Inside a low-budget consumer hardware espionage implant
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Re: Inside a low-budget consumer hardware espionage implant
#2I’ve seen these before on eBay and really wondered what they were all about. Thanks to the person who took the time to write this up! It’s crazy how cheap and small these devices are.
Re: Inside a low-budget consumer hardware espionage implant
#3What's especially creepy is that many devices (e.g. laptops) with USB ports continue sending power to those ports even when the device is off.
So someone bugged with something like this implant could fully power off their laptop when discussing sensitive information, and if they left a bugged USB drive plugged in, they could still be compromised.
Re: Inside a low-budget consumer hardware espionage implant
#4What's especially creepy is that many devices (e.g. laptops) with USB ports continue sending power to those ports even when the device is off . So someone bugged with something like this implant could fully power off their laptop when discussing sensitive information, and if they left a bugged USB drive plugged in, they could still be compromised.
Bug or feature?
Re: Inside a low-budget consumer hardware espionage implant
#5This kind of thing would immediately stick out like a sore thumb to a lot of technical users. In the world of USB cables it’s HUGE, even though technically I know it’s very small for it’s purpose. Very cool nevertheless!
Re: Inside a low-budget consumer hardware espionage implant
#6What's especially creepy is that many devices (e.g. laptops) with USB ports continue sending power to those ports even when the device is off . So someone bugged with something like this implant could fully power off their laptop when discussing sensitive information, and if they left a bugged USB drive plugged in, they could still be compromised.
Bug or feature?
Fug!
Re: Inside a low-budget consumer hardware espionage implant
#7This is obviously not good, but I'm not sure it is particularly useful for something "important".
Any target of high value will be pursued and observed by trained humans with advanced tools. The amount of data collected, I suspect, would be less but more accurate.
A device like this just lowers the bar (really low) on tracking. However, it increases the noise/inaccuracy. If combined with some key logger and other devices, it could provide a very detailed picture of someone's communications and movements. But it would include a lot of noise as well, which would still require a lot of sifting and organizing to make sense of the data (and especially to filter out the noise).
If anything, I think these devices are more a money grab on the "spies" than a significant intrusion on the targets.
Re: Inside a low-budget consumer hardware espionage implant
#8This is obviously not good, but I'm not sure it is particularly useful for something "important". Any target of high value will be pursued and observed by trained humans with advanced tools. The amount of data collected, I suspect, would be less but more accurate. A device like this just lowers the bar (really low) on tracking. However, it increases the noise/inaccuracy. If combined with some key logger and other dev…
I think it would be pretty easy actually, to keep up with the data - you could just get a Bluetooth headset and set your phone to automatically accept calls from your spying device, then listen in while you go about your day.
Re: Inside a low-budget consumer hardware espionage implant
#9This is obviously not good, but I'm not sure it is particularly useful for something "important". Any target of high value will be pursued and observed by trained humans with advanced tools. The amount of data collected, I suspect, would be less but more accurate. A device like this just lowers the bar (really low) on tracking. However, it increases the noise/inaccuracy. If combined with some key logger and other dev…
I think it would be pretty easy actually, to keep up with the data - you could just get a Bluetooth headset and set your phone to automatically accept calls from your spying device, then listen in while you go about your day.
Or hook it up to a Twilio and receive text notifications when a new recording is available. Optionally auto-transcribe and do topic modeling to extract only discussions of interest.
Re: Inside a low-budget consumer hardware espionage implant
#10I wonder what voltage is required to kill the Mediatek chip? Maybe a simple jig that put -24v through it could fry it?
Of course, if you're expecting it, this device should be relatively simple to stop. I can imagine more stealthy variants however.