
Inside a low budget consumer hardware espionage implant (2018) - lelf
https://ha.cking.ch/s8_data_line_locator/
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Kliment
Easy way to detect this without an RF detector - use a "usb charge doctor"
which is a super cheap voltage and current measurement tool for USB. If the
cable draws current with nothing attached, dissect it.

Incidentally, my theory about the website and product is that this is a
firmware reuse of a fleet tracking product. The manufacturer is likely an
electronics manufacturing outfit that adapted the layout to match the new
application but didn't have in-house firmware developers and instead reused a
popular low-end fleet tracker firmware for the same chip. These are used for
stuff like taxi dispatch or package pickup so you can see the entire fleet on
a map and call whoever is closest to your destination. It doesn't need precise
location.

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speaker1
usb-c cables seem to drain power, at least both I have, though one of them has
LED.

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NullPrefix
Type C cables have chips in them. Not a dumb wire. That's by design

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antsar
That design, in this context, seems bad for security...

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wjnc
After also reading the discussion in '17\. How come this is trivially easy to
make, very cheap and still we have a massive stolen car problem in Europe?
Some cars in my country have >1% chance of getting stolen in a given year. The
incentives must be off somewhere? This is a device that could only be
triggered after theft, thus hardly any privacy concerns, and still give quite
a good location (perhaps improved with glonass and other sattelites). They
can't be found easily (so small, only transmissions after stealing) and placed
on any given wire in the car. Seems only beatable by placing the car in a cage
after theft.

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michaelt
According to [1] in the UK car thefts peaked in 1993 at 36 incidents per
thousand car-owning households, and it's now dropped to 4.

Is there really still a massive stolen car problem?

[1]
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47023003](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47023003)

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toyg
Anecdotally, there are still a few issues for the extreme ends of the market -
luxury (high effort, high returns) and bangers (very low effort, typically cut
for parts). Anything in between (“sensibly priced cars”, to use a clarksonism)
is too much effort and risk for not enough returns.

But yes, it’s nowhere as bad as it was in the ‘80s/‘90s. This has to do with
social changes (the drop in heroin use and crime, and general improvement in
living standards) as much as with technological ones (alarms installed by
default, electronic locks on injection).

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DigitalTerminal
Cool. I'm suddenly conscious of all the USB plugs that exist in my immediate
surroundings.

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nitemice
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15676737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15676737)

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jf
What's a good RF detector to get? This post ends with the author pointing out
that the implant can be detected with a cheap RF detector. I'm interested in
getting myself an RF detector to play with but I'm overwhelmed by what I see
on Amazon.

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Tepix
A CC308 from AliExpress is one of the cheapest options at less than $7.

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monkeynotes
Plot twist, cheap Chinese RF detector has snooping built in, turns off radio
when RF detector is in use, silently goes back to reporting when unit is not
in use.

You can't beat a determined opposition casually.

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logfromblammo
Buy two; use one to sniff the other?

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HeraldEmbar
I think I'm going to run 50 volts through all my usb cables when I get home.

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gruez
Sounds like a great way to fry your lightning and usb-c cables as the former
has a mfi chip, and the latter has a pull down resistor.

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Scoundreller
I guess the secure solution is to carry around your own X-Ray verified
lightning-USB dongle and high voltage fry any dumb cable you find yourself
needing.

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edoo
Or always buy two and dissect one.

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davewasthere
That's site's borked for me. Instead here's google's text-cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:O79WUSl...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:O79WUSlev1EJ:https://ha.cking.ch/s8_data_line_locator/&hl=en&gl=au&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

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bb88
FYI, if you're looking for a good usb power meter, I have this one and it
seems pretty decent.

[https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32855845265.html](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32855845265.html)

