Hackers Rebel Against Spy Cams (Civil LIberties Activists!)

BERLIN -- When the Austrian government passed a law this year allowing police to install closed-circuit surveillance cameras in public spaces without a court order, the Austrian civil liberties group Quintessenz vowed to watch the watchers.

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.

cont'd...
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,69942-0.html?tw=rss.index

Read the entire (1 page) article, good stuff!

cynicism, but the way the repukes and neocons are selling democracy is hideously reminiscent of a government sanctioned protection racket. Is this what our country is being turned into? Does anyone else smell this in the air?:scared: :hide:

:hi:

Not that I would ever do anything like that, of course...:evilgrin:



And I certainly wouldn't encourage EVERYONE else...
:evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin::evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin:
:evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin:

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. 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.

"You can use this to see if you are being watched in your daily life," said Dabrowski.

I think I'll be spending QUITE a bit of time researching this whole subject.
It's a good thing I have no life, cuz this might take awhile!