penetration. But even the 2.4 LoRa are a huge step up from the other chips I've seen eg. TI CC2500.
- axegon_ 2y agoTrue, well I'm in the EU so 868MHz in my case. Still, it is very susceptible to external conditions. It truly is a hit or miss. Personally I host a things network gateway(indoors), I live on the last floor of a building at one of the highest points in the city and it is still very inconsistent when I've been fiddling with it. Back when I was doing my tests a few months ago I took a micro controller with a LoRa module up on the roof so those truly were ideal conditions. I have yet to test the CC2500.
- pmx 2y agoWouldn't someone using this sort of thing also buy a cheap burner phone and throw-away sim card? They're easy to buy with cash and you don't need to register them or anything to use them. Supermarkets in the UK even sell sims with credit already loaded onto them.
- netsharc 2y agoI can't imagine the UK doesn't have laws to prevent anonymous SIM card purchases, because of terrorism fears. Some duckduckgo-ing suggests it's possible, e.g. someone wrote just go to Tesco to get one and there are no ID checks (but this was written 6 years ago). In any case, just like teenagers buying booze, it's probably not that hard to pay someone off the street to buy one for you.
- fullspectrumdev 2y agoYou can literally go into almost any corner shop in the UK and buy a SIM with no ID and cash. I do this regularly.
- aembleton 2y agoAre you regularly swapping SIMs? Are you keeping the same IMEI number?
- alibarber 2y agoIf you're hacking around with phones or GSM boards for fun, on and off, it is cost effective to just grab one for a pound or so every time you want to do something as they sometimes come with a tiny bit of free data, or just a number to receive SMS on at least. If you don't top up (with say a tenner) within some months the card deactivates and becomes useless, so it's a no-commitment way to access the GSM network.
- worstspotgain 2y agoAny chance your purchase triggers the ~238 surveillance cameras on your route back from the store to get a good idea of who they're dealing with? The UK used to be a surveillance outlier, but sadly other places have caught up in the meantime, including the US.
- gwbas1c 2y agoThat's assuming you're using it for spying. A completely honest use of this is to track your car, (or other device with a USB port) in case of theft. If I had one of the Kias or Hyundais that were easy to steal, I'd totally slip one of these into the car.
- jandrese 2y agoThe caveat being that these things are only doing cell tower triangulation, and not even a good job of it. So all it will be able to tell you is that your car is somewhere on the east side of the city or so. Although you will be able to listen in on the conversations of the car thieves and might pick up a clue from that. Realistically, these are 100% for stalking/espionage.
- throwaway11460 2y agoI took the exact opposite conclusion from this information. How is it useful for stalking if it doesn't give more exact location? On the other hand if I'm looking for my own car that somebody took out of the city, this at least gives me a general idea of its location.
- jjk166 2y agoFor stalking/espionage, approximate locations (especially which can be refined over long observation periods and combined with other data) are often fine. Patterns like when does someone leave for work, what shifts do they work, where do they go on weekends, etc can be quite apparent. If your car is stolen, what good is knowing the general location?
- throwaway11460 2y agoHmm, I guess my eurothinking is showing. I work and live within a 5 km radius. I guess in the US you can get much more useful that's even though it's approximate. If my car is stolen and taken away, at least I can call that city/country police instead of waiting when it gets through the bureaucracy.
- PaywallBuster 2y agocan't find in aliexpress?
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoWhat is your question?
- haunter 2y agoWhere to buy one. The article says they bought it on Aliexpress but there are no sellers.
- throwaway6272 2y ago[dead]
- mkoryak 2y agoYou did not look hard enough. Use search "GPS tracker charger" to get started. They still exist in there
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- huhtenberg 2y agoNeeds (2017) in the title.
- MandieD 2y agoI put (2018) because it was updated in January 2018.
- thefz 2y ago> This means anyone with access to your gpsui.net login credentials can control your device. A device which original packaging nor manual make any reference to said website. Scary.
- GordonS 2y agoIs there some kind of device that can detect bugs like this? (I'm thinking of the "bug sweepers" I've seen in films)
- jf 2y agoThe article has a section on that very topic: https://ha.cking.ch/s8_data_line_locator/#detection https://ha.cking.ch/s8_data_line_locator/#detection
- GordonS 2y agoThanks; I did actually read the article, but missed this section (and likely some others) as the page doesn't work well on mobile.
- pbmonster 2y agoThe article covers that under the section "detection". TL;DR: You can easily detect it while it communicates via GSM, and the device is also shielded quite badly, resulting in lots of easily detectable RF interference while it works. All you need is a cheap RF detector. Having access to a full spectrum analyzer or a SDR will make this even easier. All this gets much harder while the thing lies dormant, waiting for noise activation or commands. So the "quick bug sweeps" you see in the movies are more difficult.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoWe used to have keychain lights that would start to blink whenever a nearby phone went off, I can imagine it could be set off by a device like this lol.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago> So the "quick bug sweeps" you see in the movies are more difficult. Not if the sweepers are talkative (assuming that the device is sound-activated).
- 2y ago
- owl110 2y agoIf not already out there, soon there possibly will be compromised cables with 801.11ah built-in. Given its low cost, low power requirements and the considerable range of the technology, it will be difficult to protect against unfortuantely.
- rbanffy 2y agoI’ve been playing with the idea of eye prosthetics for that purpose. At this point, a camera, battery, storage, and radio can all fit inside an aesthetic prosthesis and give it some functionality in itself or augmented by a smartphone.
- airbreather 2y agoAn even easier one would be a modified keyboard. Anyone could fit an esp32 into a keyboard, swap it out, leave it lying around, sniff keystrokes, access with Bluetooth or WiFi, could have it only have the radio on for certain windows in time etc.
- jbosh 2y agoHard part there is getting the wear and tear from oils in your hand to look identical. Although maybe most people don't pay attention to that.
- seniorivn 2y agojust put it inside the original keyboard
- greggsy 2y agoPop and swap the keycaps
- gcr 2y agoDirty keys on a pristine keyboard is a dead giveaway.
- Scoundreller 2y agoThe other thing that’s hard to get right is the weight. Hard to find material in most things today to remove to even out the added weight of an implant.
- ttyprintk 2y agoThe mouse is more commonly swapped in situations with physical access. Without physical access, those non-BlueTooth wireless mice (with their own RF dongle) are vulnerable to remote keystroke injection.
- greggsy 2y agoEspecially the pre-paired ones. I’m wary of older Logitech Unified dongles, but the newer Bolt platform offers a bit more comfort.
- lofaszvanitt 2y agoI always wondered what if an SSD can surreptitiously funnel out the data it has on a secure channel, unbeknownst to the owner... Maybe all that would indicate the backdoor is some slight (?) change in the throughput speed.
- gruez 2y agoThis is easily mitigated with full disk encryption.
- lofaszvanitt 2y agoYou don't get it.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoIf someone has physical access to a device containing secure information, you're already boned. Thankfully, very few people are targets of surveillance / espionage like that.
- lofaszvanitt 2y agoI mean it's built into silicon into all SSDs.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- cheschire 2y agoIf you have the ability to disassemble your electronics, do so! Do a DDG search for the identifiers on all the chips. You will learn a lot.
- lioeters 2y agoAs I learned when I was a child taking apart electronics, the hard part is reassembling them, haha. Taking photos of the disassembly steps can be helpful in remembering how the parts fit together.
- bagels 2y agoToo many plastic enclosures are assemble-only, requiring destruction to disassemble.
- bottom999mottob 2y agoThe free market did a terrible job incentivizing disassembly... Can't count how many no-screw assemblies have triggered me. The right-to-repair situation is a joke right now with automotive, consumer electronics, and appliances.
- coupdejarnac 2y agoAssemblies with a lot of screws require manual labor, thereby increasing cost. I think what you actually mean is stuff that is specifically designed not to be serviced by being held together with glue, etc.
- throwawayqqq11 2y agoWould it be possible to shield the host device while frying the GSM antenna with selected frequenzies? Kind of preemptive sanitization of new hardware.
- jcims 2y agoLots of cables have chips in them these days.
- lostemptations5 2y agoBut not specific ones
- philprx 2y agoWhat are other equipments similar to this one but different? There seems to have many GPS location trackers on the market, are they all based on the same hardware?
- vzaliva 2y agoIn screenshots he uses Signal messenger to talk to the device. How this was achieved?
- landgenoot 2y agoSignal supports SMS as well.
- dang 2y agoRelated: Inside a low budget consumer hardware espionage implant (2018) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20190251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20190251 - June 2019 (43 comments) Inside a low-budget consumer hardware espionage implant - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15676737 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15676737 - Nov 2017 (92 comments)
- codedokode 2y agoIts packaging doesn't mention that it is a tracking device so I guess the intended usage is a present, for example, at a business meeting or to a child, a relative?
- JSDevOps 2y agoIncredible
- mrgrj 2y ago"No official documentation nor information about the chip is available from MediaTek." </sigh>