00:25:DF:*
I too would like to know how to make a hog finder
Edit: Okay I think I figured it out. Using an app called BLE Radar (F-Droid Link and Google Play link) you can scan nearby Bluetooth devices passively. You can use the app to setup filters to send notifications when specific devices or addresses are nearby.
Yup, that’s it. BLE Radar is the best app I’ve found so far. Someone go make a PR for playing a sound when a profile matches though…
Tasers, bodycams and holsters among other things made by Taser are constantly spamming advertising packets over BLE in order to be able to link to each other quickly (ie if a taser or gun is drawn, turn on the body cam). These devices are almost all made by one company and per the Bluetooth specification, the manufacturer ID is the first three bytes of the device ID, 00:25:DF: the address for Axon International Torture Devices.
Credit to Nullagent/rfparty for discovering the vulnerability. https://www.engadget.com/how-hackers-are-using-bluetooth-to-track-police-activity-140012717.html
A couple notes in practice: without dedicated hardware BLE advertising packets are very random, your phone can only sense one of the three advertising channels at once and it rotates though them. Additionally local band conditions (how many innocuous BLE devices are also around, WiFi, unrelated ISM stuff, other factors) can change sensitivity. BLE is a chaotic spammy protocol that likes to shout over itself. As a result, detections can happen the instant someone gets within ~100m of you, or they may not be detected for several seconds. Some departments may not even use Axon hardware at all, though the majority seem to. You may be able to use the WiGLE database to get a sense for your locale, but I haven’t dug into that yet.
Further research: This has a lot of potential for protest/protected first amendment activities. As stated, the ability to cue an audio alert. Apps that can trigger audio/video recording when cops are very close (high RSSI). Apps that can alert a friend that lots of cops are very close and the user is unable to halt a countdown. Apps that can wipe/lock/turn off a phone if lots of cops are very close or around for an extended period of time (in custody).
One thing I’m curious about is of using a micro controller with a much larger receiver would extend BLE sniffing capabilities.
Or setting up some LoRa equipped micro controllers to do sniffing in an area and syncing that data using a LoRa mesh to an active database of some kind. (Like utilize something similar to (or in fact) Meshtastic)
Meshtastic is awesome, everyone go play with it, it’s getting more accessible by the day.
There’s a lot you can do on the hardware side. A device with three BLE chips supporting the appropriate modes would be able to sniff all three advertising channels at once, greatly increasing acquisition speed. High gain directional antennas would massively increase range. If you were especially squirrelly you could build in a GPS with high precision timing (~$25-100) and geolocate the packets via MLAT (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-range_multilateration). Moving up to a GPSDO you could start to do things like determine the speed and direction of travel of the sender.
This is cyberpunk as hell, and awesome.
Unfortunately apple does not expose mac addresses to apps, so iPhone users can’t do it :(
Is there anything iphones can do besides scroll social media? Every time I hear about some cool new capability of phones this caveat is always present.
You can use NRF Connect to scan for BLE beacons: https://apps.apple.com/fi/app/nrf-connect-for-mobile/id1054362403
And rightfully so. Corporations will find every conceivable way to track you and no API will be left unused, including tracking MAC addresses of bluetooth devices around you, which is a relatively easy one.
However, you can absolutely allow an app to access that API so it can scan for those MACs.
Funny thing, as soon as the API is locked down and presented as an option to the user, companies stop using it since nobody wants to give bluetooth access to i.e. Facebook.
Neat. 00:35:df is assigned to Taser. They make LEO accessories.
Wait could I theoretically go to a UK police station or somewhere with a lot of police and pick up their MAC addresses.
Then if I were to be involved in some direct action I could get alerts that the police are nearby?
If so what device do I need to do this mobile? Like a laptop? Or one of those little orange hacker tools which the name is escapes me right now.
That’s it. Gone I’m getting old. Flipper Zero init.
Do you have one? I’ve been interested for a minute but not sure if I can loads of fun with it.
I’d be interested in using it to affect digital billboards or taking direct action against companies I don’t think have a moral backbone.
While flipper is very versatile, it’s pretty weak compared to dedicated devices with proper antennas for the signal type you’re looking at.
Interesting idea, but aren’t most MAC addresses randomised per connection nowadays?
MAC addresses are assigned to the hardware and do not change with each boot (first 3 pairs are company second 3 pairs are the device), unless you spoof the address then you can make it display any MAC address you wish but the MAC of the device never changes.
How does one enable the feral hog radar?
