RE: RFMON detection

["David Weiss" <dgw () cawdgw net>]

A radio is actually powered by the incoming radio signal. All the other
power requirements are for sound amplification and displays.

When the radio signal passes through the antenna coil, it creates both a
voltage and an oscillation in the voltage. Not only can those values be
detected with directional pickups, but they can be analyzed for
intelligence.

You could say a radio receiver becomes a weak transmitter.

In Germany, households actually pay a tax on how many radio's and
televisions are in a house. Germany has vans that occasionally drive through
neighborhoods collecting information on what's in a house and a radio or
television that is turned off will still oscillate if it gets a signal (as I
said above, they do not actually require outside power to receive).

A loose filling in a tooth, with the correct gap, can resonate to a signal
as well, and the jawbone can work as transport system for the oscillation to
reach the inner ear. That can't be detected with RF detection; you have to
stand close to the person to hear it.

The detection equipment is complicated today, but a look at vacuum diode
tubes and their basic theory will greatly enhance your understanding of how
this can be done. This used to be part of basic electronics courses, but
then that was long ago.

D. Weiss

-----Original Message-----
From: hax [mailto:uberhax () gmail com]
Sent: Friday, July 09, 2004 6:38 AM
To: Austin Godber
Cc: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: Re: RFMON detection


> Actually, you can detect what radio stations people are listening to.  I
> remember seeing it on the news that someone was collecting statistics on
> what radio stations people were listening to in their cars.  This was in
> the Phoenix area.  I will post more info once I find it again.

That's really interesting, please do post more info.

I knew when I posted the radio analogy someone was going to reply with
"but, uhh, you can do that", but I've never actually seen the process
demonstrated.

> Although it might be hard to use this to detect intruders on wireless
> networks.  It would really depend on what mechanism makes it possible.

The only practical radio sensor detection application I've seen of
this is with radar detectors and the VG2 radar-detector-detector.  I
don't understand how it works, but I'd like to.

--hax

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