Ponder this for a moment: An attacker will probably use this cable at the office of his victim. Question for 100: Does he give a fuck whether his victim gets into trouble?
I mean, he pretty much is his victim's trouble already...
There are going to be multiple factors that determine the effective broadcast range of this solution. This will include, for example, the rated broadcast power of the electronics that MG can place inside the lightning cable without being visible.
But it will likely also include consideration of the probability of inadvertent detection of the broadcast. For example, the signal strength of broadcast signal follows the 'inverse square law' - double the distance to the transmitter and the measured signal strength reduces to a quarter. But the inverse is true - when you are a metre from the transmitter, the signal strength reaches a maximum. There are all sorts of electronic devices that may be sensitive to radio interference in a way that could be detected by a user - for example a simple, old-school, transistor radio. In other words, a cunning attacker would set the broadcast strength of a transmitter to a practical minimum, in order to minimize the chances of it being detected.
It might even be simpler than that. I remember and old ps2 keylogger that transmitted off low frequency sounds using fsk. You need very little bandwidth and your capturing bursts of activity so it could be broadcast over a longer time. The guy just used a mic and some simple electronics to capture the bits.
Hell, not a lot of ways to stop this either. Cypress came out with a lists of new charger managers and chip-in-cable's for Power Delivery 3.0. They have this one that includes two usb 2.0 endpoints t
Why? A mile wifi range isn't really very much. The record is something like 300 km.
That is with highly directional and large antennae on both sides. With only a tiny crappy antenna on the receiver side and no space for a good amplifier there either, 1 mile is pretty good. That is assuming they did use a standard WiFi sender with a non-boosted signal.
The thing about tiny antennae is that they can be just as good as really big antennae. What you do is embed the antenna in a very particular kind of plastic resin. This plastic has the property that light which travels through it is significantly showed down. This makes the wavelength of any given ray of light that travels through it reduced accordingly, without changing the frequency. The wavelength of microwaves (which is what WiFi uses) in air is roughly 10cm, but it is possible, with the right plastic,
All this all has to go into a tiny connector and that is the limit here. For a cell-phone, conditions are different as you have much more length and area. Still interesting about that plastic. Got a link for it?
You can bet that when some DEFCON types say "were able to trigger payloads at over 1 mile" they had the best directional antenna they could build on their side, and the best geometry possible. With a crappy embedded antenna on the device side, a mile is about right. You might even run the embedded radio at lower power because it can't be easy to dissipate heat from inside that cable housing.
But if they can do this, in a city by the way, with a small thunderbolt/USB-C connector at a mile why do I have problems just getting a decent wifi signal from one end of the house to the other?
Well, 1) They do not have a "decent" connection, just one they can get some data over 2) They were using the best RF hardware they had (makes a huge difference) 3) They probably had a meter-long antenna precisely pointed at the receiver 4) Some walls are really hard on WiFi signals
Incidentally, you can get external directional antennas for WiFi hardware with signal connectors and that may make a lot of difference. You can also try with power-line repeaters.
But yes, WiFi is not the best part of the spectrum for
Well normally when you hack something, you will often break the regulations to do such.
Technically a website with Crappy Security, that can be bypassed by just changing the link (say https://crappysite.com/loginma... [crappysite.com]) is still technically illegal as you are suppose to only know that link after using your login name and password to login.
Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them.
over 1 mile wifi range (Score:2)
Re: (Score:0)
Because people dont buy 'generic' cables (and devices) and the Chinese are very honest about following regulation anyway...
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Why? A mile wifi range isn't really very much. The record is something like 300 km.
Re: over 1 mile wifi range (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So?
Ponder this for a moment: An attacker will probably use this cable at the office of his victim. Question for 100: Does he give a fuck whether his victim gets into trouble?
I mean, he pretty much is his victim's trouble already...
Re:over 1 mile wifi range (Score:4, Informative)
But it will likely also include consideration of the probability of inadvertent detection of the broadcast. For example, the signal strength of broadcast signal follows the 'inverse square law' - double the distance to the transmitter and the measured signal strength reduces to a quarter. But the inverse is true - when you are a metre from the transmitter, the signal strength reaches a maximum. There are all sorts of electronic devices that may be sensitive to radio interference in a way that could be detected by a user - for example a simple, old-school, transistor radio. In other words, a cunning attacker would set the broadcast strength of a transmitter to a practical minimum, in order to minimize the chances of it being detected.
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It's wifi. You're not going to actually hide it, so you hide it in plain sight.
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It might even be simpler than that. I remember and old ps2 keylogger that transmitted off low frequency sounds using fsk. You need very little bandwidth and your capturing bursts of activity so it could be broadcast over a longer time. The guy just used a mic and some simple electronics to capture the bits.
Hell, not a lot of ways to stop this either. Cypress came out with a lists of new charger managers and chip-in-cable's for Power Delivery 3.0. They have this one that includes two usb 2.0 endpoints t
Re: (Score:2)
Why? A mile wifi range isn't really very much. The record is something like 300 km.
That is with highly directional and large antennae on both sides. With only a tiny crappy antenna on the receiver side and no space for a good amplifier there either, 1 mile is pretty good. That is assuming they did use a standard WiFi sender with a non-boosted signal.
Re: over 1 mile wifi range (Score:2)
The thing about tiny antennae is that they can be just as good as really big antennae. What you do is embed the antenna in a very particular kind of plastic resin. This plastic has the property that light which travels through it is significantly showed down. This makes the wavelength of any given ray of light that travels through it reduced accordingly, without changing the frequency. The wavelength of microwaves (which is what WiFi uses) in air is roughly 10cm, but it is possible, with the right plastic,
Re: (Score:2)
All this all has to go into a tiny connector and that is the limit here. For a cell-phone, conditions are different as you have much more length and area. Still interesting about that plastic. Got a link for it?
Re: (Score:2)
You can bet that when some DEFCON types say "were able to trigger payloads at over 1 mile" they had the best directional antenna they could build on their side, and the best geometry possible. With a crappy embedded antenna on the device side, a mile is about right. You might even run the embedded radio at lower power because it can't be easy to dissipate heat from inside that cable housing.
Re: (Score:2)
But if they can do this, in a city by the way, with a small thunderbolt/USB-C connector at a mile why do I have problems just getting a decent wifi signal from one end of the house to the other?
8^)
Re: (Score:2)
Well,
1) They do not have a "decent" connection, just one they can get some data over
2) They were using the best RF hardware they had (makes a huge difference)
3) They probably had a meter-long antenna precisely pointed at the receiver
4) Some walls are really hard on WiFi signals
Incidentally, you can get external directional antennas for WiFi hardware with signal connectors and that may make a lot of difference. You can also try with power-line repeaters.
But yes, WiFi is not the best part of the spectrum for
Re: (Score:2)
The trick is to not get caught.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, that's gonna help a lot, because someone who plans to steal your passwords gives a fuck about FCC regulations.
Re: (Score:2)
Well normally when you hack something, you will often break the regulations to do such.
Technically a website with Crappy Security, that can be bypassed by just changing the link (say https://crappysite.com/loginma... [crappysite.com]) is still technically illegal as you are suppose to only know that link after using your login name and password to login.