[talk] Fine I put tape over my webcam but now what

Charles Sprickman spork at bway.net
Thu Nov 3 19:05:12 EDT 2016


> On Nov 3, 2016, at 6:26 PM, Mark Saad <mark.saad at ymail.com> wrote:
> 
> Ok
>   So here is a good read from the land of tinfoil hats and hacking  air gapped openbsd laptops via sound.

I remember when that OpenBSD story came out and was controversial since there was little proof.  It was intriguing though, and in theory it seemed like a plausible thing (communicating over ultrasound).  I remember reading quite a bit of commentary that your average laptop speakers/microphone didn’t even work beyond the range of human hearing.  That intrigued me, so I grabbed some software for my desktop that could generate various simultaneous tones at any given frequency and then grabbed a spectrum analyzer for my laptop.  Across the room it was totally possible to send at least 8 simultaneous tones that were not audible, but were completely detectable at the laptop end - meaning I could differentiate between say, 18.5KHz, 19KHz, 19.5KHz, 22KHz, etc.  Now it’s a leap to turn that into something that can transfer data at wifi speeds, but 300 baud modem speeds or similar, enough to say, work on a terminal, that seems really doable with not a whole lot of work…

Anyhow, I find it all intriguing. :)

Charles

> http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/11/how-to-block-the-ultrasonic-signals-you-didnt-know-were-tracking-you/ <http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/11/how-to-block-the-ultrasonic-signals-you-didnt-know-were-tracking-you/>
> 
> So the tldr parts , ad tracking via ultrasound beacons . Imagine you install the wallmart app to get the 25% off coupon but it's tracking you via ultrasound beacons. 
> 
> Interesting non the less .
> 
> 
> ---
> Mark Saad | mark.saad at ymail.com <mailto:mark.saad at ymail.com>_______________________________________________
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