
'Say hello to my little vacuum cleaner': US DEA puts spycams in cleaner's kit - snazz
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/07/dea_vacuum_cleaner/
======
jMyles
Ugh - the DEA is such a blight on American society. Who the hell is working
for them?

As drug prohibition has become less popular, the DEA seems, at least to me, to
be more desperate and childish. The raids on Amtrak trains are an example of
this (which I myself suffered last year).

Can't we just end the drug war and have them go quietly like adults?

~~~
jacquesm
The whole 'war on X' meme should just go away. It is a ridiculous kind of
analogy that implies that these things can be won, when in fact at best you
can get to some kind of stalemate or a temporary advantage.

~~~
femto
"war on X" is code for "let's ignore ethics".

------
code_duck
[https://qz.com/1458475/the-dea-and-ice-are-hiding-
surveillan...](https://qz.com/1458475/the-dea-and-ice-are-hiding-surveillance-
cameras-in-streetlights/)

This recent article asserts the DEA has placed cameras in traffic barrels and
steer lights, and also mentions Cowboy Streetlight Concealments.

This is procurement for hardware for a DEA license plate monitoring system,
linked in the above article.

[https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=a0459e9...](https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=a0459e93674685daf7c08cfa3db0ed2e&tab=core&tabmode=list&=)

~~~
dsfyu404ed
As someone who casually follows the state of freedom and civil rights in the
US the first thing that goes through my mind when I read a headline like this
is "oh, so ICE and the ATF are doing this too". It's kinda sad that things
have gotten this bad.

~~~
sargun
I’m unfamiliar with the badness of ATF. I haven’t seen any painfully
embarrassing stories about ATF. What kinds of offenses have they committed?

~~~
masonic
Ruby Ridge and Waco are two of the more famous ATF misadventures.

------
MagicPropmaker
They'll have trouble getting audio. It's LOUD when the Shop-Vac's on.

~~~
jacquesm
That would be one very impressive DSP hack if you could eliminate the motor
and other contact sounds. I highly doubt that you could cancel it out
effectively but it is so tempting to try this to see how far you'd get.

A couple of approaches would be:

\- bandpass filter in human voice range

\- two mikes, only one facing outward, opposite polarity

\- a lot of mechanical isolation

\- a digital sample of the audio stored and subtracted from the input

And more such tricks. It would be a very interesting project to see how far
you could push that.

~~~
46Bit
My Amazon Echo can hear me fine over my vacuum cleaner, and far better than a
human could. That makes me think general-purpose techniques alone might work.

~~~
megaremote
Try strapping it to your vacuum cleaner, seeing how well it does.

------
gumby
Reminiscent of the comedic Graham Greene novel "Our Man in Havana" from the
1950s!

~~~
wormold
Quite.

------
r1b
"...video can be live-streamed - presumably to agents parked in a van
nearby..."

How does this work? Does the camera act as an AP that a client can connect to?
Or do you have to configure the camera to join an existing network that you
control?

~~~
ceejayoz
I bought a SQ-13 camera off AliExpress for $20ish, which streams over Wifi (it
acts as an AP) and is about an inch by an inch cube. (It's small enough to be
carried on my N-scale train cars for a train-eye view.)

~~~
squarefoot
I was interested in this one or a similar model (sq20) to be used as a dash
cam with external supply as the internal cell doesn't last much. Can it be
configured to connect to a wireless network and stream the video to a standard
encoder/player on given address? I would use it to stream to a small NAS in
order not to destroy the flash doing continuous recording. Hopefully it
doesn't require a smartphone and a proprietary app to connect to its stream.

~~~
ceejayoz
Not as far as I can tell - the SQ13 has a really dinky, shitty app that I
wouldn't want to use for anything serious. I was unsuccessful finding any
hacked firmware for it.

------
shard972
Sure thing buddy, next thing you will tell me is that my microwave is spying
on me!

------
d2161
And yet we still allow American goods in Canada.

