Detect and disconnect WiFi cameras

Title was edited from the original to censor the mention of Airbnb (a YC company)? Really, Dang?

Say someone is renting out a room on AirBNB, and they also have some dropcams monitoring the perimeter of their house.<p>Someone rents the room, and runs this script, disabling the cameras.<p>During the stay, the property is burglarized, and there is no surveillance footage of the crime because the renter disabled the cameras.<p>That seems like an incredibly messy legal situation. Would the renter even be able to exonerate themselves? They disabled the cameras, it almost feels like they inadvertently framed themselves for a crime they didn&#x27;t commit.

And don&#x27;t forget to report those cameras to the authorities, since in many countries it is completely illegal to film people without their consent (in private places).

One easier way to detect (without jamming afterwards), for iOS at least, is to install the &quot;Fing&quot; app, connect to the wifi and scan the network. Then you will know the connected devices and their names. Chances are that cameras will have easy to recognize names on them. EDIT: you&#x27;ll get the MAC address too, so you can compare if they match camera companies.

Beside the legal issues I fear that this is a risk in a way that it could create a false sense of security. I.e. non-technical people thinking &quot;this will make sure I&#x27;m not filmed&quot; while this isn&#x27;t the case. There can be cameras not affected by the script, cameras with cables, cameras with their own storage etc. pp. Of course everyone here will say &quot;that&#x27;s obvious&quot;, but I&#x27;m not sure this is obvious for everyone.

Just need to have two separate networks: one for guests, other for security. Security network has its own hidden SSID.<p>This is not an AIRBNB issue, it&#x27;s a privacy issue anywhere you go...

I like the massive fanfare the script makes when it finds a camera.

If you&#x27;re seriously worried about this issue&#x2F;threat, you have to take into consideration non-Wi-Fi cameras also! Not to mention microphones.

That disclaimer bugs me. Just admit you don&#x27;t know what the fuck you&#x27;re talking about and to consult a lawyer before using on equipment the user doesn&#x27;t own and control. Instead it misleads the uninformed, and shows the slightly-informed you skimmed half a news article once.

To disable all cameras that only save data to the &quot;cloud&quot;, like dropcam and many others, you can also just temporarily disconnect the cable or phone wire on the outside of the house.

As someone with a bit of familiarity with the world of contemporary art, I think it&#x27;s important to see this as a provocation, not something intended for real world use. One might find Oliver&#x27;s other projects (e.g. the &quot;transparency grenade&quot;, which is an actually transparent acrylic grenade that &quot;blowns open&quot; wifi insecurity) to be a bit irresponsible or less sensitive than you would expect from a &quot;critical engineer&quot;.

Cool but some questions on the command line args:<p>Call be dumb but I have no idea what my wireless NIC is called and that&#x27;s the first arg to the script.<p>How do I find out the handle for my wireless network card (I didn&#x27;t even know it had a name), but also does anyone know why the script can&#x27;t self detect that? Don&#x27;t most people only have one?<p>Ditto for the SSID, couldn&#x27;t the script just figure out what SSID I&#x27;m connected to?<p>Asking as much for self education as anything else...

Wouldn&#x27;t 802.11w protected management frames prevent this script from working, as long as the homeowner has that enabled on their router?

Except a $10 spare smartphone can be turned into a wifi camera very easily.<p>So it only works if they are using one of those two off the shelf cameras.

The original link isn&#x27;t forwarding right from http to https, working link: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;julianoliver.com&#x2F;output&#x2F;log_2015-12-18_14-39" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;julianoliver.com&#x2F;output&#x2F;log_2015-12-18_14-39</a>

Very similar to: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;julianoliver.com&#x2F;output&#x2F;log_2014-05-30_20-52" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;julianoliver.com&#x2F;output&#x2F;log_2014-05-30_20-52</a>

That&#x27;s why you put security cameras on a separate VLAN..

Why not just scan for cameras and simply tell that there are some cams in the local network?<p>You can then search for them and simply place some cloth on it? Might be more legal.

&gt; arp-scan -I $NIC --localnet<p>If the camera runs on a separate network to which you don&#x27;t have access to, the script wouldn&#x27;t work.

You&#x27;re missing the point people! Don&#x27;t record other people who are renting your house, or tell them you&#x27;re going doing it. Detecting and disabling a camera on the network (and assuming it&#x27;s on the same subnet as any wifi you are authorized to use) is ass backwards.