Vsauce, I'm Jake and in the video game Watch Dogs you can pretty much hack any piece of
technology from people's cell phones to ATMs, security cameras, and cars, using only a computer
or even a cell phone.
But how realistic is that compared to our world?
Is Watch Dogs Possible?
Security cameras are supposed to be there to protect us and can only be seen by those
that have specific access to them.
However, using certain search parameters on Google, you can find hundreds of unsecure
camera feeds, allowing you to peek in and see things you normally shouldn't be able
to.
These are a few that I was able to find and in some cases, I was even able to take control
of the camera's movement and focus features.
So next time you see a security camera following you, it might be someone in the back of the
department store or someone hundreds of miles away.
Spooky.
But if there are no cameras around then there is no way that you could be visually tracked
or followed.
You could slip into the crowd.
Except for the fact that at pretty much all times you are carrying around a microphone,
a camera, a list of everyone you know, a log of your most sensitive data and it is all
WiFi enabled with the added bonus of having GPS and a cell network.
Your phone is bursting with data, so much so that it tends to leak information.
Whenever your phone isn't connected to WiFi, it sends out a list of the names of known
networks looking for one of them to connect to and once your phone is connected to what
it thinks is a known wireless network, the background services: dropbox, weather, messages,
facebook start to transmit data.
Security researcher Brendan O'Conner created a device called F-BOMB that plugs into an
outlet and acts as a passive network.
Your phone connects to it and immediately the device is able to collect information
that your phone is freely giving out.
By plugging F-BOMBs into multiple location, Brendan created a web that was able to track
people's locations and what they were doing.
Using himself as a test subject he found that his weather app would give out his exact longitude
and latitude and his news reader would transmit his full name and email address.
Other researchers have used drones to fly wireless networks above public places like
parks in order to collect data.
And once your mobile device is connected to these networks, you might use the web browser
thinking you're logging into to your bank account when really a hacker is just displaying
a login page that looks identical except that your username and password go to their machine.
Or if you're a country's government, there is a product you can purchase to infect a
target's phone, enabling you to track their location, listen to them through the microphone
or turn the camera on to snap photos.
As devices become more connected we move closer to "The Internet of Things".
It is said that the first version of the internet was about data being created by people, and
the next version will be data created by things.
There are wireless washers and dryers, refrigerators, and bathroom scales.
But then there are things that could be deadly like sniper rifles that can be controlled
wirelessly or even pacemakers.
There are over 3 million pacemakers and 1.7 million ICDs (Implantable cardioverter defibrillator)
inside people's chests, and in 2006 they started becoming wireless - allowing a doctor to monitor
a patient's heart over the internet.
In 2013, researcher Barnaby Jack found a way to hack them.
From 50 feet away, he was able to shut them down entirely, or have them send a high voltage
shock of 830 volts directly to the heart.
Barnaby was also able to hack insulin pumps, as long as they were within a 300 foot radius,
forcing the pumps to inject up to 45 days worth of insulin in one go - a potentially
lethal amount.
He was also responsible for a hack we've all probably dreamed of where he "jackpotted"
multiple ATMs, forcing the machines to spit out money.
However, a week before he was going to safely demonstrate his research on pacemakers and
ICDs, he was found dead from a drug overdose.
Hacking pacemakers and insulin pumps is scary but it only affects the people that have those
devices implanted and can't disrupt a large portion of the population the way hacking
something like...a car can.
By attaching something like this small iPhone sized device to a few wires under the car,
you get complete access to the vehicle...wirelessly.
Researchers have shown just what is possible like disabling the brakes, turning the steering
wheel in any direction, killing the engine or changing the dash's display to show you
have a full tank of gas when you don't.
All of this can be done from miles away.
There is a great Motherboard documentary that shows just what is possible once you can access
to a car's CANbus.
The vehicle can even be programmed so that when you hit a certain speed, different parts
of the car will stop functioning...leaving you trapped.
So maybe we should start using older technology like this GirlTech Instant Messenger.
It looks pretty secure and it operates on the same frequency range as the radios used
by most law enforcement agencies...and with a little firmware hack the GirlTech can jam
all of their radio communications.
"Here, I'll trade you".
Most cell phones have an accelerometer in them.
It measures the force of acceleration and also the angle and direction the phone is
being held in.
It's the reason the screen flips depending on the phone's orientation.
A team at Georgia Tech came up with a technique where they would place a phone on a table
next to a computer keyboard.
Once someone would start typing on the keyboard the phone's accelerometer would pick up the
vibrations through the table and, with a bit of software, was able to fairly accurately
figure out what someone was typing.
All these hacks take a good amount of skill and time, but there is a way that's as easy
as 2+2 = 5.
Social Engineering, it's a technique where you manipulate people to do things or give
you information they ordinarily wouldn't.
Kevin Mitnick, one of the most wanted computer hackers in world before his arrest, was able
to hack into telephone systems and computer networks not only because of his amazing skills
with a computer, but his amazing skills of talking on the phone.
By saying enough information to sound convincing, he could get pretty much any sensitive data
he wanted.
In his book "Ghost in the Wires" he mentions how "if you pretend you already have the information
and give them something that's wrong, they'll frequently correct you."
For example, a little bit ago when I said 2 + 2 = 5 you probably thought to yourself
that I was wrong.
You might have even left a comment saying that I was wrong and that the correct answer
was 2 + 2 = 4.
If so, then you've been hacked.
By knowingly giving you false information, you willingly gave me the correct one.
So phones, cars, ATMs, security cameras, pacemakers can all be hacked but not easily or seamlessly
as in Watch Dogs...but still the easiest system to hack is you...and, as always, thanks for
watching.