Show HN: Haxon, CLI tooling to retrieve data from Axon police body cams | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Haxon, CLI tooling to retrieve data from Axon police body cams

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64 pointsxkeysc0re19 comments

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FYI, that yellow tape over the SD card is called Kapton tape.

It's not (designed to be) tamper tape, it's just an electrical and thermal insulator.

Ah thanks for that. The way it was applied definitely made it seem like a seal

Was the name "Claxon" taken? Both "command-line axon," and a loud horn, by which you might hear police activity...

That's good - I was going for the 'hax' angle I guess. Feel free to make a fork that incorporates sound effects!

https://mobile.twitter.com/unrealchill/status/12834181367384...

Nice, a bunch of evidence from an eBay body cam.

The best part is he posts reverse engineering content on OnlyFans!

One thing to point out is that not all recordings are neccesarily public domain depending on the state. Recordings taken on private property or in private situations could be restricted. For example, if an officer comes onto private property without a warrant, reasonable suspicion, or other lawful purpose may be violating the property owner's right to privacy, and thus your viewing of the data may also be a violation. A more concrete example would be if the captured conversation included information that is statutorily protected for which the officer is permitted to inquire about the information but a regular person would not (license details for vehicles, firearms, etc).

not trying to discard the work done here.... but from what I see the script "simply" uses dd to output the sdcard contents into a file, which is then used by foremost. I may be missing the point here, but why not simply tell users to directly type the two commands?

It's true it's simple right now but I think a wrapper around it can be helpful, especially for those who may be new to data recovery. I am hoping to add in the ability to format the disk properly so as to do a non-obvious 'wipe' of the contents as well as some functionality around controlling the camera once I'm able to dump the firmware. I'm new to hardware stuff so this is kind of learn as I go and documenting the results

I think that this kind of work has to be accessible and usable by everyone (who might have such a device). So while it might seem simple to someone on HN, that may not be the case for other people who potentially want to do this.

I don't really understand the purpose especially after reading the "Why do this" part. If you need body cam evidence in a case, isn't the PD obligated to give it ? And in anycase, how will you have access to the body cam ? In my country, body cam is still not a thing so I really have no idea how the recording are used in practice, but it was my understanding that the PD has to give it if asked. Unless this tool can retrieve data that was "erased" (i.e the police officer trying to cover their track) ?

When the PD is asked to turn over the evidence, there is a lot they can do to stall and in some cases lose track of camera or files outright [0]. When you have some generations of body cams in use - such as the Axon 1st generation and non-online 2nd generation - with no formal encryption or verification system, you certainly open the possibility for foul play. The cam files are recoverable as flat files on a disk and are easily modified. So if you look at the chain of evidence, there's a big gap with these cameras. If you have the device in hand, you have access to rewrite the record and claim "missing footage" or that the camera was off [1].

[0] https://www.propublica.org/article/the-nypd-isnt-giving-crit...

[1] https://www.wqad.com/article/news/local/the-missing-50-minut...

>If you need body cam evidence in a case, isn't the PD obligated to give it ?

Do you trust the police to not "accidentally delete" or otherwise misplace the data?

Police departments in the US have a long and storied history of conveniently "losing" or "accidentally erasing" evidence when that evidence would either negatively[1] impact a criminal prosecution or reveal police malfeasance.

[1]: Meaning, negatively for the prosecution.

What does having a script to eject said footage out of the device help in this case?

I think it's not really meant to be used and more along the line of disproving the fabricant-police claims of these devices being tamper-proof and therefore proper evidences.

As 'aenario said: scripts like these dispel the following narratives:

* That police cameras are tamper-proof.

* That the police are capable of responsibly handling the data they record (cf. the recent Twitter thread about eBay-purchased cameras).

* That cameras are an effective and fool-proof check on police malfeasance.

But even beyond that: if I was a defense attorney whose client was the subject of police harassment, I wouldn't trust any footage turned over by the police. I'd want to have the original recording device itself imaged by my own consultant.

In addition to this, I still don't understand how you are going to get physical access to said body cam, am I missing something?

eBay has tons

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