Tag Archives: Microphone

Repairs You Can Print: Fixing a Rat-Attacked Mic Cord

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We’ve all been there — a steamy night in the rainforest of Papua New Guinea, sweaty slumber disturbed by the unmistakable sounds of gnawing. In the morning we discover that a rodent of unusual tastes has chewed the microphone cable of our transceiver right half in two, leaving us out of touch with base camp. If we had a nickel for every time that’s happened.

It may sound improbable, but that’s the backstory behind [Marius Taciuc]’s 3D-printed mic cord repair. Even with more mundane failure modes, the retractile cords on microphones are notoriously difficult to fix. Pretty much any of …read more

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34C3: Microphone Bugs

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Inspiration can come from many places. When [Veronica Valeros] and [Sebastian Garcia] from the MatesLab Hackerspace in Argentina learned that it took [Ai Weiwei] four years to discover his home had been bugged, they decided to have a closer look into some standard audio surveillance devices. Feeling there’s a shortage of research on the subject inside the community, they took matters in their own hands, and presented the outcome in their Spy vs. Spy: A modern study of microphone bugs operation and detection talk at 34C3. You can find the slides here, and their white paper here.

Focusing their research …read more

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Your Hard Disk As An Accidental Microphone

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We’re used to attaching peripherals to our computers, when we have a need for them to interact with the world around them. An Arduino Uno needs a shield to turn on the lights, for example. Just sometimes though there is the potential for unintended interaction between a computer and the real physical world which surrounds it, and it’s one of those moments that [Alfredo Ortega] has uncovered in his talk at the EKO Party conference in Buenos Aires. He demonstrates how a traditional spinning-rust computer hard disk interacts with vibration in its surroundings, and can either become a rudimentary microphone, …read more

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Quick and Dirty Blimp Mount for a Shotgun Mike

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Sometimes you don’t have the hardware you need, and you can either do without or let the project’s needs inspire you to create an alternative. That’s pretty sweet, and it’s even sweeter when you find a solution that’s dirt cheap.

[Chu_st] created a sub-$10 blimp mount for his shotgun mike. It consists of a PVC pipe which attaches to the microphone’s shock mount. Plastic gardening grid is used for the shell, shaped by hand into the desired blimp shape and secured with zip ties and gaffer tape. [Chu_st] suggests using nylon stocking as a wind screen. The microphone itself attaches …read more

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This is How CIA Disables Security Cameras During Hollywood-Style Operations

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In last 20 years, we have seen hundreds of caper/heist movies where spies or bank robbers hijack surveillance cameras of secure premises to either stop recording or set up an endless loop for covert operations without leaving any evidence.

Whenever I see such scenes in a movie, I wonder and ask myself: Does this happen in real-life?

Yes, it does, trust me—at least CIA agents are doing this.

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Eavesdropping Via Headphones

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We all know that speakers are microphones and microphones are speakers, right? If not, take a moment to plug your headphones into a microphone jack and yell into them. It’s not exactly hi-fi, but it works.

So it’s not a huge surprise that three security researchers in Israel have managed to turn the combination headphone and microphone input jacks that are present on most laptops into an eavesdropping device. (Paper here as PDF, with an obligatory demo video on YouTube, embedded below.) Speake(a)r is a neat proof-of-concept and a horrid pun.

There’s almost no exploit here; the just ask the …read more

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Your Headphones Can Spy On You — Even If You Have Disabled Microphone

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Have you considered the possibility that someone could be watching you through your webcam? Or Listening to all your conversations through your laptop’s microphone?

Even a bit of thought about this probability could make you feel incredibly creepy.

But most people think that they have a solution to these major issues i.e. simply covering their laptop’s webcam and microphone with tape, just

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Your Headphones Can Spy On You — Even If You Have Disabled Microphone

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Have you considered the possibility that someone could be watching you through your webcam? Or Listening to all your conversations through your laptop’s microphone?

Even a bit of thought about this probability could make you feel incredibly creepy.

But most people think that they have a solution to these major issues i.e. simply covering their laptop’s webcam and microphone with tape, just

Continue reading Your Headphones Can Spy On You — Even If You Have Disabled Microphone→

Raspberry Pi Spies On… Err… Monitors Baby

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“Quick! We’re having a baby and we need a baby monitor!” Rather than run to the local big box and plunk down cash for an off-the-shelf solution, any self-respecting hacker would rise to the challenge and hit the shop to build something like this live streaming eye-in-the-sky baby camera. Right?

At least that’s how [Antibore] handled the situation, and the results are pretty good. He designed his build around an old Raspberry Pi 2 that was hanging around. That required a WiFi adapter, and since he wanted video and audio he needed a camera and mic. The first USB mic …read more

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