Of course wireless networks are subject to jamming attacks. Of course, therefore, a security system that uses those wireless networks will be subject to the same attacks. Why is anyone surprised? Aside from the fact it took this long for an exploit to hit the news.
Criminals (and cops and reporters...) aren't the most tech-savvy, so it's useful to know when possible attacks are actually used. Like, it took over a year (and it going viral on TikTok) for thieves outside Milwaukee to catch on that late model Kia/Hyundais are as easy to steal as 90's Hondas.
That said, I'm not convinced the criminals in this case jammed anything; she said hours were missing and car thieves aren't sticking around that long, and balaclavas are still cheap. And the techie "of course you need to hardwire everything" is extraordinarily unhelpful.
Actually being useful would be spreading knowledge that deauth attacks can be prevented with 802.11w (even other posters here don't seem to know that!), and pointing out what supports that and how to enable it. Or promoting cameras with enough local storage to mitigate being disconnected for a half hour or so, which is also useful for power outages...
Thank both of you for proving my point that you all will irrationally argue "any even marginally imperfect security is completely and utterly pointless" in literally any context.
Worrying about criminals jamming wifi is the distraction, because criminals definitely carry around microwaves and portable kilowatt power sources, or implement novel DoS attacks, all just to temporarily disconnect cameras that if it's competent, cached all the video locally anyway.
Why not worry about criminals cutting mains power? That'd kill most wired cameras even harder than battery-powered wireless ones.
> The key takeaway of our analysis is that currently there exist diverse ways of abusing SAE to inflict DoS, and, excluding software bugs, some of them are rather due to misconceptions or conjectures done while implementing the standard.
The criminals we don’t hear about because they don’t get caught go to great lengths to achieve their goals. As one person said, they have two jobs - committing the crime, and not making a mistake that can get them caught. It only takes one small slip up in most cases documented.
I think it’s a great mental exercise akin to escape rooms or Tetris.
It is my experience that local law enforcement put very little effort into solving property crime. The effort rises dramatically if the victim is a cop (or is related to one), a politician gets involved or the media reports on the crime.
As one example, after my father died, people were using his credit cards and checkbook to steal money (until the Master Death File sent his details to banks). The police said that this crime was so common that they did not investigate (nor refer anything to the district attorney) when the theft is below $250k. A casual mention that dad was a volunteer cop, and had been for 9 years lit a fire under the police and they had investigated and arrested the perps within 2 weeks.
One of the perps worked at his doctor's office and had access to his records (including payment details). She had plead to a lesser charge and when her parole officer visited her office and checked the office computer records, it turns out that he wasn't the only victim of this sort of thing (emptying dead people's bank accounts). Additionally, she was using the doctor's office computer to issue narcotics prescriptions that she also sold.
Which shows how short-sighted not investigating "this" crime is. Anyone willing to go to those lengths is probably committing multiple crimes, maybe some worse.
Today in most areas (at least in the US) Normally that means just getting away without interacting with the cops at the moment sometimes not even that is required
the defund police movement, bail reform, and many other political movements have more or less decriminalized property crime
Unless you have a gun, are violent (sometimes not even then), or steal from a politically connected person chances are the police in the US will do nothing for normal everyday theft from a normal everyday person
Anyone who is tech savvy enough to be on Hacker News isn't going to be shocked.
However MOST people don't understand the technology. As the resident IT person in my family/friends, I've been asked about this sort of thing on a regular basis. Everytime I talk them through the convenience vs security. Without fail people are surprised by the idea of being easy to "jam" wifi.
Even some of the tech savvy don't realize how cheap it is to build a deauther. I can get ESP8266 units for less than $2 each and load up pre-made deauth firmware from Github in a matter of minutes.
Heck, I've seen some projects involving trying to diy short range digital comms accidentally turn into a jammer which will mess with anything in the 2.4Ghz band. All it takes is a VCO and the wrong (or right, depending on purpose) circuit attached to it.
> However MOST people don't understand the technology.
More than that, people are being intentionally mislead by Amazon who is well aware of the massive vulnerabilities their products have, but still advertise their devices as being secure and able to protect the customer. They even have police going door to door shilling for them.
It's perfectly reasonable for people to believe tech companies and Officer Friendly when they both say a ring camera is a smart purchase and they should buy one. They should feel betrayed when they find out they bought a device that's trivial to bypass and the best Amazon has to offer by way of a solution is that they waste their time calling customer support who can do nothing for them.
Not to fear though, as it is against FCC regulations to interfere with a radio signal. We all know criminals fear the FCC more than any other law enforcement agency.
Also, this whole interference issues is like a big DUH!!! There's a label on the devices (or at least the docs provided) with the FCC logo that states that the device much accept that interference or however the labels are worded. I don't have anything within arms reach with one of those labels.
Naw, they're too busy mediating Starlink and Dish bickering, or trying to convince people 5G isn't going to give you cancer and crash planes, or reversing net neutrality.
