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Show HN: Trackerjacker – Map and track wifi networks you're not connected to

github.com

159 pointscalebm33 comments

trackerjacker also provides a simple python plugin system that makes it trivial to extend to do all sorts of interesting things (e.g. to look for anomalous wifi devices). One of my original use-cases was to trigger my sirens if a security camera detected motion (based on a data thresholds that uploading a video triggers).

I demoed this at Thotcon and DEFCON this year and will be demoing it at Derbycon in October.

Awesome! I saw your presentation at Thotcon two years ago, but moved to Austin this year and ended up missing it.

Always excited to see what new stuff you have coming out, as it's organic and deep. Keep 'em coming!

Thanks, appreciate the feedback!

i plan on setting up an "IoT sentinel" daemon on my router: it would just watch my home network and let me know if my toaster has joined a botnet, based on suspicious network activity. is trackerjacker the right tool for me?

That's an ideal use-case of trackerjacker. Another good one (that I'm meaning to write a better plugin for) is to alert on anomalous devices nearby. I have a draft of that plugin here: https://github.com/calebmadrigal/trackerjacker/blob/master/p.... It might also serve as a prototype for what you're trying to accomplish.

Have you looked at MAC randomization filtering at all? It should be easy to filter based on probe vs established.

Just lightly. Seems difficult to detect for sure, but probabilistically some insights could be gained.

This is convenient! I was just thinking I want to build a funny way of letting me know someone was added to my local network by playing a wolf howl on my sonos speaker. I'm guessing this is possible with Trackjacker.

You can do it with openwrt too. Simply add a hook to dnsmasq when a new IP is assigned.

Awesome! The one thing I’m missing is the current status of the network. It tracks all the networks and the clients, but I can’t see when the network was last seen. So if I’m tracking for 30 minutes, I can’t see if a client or network is still available. Besides that, I love it!

Good point, I may add that. One thing to keep in mind though: you can create a simple plugin to keep as up-to-date on whatever data you care about as you like. Here's a simple example of a plugin: https://github.com/calebmadrigal/trackerjacker/blob/master/p...

Note that it's about as simple an interface as possible (e.g. no inheritance).

Thanks! I’ll look into that. I’m not a good programmer, but it looks doable :)

Writing a plugin would be a great way to get into programming.

That’s pretty sweet. I’m tempted to build some kind of Android UI wrapper for it.

Could an esp8266 be used for this purpose? the last 2 boards that I ordered are defective and can't test it...

What is your opinion on the morality of running this, compared to the morality of data collection by a small blog for advertising and analytics?

Like almost everything in life, it depends on your intentions.

like the ends justifies the means?

More like the context determines if something is evil or not. For example, if I'm listening for drones flying around my house so I can deauth them to prevent them from spying on me, I would say that is justified, but if I monitor people to determine when they are home so I know when to break into their house, that would most likely be a bad usage.

The juice is worth the squeeze.

Saw your first presentation at DEFCON! Great job - will definitely use this when I get back to Australia.

Thanks!

Man this is cool... I have no reasonable use case for it, but I might just make one up.

I'm trying to use this, but I cannot get it to see anything by following the examples. Will this work with any wifi card on linux or only with certain ones? Perhaps not all cards support monitor mode? I have an Intel 7260 card.

Not all cards support monitor mode. I have some recommended cards at the bottom of the README.md file.

Just tried with a Raspberry Pi 0 - No luck.

"SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported"

On the roadmap, or is this just a driver issue?

What wifi dongle are you using?

I tried both the built-in wifi and a Realtek dongle

Does the RPi Zero have onboard wifi? ( https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-zero/ )

It sounds like your realtek dongle may not support monitor mode.

The RPi Zero W does (https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-zero-w/). I haven't tried the Zero W yet, but I have tested the Pi 3.

* Panda PAU07 N600 Dual Band (nice, small, 2.4GHz and 5GHz)

* Panda PAU09 N600 Dual Band (higher power, 2.4GHz and 5GHz)

* Alfa AWUS052NH Dual-Band 2x 5dBi (high power, 2.4GHz and 5GHz, large, ugly)

* TP-Link N150 (works well, but not dual band)

Your own Ifttt for Wifi, thanks for sharing!

What is the social network for wifi routers?

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