[00:16.850 --> 00:23.570]  First off, I want to thank Thomas Icom, who couldn't be here, for coming up with the idea for this panel.
[00:24.930 --> 00:33.790]  The topic is primarily about how to extend our limited senses to be able to see and hear things that we normally can't, that are around us.
[00:33.930 --> 00:35.950]  And there's a lot of ways to do that.
[00:36.070 --> 00:42.090]  Some are legal, some are not so legal, so this discussion is for educational purposes only.
[00:43.150 --> 00:49.210]  I'll let other folks introduce themselves and we can start hacking the invisible world.
[00:49.930 --> 00:52.770]  My name is Craig Harkins, I'm from Ottawa, Ontario.
[00:55.330 --> 00:56.690]  One Canadian, excellent.
[00:58.310 --> 01:05.350]  And I play around mostly on the lower frequencies, low wave, long wave, medium wave, short wave area.
[01:05.350 --> 01:10.930]  And that's where I fiddle around with and experiment and toy around with, legally then.
[01:12.030 --> 01:12.590]  Yeah, legally.
[01:15.010 --> 01:18.970]  Okay, I'm Barry, Barry Rails from Instagram, Netherlands.
[01:20.130 --> 01:27.730]  My interests are a little bit higher than this interest, because my interests go from 30 MHz to about 3 GHz.
[01:27.730 --> 01:35.030]  That's where a lot of the communications happen, that are in the area around you.
[01:35.150 --> 01:38.890]  And the short wave, you can be listening to something that's on the other side of the world.
[01:39.170 --> 01:42.190]  In these bands, normally, it's pretty new.
[01:42.530 --> 01:44.690]  So that's mostly what I'm interested in.
[01:45.790 --> 01:50.650]  I like to drive around in my car and have all these gear hooked up.
[01:51.830 --> 01:55.870]  And we'll see some of these counters and the spectrum analyzer.
[01:56.050 --> 02:00.970]  And I like to explore what's actually happening around me.
[02:01.130 --> 02:03.790]  And sometimes you run into some real interesting stuff.
[02:04.030 --> 02:06.050]  But we'll talk more about that.
[02:06.050 --> 02:09.910]  There's a whole lot of stuff going on around us that isn't immediately apparent.
[02:09.910 --> 02:14.650]  And that all falls under what's called the electromagnetic spectrum.
[02:15.930 --> 02:21.630]  Basically, everything you see here and radio is traveling through the air, obviously.
[02:21.910 --> 02:23.470]  And it's at different frequencies.
[02:23.630 --> 02:29.230]  What you see on the chart here is United States frequency allocations.
[02:29.510 --> 02:37.610]  The Department of Commerce in this country regulates and dictates who can use what frequencies for what purposes.
[02:37.610 --> 02:47.550]  And this goes all the way from very, very low frequencies, which are sometimes used by submarines for communicating to their home base.
[02:48.010 --> 02:52.790]  Way up to light frequencies and frequencies well above visible light.
[02:53.010 --> 03:01.690]  So we're going to cover the gamut from VLF to beyond light, like X-rays, microwaves, that sort of thing.
[03:04.530 --> 03:07.350]  We'll probably start in order of frequency.
[03:07.550 --> 03:08.990]  I guess that seems to make more sense.
[03:09.430 --> 03:12.110]  You want to start at the high end and go down or bottom up?
[03:12.850 --> 03:13.690]  Bottom up, I think.
[03:13.730 --> 03:14.030]  Bottom up.
[03:14.130 --> 03:15.190]  I'm already there on the screen.
[03:18.250 --> 03:21.930]  Can you scan to the left a little bit to see the beginning of the ELF frequencies?
[03:27.610 --> 03:29.770]  I don't use laptops, I'm sorry.
[03:35.090 --> 03:46.970]  Barry, from your experiences of monitoring, I know you're a fan of the higher frequencies, but what extremely low ELF or VLF frequencies applications have you come across?
[03:48.430 --> 03:52.750]  Well, not a lot, since I don't like to listen beyond 30 megahertz.
[03:53.350 --> 03:53.430]  Okay.
[03:53.570 --> 04:03.830]  I listen to navigational beacons, which are airport beacons that broadcast their three-letter airport designation, like JFK in Morse code.
[04:04.070 --> 04:05.050]  And it's pretty interesting.
[04:05.110 --> 04:10.210]  You can pick these beacons up from all over the country, because the long waves travel a long distance.
[04:10.530 --> 04:14.970]  And it's pretty challenging, because at those very low frequencies, your antennas have to be...
[04:15.490 --> 04:16.130]  Miles long.
[04:16.130 --> 04:17.070]  It's very, very long.
[04:17.210 --> 04:19.270]  You don't have to have a resonant antenna, but it helps.
[04:19.770 --> 04:23.550]  And we're talking... the wavelengths are literally miles, miles long.
[04:23.870 --> 04:35.910]  Particularly helpful for submarines to communicate, because they're underwater, and just because of the way the frequencies behave, it's useful for getting messages to submarines that aren't...
[04:37.050 --> 04:38.730]  They don't want the enemy to locate.
[04:39.530 --> 04:41.910]  VLF frequencies are a little bit higher.
[04:44.330 --> 04:49.810]  Go up to under one megahertz, about under one million cycles per second.
[04:50.430 --> 04:53.950]  And then we go up to medium wave frequencies, which everybody here is familiar with.
[04:54.210 --> 04:59.130]  Medium wave often here referred to as AM, AM radio band, broadcast band.
[04:59.890 --> 05:03.350]  Like 1010 winds, for instance, is at about one megahertz.
[05:03.510 --> 05:04.590]  One thousand... sorry.
[05:05.350 --> 05:05.670]  One...
[05:05.670 --> 05:06.210]  Kilohertz.
[05:06.350 --> 05:07.350]  One thousand kilohertz.
[05:07.550 --> 05:08.690]  One thousand ten kilohertz.
[05:09.150 --> 05:10.910]  Which is, you know, 1.01 megahertz.
[05:11.570 --> 05:14.210]  And, you know, everybody listens to that, more or less.
[05:14.510 --> 05:20.390]  Above that, you're going to have VHF frequencies, which generally go from about three to 30 megahertz.
[05:20.830 --> 05:25.190]  And, uh, there's, uh, CB radio is in there, and shortwave radio is in there.
[05:25.330 --> 05:27.490]  We did a couple of panel discussions, including shortwave.
[05:27.970 --> 05:33.590]  And, uh, we brought along a couple of examples of, uh, of use of the shortwave, uh, shortwave spectrum.
[05:33.810 --> 05:35.090]  Did you bring your, uh, Icom down?
[05:35.330 --> 05:35.810]  No, I did not.
[05:35.890 --> 05:36.110]  Okay.
[05:36.350 --> 05:37.710]  Well, we have a, uh...
[05:37.710 --> 05:45.250]  Those of you who were at the pirate radio one at 10 o'clock this morning, for those who have awoken, I had, I did have several transmitters down there, uh, that I used for my pirate radio operations.
[05:45.770 --> 05:47.970]  And I do have one here, this is called a Grenade.
[05:48.210 --> 05:49.290]  It's an AM transmitter.
[05:50.150 --> 05:53.750]  It's a four, uh, 10 watts carrier, and will swing up to 40 watts.
[05:54.550 --> 05:57.130]  Uh, several local pirate, several pilots use these.
[05:57.270 --> 05:58.290]  They're crystal controlled.
[05:58.510 --> 05:59.450]  Are you sticking out of the camera?
[06:00.790 --> 06:02.330]  Uh, it's crystal controlled.
[06:02.890 --> 06:03.330]  Portable.
[06:03.510 --> 06:04.130]  Totally portable.
[06:04.530 --> 06:08.130]  Uh, little gel cell battery pack, and you can, uh...
[06:08.130 --> 06:08.570]  Oh, sorry.
[06:08.810 --> 06:09.510]  I guess that would help.
[06:11.090 --> 06:11.530]  Oh.
[06:11.910 --> 06:12.590]  Oh, pretty.
[06:13.350 --> 06:14.490]  Is that projector again?
[06:14.490 --> 06:15.190]  Yeah.
[06:15.190 --> 06:16.630]  It's a pretty unassuming box.
[06:16.810 --> 06:16.970]  Really?
[06:17.190 --> 06:18.170]  Yeah, it's, uh...
[06:18.170 --> 06:21.970]  It was made by a gentleman by the name of Radio Animal, who's, uh, totally left the radio hobby.
[06:22.150 --> 06:26.190]  It's originally a breadboarded version of a 1940s tube transmitter.
[06:26.670 --> 06:29.810]  And he, uh, converted everything over to solid state.
[06:30.150 --> 06:41.490]  And to protect his, his work, he filed off all of the, uh, all of the, uh, designators on all of the chips and everything inside, and potted everything so you can't even figure it out yourself.
[06:42.030 --> 06:42.350]  There we go.
[06:42.350 --> 06:42.430]  Thanks.
[06:43.130 --> 06:45.150]  Uh, they're fun to play with on shortwave.
[06:45.310 --> 06:50.830]  Other things are, uh, on shortwave, uh, that I play around with are also, uh, what are called spy numbers stations.
[06:51.290 --> 06:57.830]  These are, uh, a lot of government agencies from around the world, they have, uh, coded spy stations.
[06:57.830 --> 07:05.370]  Which are repeated groups of numbers, which are in code, like they, uh, uh, uh, five number groups.
[07:05.490 --> 07:05.570]  Yeah.
[07:05.710 --> 07:07.110]  Five number groups or letter groups.
[07:07.390 --> 07:10.710]  And they, uh, make up their messages like that.
[07:10.930 --> 07:12.830]  And we also play around with them.
[07:13.330 --> 07:17.830]  Uh, you'll, uh, you'll, uh, you'll, you'll, you'll, a lot of people here are obviously familiar with, uh, cryptography.
[07:18.110 --> 07:29.430]  And, uh, that's, uh, that's probably one of the oldest uses of, uh, uh, uh, cryptography, uh, in, in, uh, you know, in this century is a, is a crypto over, uh, over shortwave.
[07:29.750 --> 07:37.550]  Uh, the intelligence agencies around the world continue to use shortwave as a, as a medium for getting encrypted messages to their operatives in various countries.
[07:37.730 --> 07:45.490]  And you can hear these messages anywhere between, uh, three and 30 megahertz on a, on a standard shortwave radio that could cost anywhere from, uh, $50 on up.
[07:45.970 --> 07:46.650]  And, uh, they're kind of eerie.
[07:46.770 --> 07:49.810]  You'll just hear these, uh, five, five number groups being right off to you.
[07:49.890 --> 07:51.770]  We were gonna try to hook up some audio and play that.
[07:51.890 --> 07:53.510]  I'm not sure if we can, we can do that.
[07:53.670 --> 07:57.570]  But in any case, uh, it's, it's done with a, like a one-time pad encryption scheme.
[07:57.750 --> 07:59.570]  The, uh, the key changes every day.
[08:00.090 --> 08:03.410]  And, uh, and no one's gonna decrypt them because it's a, it's a new key every day.
[08:03.410 --> 08:12.910]  But, uh, there is, uh, there is government agencies that, uh, like the NSA, for instance, they, uh, they actually try to, uh, analyze these messages and figure out what, what this other country is sending to who.
[08:13.690 --> 08:16.270]  Uh, whereas we play around with that, uh, as well.
[08:16.370 --> 08:19.150]  We create our own and throw them on the air.
[08:19.230 --> 08:29.650]  There's a, a famous one that we do is, uh, Attention 69, which is, uh, a, a fake version of the Spanish Attention Number Station, which is all, is five letters, uh, five number station in Spanish.
[08:29.650 --> 08:38.770]  At Attention 69, we usually play that right afterwards or in that time slot where it normally appears at a higher power level, just to screw the NSA up and keep them busy.
[08:39.230 --> 08:45.910]  This, uh, this particular transmitter is only about 10 watts, but, uh, it has reached, uh, listeners about 500 miles away in, in different directions.
[08:46.290 --> 08:48.830]  So, it's, uh, it's pretty surprising how much you can accomplish.
[08:48.830 --> 08:54.290]  There's a good book you can, uh, you can, if you want to learn more about shortwave, called, uh, Passport to World Band Radio.
[08:54.630 --> 08:55.690]  It's highly recommended.
[08:55.990 --> 09:01.030]  I think we, uh, we gave away this book, uh, on, uh, off the hook as a premium, uh, uh, last year.
[09:01.230 --> 09:02.950]  And, uh, it's, uh, it's very thorough.
[09:03.110 --> 09:08.590]  There's about four or five hundred pages, uh, go into detail, uh, shortwave radio stations around the world, broadcast stations.
[09:08.950 --> 09:14.630]  Um, there's utility stations, which aren't intended for, uh, uh, uh, you know, private people to listen to.
[09:14.630 --> 09:17.950]  They're, uh, like, governments communicating, uh, that sort of thing.
[09:18.110 --> 09:20.690]  But, uh, there's, uh, a lot of books on this subject.
[09:20.810 --> 09:22.590]  Here's a book called The Underground Frequency Guide.
[09:23.150 --> 09:26.730]  Um, you can do a search on the web for a keyword, uh, enigma.
[09:26.970 --> 09:27.330]  Yes.
[09:27.510 --> 09:34.930]  And, uh, you'll find, uh, it's a group of people who, uh, who monitor these unusual shortwave signals and, uh, try to discover their origin and purpose.
[09:35.810 --> 09:38.950]  European Numbers Gathering and Mathematical Analysis.
[09:40.070 --> 09:48.570]  Uh, now we're up to the VHF frequencies, which are commonly used by, uh, uh, uh, paging companies, uh, police.
[09:48.950 --> 09:50.510]  Uh, they're starting to move up in frequency.
[09:50.830 --> 09:51.650]  Business band.
[09:52.150 --> 09:52.930]  Your dog catchers.
[09:53.010 --> 09:53.850]  Two-way radio operator.
[09:54.010 --> 09:57.050]  Two-way, uh, you know, business, uh, like a fleet dispatch.
[09:57.290 --> 09:58.790]  Taxi cabs might use VHF.
[09:59.390 --> 10:05.630]  Um, amateur radio operators have the, uh, the two-meter hand band, which is from 144 to 148 megahertz in this country.
[10:06.470 --> 10:13.950]  Uh, you can, uh, uh, here's an example of, uh, of a receiver that's capable of tuning VHF frequency.
[10:14.490 --> 10:16.610]  All the way up to, uh, UHF frequencies.
[10:17.070 --> 10:18.370]  I'm gonna zoom in on this thing.
[10:26.180 --> 10:28.480]  This is a, uh, Yaesu VR500.
[10:29.300 --> 10:31.020]  About the size of a pack of cigarettes.
[10:31.500 --> 10:33.040]  And, uh, fits easily in your pocket.
[10:33.220 --> 10:36.300]  And it'll, uh, let you receive, uh, all the way up to 1,300 megahertz.
[10:36.720 --> 10:38.060]  There's a VHF frequency in there.
[10:38.160 --> 10:40.580]  It's the, uh, SPCA of, uh, New York.
[10:40.720 --> 10:41.840]  Listen to your dog catcher.
[10:42.440 --> 10:45.220]  Uh, it's, uh, New York prison frequency.
[10:45.620 --> 10:47.060]  It's Rikers Island and so forth.
[10:47.060 --> 10:52.960]  Uh, one nice thing about this radio is, uh, despite its low price, uh, just a couple hundred dollars.
[10:53.280 --> 10:56.440]  You can, uh, interface it with, uh, with your, uh, PC.
[10:56.620 --> 10:58.260]  And then if there's Windows software you can get for it too.
[10:58.360 --> 11:00.220]  I'm sorry, uh, Mac software you can get for it too.
[11:00.360 --> 11:00.780]  Which is free.
[11:01.260 --> 11:05.360]  And, uh, you can, uh, swap frequency files with people around, uh, around the world.
[11:05.480 --> 11:09.180]  And if you're gonna be traveling somewhere, you can, uh, just download frequencies and have them programmed.
[11:09.300 --> 11:09.960]  It stores a thousand.
[11:09.960 --> 11:12.560]  This, uh, these frequencies are from the New York area.
[11:12.800 --> 11:15.500]  And I, uh, borrowed them from a friend and put them in there.
[11:15.620 --> 11:18.160]  So when I was up here, I could hear what was going on around us.
[11:18.320 --> 11:25.420]  Uh, Barry, you're, you're, this is starting getting your, your specialty is frequency ranges, uh, uh, uh, UHF and on up.
[11:25.600 --> 11:30.280]  What do you start explaining the kind of stuff you, uh, you hear in Europe, uh, UHF and above?
[11:30.280 --> 11:30.900]  Yeah.
[11:31.680 --> 11:37.160]  Um, in the Netherlands, the police uses the 80 megahertz band, which is really low.
[11:37.340 --> 11:45.980]  And a lot of people here don't even, can't even receive it because in the scanners here that are not full band, uh, you can't even receive 80 megahertz.
[11:46.140 --> 11:50.580]  All the receivers have 30 megahertz and then a gap and then going higher.
[11:51.000 --> 11:58.800]  But in the Netherlands, the police uses up till now, um, uh, clear voice, analog, uh, signaling in 80 megahertz.
[11:58.800 --> 12:08.440]  Uh, that's also because the Netherlands is flat and the 80 megahertz makes perfect for, uh, medium range communication between police vehicles, for instance.
[12:08.880 --> 12:12.760]  Uh, but they're now covering when, uh, Europe is getting united.
[12:13.000 --> 12:17.560]  They're now making, uh, a digital system called Tetra or Tetrapol.
[12:17.720 --> 12:18.840]  There's actually two systems.
[12:19.560 --> 12:30.360]  And, um, it's a digitally scrambled, uh, communication network that has, uh, properties of, of, uh, uh, close to frequency hopping.
[12:30.640 --> 12:32.500]  It's not on one steady channel.
[12:33.220 --> 12:46.380]  Uh, and, and yeah, they're really making work of, of people listening to, uh, police communications, of getting that out of the way, even for the normal, uh, police communications business that I think should be open to the public.
[12:46.600 --> 12:52.240]  But, and, um, yeah, that's, that's what's going on in, in and around the Netherlands at this moment.
[12:52.240 --> 12:59.620]  Um, what are your feelings, uh, you just sort of touched on your feelings regarding, uh, the openness of, uh, of, uh, two-way radio communications, Barry?
[12:59.840 --> 13:09.900]  Uh, uh, uh, and I know in this country, uh, a lot of law enforcement agencies, especially since September 11th, are moving towards, uh, making their transmissions, uh, digital, as opposed to analog, and, uh, even encrypting them.
[13:10.280 --> 13:24.300]  Now, since, uh, um, you know, we as citizens in these various countries pay for these systems and pay for the salaries of the, uh, of the agencies operating them, um, do you feel there, uh, where, where do you feel the line should be between, uh, what should be,
[13:24.500 --> 13:30.300]  uh, what should be legally heard by, uh, citizens, and, uh, what can you get private?
[13:31.240 --> 13:37.780]  Well, the way I used my radio gear after the September 11 events, because it really freaked me.
[13:37.940 --> 13:42.100]  I mean, this thing, it, it drove me, uh, slight to paranoia.
[13:42.100 --> 13:45.720]  Like, oh my god, you know, the world is not safe anymore.
[13:46.580 --> 13:52.460]  And, uh, whenever I hear the big bang or something, I just turn on my scanner and listen to what's going on.
[13:52.560 --> 13:54.880]  Oh, okay, uh, some car crashed to a tree.
[13:55.100 --> 13:56.320]  Oh, that's all.
[13:56.860 --> 14:03.300]  Um, so, for me, it's also a, a backup of, of keeping close to contact of what's going on.
[14:03.620 --> 14:12.080]  And once it's all, uh, encrypted, and you can't receive it anymore, I think, yeah, it will be, uh, um, losing what's going on.
[14:12.080 --> 14:13.080]  What's going on around you.
[14:13.880 --> 14:16.400]  And I, personally, I think that's really a bad thing.
[14:16.600 --> 14:25.780]  Of course, I understand there's some special ops that, uh, yeah, that, that people don't listen, not supposed to listen to because it's technical, uh, information.
[14:25.780 --> 14:32.660]  But for the, for the plainclothes police going to rescue a cat that's in a tree, I don't think that, that should be encrypted.
[14:34.160 --> 14:42.500]  Okay, uh, obviously, if you want to listen to, uh, something that's on the, uh, on the airwaves, you, uh, you need to know what frequency it's on.
[14:42.800 --> 14:55.340]  And, uh, sometimes, uh, you're going to have an idea, a general range of, of frequencies, you know, that, that particular, if I'm looking at an antenna or something, you can tell from the length of it, it's rough wavelength and, and get an idea for what frequency band it might be in.
[14:55.340 --> 15:00.220]  But if you're looking for the exact frequency and you want to find it, uh, you can use a device called a frequency counter.
[15:00.740 --> 15:01.940]  And, uh, we have one here.
[15:02.300 --> 15:04.040]  I think you've got one of these too, don't Barry?
[15:04.200 --> 15:04.800]  The same model?
[15:05.120 --> 15:07.240]  Yeah, I, I didn't dare to bring it with me.
[15:07.440 --> 15:09.520]  Uh, I had problems with the picks and the locks already.
[15:09.540 --> 15:11.920]  So I left all my scanner gears alone.
[15:12.400 --> 15:18.260]  But, uh, I, I have this exact model and, uh, I have a special mount in my car where I just clip it in.
[15:18.540 --> 15:33.500]  And, uh, when I drive through the city or the, the country, uh, everything that's around me in a few hundred meters, I don't know the yards or the, but anyway, anything that's, that's most of all in line of sight in the street, if something is communicating most of the time,
[15:34.100 --> 15:39.700]  the counter will just catch it and grab it and make a little alert and tell you the frequency.
[15:40.020 --> 15:43.360]  Then I quickly punch it up into my scanner and listen to it.
[15:43.540 --> 15:51.440]  But there are some models of the auto scout that you can't hook, that will automatically reaction to and they call it that will too in your, your, uh, scanner.
[15:51.440 --> 15:57.660]  So as soon as that somebody keys their microphone, about a half a second later, it'll automatically tune your scanner.
[15:57.800 --> 15:59.220]  So you're now listening to what they're talking.
[15:59.440 --> 16:02.260]  Well, the problem sometimes is that it is not exactly.
[16:02.680 --> 16:09.740]  If it says it's, uh, on 170.5572, then it's on 550 and you get a little bit, uh, yeah.
[16:09.860 --> 16:11.260]  Spin around until you actually get it.
[16:11.540 --> 16:12.620]  But you do actually get it.
[16:12.620 --> 16:21.120]  But if you don't have the cable to the reaction tune, uh, you get real fast in typing, uh, even if you're driving high speed, you get it in, so.
[16:22.140 --> 16:23.820]  Uh, it's sort of like having a sixth sense.
[16:23.920 --> 16:26.080]  You can be, uh, you can be walking around or driving around.
[16:26.480 --> 16:34.520]  And, uh, uh, whenever the, uh, whenever the frequency counter detects a frequency, uh, you can alert you either by beep or a vibrator that's in there.
[16:34.520 --> 16:39.200]  You can wear it in your, in your shirt and you can feel that there's some radioactivity going around you.
[16:39.560 --> 16:43.120]  And, uh, you can put that frequency into your scanner and hear what's going on.
[16:43.540 --> 16:50.540]  Uh, it's particularly useful if you're driving around and, uh, there's, uh, you know, uh, for instance, a police car nearby.
[16:51.080 --> 16:59.520]  Uh, it will, uh, even if they're using, uh, uh, encrypted communications, you won't be able to hear them, but you'll be able to detect their presence, uh, if they're on the radio.
[16:59.520 --> 17:08.280]  Uh, this, uh, this, uh, counter right now is showing, uh, uh, UHF frequency that was, uh, stored in there earlier.
[17:08.440 --> 17:15.550]  But, I think if I transmit, hopefully, see if I can get, uh...
[17:15.550 --> 17:16.470]  The demonstration effect.
[17:19.010 --> 17:22.050]  Uh, it could be my, uh, battery and my, uh, two-way radio is dead here.
[17:24.010 --> 17:25.690]  Maybe I'm just so close, it's overloading.
[17:25.690 --> 17:27.070]  Maybe one of our...
[17:27.070 --> 17:27.570]  Huh?
[17:28.530 --> 17:30.690]  See if I can, uh...
[17:31.410 --> 17:31.610]  Hmm.
[17:32.230 --> 17:33.150]  Is it in capture mode?
[17:33.350 --> 17:33.730]  Yeah.
[17:34.230 --> 17:34.390]  Sure.
[17:36.510 --> 17:36.990]  Yep.
[17:38.930 --> 17:42.270]  Maybe the antenna is, uh...
[17:42.270 --> 17:44.170]  Okay, I'll let it free run.
[17:44.470 --> 17:44.810]  Okay.
[17:45.050 --> 17:48.530]  And then you push it, and you can see if it's either, if it's doing anything.
[17:49.630 --> 17:51.850]  It's now free-floating on 900 megahertz.
[17:52.110 --> 17:52.510]  Uh-huh.
[17:52.930 --> 17:54.750]  And when you push it, does it go down?
[17:55.650 --> 17:56.730]  Yes, it goes down to zero.
[17:56.910 --> 17:57.270]  There we go.
[17:58.830 --> 18:01.730]  This is stepping through, uh, frequencies that it's logged recently.
[18:02.030 --> 18:07.850]  There was a cellular frequency, another cellular frequency, television frequency, another cellular frequency.
[18:08.070 --> 18:10.730]  So, apparently there are a lot of cellular phones being operated around here right now.
[18:11.350 --> 18:14.010]  I understand that you're not allowed to listen to them anymore?
[18:14.230 --> 18:22.150]  Uh, you're not allowed to in this country, but it's not illegal to, uh, to know that the frequency is being used around you.
[18:22.150 --> 18:26.550]  So a frequency counter can pick up these frequencies, but it won't demodulate and let you hear them.
[18:28.410 --> 18:33.950]  Back in 86, Congress passed a law making it a crime to listen to certain radio frequencies.
[18:34.170 --> 18:35.050]  Kind of a strange law.
[18:35.210 --> 18:38.130]  It's like not being able to look at certain colors of light or something.
[18:38.430 --> 18:40.410]  But isn't this supposed to be the land of the free?
[18:40.870 --> 18:41.410]  I'm sorry?
[18:41.650 --> 18:42.710]  The land of the free?
[18:42.910 --> 18:49.110]  The land of the free to those who have enough money to persuade Congress to get your wishes.
[18:49.110 --> 18:49.670]  Okay.
[18:50.670 --> 18:51.970]  I'm just teasing a little bit.
[18:52.990 --> 19:00.410]  You can purchase radios that are capable of receiving frequencies in the forbidden range.
[19:00.550 --> 19:09.550]  They can be ordered, like a model version of this radio can be ordered from outside the US, from Canada, from the UK, from Finland.
[19:09.910 --> 19:10.450]  The Netherlands.
[19:10.990 --> 19:12.210]  The Netherlands, that's right.
[19:12.930 --> 19:14.650]  For two, some hundred dollars.
[19:14.930 --> 19:16.990]  And it would let you hear cellular frequency.
[19:16.990 --> 19:19.010]  However, most cellular use now is digital.
[19:19.510 --> 19:23.270]  And you'll just hear the sound of digital noise or nothing at all.
[19:23.690 --> 19:30.930]  But quite a few phones will fall off the digital network because the digital networks are so poorly designed.
[19:31.290 --> 19:33.270]  You'll roam into analog mode.
[19:33.550 --> 19:36.630]  And then you can listen to those calls if you want.
[19:36.750 --> 19:37.770]  But frankly, they're pretty boring.
[19:38.170 --> 19:40.750]  And it's not all that interesting.
[19:40.950 --> 19:42.290]  Not as interesting as a soap opera.
[19:42.290 --> 19:42.950]  Oh, hang on.
[19:42.950 --> 19:49.870]  And some of these scanners, you can just open it up and find the right jumpers or diodes that you can hook up.
[19:50.010 --> 19:51.550]  You can find some mods on the net.
[19:52.150 --> 19:52.410]  Yeah.
[19:52.410 --> 19:54.350]  Mods.dk is very famous for this.
[19:54.570 --> 19:55.290]  That's a good sign.
[19:55.630 --> 19:57.610]  You want to announce that URL again?
[19:58.850 --> 19:59.330]  Mods...
[19:59.330 --> 20:02.150]  Mods.dk from Denmark.
[20:02.630 --> 20:08.270]  And they have modifications on all type of scanners, transmitters, everything.
[20:09.190 --> 20:12.530]  Also for extending range, extending power.
[20:13.590 --> 20:15.530]  They have it to a lot of...
[20:15.530 --> 20:18.750]  It's really a place where a lot of this info is collected.
[20:19.210 --> 20:21.430]  And I use it all the time when I buy a radio.
[20:21.790 --> 20:29.690]  And most of the time, there's some modification to let it scan faster, let it do more channels, better things.
[20:29.690 --> 20:36.990]  And the thing with listening to cell phones, you get basically whatever anybody is talking about the phone.
[20:37.370 --> 20:42.470]  They hear people ordering pizza, ordering their food, giving their card numbers out over the air.
[20:43.230 --> 20:45.070]  Because people don't realize...
[20:45.070 --> 20:46.670]  Voicemail, the passwords, that sort of thing.
[20:46.770 --> 20:47.050]  Exactly.
[20:47.270 --> 20:48.430]  This is a transmitter.
[20:48.690 --> 20:50.090]  This is a radio transmitter.
[20:50.450 --> 20:51.790]  It's a cell phone.
[20:51.790 --> 20:53.650]  But people call it a cell phone.
[20:53.750 --> 20:55.690]  It's a cellular radio telephone.
[20:56.550 --> 20:58.550]  So you're actually broadcasting it out over the air.
[20:58.610 --> 21:00.490]  People think it's like, oh, it only goes from here to the tower.
[21:00.610 --> 21:01.650]  Nobody else can hear it.
[21:01.990 --> 21:02.270]  No.
[21:02.650 --> 21:04.050]  You can listen to whatever you want.
[21:05.190 --> 21:08.670]  There was actually a pirate radio station on shortwave called Cell Phone Radio.
[21:08.830 --> 21:14.190]  And he used to record people doing the phone sex deal and the 1-900 numbers.
[21:14.230 --> 21:18.150]  He would record that and make shows out of these poor losers that would do that.
[21:20.610 --> 21:23.170]  But cell phone listening, it is quite entertaining.
[21:24.010 --> 21:26.150]  Sorry you guys aren't allowed to do it down here.
[21:26.670 --> 21:28.250]  So there's no laws against that in Canada?
[21:28.410 --> 21:28.530]  No.
[21:29.190 --> 21:35.590]  Basically, right on the back of this, if it has an antenna, you can listen to it.
[21:36.110 --> 21:37.830]  And that book came out of Canada, I take it?
[21:37.970 --> 21:38.170]  Yes.
[21:38.430 --> 21:41.190]  Okay, well, we don't have the same freedoms here.
[21:41.290 --> 21:46.170]  How about listening to these portable telephones that people have in the house?
[21:46.170 --> 21:48.830]  That was changed a little bit later.
[21:49.350 --> 21:52.570]  It was only illegal to listen to cellular phones in 86.
[21:53.250 --> 22:03.110]  But then I think in 94, another law was passed making it illegal to listen to cordless telephones, the kind you would have in your house, but the base unit were connected to a regular analog phone line.
[22:04.130 --> 22:06.510]  That still doesn't prevent people from doing it.
[22:06.610 --> 22:15.010]  And it's not illegal to sell in this country receivers like this that are capable of receiving cordless telephone frequencies.
[22:15.010 --> 22:19.670]  A lot of them, older ones, are in the 46 to 49 megahertz range.
[22:20.190 --> 22:27.370]  And then there's the newer, well, not even that new, the cordless phones in the 900 megahertz range, from about 902 to 928 megahertz.
[22:27.570 --> 22:37.330]  And now there's the 2.4 gigahertz cordless phones, which are a little more secure, because it's difficult to get receivers, or it's expensive to get receivers that will tune up to that higher frequency.
[22:37.330 --> 22:38.850]  But it's quite possible.
[22:40.270 --> 22:45.990]  The most secure cordless phone you can get would be one that is a digital spread spectrum.
[22:46.330 --> 22:51.170]  Not just digital, but digital spread spectrum, where your signal is sort of spread over a wide range of frequencies.
[22:51.950 --> 22:58.750]  And a 2.4 gigahertz spread spectrum cellular phone is a little more secure from casual eavesdropping than all of the others.
[22:58.750 --> 23:09.310]  However, if, you know, if your adversary is someone with means, or legal power behind them, they're not going to even try to monitor it through the air.
[23:09.470 --> 23:14.570]  They're just going to connect to the phone company's switch, which is now mandated under CALEA.
[23:16.370 --> 23:19.590]  So, you know, you really have your concerns, private concerns.
[23:19.910 --> 23:24.650]  You can't do anything about the government, really, unless you want to use encrypted phone conversations.
[23:24.650 --> 23:28.250]  And that's where Eric Blossom's secure telephony panel came in yesterday.
[23:29.190 --> 23:35.850]  But as far as cordless phone conversations, if you have an older cordless phone that's not digital, get rid of it.
[23:36.070 --> 23:38.450]  You're broadcasting your conversations to the entire neighborhood.
[23:39.270 --> 23:39.710]  And...
[23:39.710 --> 23:52.010]  Or if you want, take your handset, drive around your car, and turn it on, because quite often you'll be able to turn on somebody else's receiver and be their phone, because there was only ten frequencies that they used on the 47 megahertz system.
[23:52.530 --> 23:53.510]  Back in the...
[23:53.510 --> 23:53.810]  Yes.
[23:54.090 --> 23:58.410]  You know, this whole war dialing thing going on with the 802.11B protocol.
[23:58.650 --> 24:15.610]  The earlier cordless phones back in the, I guess, the late 70s, early 80s, it was a real popular thing for kids to ride around on their bicycles, or their cars, I guess, with a cordless phone handset, and snag dial tones of people's cordless base units.
[24:15.870 --> 24:17.090]  And it was very easy to do.
[24:17.150 --> 24:22.250]  I drove around and I'd find a bunch of dial tones, and you just make calls on their phone line, which, you know...
[24:22.770 --> 24:27.570]  I tried... the only time I tried it, the guy picked up his phone while I was on it.
[24:28.430 --> 24:29.790]  So I had a conversation with him.
[24:29.910 --> 24:32.190]  I was like, you know, that must have accidentally picked up your dial tone.
[24:32.190 --> 24:33.690]  He's like, so...
[24:33.690 --> 24:41.070]  Turns out, I listened to the scanner a few minutes later, and I heard him call the store where he bought it, and he complained, and he said, I'm taking this thing right back to the store.
[24:42.750 --> 24:43.070]  So...
[24:43.890 --> 24:46.890]  One trick I did on a neighbor a few years ago was...
[24:46.890 --> 24:48.770]  I overheard his cordless phone conversation.
[24:49.010 --> 24:50.490]  This was before it was illegal, I'll have to add.
[24:50.870 --> 24:53.950]  And he was talking to his mother, I think, and trying to think of some word.
[24:54.010 --> 24:57.030]  I can't remember myself what it was, but he was just trying to think of some word.
[24:57.570 --> 24:57.890]  And...
[24:59.290 --> 25:01.410]  He couldn't think of it, and...
[25:03.030 --> 25:05.030]  I knew his address, I didn't know his phone number, though.
[25:05.190 --> 25:08.070]  But I had a reverse directory, so I looked up his phone number, and...
[25:08.070 --> 25:10.270]  While he was on the phone, I called him, he had called waiting.
[25:10.770 --> 25:13.070]  And he answered the phone, and all I did is I said that word.
[25:13.310 --> 25:14.510]  And he's like, oh.
[25:15.090 --> 25:16.870]  And then he hung up, and then...
[25:18.390 --> 25:21.410]  And then there was this long pause, and he's like...
[25:22.090 --> 25:23.350]  Mom, he just said...
[25:23.350 --> 25:24.410]  Or whatever the word was.
[25:24.630 --> 25:26.750]  And then they just started to have this conversation, like...
[25:26.750 --> 25:27.950]  How is that possible?
[25:28.290 --> 25:28.450]  What...
[25:28.450 --> 25:29.030]  What was that?
[25:29.970 --> 25:30.690]  So, uh...
[25:30.690 --> 25:32.650]  I mean, I was trying to help the guy out, but...
[25:33.790 --> 25:34.510]  It probably...
[25:34.510 --> 25:36.490]  Probably gave him something to think about for a while.
[25:36.930 --> 25:42.250]  Yeah, if you are sitting in your car at the end of some guy's driveway, and listening to him yak away on the phone to his...
[25:42.250 --> 25:48.230]  His date, or whatever, and you hear them say, There's this guy in a white automobile at the end of my driveway.
[25:48.670 --> 25:49.950]  I said you drive away.
[25:50.730 --> 25:52.830]  Like, don't hang out and see if he...
[25:52.830 --> 25:55.310]  And listen to him call the police on you, because...
[25:55.310 --> 25:57.230]  Just duck out of there quick.
[25:57.890 --> 25:59.370]  But don't drive away immediately.
[25:59.650 --> 25:59.810]  Right.
[25:59.810 --> 26:00.410]  Wait a little while.
[26:00.450 --> 26:01.490]  Yeah, wait a little while, of course.
[26:01.650 --> 26:03.130]  Finish listening to what he's talking about.
[26:03.230 --> 26:04.050]  You know, it gets kind of steamy.
[26:05.030 --> 26:05.390]  Besides...
[26:06.110 --> 26:10.710]  Besides the stuff I've been just talking about, there's other signals out there that are on a little higher frequency.
[26:10.710 --> 26:11.810]  And here's a...
[26:13.110 --> 26:14.410]  Here's a device...
[26:15.070 --> 26:15.810]  It's got a...
[26:15.810 --> 26:16.510]  Kind of have a...
[26:16.510 --> 26:17.450]  Special purpose.
[26:17.990 --> 26:18.550]  Let me...
[26:19.570 --> 26:20.470]  Turn it on here.
[26:25.490 --> 26:28.770]  This is an ICOM R3, which came out a couple of years ago.
[26:29.230 --> 26:31.850]  It's a handheld scanner, but it also has a video screen on it.
[26:32.910 --> 26:33.270]  And...
[26:37.790 --> 26:39.450]  It's tuned to a TV station right now.
[26:39.950 --> 26:40.350]  But...
[26:40.350 --> 26:44.050]  One of the neat things about this is this goes up to about 2,500 megahertz.
[26:45.650 --> 26:46.050]  So...
[26:46.970 --> 26:48.750]  Probably about everybody who's been on the...
[26:48.750 --> 26:52.550]  Been on the web has had these damn pop-up ads for X10.com.
[26:52.670 --> 26:53.390]  These little home...
[26:53.390 --> 26:54.250]  Home video cameras.
[26:54.430 --> 26:54.710]  How many...
[26:54.710 --> 26:57.190]  How many have seen these pop-up ads for X10 Corporation?
[26:57.550 --> 26:57.890]  Wow.
[26:58.170 --> 26:58.530]  Okay.
[26:58.950 --> 26:59.790]  Yeah, they're quite annoying.
[26:59.970 --> 27:05.450]  And I think they're probably one of the biggest abusers of this whole pop-up window advertising methodology.
[27:05.890 --> 27:06.450]  But anyway...
[27:06.450 --> 27:07.470]  What their...
[27:07.470 --> 27:08.650]  What their products do...
[27:08.650 --> 27:09.690]  Or what a lot of their products do...
[27:09.690 --> 27:10.870]  Is they transmit...
[27:10.870 --> 27:11.530]  Uh...
[27:11.970 --> 27:12.390]  Video...
[27:12.390 --> 27:12.730]  Uh...
[27:12.730 --> 27:13.910]  And audio over...
[27:14.360 --> 27:14.570]  Uh...
[27:14.570 --> 27:16.010]  A wireless connection...
[27:16.010 --> 27:16.670]  A radio connection...
[27:16.670 --> 27:18.510]  At around the 2.4 gigahertz band.
[27:18.610 --> 27:19.390]  Which is unlicensed.
[27:20.150 --> 27:20.710]  And this is...
[27:20.710 --> 27:21.670]  It's in fact the same...
[27:21.670 --> 27:25.490]  Roughly the same frequencies that 802.11b transceivers use.
[27:25.970 --> 27:26.450]  So anyway...
[27:27.430 --> 27:27.850]  Uh...
[27:27.850 --> 27:31.410]  The antenna that comes with the R3 really is not suitable for those really high frequencies.
[27:31.570 --> 27:33.610]  In fact, it works better without that antenna...
[27:33.610 --> 27:33.930]  Uh...
[27:33.930 --> 27:34.710]  Those frequencies...
[27:34.710 --> 27:36.290]  But if you really want to uh...
[27:36.290 --> 27:37.730]  Find these things...
[27:37.730 --> 27:39.030]  This uh...
[27:39.030 --> 27:41.070]  This antenna here...
[27:41.070 --> 27:42.410]  And you might have seen uh...
[27:42.410 --> 27:42.870]  Some...
[27:42.870 --> 27:43.010]  War...
[27:43.010 --> 27:44.790]  War driving type people use uh...
[27:44.790 --> 27:46.110]  Let's zoom out on this thing...
[27:48.510 --> 27:50.090]  This here is a uh...
[27:50.090 --> 27:50.930]  2.4 gigahertz...
[27:51.930 --> 27:52.390]  Uh...
[27:52.390 --> 27:52.950]  Gain antenna.
[27:53.110 --> 27:54.370]  It's probably got uh...
[27:54.370 --> 27:55.530]  I think 9 or 10db gain.
[27:55.670 --> 27:56.250]  Which is quite a bit.
[27:56.710 --> 27:57.490]  And uh...
[27:57.490 --> 27:58.210]  It's highly directional.
[27:58.790 --> 28:07.190]  So you can drive around or walk down the street and point this thing at different houses and see if there's any wireless video equipment operating in their home.
[28:07.410 --> 28:16.950]  And you can actually see on the screen, twice I've been able to find neighbors' cameras on in their home, and you can see what's going on in their home.
[28:17.210 --> 28:18.230]  I guess they have it set up.
[28:18.310 --> 28:24.410]  One person had it set up just to feed the video from a VCR to another room so I could watch his movies.
[28:25.470 --> 28:32.050]  And the other person had it set up at their front door, actually the stairwell going up to their apartment.
[28:32.970 --> 28:34.950]  So I could see when someone was coming or going.
[28:35.150 --> 28:38.290]  So this X10 stuff is hardly secure.
[28:38.570 --> 28:46.810]  Basically when you're buying one of these cameras from X10, you're setting up a miniature TV station and broadcasting what's going on in your home or wherever to your neighbors.
[28:46.990 --> 28:54.070]  And if they have the equipment to do that, they can watch what you're doing and you might want to be selective about where you put one of these things.
[28:54.070 --> 28:57.750]  Yeah, also people don't realize how far some of these signals travel as well.
[28:57.890 --> 29:06.090]  For example, the older cordless telephones, home telephones, they broadcast for about a half a mile circle around your house.
[29:06.630 --> 29:11.370]  So when you're driving around, you've got, within half a mile you can hear somebody.
[29:11.610 --> 29:14.070]  You know they're like within a half a mile circle.
[29:14.210 --> 29:16.630]  If you're out in the countryside and you see one farmhouse, that's where it's coming from.
[29:17.210 --> 29:21.910]  We're definitely getting into Barry's area of expertise, which is the microwave frequencies.
[29:21.910 --> 29:31.010]  So in Europe, I can touch on what's being used here in this country, but in Europe, what are these frequencies above several hundred megahertz being used for?
[29:31.310 --> 29:39.190]  Well, this 2.4 is really one of the most interesting bands, especially for the wire driving with the 802.11.
[29:39.190 --> 29:44.230]  But for instance, in the Netherlands, prostitution is legal.
[29:44.410 --> 29:46.430]  So we have a red light district.
[29:46.870 --> 29:52.650]  And they're pretty fond of securing their places with these wireless cameras.
[29:52.910 --> 30:00.190]  So if you are driving around the red light district, it's like having XXX rated video.
[30:00.190 --> 30:01.250]  For free.
[30:01.670 --> 30:02.190]  That's pretty good.
[30:02.370 --> 30:04.710]  Next time I go there, Barry, I'll have to bring my R3 with me.
[30:05.110 --> 30:20.570]  But what's almost more exciting than the red light district is that the police helicopters in the Netherlands use the same frequencies about for putting it under the helicopter images when there's riots and when there's stuff.
[30:20.570 --> 30:23.890]  And you can see firsthand people throwing bricks at the cops.
[30:24.370 --> 30:24.770]  Wow.
[30:25.210 --> 30:25.370]  Yeah.
[30:25.590 --> 30:27.950]  And there's a guy named Schellinger.
[30:28.350 --> 30:33.690]  And he recorded all these events with his big Yagi antenna.
[30:34.330 --> 30:36.570]  And he puts video clips online.
[30:37.150 --> 30:38.790]  How would we track those down?
[30:38.790 --> 30:40.290]  I'd like to watch one of those.
[30:40.630 --> 30:40.770]  Yeah.
[30:40.950 --> 30:48.650]  And nowadays, I think he did it for like a small year that he was recording all these things and putting them online with funny texts.
[30:48.650 --> 30:54.650]  And now they're starting to scramble most of the things.
[30:54.890 --> 31:00.730]  Especially when SWAT teams are involved and kidnap situation and the real heavy stuff.
[31:00.830 --> 31:02.290]  They're scrambling immediately.
[31:02.690 --> 31:07.050]  But sometimes it's still in the clear and you can see some pretty interesting things.
[31:07.630 --> 31:09.290]  It's done in this country too.
[31:09.450 --> 31:16.470]  It just so happens that the ICOM R3, which is really the only handheld scanner that can receive this wireless video.
[31:17.390 --> 31:20.590]  It was designed to not quite go into...
[31:20.590 --> 31:24.170]  It goes up to about 2.45 gigahertz.
[31:24.850 --> 31:27.210]  But just slightly above that.
[31:27.430 --> 31:28.150]  Not much at all.
[31:28.270 --> 31:31.410]  It would have been no problem to design it to cover a bit higher.
[31:33.070 --> 31:45.610]  Our wireless video and audio transmitters made by a company called AID, Audio Intelligence Devices, which is a division of Westinghouse, which sells a lot of electronic surveillance equipment to federal and state law enforcement agencies.
[31:45.990 --> 31:53.090]  And there's a surprising amount of video... unattended video surveillance equipment around.
[31:53.090 --> 31:55.750]  You see cameras around, but I'm not talking about those.
[31:55.870 --> 32:11.170]  I'm talking about covert cameras that are hidden in electrical power transformers on utility poles or hidden in the telephone junction boxes along trunk lines on telephone poles or in the so-called pedestal.
[32:11.450 --> 32:15.610]  Those green things that stick out of the ground about three feet that the phone lines are in.
[32:15.610 --> 32:18.670]  They can conceal a wireless video camera in that.
[32:18.990 --> 32:27.490]  I've noticed in Philadelphia, near where I live, that I've got a great view from my office of the rooftop of the federal building in 6th and Market Streets.
[32:27.750 --> 32:33.550]  And there's two microwave antennas on that roof, which are not satellite antennas.
[32:33.650 --> 32:35.530]  They are pointed downward.
[32:36.010 --> 32:40.050]  And every couple of days, they're moved to a different position.
[32:40.370 --> 32:46.950]  And I looked at these things with binoculars and contacted a friend of mine on the West Coast who used to sell equipment to law enforcement agencies.
[32:47.550 --> 32:52.270]  And he sent me a catalog and disk of a company that makes these things.
[32:52.490 --> 32:56.550]  And sure enough, in that catalog were these exact same antennas, the same styling.
[32:56.750 --> 32:58.750]  And it was this company's product.
[32:59.010 --> 33:05.970]  So basically, from looking at these antennas, I could get a general idea of who the feds in Philadelphia were looking at.
[33:06.090 --> 33:07.390]  I mean, what direction they were looking at.
[33:07.450 --> 33:10.730]  Whether they were looking in North East Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, that sort of thing.
[33:11.130 --> 33:12.250]  And pretty intriguing.
[33:12.250 --> 33:22.170]  I haven't yet gotten around to getting in the line of sight between one of these antennas and where it was pointed to capture this stuff.
[33:22.370 --> 33:24.410]  But I have other equipment that would let me do that.
[33:24.710 --> 33:28.590]  Here's a piece of equipment here called the spectrum analyzer that would actually let you see.
[33:29.130 --> 33:31.390]  Unfortunately, we don't have a camera we can zoom in on.
[33:31.970 --> 33:34.170]  I don't think we can zoom in that much on this thing, can we?
[33:35.330 --> 33:35.890]  What's that?
[33:40.150 --> 33:40.850]  Oh, okay.
[33:42.030 --> 33:43.790]  I don't think we can get it around.
[33:43.970 --> 33:45.430]  This thing is really heavy, so...
[33:45.970 --> 33:50.250]  Anyway, what a spectrum analyzer lets you see spikes.
[33:51.630 --> 33:57.490]  See spikes in the electromagnetic spectrum that would indicate a presence of a signal.
[33:58.210 --> 34:03.010]  And you can look at a range of frequencies and see where bumps or spikes are in the spectrum.
[34:04.490 --> 34:12.290]  This equipment is also used by people that are sweeping your office for hidden transmitters and bugs.
[34:12.790 --> 34:15.450]  This is the equipment being used for that.
[34:15.450 --> 34:15.490]  This is really good.
[34:16.450 --> 34:17.350]  I think they go.
[34:17.630 --> 34:17.870]  Okay.
[34:21.170 --> 34:22.010]  It's upside down.
[34:30.290 --> 34:30.850]  It's fine.
[34:30.970 --> 34:31.490]  I'll tell you what, Craig.
[34:31.810 --> 34:33.190]  Keep me holding you on.
[34:33.310 --> 34:33.750]  Here we go.
[34:34.270 --> 34:34.690]  It's not bad.
[34:36.670 --> 34:37.950]  Well, turn it on.
[34:37.950 --> 34:41.130]  Is the feature on the the next to the video upside down?
[34:42.430 --> 34:43.610]  Is there an invert?
[34:44.250 --> 34:46.250]  Not on this one, let's put it on the projector.
[34:49.370 --> 34:50.370]  We're in this one hand.
[34:54.560 --> 34:55.680]  I'm learning this a little note.
[34:56.100 --> 34:56.320]  I'm sorry?
[35:00.060 --> 35:01.580]  No, that's left to right.
[35:03.140 --> 35:06.620]  No, that's left to right.
[35:09.980 --> 35:10.560]  Thank you.
[35:22.180 --> 35:23.700]  Yeah, we're not getting the...
[35:23.700 --> 35:24.840]  Traces aren't showing up.
[35:26.040 --> 35:28.040]  The traces aren't showing up with this bright light.
[35:29.440 --> 35:30.200]  Oh, there we go.
[35:33.040 --> 35:33.960]  Tune it through 600.
[35:36.840 --> 35:39.180]  Can we tell the lights on the lightboard back there?
[35:39.700 --> 35:40.380]  There we go.
[35:58.530 --> 35:59.250]  Hold on.
[36:04.690 --> 36:05.810]  What was that frequency bearing?
[36:06.830 --> 36:07.190]  641.
[36:11.450 --> 36:12.910]  Granted, this is upside down, folks.
[36:12.970 --> 36:15.090]  You'd see spikes coming up from the bottom.
[36:15.090 --> 36:17.710]  But they're representative signals on the spectrum.
[36:17.710 --> 36:21.970]  And you can look at the range on the LCD display of what frequency range you're looking at.
[36:23.650 --> 36:28.710]  Why don't you turn up the ground level so you can see all the spikes?
[36:33.210 --> 36:35.210]  Are there any bugs in the room?
[36:36.330 --> 36:37.650]  We could find them.
[36:37.790 --> 36:38.410]  Look at it there.
[36:46.600 --> 36:47.600]  Spread it out.
[36:49.620 --> 36:50.860]  Make that sensible.
[36:52.320 --> 36:52.660]  Sorry.
[36:54.800 --> 36:55.440]  Okay.
[36:55.440 --> 36:57.920]  It's 665, 666.
[36:59.500 --> 37:02.540]  This is around 665, 666 megahertz.
[37:02.640 --> 37:07.020]  We're trying to find the frequency of the wireless microphones we're using here on the panel.
[37:07.020 --> 37:10.880]  Can you read that off the front panel of the microphone there?
[37:11.140 --> 37:12.060]  641.2.
[37:12.840 --> 37:13.860]  It follows well.
[37:14.260 --> 37:14.880]  641.2.
[37:15.040 --> 37:15.820]  Did you tune it in already?
[37:16.080 --> 37:16.240]  Yeah.
[37:16.240 --> 37:16.380]  Yeah.
[37:16.580 --> 37:17.620]  It's a nice good digital noise for you.
[37:20.520 --> 37:22.420]  I can just read it off the microphone.
[37:22.700 --> 37:23.060]  Okay.
[37:23.400 --> 37:24.140]  641.2 again.
[37:26.040 --> 37:27.060]  Yeah, you can see this.
[37:28.760 --> 37:29.620]  Do you open it up ahead?
[37:31.740 --> 37:32.580]  Yeah, it works.
[37:33.080 --> 37:34.520]  And are we operating one of these mics now?
[37:34.600 --> 37:35.320]  Are we going to turn it on and off?
[37:35.640 --> 37:36.740]  Yeah, just turn it off.
[37:38.100 --> 37:39.020]  Turn it back on again?
[37:44.910 --> 37:45.690]  Is that it right there?
[37:45.930 --> 37:47.030]  No, I think it's in the middle.
[37:47.730 --> 37:51.330]  There's a few birdies now.
[37:55.530 --> 37:57.230]  Well, anyway, you get the gist of it.
[37:58.210 --> 38:04.170]  If you see one of these spikes, if somebody was sweeping your office or bugs, somebody asks you, are there any bugs or wireless transmitters in the room?
[38:05.210 --> 38:05.970]  There could be.
[38:06.430 --> 38:10.030]  Frankly, it's easier just to use a cell phone now if it's an amateur bugging thing.
[38:10.150 --> 38:11.510]  You just leave your cell phone on and...
[38:15.680 --> 38:16.720]  Can I get the mic?
[38:18.700 --> 38:21.600]  Up and down, I'll change the frequency on it there.
[38:21.680 --> 38:23.480]  It's pretty hard to find a bug these days.
[38:23.620 --> 38:25.900]  There's so many technologies that make it difficult.
[38:26.520 --> 38:28.300]  There's a spread spectrum.
[38:28.880 --> 38:31.700]  There's a subcarrier, that sort of thing.
[38:31.820 --> 38:41.160]  Unless you have something like this and a lot of patience, it's difficult to find a hidden transmitter that's hidden by a professional.
[38:45.960 --> 38:50.740]  Okay, what you can see now here is that there is two spikes.
[38:50.960 --> 38:51.880]  I hope you can see it.
[38:52.040 --> 38:54.000]  And I'll turn the wireless mic on.
[38:55.280 --> 38:56.040]  There it is.
[38:57.200 --> 38:58.820]  And now, there it is.
[38:58.960 --> 39:01.220]  These two spikes here.
[39:01.520 --> 39:02.240]  This is now...
[39:05.610 --> 39:08.750]  And I'll turn it off again and you see the big spike go away.
[39:10.030 --> 39:10.710]  I hope.
[39:11.110 --> 39:11.370]  Up to.
[39:11.470 --> 39:11.950]  There it goes.
[39:13.470 --> 39:13.910]  And...
[39:13.910 --> 39:15.910]  So that's what a radio signal looks like.
[39:16.370 --> 39:21.050]  And once you do find out what it looks like, you can either listen to it or play with it.
[39:21.590 --> 39:24.190]  Such as studio transmitter links.
[39:24.350 --> 39:25.870]  I'll just go quickly over this one here.
[39:25.870 --> 39:27.190]  Oh, real quick, I want to touch.
[39:27.290 --> 39:28.910]  If you were debugging a room, you'd want to...
[39:29.390 --> 39:44.790]  If the room was known clean, like if you had one of these things, you could maybe on a weekly or monthly basis do a sweep like this and take a Polaroid photograph or if you had a digital storage spectrum analyzer, store these traces and then compare them in the future with other traces and see if anything new popped up.
[39:45.890 --> 39:53.690]  And if you saw a new spike that wasn't there last week and you knew you were going to have an important meeting this week, you would investigate, you know, what is this spike?
[39:53.690 --> 39:56.090]  You know, this is something that shouldn't be there.
[39:56.270 --> 40:03.630]  What's also common knowledge when you do bug sweeps is that you go like two miles from the place where you have to sweep.
[40:03.810 --> 40:07.770]  You make an image of what the spectrum looks like, what spikes you can expect.
[40:08.210 --> 40:14.150]  And then when you're at the scene where you actually have to sweep, you already know a lot of things that you can just cancel out.
[40:14.150 --> 40:19.890]  Yeah, there's going to be a lot of legitimate spikes in local radio stations, two-way radio users, all kinds of stuff like that.
[40:20.050 --> 40:26.790]  So, you've got to be able to filter the... just visually be able to tell what should be there and what shouldn't be there.
[40:26.970 --> 40:31.670]  So, having a record of what was there before and comparing it with what's there now is the way to do it.
[40:33.850 --> 40:44.230]  Oh, somebody here at the conference the other day lent me this device, which is a cell phone jammer.
[40:44.290 --> 40:45.270]  They're not legal in this country.
[40:45.310 --> 40:47.470]  He had it ordered from the UK and shipped here.
[40:48.490 --> 40:50.670]  But I was kind of skeptical about this.
[40:50.770 --> 40:51.990]  I thought it was... it's so lightweight.
[40:52.050 --> 40:53.630]  I thought this is just a piece of vaporware.
[40:54.170 --> 40:57.170]  And took it apart and it looks surprisingly sophisticated inside.
[40:57.170 --> 40:58.930]  And we put it on the spectrum analyzer.
[40:58.970 --> 41:00.850]  We don't have time to set it up now, but...
[41:00.850 --> 41:01.810]  It's set up.
[41:02.170 --> 41:02.350]  It will probably work.
[41:02.350 --> 41:03.650]  It's for about 800 megahertz?
[41:03.830 --> 41:03.970]  Yes.
[41:04.350 --> 41:04.570]  Okay.
[41:04.710 --> 41:05.630]  Let's turn this thing on.
[41:09.170 --> 41:10.090]  This thing worked.
[41:10.190 --> 41:11.590]  It actually jammed...
[41:11.590 --> 41:13.490]  It's a wide-bound noise generator.
[41:13.970 --> 41:16.450]  So, if people are on the phone now, say, bye.
[41:18.750 --> 41:20.930]  Yeah, somebody's swerving around in front of you in their car.
[41:21.130 --> 41:21.150]  Okay.
[41:21.150 --> 41:21.510]  There you go.
[41:21.670 --> 41:23.590]  You see that wide range?
[41:23.990 --> 41:24.870]  Turn it on and off.
[41:27.150 --> 41:32.110]  That's a whole... that's a whole, like, 20 megahertz spread of RF noise.
[41:32.330 --> 41:33.050]  These things are illegal.
[41:33.170 --> 41:34.650]  They just cause interference and headaches.
[41:34.930 --> 41:42.810]  But some restaurants and churches are putting these things in to prevent people's phones from ringing in the restaurant, disturbing other people.
[41:43.010 --> 41:45.370]  Or if you...
[41:45.370 --> 41:46.830]  Can you turn it on?
[41:47.050 --> 41:47.550]  Keep it on?
[41:49.430 --> 41:50.190]  It's on now.
[41:51.810 --> 41:53.290]  You're getting the whole spectrum there.
[41:53.990 --> 41:54.930]  I'll turn it off.
[41:55.450 --> 41:55.870]  See?
[41:56.070 --> 41:56.290]  It's gone.
[41:56.510 --> 41:57.110]  Now it's there.
[41:58.470 --> 41:59.830]  This transmits on two bands.
[41:59.930 --> 42:03.150]  800 megahertz cell phone band and the 1900 megahertz cell phone band.
[42:03.290 --> 42:09.910]  And there's circuit traces on here where the European version, if they had different components on it, would do the European cell phone frequencies as well.
[42:10.090 --> 42:11.690]  Which is 900 and 1800.
[42:12.110 --> 42:12.430]  Right.
[42:13.170 --> 42:14.490]  So this was an intriguing device.
[42:14.630 --> 42:17.610]  And after taking it apart, actually, Eric Blossom and I looked at it.
[42:17.710 --> 42:21.210]  And we were rather impressed for something that was, I don't know, like a hundred dollars or something.
[42:21.430 --> 42:22.150]  It really worked.
[42:22.250 --> 42:26.030]  It probably only gives you maybe a hundred-foot range of blocking phones.
[42:26.790 --> 42:28.690]  But these things could be really dangerous, though.
[42:28.770 --> 42:32.250]  Somebody set one up outside your house and there was an emergency and you need to use your cell phone.
[42:32.250 --> 42:34.070]  And then, you know, that could be a problem.
[42:37.650 --> 42:38.550]  A few hundred feet.
[42:38.910 --> 42:39.890]  A few
[42:44.770 --> 42:45.130]  hundred feet.
[42:49.390 --> 42:49.790]  Okay.
[42:50.610 --> 42:58.650]  Yeah, he was just referring to a Jennifer Lopez movie, which someone dragged me to, where she used one to prevent her ex-husband who she planned to kill.
[43:00.150 --> 43:05.410]  She cut the phone lines and then he came in the house and tried to use his cell phone while she was stalking him.
[43:05.410 --> 43:08.290]  And she had this jammer thing and he couldn't make the call.
[43:08.490 --> 43:10.830]  And, you know, he killed him and whatever.
[43:10.970 --> 43:11.390]  Yeah, she killed him.
[43:11.490 --> 43:11.570]  Whatever.
[43:11.910 --> 43:12.650]  Stupid movie.
[43:12.810 --> 43:13.170]  But anyway.
[43:14.950 --> 43:16.490]  She used one of these things in the movie.
[43:17.950 --> 43:25.290]  I think Craig wanted to mention a couple of other interesting sort of hacking opportunities for some radio frequencies.
[43:25.590 --> 43:26.330]  Fun things to do.
[43:26.910 --> 43:27.390]  Excuse me.
[43:27.450 --> 43:28.490]  We're just about out of time here.
[43:30.150 --> 43:31.490]  Studio to transmitter links.
[43:31.490 --> 43:36.330]  Because most radio stations do not have their transmitter and their antenna sticking on top of their building.
[43:36.550 --> 43:37.050]  About time.
[43:37.150 --> 43:37.670]  It's not practical.
[43:37.970 --> 43:39.850]  I used to work at a radio station in Toronto.
[43:40.150 --> 43:41.530]  Our studio was in Toronto.
[43:41.530 --> 43:45.210]  Our transmitter was on the other side of Lake Ontario, 45 miles away.
[43:47.970 --> 43:48.450]  Sorry.
[43:49.250 --> 43:50.110]  Oh, there I am.
[43:50.990 --> 43:53.990]  Studio to transmitter links operate in 930 megahertz area.
[43:53.990 --> 43:56.510]  And they're wide band FM.
[43:57.130 --> 43:59.390]  So, which is kind of fun to play with.
[43:59.570 --> 44:00.990]  Because you know their frequency.
[44:01.410 --> 44:10.410]  And the way you can take over an FM station is by being stronger received signal at their actual studio.
[44:10.730 --> 44:12.490]  I mean, their actual transmitter site.
[44:12.730 --> 44:18.250]  So, say they have 45 miles away their studio transmitter link transmitter, which is 10 watts.
[44:18.890 --> 44:23.770]  And you are less than a mile away from their actual transmitter site.
[44:23.970 --> 44:27.550]  You have a half a watt of transmitter on that same frequency.
[44:27.950 --> 44:30.730]  You will be able to take over that radio station.
[44:32.190 --> 44:33.850]  They also have telephone line backups.
[44:34.170 --> 44:35.530]  I don't play around telephone lines.
[44:35.610 --> 44:36.330]  I just cut the things.
[44:36.930 --> 44:41.830]  So, if you do want to take over a station, you have their known frequency.
[44:42.010 --> 44:43.530]  The studio to transmitter link frequency.
[44:43.690 --> 44:45.110]  Have a transmitter operating on that side.
[44:45.230 --> 44:48.970]  You can re-crystallize an old cellular telephone bag phone to play around with it there.
[44:48.970 --> 44:50.790]  Or a paging transmitter or what have you.
[44:51.530 --> 44:55.190]  At that point, once you do take them over, they have no control over their transmitter.
[44:55.350 --> 44:58.330]  Because you also block out their control tracks.
[44:58.370 --> 45:00.570]  Their control signals that they're also sending from their studio.
[45:01.070 --> 45:06.290]  So, the only way to have them get back control of their own transmitter is either you turn it off.
[45:06.290 --> 45:08.830]  Or they send a techie out to turn the transmitter off.
[45:09.430 --> 45:13.270]  For my situation, the station I was working at, it was, like I said, 45 miles away.
[45:13.450 --> 45:15.250]  So, you had the transmitter for quite some time.
[45:15.450 --> 45:19.790]  So, once you do actually take it over, at that point, you can forget about LPFM.
[45:19.850 --> 45:20.930]  You have HPFM.
[45:21.090 --> 45:25.330]  You are in charge and control of a 50,000 watt transmitter for as long as you want it.
[45:25.890 --> 45:26.570]  Do whatever you want.
[45:26.690 --> 45:27.350]  Have some fun.
[45:27.530 --> 45:28.510]  Two parody commercials.
[45:29.270 --> 45:30.150]  Whatever you want.
[45:31.350 --> 45:33.390]  Also, playing around with satellite stuff too.
[45:34.490 --> 45:36.850]  Not actually beaming up your own satellite.
[45:37.090 --> 45:40.650]  Also, transmit on the same frequency as satellite downlink frequency is.
[45:40.810 --> 45:42.130]  Really close to the receiver.
[45:42.410 --> 45:44.550]  This works really fun at Walmarts.
[45:45.130 --> 45:47.230]  Take over the entire Walmart radio network.
[45:48.090 --> 45:52.730]  Have a blue light special in aisle seven for adult sex toys.
[45:52.930 --> 45:54.590]  And watch everybody push their carts.
[45:55.310 --> 45:57.190]  It's fun stuff to do.
[45:57.190 --> 46:07.210]  Along the same lines, all these LED signs you see around in storefronts and so forth are often easily compromised with a device like this.
[46:07.750 --> 46:12.210]  Probably the biggest manufacturer of those signs is a company called Adaptive Microsystems.
[46:13.890 --> 46:20.390]  And this is a control that is used to program them remotely through infrared, just like a TV remote control.
[46:20.830 --> 46:25.590]  But it's surprising how many storefronts just put these in a window and you can put a different message on them.
[46:25.730 --> 46:30.710]  In Philadelphia a few years ago, there was one on top of a lottery machine in a drugstore.
[46:31.230 --> 46:36.650]  So I reprogrammed it to say that all the tickets from this machine are losing tickets.
[46:38.370 --> 46:40.190]  And it stayed up there for about a day.
[46:40.370 --> 46:44.950]  And then I walked by the next day and told the clerk, you know, what is that message on top of the machine?
[46:45.010 --> 46:47.490]  And he ran over and he was freaking out and he unplugged the machine.
[46:48.730 --> 46:51.010]  And he just basically had to unplug the whole lottery machine.
[46:51.070 --> 46:53.230]  I don't believe the government should be selling lottery tickets anyway.
[46:53.230 --> 46:55.410]  But anyway, so that was a lot of fun.
[46:55.550 --> 46:59.350]  And a couple days later, I noticed the machine wasn't even in there anymore.
[46:59.490 --> 47:01.390]  So he just stopped selling lottery tickets after that.
[47:03.390 --> 47:05.630]  And here's a GPS unit.
[47:05.750 --> 47:07.070]  And probably a lot of people are familiar with that.
[47:07.170 --> 47:15.110]  It uses signals broadcast by U.S. government military satellites to give you a position of where you are.
[47:15.210 --> 47:17.270]  You don't have to worry about these things be a privacy invasion.
[47:17.330 --> 47:18.910]  They don't transmit a signal out themselves.
[47:19.270 --> 47:24.090]  You can't be tracked with this unless it's something like this is in your cell phone, which is being mandated now.
[47:24.310 --> 47:27.290]  But if you just have a GPS unit, you can't be following it around.
[47:28.070 --> 47:32.710]  One of the neat developments I've seen with GPS units lately is something called geocaching.
[47:33.010 --> 47:43.890]  And geocaching is something where you can hide objects in a container like Tupperware or one of those military ammunition containers.
[47:44.130 --> 47:44.950]  It's small and portable.
[47:45.350 --> 47:46.670]  And you hide it somewhere.
[47:46.890 --> 47:49.870]  And you put a few prizes in there and a notepad.
[47:49.870 --> 47:52.290]  And you can go to geocaching.com.
[47:52.490 --> 47:56.050]  G-E-O-C-A-C-H-I-N-G.com.
[47:56.530 --> 47:58.150]  And find out where these things are near you.
[47:58.230 --> 48:00.330]  There's thousands of caches around the country.
[48:00.470 --> 48:01.230]  And it's just sort of a hobby.
[48:01.450 --> 48:03.450]  You can go hunt these things down with your GPS unit.
[48:04.710 --> 48:12.090]  And when you encounter one, you open it up and you take one object and you put an object back for the next person.
[48:12.510 --> 48:16.770]  And write in the log book that, you know, when you were there and so forth.
[48:16.850 --> 48:21.350]  And you can also put that information on the website as to who you were, when you found it, that sort of thing.
[48:21.530 --> 48:28.470]  There's three rules there that they request that you not put any food items in them because animals could get in there or could rot and get rancid.
[48:30.870 --> 48:33.750]  No drugs in there.
[48:33.850 --> 48:35.110]  You can't leave any drugs for anybody.
[48:36.370 --> 48:38.730]  I think you just turned everybody off of their interest now.
[48:39.030 --> 48:40.570]  You can't put any explosives in these things.
[48:40.690 --> 48:42.770]  But I haven't heard of that happening before.
[48:43.630 --> 48:48.850]  So if you have a GPS unit and you haven't checked out geocaching.com, it's kind of fun.
[48:48.850 --> 48:54.310]  I found one of these things and there was just a couple of magazines in there.
[48:54.490 --> 48:57.430]  And so I put a couple of other magazines in there and went on.
[48:58.050 --> 49:01.030]  So it's just an interesting use of the radio spectrum.
[49:01.250 --> 49:01.790]  It's kind of fun.
[49:17.760 --> 49:18.480]  Flip toot.
[49:18.600 --> 49:20.480]  I didn't quite get that, but anyway.
[49:22.560 --> 49:23.060]  All right.
[49:23.180 --> 49:24.460]  Any questions about the radio spectrum?
[49:26.180 --> 49:26.620]  Okay.
[49:26.740 --> 49:28.860]  I think we're completely out of time.
[49:28.860 --> 49:29.000]  Okay.
[49:29.100 --> 49:36.140]  I have some handouts here if anybody is interested of New York City area radio frequencies used by federal law enforcement agencies.
[49:37.560 --> 49:37.960]  So...
[49:45.060 --> 49:45.460]  Opto...
[49:45.460 --> 49:46.640]  Yeah, that's the toy one.
[49:46.700 --> 49:46.780]  Yeah.
[49:47.060 --> 49:47.880]  Yeah, those ones are great.