Would you believe that you can track and even jam law enforcement radio communications using a pretty pink pager? It turns out that digital radio stations use the APCO-25 protocol can be silenced using IM-ME hardware. We’ve seen this “toy” so many times…but it continues to surprise us. Or rather, [Travis Goodspeed’s] ability to do amazing stuff with the hardware is what makes us happy.
Details of this were presented in a report at the USENIX conference a few weeks ago. Join us after the break where we’ve embedded the thirty-minute conversation. There are many interesting things inside. IM-ME can be used to decode the metadata that starts each radio communication. This means you can track who is talking to whom. But the most interesting thing for us was around 15:30 when the host, [Matt Blaze], talks about targeted jamming that can be used to change law enforcement behavior. The jammer can be set to jam only encrypted communications. This could cause an employee to turn off encryption, allowing attackers to listen to anything said on or from that radio.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW-jRRTPCuw&w=470]
[Thanks DanAdamKOF and Uhrheber]
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