There seems to be too much AI content. It was fun and interesting at first but the algorithms watched me consume AI content and now that’s all they seem to send my way.
On Spotify I can now identify an AI-generated music track within the first few seconds of hearing the vocals. It’s like the early days of in-car navigation systems: only a few voices were available. The few variations of male and female voices offered allows you to spot the AI singer with ease. I’m now trying to train the playlist AI to not offer AI content.
On Instagram it’s getting harder to spot the AI generated images from the real. They’ve now mastered fingers and toes and general biology. You now have to look at the shadows, facial expressions, eyes, and the overall feel of the image. Does it look too glossy? If yes, is it a filter? Also look for perfection. Perfect skin tone and musculature in every pose screams fake or manipulation. It is getting harder to tell what is real. Welcome to the Matrix.
There’s even AI videos, including short films, news articles, white papers, and podcasts all generated by AI. Ok it was cool at first but I find myself having to hunt for genuine human created content. I look for typos, grammatical errors, and human prose. I actively go out of my way to avoid AI content. Enough is enough! I want to consume something real, created with passion, interest, and human creativity.
I’m searching for the human touch.
Category: technology
Vehicle tracking
I grew up in an area where car crime was rife. I even had my own car stolen once. Friends with nice cars would purchase GPS trackers so that if their car was stolen they would hopefully be able to find it. Assuming the thief hadn’t removed the tracker that is.
I wasn’t sure how today’s car trackers worked. The technology has probably moved on a bit so I started doing some light reading.
Essentially they make use of GPS to track their current location, utilising storage to record their location against time. Some devices can store additional information such as engine start and stop times, speed, electronics operation such as lights, windows, radio, etc. This data can then be accessed when a car returns to base or by being transmitted via a communication method such as via a wireless network when near a specific base station or other cellular communications. The devices may be self-powered via a battery or hook into the vehicle’s electrics in order to receive power from the car battery. Some may use their own battery when the car is turned off and charge from the car battery when the car is operational.
The vehicle owner can access the data from the tracker in near real time via a web site or app. Depending on the device and features offered it can report nothing more than current location to location, speed, and car telematics.
Vehicle tracking is popular among vehicle rental companies, fleet management, and security vehicle companies such as those offering to transport money, valuables or people.
Trackers that feature GPS and recording only are referred to as passive devices. They need to be accessed physically in order to access the recorded data. Active devices can transmit data using cellular or satellite communications and do not require physical access.
Commercial trackers come in various shapes and sizes and range from cheap passive models that connect to the car battery, to those that try to disguise themselves as part of the car and utilise active technology to broadcast their position and other data in near real time or whenever they have a strong enough signal. They tend to be waterproof and dust proof, may be made of a heat-proof material, especially if residing in the engine compartment, and may have no discernable markings to identify themselves as a tracking device.
Other types of tracker may also be used such as an asset tracker. These can be in the form of adhesive stickers that can be stuck to a car’s windshield, or tiles that can be left in the glove box or other storage area of the vehicle. These are relatively cheap and are harder for a potential thief to locate.
Pet chipping
I decided to look into pet microchipping after reading an article about a modern detective who tracked down a married couple who committed fraud then left their home country to avoid the authorities. The detective succeeded where others failed in tracking them down after learning that their expensive dog was chipped. The dog had a unique medical condition requiring specific drugs. He tracked the pet initially via its medical requirements to a veterinary clinic in another county and then upon learning of the pets next visit – with a carer not the owners – they then accessed the animals microchip and were able to ascertain the owners new address leading to arrest.
How does the technology work?
Essentially a microchip the size of a grain of rice coated in a protective layer is injected under the skin of the animal at the back of the neck. Utilising passive radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology that conforms to international standards, the chip can be read by a hand-held scanner generating the power required by the chip to send back a unique 15-digit number. This number can then be fed into various pet databases to access the owner’s details. The start of the number usually indicates the country of origin followed by the microchip manufacturer.
Since the 6th of April 2016, all dogs in the UK must be microchipped, and from the 10th of June 2024 all cats in the UK must also be microchipped. Dogs and cats in the UK found without a chip can lead to a fine for the registered owner.
Those with access to the databases such as vets are not permitted to divulge information about the owner to anyone but the registered owner.
Scanners can be purchased freely as the microchips only store the unique ID number. The real data is stored in the pet databases and generally consist of the pet’s name, the owner’s name, address, and contact details.
Products such as automated dog and cat flaps can contain scanners that can read the microchips as the pet approaches so that only authorised pets may enter or leave the property.
Ways drones could be used and abused
I’ve been thinking about drones recently. I have a friend that races them, a neighbour that has one to map out the local area, and I own a tiny in-door one myself. Drones seem to be growing in popularity and so I started looking into the security implications of drones and noted all the ways that drones could be hacked, used and abused.
Here’s my list:
– Crashed on purpose or flown into obstacles, vehicles, or people.
– Used for remote surveillance, monitoring, eavesdropping, shoulder-surfing of keypad entry use, invasion of personal privacy.
– To steal other drones using techniques such as jamming and spoofing. See Samy Kamkar’s Skyjack experiment as an example.
– To steal on-board data from other drones. Drones have digital storage for video, image, and audio recorded data. This could be stolen. Also the interception of the data streams that a drone sends back to its base station could be intercepted.
– To steal wireless data. Drones can be used to intercept Wifi, Bluetooth, RFID, ZigBee, and any other wireless data by carrying the appropriate hacking tools and communications equipment. The drone can be flown within range of the target communications signals and then spoof and hack its way in. It could even be flown onto an office building roof in order to become a WiFi pineapple device then return to base with no human required to access the target location.
– To deliver contraband across borders, fences, and other restricted areas.
– To hack vehicles by flying above the vehicle and employing vehicle hacking technology.
– To create a communications network. Instead of using the cell towers of a communications company a network of drones with specialist on-board software and equipment could act as a mobile cell network to provide communications for an organisation preventing eavesdropping from the authorities.
– To map out locations and buildings in greater detail than Google streetview and Google Earth can offer.
– To disable security cameras in an area by locating the cameras and using various techniques such as IR to disable the cameras for a period of time before criminals access the location.
– To assist with heists from vehicle hijacks to museum robberies.
Can you think of any others?
Who called me
Who called me
When you work with computers and possess at least one certification in cyber security, you tend to have friends or family that call or message you on occasion asking you to trace a phone number for them as if you are some form of digital private eye.
The truth is that only the authorities with the assistance of the telecom providers can legally do that. All these websites that say they can trace any number in the world for you are lying. They are just scams after your money. At best they have scraped open source content for numbers and can tell you the network provider, country of origin, and anything that is available online for free. Maybe they’ve concatenated and absorbed phone directories and public domain phone number repositories. They certainly can’t trace an unlisted number for you.
That said, if the number does have a footprint of some kind in the public domain then there are ways of finding it. Using Google Dorking to scour search engine data may uncover something useful. Governmental company registration databases that are open to the public may also reveal data. Whois records, club memberships, company websites, etc.
The phone number is just a character string. Play with the format when searching. For example if you were called by 07709 123456 and you are in the UK you could search for exact string matches of:
07709 123456
07709123456
7709 123456
7709123456
44 07709 123456
44 7709 123456
4407709123456
447709123456
Google for OSINT tools and techniques related to phone numbers for more suggestions.
AI generated music
Spotify has been suggesting a lot of AI generated music of late and I’m getting better at spotting it. Or at least I think I am. I add what I like to my playlist.
When I hear that metallic edge that almost sounds like a distortion to the human voice, almost robotic like certain frequencies have been removed, I think that yes this is AI but I still have to check. Some artists are honest and clearly state that they used AI in its creation. Others even list the AI tools they used to create both the music, lyrics, and supporting artwork. Others you have to dig deeper. A one-person creation that features an entire band plus vocals, sometimes male and female, with amazing artwork and even a music video? AI.
There are of course negatives to AI created music. The creator may have no musical talent whatsoever. They are a master of the prompt only. You can’t see the band live as they don’t exist. Air guitar seems somewhat fake, as there is no actual guitar involved. Just a load of ones and zeroes. But if you enjoy it, what’s the harm?
What are your thoughts on AI generated music?
Locked out of a Tesla
A neighbour was locked out of their Tesla. I’m not exactly sure how that happened. They were trying to explain that their phone died and they didn’t have their “card” on them.
Apparently, realising their phone battery was about to die they ran to their car in order to charge it only to fail to reach it in time. The phone won’t turn on and therefore they can’t unlock their car. WTF? Unlike old school vehicles that have a mechanical backup key for getting inside your vehicle if the battery dies, this Tesla owner was out of luck. Unless she could charge her phone she wasn’t getting into her car anytime soon.
Smart TVs
I own a few smart TVs. Not all remain so. Some manufacturers stop supporting them after a while. They stop receiving updates or the apps stop working. Eventually nothing works and they become a monitor, a screen.
You end up sourcing another device to re-enable the feeds you subscribe to. A USB / HDMI stick, a games console, or a set-top box of some kind. The smartness moving outside of the screen hardware into an externally connected device.
Some retailers offer up to 5-years cover on the hardware, but not for the software. That could end in a year or maybe two if you are lucky.
Your smart TVs are basically PCs with no upgrade potential. At some point the manufacturer will cease all support and you can’t upgrade it. Better to buy a large computer monitor and have the smart part in something external that can be upgraded or is cheaper to replace.