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Los Angeles police department warns residents after spike in burglaries using Wi-Fi jammers that disable security cameras, smart doorbells
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- Authors
- Mark Tyson
- Published
- Jul 20 2024
- Word count
- 441 words
As the article suggests, definitely a good argument for setting up doorbells, cameras, etc on ethernet, which is going to be pretty tamper-proof.
I wonder if these jammers also work on Z-wave, Zigbee, etc.
A proper jammer could easily hit the 800mhz that Z-wave and ZigBee are down on but that would depend on the thief knowing ahead of time what you're using or just even knowing that there are multiple standards and such.
Short answer, yeah, they can be jammed. You can get something that hits 433mhz - 5Ghz on Alibaba for $50. Not sure what kind of setup they're running though.
I'm actually rather surprised to hear PoE (Power over Ethernet) isn't standard for all of those applications.
These applications are not selling security. They are selling either:
They are not designed to be used for actual home security. The person that has actual threats against them (politicians, activists) is not relying on a plug and play Ring doorbell.
That isn't to say that the products are useless. They work fine for their intended purpose. They just aren't designed to be attacked. Most of our "security" measures work this way. A solid kick would get through most front doors or windows, but they still have locks on the handles.
To your point, do these do much of anything? It's my impression that security cameras, Rings, etc can record crime and get it posted to nextdoor, but does anything actually come of it? I saw it effective once so far, when a yard sign was stolen by a drunk neighbor, but that's about it.
Even when the cops have perfect information, they're rare to act on it. I've been burgled twice in the distance past, the cops had a car make and model, license plate in one and knew the preparator in the other, but nothing came of either. In either case, my insurance company was more useful than the police.
I'm sure it varies by region and the departments over them, but police definitely use them when a violent crime occurs, so one could see it as a benefit to the community. I previously worked for a company that installed security and surveillance systems and one time I had to go to court as a witness, mostly as a chain of evidence thing, for footage that they were using in a murder case. The police department did use footage for some property crimes but I suspect they weren't going hard on the investigative side, and it may have depended on who the victim was (rich neighborhoods vs average etc.).
Also sometimes I've encountered situations where people can make use of the footage to bring about a resolution that doesn't require police. Mostly for civil litigation like neighbors causing damages or such.
The other aspect of it is that they're fairly decent at pairing with a security system for people who like having a security system anyhow. It's sort of a given with security systems that people are going to get a false alarm eventually, whether it be faulty hardware or unpredictable environments etc. and if it happens when that person isn't home, it's common to be concerned about whether it truly was a false alarm or not. It might be a pet that set off the motion detector, or maybe someone came in through a window, one is significantly more likely than the other but if you aren't there to see it yourself, it can be worrying to not know for sure. It's actually one of the downsides of just a standalone security system, people get complacent about them because 99% of the time nothing happens, and the 1% that it does, you assume it's nothing and just a false alarm, but then the time that something does happen it gets disregarded initially because it's easier to assume it's not something actually happening than it is to go check it out and verify if it was something going on.
Another big one that I saw systems installed for were breakups/divorces where the ex was making threats or in some way trying to retaliate. Probably helps with divorce courts or restraining orders and maybe just deters an ex from becoming a stalker if they know they're going to get seen lurking around.
To expand on this, we have a four camera setup in our home. Two of these cameras watch the front of the house (one looking up the street one way, one the other), on watches the cooking area (it's useful when using appliances with a non-determined cooking timer, such as pressure cookers), and one watches the laundry and dishwashing.
The two outward facing cameras in the front could be considered security, but they're, in my mind, an extension of the front windows... they give me (a homebody) a view of and connection to the neighborhood. When expecting deliveries (I get my groceries delivered in addition to any internet shopping), they're especially useful.
Three of these cameras are wired to a router, one is wifi. Guess which one has to be reset periodically?
It is for business and commercial usage, but in homes, wireless is popular because a lot of houses aren’t even wired for ethernet, much less have PoE capable routers installed. Most renters also can’t change that even if they want to, and where hiring a specialist is best for installing PoE equipment for most people, just about anybody can get battery powered wireless devices set up and running.
And so wireless devices proliferate, despite their shortcomings.
Are there devices for platforms like Home Assistant that will sound an alarm when wifi signal jamming is detected? Does wifi jamming even produce a distinct fingerprint?
You could rig something up in HA that would alert you if a device lost its connection, but you would probably want to disable it within a few days after the number of false positives from normal signal dropout or power saving timeouts on the devices.
I have a Nest doorbell waiting to install but the Blink one on my house does notify me if it goes offline. I don't really pay attention to those notifications which is one reason I want to switch to the Google version (as that's my ecosystem)
ETA: So I don't know that it would know if it was jammed, but it should know if it can't communicate.
I wonder if you could just set up a deadman’s switch? Just rig the alarm to go off if one or more cameras can’t be reached.
RSSI will increase significantly with wideband jamming. If you sniff WiFi traffic, detect increased RSSI and do not really see any valid packets, you are most probably being jammed.
There is not real fingerprint, though. Well unless the jammer does something more complicated than simple white noise.
I guess if it works then it works, but isn’t signal jamming like a federal offence or something? All fun and games if you don’t get caught, but I feel like going from burglary to signal jamming is a huge step up in severity?
I have lived in enough dense housing situations to know that microwave ovens are more than enough to jam 2.4GHz wifi for a reasonable radius, and people aren't getting arrested for jamming their neighbors wifi. Actually being charged for that seems unlikely to me when you have an easy burglary charge to shoot for.
Intent tends to matter a lot in the law. So of course nobody is getting arrested for inadvertently "jamming" their neighbors' wifi when they use their microwave oven. But that doesn't mean laws related to intentional jamming for malicious purposes aren't or will never be applied when actually appropriate. And if one of these burglars who is now known to be using a wifi jammer gets caught, I strongly suspect that extra offenses related to signal jamming will get added to their charges, just to make an example of them.
p.s. Relevant link, @ThrowdoBaggins, since you asked if it's a federal offense:
FCC CONSUMER ALERT: Using or Importing Jammers is Illegal
And it even specifically mentions Wi-Fi later in the alert [emphasis mine]:
Aaaaaand now I’m picturing a bunch of burglars rocking up to a residence with a bunch of cheap microwave ovens and powering them all on at once