TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: FBI Taps Cell Phone Mic as Eavesdropping Tool

Re: FBI Taps Cell Phone Mic as Eavesdropping Tool

Scott Dorsey (kludge@panix.com)
30 Dec 2006 12:08:46 -0500

mc <look@www.ai.uga.edu.for.address> wrote:

> This reminds me of an old Sun Workstation eavesdropping trick, back
> when soundcards were new. Every Sun had a soundcard and a
> microphone. But every Sun ran multi-user UNIX. So you log on
> remotely, record a sound file, download it, and play it. (Or, if
> more clever, stream it to yourself in real time.) And so you hear
> whatever is going on in the room where the computer is.

It goes both ways. The admin in another department once logged into a
machine in a public lab and catted a file to /dev/audio of himself
crying out, "Help me, I am trapped inside this computer."

Of course, I noticed the /etc/motd on _his_ server was world-writable.
Hilarity ensued. Telecom content? Nil.

scott

"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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