Police warn of thieves using WiFi-jamming tech to disarm cameras, alarms | Hacker News Reader

Police warn of thieves using WiFi-jamming tech to disarm cameras, alarms

ktla.com

27 pointsBluestein43 comments

I wonder what took them so long. Now, cameras I understand. Disarming an alarm via deauthing sounds implausible unless these panels are complete garbage. I have seen 'advanced' panels from alarm companies though that are simply an Android app +GPIO so I guess anything is possible...

> Android app +GPIO

Ouch, right?

Whatever happened to embedded-systems, aeronautics-quality software?

Turns out most people will pay the same price for white label Android hardware.

Aeronautics quality software is expensive.

I wonder if anyone uses Flipper Zeros for things like this yet. Cameras, garage doors, radio activated gates are usually very insecure. They were not built under the assumption that thieves could hack RFID devices easily.

I don't want this to happen but it's kind of cool in a cyberpunk dystopia kind of way.

https://flipperzero.one

The flipper zero is an FCC-approved toy with an itty bitty teeny tiny subset of the capabilities of proper wide-band SDR kit, e.g. HackRF One. This isn't due to firmware locks that can be jailbroken - there is no wide-band SDR hardware present. This is just a collection of a small handful of narrow-band SDR chips.

Neither serious threat actors nor corporate red teams waste their time with such trivial things.

Sure, but plenty of consumer tech is vulnerable to trivial attacks.

While this is true, the Flipper Zero doesn't have wifi radios or an SDR that can transmit in the wifi frequency ranges. OOB it's impossible to jam wifi with with the Flipper.

Yeah I don’t care about serious threat actors, I just want to borrow my neighbors’ stuff at my whim.

RFID cameras...?

One solution is to throw out all those Ring cameras and get local storage solutions. After all, your data should belong to you.

I run a couple local wired cameras with a week of onboard storage that stream to a VPS running DVR software with months of storage.

Hardly uses my gigabit connection, and the cloud video is impossible to destroy by anyone with access to the cameras.

And it's my own Linux server. Nobody is going to hand anything over to the authorities behind my back.

> VPS

> nobody will hand anything over

Uh, there's these things called subpoenas...

There's this thing called the internet, it's an interconnected network that allows people in one jurisdiction, say, the United States, to access servers in another jurisdiction, say, Russia, who is well-known to not cooperate with international law enforcement.

Get an American court to issue a subpoena for the data on my Russian dedi. The judge and prosecutor will die of old age before they get so much as a boilerplate response in a Cyrillic alphabet.

You gotta find a Russian dedi that is unwilling to respond to subpoenas but also secure enough not to be compromised by the NSA, who presumably has an ongoing operation to monitor “sketchy hosts” and poke holes in them by signing up, testing the internal management infrastructure, etc…

NSA is not a law enforcement organization, and the national security need to keep NSA processess, techniques, tools, and practices as secret as possible is a powerful motivator to keep any traces of NSA capabilities far away from the legal discovery process of a courtroom. Parallel discovery is possible, but do you think the NSA is eager to risk tipping their hand to Russia just over some nobody's CCTV footage?

I'm not that important.

Yeah, you’re not wrong about that. Although I guess it depends what they think is on your security recordings, or what’s inside the building.

Epstein had some wired cameras at his house…

The courts can also issue a subpoena to you and jail you if you refuse to comply.

While this is true, the Fifth Amendment protects witnesses from being forced to incriminate themselves, and there is currently no law compelling key (or password) disclosure in the United States.

Your choice of jurisdiction matters.

That's partially true. Self incrimination refers to testimonial acts, and turning over data on a hard drive (or a physical key) is not a testimonial act.

The idea of a physical key, or even a physical hard drive being in play is a moot point for me, as the server and the storage drive aren't even in my possession.

Even though the laws may facilitate a corrupt judge ordering me to provide a password, or even chaining back-to-back "contempt of court" charges just because I forgot my password, or my Russian provider locked me out, that doesn't make the judge's abuse of authority in that hypothetical scenario legitimate or just.

Just because you think the judge is abusing their authority in that hypothetical scenario and that their ruling is not legitimate or just does not mean it will not happen or that you will not end up in jail.

If they want the camera recordings they will subpoena you, if you do not deliver it for whatever reason they they can find you in contempt of court and in that case you can get arrested the same way regardless of what you fell about it.

Your choice of non-local provider for the express purpose of preventing physical access to justify evading a potential subpoeana can and will be held against you.

And that has been the law for over a century. Technology isn't some sort of magical wand that changes how the law works.

What _are_ the best wired cam/local storage solutions today?

No one has mentioned Frigate. It has taken the "homelab"/selfhosted world by storm & utterly dominates. Open source, works great, & by far some of the most sophisticated detection/triggering schemes one can acquire, period. https://frigate.video/

I have two Hanwha units I never got around to using at my last place. H.265 IP streaming out. Onvif is the main standard everyone seems to use for streaming out.

From a DIY relatively easy perspective most NAS box (Synology & QNAP) come with "Surveillance Station" type software that handles network cameras and ring buffer storage of footage with addons for { motion detection | face recognition | alerts ( SMS | text | email ) | etc. }

The consumer boxes typically have something like Two Cameras Free (flat rate one time fee for each extra camera ($50 each for Synology)).

I believe (but haven't recently checked) that FreeNAS | TrueNAS setup's likely come with open source camera software .. YMMV.

eg: (first hit) https://dongknows.com/synology-surveillance-station-review/

The NAS advantage is you can have a single central home NAS box doing home storage and camera footage storage - disadvantage (of single box) is having camera footage "seized" by police or intruders in event of incident, yada yada ya.

I should know more but I still use software I wrote years back for handling images & footage from exploration geophysics craft ( cars | boats | airframes ) because "it was sitting about and worked".

Reolink is fairly inexpensive but their apps are pretty lacking.

Unifi Protect is my go-to because of usability but does (somewhat) rely on their SSO cloud login. All stored locally though on purchased NVRs and their app is soooo much better than Reolink's.

Reolink outside camera’s are too cheaply build. I have several and most have been replaced within a year. I am looking for alternatives that are built better.

I attest to reolink, have used it for security, 16 cameras, 3000 miles away, for ~2-3 years. Setup includes UPS on everything. Has been very stable. It even has a pretty easy to reverse engineer cgi-bin API (and very insecure) but sadly my ISP plugged the firewall hole I made for that :(

I have in some cameras had issues with connectivity but as far as I can tell, it's from using an indoor ethernet cable outside... and the RJ-45 end-of-cable wire threads literally dissolve into dust from the moisture... but that's not on the camera

Reolink periodically phones home ... to China.

Anything will phone home eventually if connected to internet. Home cameras should not be connected to internet regardless if they use wifi or wire.

For me synology works well. I purchased nice and somehow cheap reolink cameras and cut internet access for them.

Depends on how much you want to spend, though some low price units often hit well above their weight, it seems.

It also depends where you stand ethically - for example, Hikvision often makes great stuff, but they also literally built a camera with an AI built-in that identifies Uyghur people and triggers an alarm if it does.

The Hook Up does reviews heavily focused on image quality, and setup/installation, both physically and network/software wise. He often covers a wide range of price points instead of just focusing on cheap stuff or expensive stuff, and does image tests in daylight, nighttime, stationary, moving, license plate and person, etc. Even does edge-of-the-lens tests to find cameras that have crappy lenses.

The current 'hotness' would be low-light color cameras; sensors have gotten good enough that some ambient light will do, and the color helps with IDing people's clothing, and cars. Potentially license plates, too.

Most current review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3G_2zVu3cU

He's also done probably one of the most technically competent reviews of LED light bulbs I've seen in ages.

Glad all my cameras are hard wired. I do need to look into off-site video recording though. Dream scenario: a home assistant automation that automatically uploads video when an alarm is triggered.

Many FOSS programs have been around for ages:

https://zoneminder.com/

Having everything hardwired has its own set of issues. It is often better to have both a working visible "decoy wifi" kit people will identify/jam with ease, and a covert "Casino" 8k pin-hole option people will not be able to scan.

Just remember mantraps (bastion double fire-doors/cages etc.) are usually illegal in most jurisdictions, and crackheads are unhealthy for the pet crocodiles anyway. =3

Appreciate it. I’m currently using Frigate[0] as my nvr. Regarding the off-site upload, I just have to make time to do it.

A decoy nest camera sounds like a good idea though!

[0] https://frigate.video

... and an AI-driven "warning shots" turret :)

Alternative solution- DA could actually start prosecuting theft.

I DDG'ed "police shortage after covid" and these 2 articles support my belief that it's real: [1] [2]. [2] says hiring in 2023 is back up, but they're not out of the woods yet.

It feels like the breakdown of social trust got worsened by the pandemic, and it has far-reaching effects. There's probably also emboldened many who've noticed we don't live in a police state, and getting away with crime (like surging an Apple Store with your friends) is actually possible. Of course people who resort to crime aren't the smartest to begin with, e.g. they don't know that stolen Apple devices will just be software-bricked...

1) https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/us-experiencing-police-...

2) https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-officer-hiring-u...

Edit to add: and the pandemic has also emboldened racist idiots like sibling comment saying "Stop being racist /s".

Standalone, VLAN over PoE 4K camera is next to impossible to find.

Offline, selfhosted NVR coupled with private VPN for status/notification is the only way to go.

Bonus if self-hosting on your own VPS for backup viewing (also thru private VPN).

If someone really have safety wifi cam... It's would be just natural selection. BTW cam have only one purpose, alerting. 99% of the time having evidence is useless, as a deterrence it's almost the same. They are effective only to alert a distant owner "something is happening in your property" and IF wired and well disposed get a chance to see what's wrong an instant before the shiny system die. Marginally they are requested for some insurances, at least to lower their price.

I thought PoE in surveillance cameras are common, I though wrong.

Good thing my stuff is hard wired, and the video is stored locally in a protected isolated area.

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