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The coolest anti-surveillance tools at Defcon [video]

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Re: The coolest anti-surveillance tools at Defcon [video]

#21

Post by margalabargala »

nerdsniper wrote: post #14
lrvick wrote: post #10

The "Crypto and Privacy" village at Defcon demands you agree to the privacy policies of Salesforce, Google, Microsoft, and Discord to interact with them. It is a disgrace. Defcon stopped caring about privacy, hacker ethos, and digital sovereignty a long time ago. Go there if you want to talk to their military recruiters or buy/sell proprietary snake oil security SaaS. It is really just another corpocon at this point.…

Defcon was always the most government-aligned conference. Historically, BlackHat was Defcon's slightly more counter-culture counterpart/foil. These days, I don't think anti-establishment hackers have any physical conference gathering.

> These days, I don't think anti-establishment hackers have any physical conference gathering.

HOPE still exists

Re: The coolest anti-surveillance tools at Defcon [video]

#22

Post by Cider9986 »

chews wrote: post #18
Cider9986 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "Crypto and Privacy" village at Defcon demands you agree to the privacy policies of Salesforce, Google, Microsoft, and Discord to interact with them. It is a disgrace. What does this look like in practice?

They have a sign similar to the ones at stadiums or events that say recording is in progress and that by being there you agree to be recorded... being here means you agree... not that there is any enforcement but very flocky and thus ironic.

That's not Google though?

Re: The coolest anti-surveillance tools at Defcon [video]

#23

Post by Cider9986 »

nerdsniper wrote: post #14
lrvick wrote: post #10

The "Crypto and Privacy" village at Defcon demands you agree to the privacy policies of Salesforce, Google, Microsoft, and Discord to interact with them. It is a disgrace. Defcon stopped caring about privacy, hacker ethos, and digital sovereignty a long time ago. Go there if you want to talk to their military recruiters or buy/sell proprietary snake oil security SaaS. It is really just another corpocon at this point.…

Defcon was always the most government-aligned conference. Historically, BlackHat was Defcon's slightly more counter-culture counterpart/foil. These days, I don't think anti-establishment hackers have any physical conference gathering.

>These days, I don't think anti-establishment hackers have any physical conference gathering.

MoneroKon and Monerotopia.

Re: The coolest anti-surveillance tools at Defcon [video]

#24

Post by kamranjon »

Is anyone familiar with the laws surrounding police basically operating their own pseudo cell towers?

I would assume this would be highly illegal for individuals, what sort of hoops did law enforcement need to jump through to get this type of approval? Did FCC need to rubber stamp this?

Re: The coolest anti-surveillance tools at Defcon [video]

#25

Post by dylan604 »

nerdsniper wrote: post #14
lrvick wrote: post #10

The "Crypto and Privacy" village at Defcon demands you agree to the privacy policies of Salesforce, Google, Microsoft, and Discord to interact with them. It is a disgrace. Defcon stopped caring about privacy, hacker ethos, and digital sovereignty a long time ago. Go there if you want to talk to their military recruiters or buy/sell proprietary snake oil security SaaS. It is really just another corpocon at this point.…

Defcon was always the most government-aligned conference. Historically, BlackHat was Defcon's slightly more counter-culture counterpart/foil. These days, I don't think anti-establishment hackers have any physical conference gathering.

> These days, I don't think anti-establishment hackers have any physical conference gathering.

Wouldn't you be essentially doxxing yourself by attending?

Re: The coolest anti-surveillance tools at Defcon [video]

#26

Post by dylan604 »

gruez wrote: post #16
leetrout wrote: post #6

Glad this one is getting the "second chance" bump back to the front page. It's great content and it's timely. It's a great video. If you're not inclined to watch the video I'll save you a click to the youtube description and add a bit more detail than the earlier sibling for the devices shown: Simulacra "Simulacra continuously fabricates a churning crowd of plausible-but-fake wireless devices around you — drowning yo…

>"Simulacra continuously fabricates a churning crowd of plausible-but-fake wireless devices around you — drowning your real devices in noise so that passive trackers, ALPR add-ons, and co-travel correlators can't reliably pick your signal out of the crowd — while passively watching for the trackers that follow you." "Oh, it's that guy with the bluetooth spammer." https://xkcd.com/1105/

If they became cheap enough, you could deploy them "permanently" to leave around town. Hang 'em on the same pole the Flock cameras are mounted, or on the ground in one of those hide-a-key things shaped like a rock on the ground near the pole. Just toss one out as you drive by type of situations. It's all solid state, so should be okay being tossed around a bit.

Re: The coolest anti-surveillance tools at Defcon [video]

#27

Post by Joel_Mckay »

kamranjon wrote: post #24

Is anyone familiar with the laws surrounding police basically operating their own pseudo cell towers? I would assume this would be highly illegal for individuals, what sort of hoops did law enforcement need to jump through to get this type of approval? Did FCC need to rubber stamp this?

In general, interfering with a radio link can be hundreds of thousands of dollar fines, and years in prison.

Almost every RF (legal) communication device consumers own will back off broadcasting if it detects collision or interference.

The fact many governments of the past few decades feel entitled to run intelligence campaigns on their own citizens often points to a degenerative despotic trend.

The best plans simply don't require secrecy, and everyone has fun. =3

Re: The coolest anti-surveillance tools at Defcon [video]

#29

Post by Joel_Mckay »

staplung wrote: post #2

Partial summary: -ESP32 based device that tries to detect bluetooth/MAC addresses of flock cameras and beeps when it does - a Stingray detector that runs on a second-hand mobile hotspot - a device that alerts you about things that are moving approximately with you (AirTags, SSIDs, etc).

Sigh, researchers used to publish cutting edge stuff.

That list reads like a fist year lab schedule. lol =3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBlAMqoJ5BA

Re: The coolest anti-surveillance tools at Defcon [video]

#30

Post by PaulRobinson »

kamranjon wrote: post #24

Is anyone familiar with the laws surrounding police basically operating their own pseudo cell towers? I would assume this would be highly illegal for individuals, what sort of hoops did law enforcement need to jump through to get this type of approval? Did FCC need to rubber stamp this?

John Oliver did a piece on this a couple of weeks ago. The videos are not widely available outside of the US, but here's a Guardian write-up [0], and in the UK you can get access to the episode via catch-up if you have Sky Atlantic.

TLDR: the police do this whenever they want, pretty much.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/aug/03/john-ol...

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