So...hackers can now perform surveillance via good old-fashioned light bulbs

[hanselthecaretaker]

Yay? Makes me wonder what’s next. Hacking an actual person perhaps. Or maybe a

It’s downright disturbing how far reaching stuff like this is getting. Just reinforces how little privacy there is as time goes on.

 

[Agema]

Yay? Makes me wonder what’s next. Hacking an actual person perhaps. Or maybe a

It’s downright disturbing how far reaching stuff like this is getting. Just reinforces how little privacy there is as time goes on.

As I started to read the caveats, it reminds me of the early tests on anti-ballistic missiles.

- "If they fire nukes at us, our missile defence can totally blow them up in flight!"
- "Really?"
- "Sure, as long as the nukes are within a specific range of speed, direction, and altitude, are painted red and we aim a guidance laser at them."
- "So you can't shoot their nukes down, then."

Secondly, this isn't really "hacking" as we'd conventionally understand it, just plain and simple surveillance / spying.

 

[MrCalavera]

That's not really more disturbing than being able to hack the stuff that we already knew was hackable.

EDIT: Yeah, reading into it, it doesn't sound like "hacking". Nothing happens to the lightbulb. You need perfect conditions, and someone with a device observing a lightbulb from 25m away.
This is more an elaborate spying method, for agents that don't have one of those cool Splinter Cell microphones at hand.

 

[Eacaraxe]

That's not really more disturbing than being able to hack the stuff that we already knew was hackable.

It's not really any more disturbing than finding out Batman's cell phone sonar from TDK wasn't just real, but more the iceberg's tip of technologies Western intelligence agencies were actively developing at the time the film came out. And that when light was shed on it, not only did people not give a shit, they turned on the whistleblower.

 

[Tireseas]

So a laser microphone, which only needs an object that vibrate at a frequency that the laser can detect and a clear line of sight, can be used to listen in on conversations. I'm underwhelmed by this news as it appears the only news is that a study was published confirming much of what we already knew.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Eh, didn't expect to be impressed, wasn't.

 

[Houseman]

So a laser microphone, which only needs an object that vibrate at a frequency that the laser can detect and a clear line of sight, can be used to listen in on conversations

Didn't we already know this was possible? I could have sworn I'd heard of "theoretically being able to snoop on the White House by having a laser pointed at the Oval Office window and interpreting the vibrations" or something like that.

Edit: Eagle Eye with Shia Labeouf did that! Not with the windows of the white house, but on the window of an inner bunker.

 

[Fieldy409]

Every day going off the grid and living in a log cabin in the woods looks smarter.

 

[Kae]

Each day we're one step closer to living in an Orwellian nightmare.

 

[Agema]

Each day we're one step closer to living in an Orwellian nightmare.

Maybe, but there is far more data than there are resources to collect and process it. Sure, maybe someone can work out what you say if you have just the wrong sort of lightbulb and someone aims an expensive laser system at it. But who's going to do that (and aren't lampshades a thing?), and who's going to analyse it? Really, we don't need to worry that much until someone invents a computer powerful and "intelligent" enough: until then, it's just going to be a case of snooping on telecoms and running searches for keywords such that a tiny percentage will ever be scrutinised.

CCTV in public places is perhaps a greater concern. And after that, there's all the stuff we've voluntarily adopted to allow others to snoop on us, be it Google Maps and other location services, Alexa/Siri, etc. We'll have more and more "smart homes", which will effectively allow the big tech companies to routinely monitor our entire home lives, and we'll freely invite them in.

 

[Gordon_4]

Maybe, but there is far more data than there are resources to collect and process it. Sure, maybe someone can work out what you say if you have just the wrong sort of lightbulb and someone aims an expensive laser system at it. But who's going to do that (and aren't lampshades a thing?), and who's going to analyse it? Really, we don't need to worry that much until someone invents a computer powerful and "intelligent" enough: until then, it's just going to be a case of snooping on telecoms and running searches for keywords such that a tiny percentage will ever be scrutinised.

CCTV in public places is perhaps a greater concern. And after that, there's all the stuff we've voluntarily adopted to allow others to snoop on us, be it Google Maps and other location services, Alexa/Siri, etc. We'll have more and more "smart homes", which will effectively allow the big tech companies to routinely monitor our entire home lives, and we'll freely invite them in.

Stupid question, but do those laser mics work on LED light bulbs?

 

[lil devils x]

Stupid question, but do those laser mics work on LED light bulbs?

IDk if it works on LED's BUT, If you are that worried about it, put a lampshade or globe on them or close the curtains. They have to have a direct line of sight to to bulb itself.

 

[Gordon_4]

IDk if it works on LED's BUT, If you are that worried about it, put a lampshade or globe on them or close the curtains. They have to have a direct line of sight to to bulb itself.

Well I ask because if I read it correctly its sound bouncing off the glass and presumably making the element vibrate that they get the data. But LED globes don't use an element or glass, I think they're all plastic. And half the homes built now have down lights built into the roof.

 

[lil devils x]

Well I ask because if I read it correctly its sound bouncing off the glass and presumably making the element vibrate that they get the data. But LED globes don't use an element or glass, I think they're all plastic. And half the homes built now have down lights built into the roof.

Yea, I wouldn't think LED's would vibrate the same, but of course, I am not going to run out and test this. Even recessed lighting has covers! Not that I would bother even if all my bulbs weren't LED, it isn't like anyone could get get a line of sight through my curtains in the first place.

Someone more bored than I would have to be the one to test this! XD

 

[Agema]

Stupid question, but do those laser mics work on LED light bulbs?

I had a quick scan through the article, and the article seems to me to suggest that this can be done only if a whole load of factors are in the right ranges (e.g. the thickness of the glass in the bulb, the right light output, if people are close enough and talking loud enough). Plus, of course, lampshades exist and many modern lightbulbs don't use glass anyway (the age of the tungsten filament bulb having passed). To answer your question specifically, I don't know... but I suspect the answer is "if so, badly".

Thus, this sounds neat as an exercise in physics, but is in practice rubbish, because so many factors could confound it. Who's going to spend a load of money on some complicated optical laser device that would be so unreliable or easily foiled?

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

I suppose if your victim doesn't have an Alexa type device, a smartphone, laptop or console connected to the intawebs to hack into, this might be a preferable alternative to hiding outside their open window with a microphone and a bush-hat.

 

[Kae]

Maybe, but there is far more data than there are resources to collect and process it. Sure, maybe someone can work out what you say if you have just the wrong sort of lightbulb and someone aims an expensive laser system at it. But who's going to do that (and aren't lampshades a thing?), and who's going to analyse it? Really, we don't need to worry that much until someone invents a computer powerful and "intelligent" enough: until then, it's just going to be a case of snooping on telecoms and running searches for keywords such that a tiny percentage will ever be scrutinised.

CCTV in public places is perhaps a greater concern. And after that, there's all the stuff we've voluntarily adopted to allow others to snoop on us, be it Google Maps and other location services, Alexa/Siri, etc. We'll have more and more "smart homes", which will effectively allow the big tech companies to routinely monitor our entire home lives, and we'll freely invite them in.

Well I'm not paranoid enough to think someone would spy on me through a lightbulb, but the combination of this, the advancements of Facial recognition and the fact that it's already being used by the police despite the huge flaws in the tech that drove me to that comment.

It's just clear that each we have less privacy, I mean Google is keeping track of my online activity right now for the purpose of targeted advertising.

 

[Agema]

Well I'm not paranoid enough to think someone would spy on me through a lightbulb, but the combination of this, the advancements of Facial recognition and the fact that it's already being used by the police despite the huge flaws in the tech that drove me to that comment.

It's just clear that each we have less privacy, I mean Google is keeping track of my online activity right now for the purpose of targeted advertising.

And not just that. I have a Google account because of my phone, but never log into it on my computer. I used my phone to find a shop one day, and my computer started getting a million advertisements for the things the shop I was looking for sold. I'm aware it's pretty much child's play for Google to realise my computers from my phone - same sorts of sites visited, the locator for the phone will show being at my address a lot, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if they have an entire model me in a database, with lots of my life story, including data collected from public records and more.

 

[Kae]

And not just that. I have a Google account because of my phone, but never log into it on my computer. I used my phone to find a shop one day, and my computer started getting a million advertisements for the things the shop I was looking for sold. I'm aware it's pretty much child's play for Google to realise my computers from my phone - same sorts of sites visited, the locator for the phone will show being at my address a lot, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if they have an entire model me in a database, with lots of my life story, including data collected from public records and more.

I'm pretty sure it knows where I work despite the fact that I don't use any of my personal accounts at work and the proxy server should indicate I'm in a different country, but still it sometimes shows me advertisements of stuff I looked at in my work computer, stuff that is often not really of my interest and I looked up for someone else.