Who’s watching the watchers?
p2pnet special: The Austrian government now has a law allowing police to install closed-circuit surveillance cameras in public spaces without a court order. But a lot of people didn’t like the idea behind that. So they’re doing something about it.
Austrian civil liberties group Quintessenz has "vowed to watch the watchers," says Wired News.
"Members of the organization worked out a way to intercept the camera images with an inexpensive, 1-GHz satellite receiver. The signal could then be descrambled using hardware designed to enhance copy-protected video as it’s transferred from DVD to VHS tape.
"The Quintessenz activists then began figuring out how to blind the cameras with balloons, lasers and infrared devices. And, just for fun, the group created an anonymous surveillance system that uses face-recognition software to place a black stripe over the eyes of people whose images are recorded."
Quintessenz members Adrian Dabrowski and Martin Slunksy presented their video-surveillance research at the 22nd annual Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin this week and with luck, p2pnet readers will be getting first-hand reports on some of the presentations.,
Nick Bentley is delivering one of the addresses and he’s promised to drop us a line or 10 when he gets back home.
For the moment, "Slunksy pointed out that searching for special strings in Google, such as axis-cgi/, will return links that access internet-connected cameras around the world," says Wired. "Quintessenz developers entered these Google results into a database, analyzed the IP addresses and set up a website that gives users the ability to search by country or topic — and then rate the cameras."
CCC member and security researcher Frank Rieger argued Western societies are becoming democratically legitimized police states ruled by an unaccountable elite, says the story, which has Rieger stating:
"We have enough technical knowledge to turn this around; let’s expose them in public, publish everything we know about them and let them know how it feels to be under surveillance."
Also See:
Wired News – AHackers Rebel Against Spy Cams, January 1, 2006
a line or 10 – European hacker conference, December 31, 2005
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local political representatives. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance.
January 3rd, 2006 at 2:59 am
It is about time. I recently came by an 35 mW laser diode. With a hacked-together current regulator, I am able to point this gizmo at a surveillance camera and damage the CCD chip. Viola, in about a second, the camera is disabled and needs replacement. I can do this from over 200 metres away. It is a nice trick. Photo cops are next on my list. Anyone care to join the crusade?
If you are tired of being treated as slaves and merchandise by the governments and cartels, then DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!!!!