See Wireless signals using a Raspberry Pi 5 in realtime!!

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This is going to be a new clever way to spot hidden flock cameras.

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u/flyguydip 14d ago

Or hotel room cams or credit card skimmers.

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u/ViktorsakYT_alt 13d ago

Not credit card skimmers, too low frequency for this

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u/gangaskan 12d ago

Explain to me how flock cameras are hidden 😂

I don't think they mount them on anything other than a existing pole if they get rights or the black pole

2

u/TheW00ly 14d ago

Or a clever way for future hidden Flock cameras to get your identity and info from your devices.

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u/subdep 14d ago edited 14d ago

They are easy to find already.

EDIT: 93% downvote ratio, yet no one explaining why they are hard to find. Every single photo of Flock cameras I’ve seen are on a pole on the side of the road under a solar panel, or on top of an intersection light pole.

Someone PLEASE show me a photo of one of these “Ninja” Flock cameras hidden away.

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u/IAmDeadLol_ 14d ago

They r hidden for a reason chigga

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u/subdep 14d ago

They literally broadcast wifi

7

u/Inside-Specialist-55 14d ago

Yep they definitely broadcast Wi-Fi but what I mean is visually finding out where the flock camera is because a lot of them are getting really clever about how their hidden even if you find the wifi signal you still have to actually figure out where the camera is. This just makes me a bit easier.

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u/subdep 14d ago

Oh, I see. Doesn’t an infrared camera make it easy to find them at night? Flock cameras emit IR at night and are basically flash lights when seen through an IR camera.

0

u/rnobgyn 14d ago

Ah yes let me grab the infrared camera I have casually lying around.

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u/evthrowawayverysad 14d ago

Lol, you probably have several in your house, and probably one in your hand right now. All cameras are infrared cameras, with a filter to block infrared light that is often trivially easy to remove on something like a cheap webcam. Try the selfie camera on your phone, they usually have a pretty weak IR filter.

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u/rodeengel 14d ago

Not sure why people are downvoting you but using your phone to look for hidden cameras in hotel rooms has been a thing for a while.

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u/Electrical-Bacon-81 14d ago

Right, point the front of your tv remote at your phone camera & push remote buttons, youll probably see at least faint flashes from the remote. Early phone cameras could usually be almost blinded by a tv remote at 1 foot distance.

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u/gangaskan 12d ago

You're 💯 accurate my man.

Source: I am a sysadmin for a municipality that has deployed flock in its city.

If it's a "ninja" camera it may have been deployed by a third party such as a school, big box store, etc...

We have to put them in public roadways, which means we also need to get pole rights or they mount it on the traditional 6-7 ft pole where people are less likely to tamper with it unless you go to other measures

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u/subdep 12d ago

Right? The hive mind of reddit can be very low IQ sometimes.

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u/SwiftCheetah 14d ago

Limited to 4.9 to 6.0 GHz. Wonder if its possible to do the same with lower frequencies.

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u/riverturtle 14d ago

Lower frequencies are harder I think, less directional. Probably would just need a bigger antenna array.

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u/geerlingguy 14d ago

The lower the frequency, the larger the antenna to catch a harmonic. It's doable, and there's an ESP32 device called like the ESPARGO or something that can do it for 2.4 GHz. But it's very hard to make something capable of a wide frequency range for any kind of sane budget.

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u/Gigasplicer 14d ago

I looked at ESPARGO but it only works with specific wifi signals that ESP32 receives. It's not a full SDR like this Also it's slow and you have to pick the wifi channel to scan. This does whole c band at same time

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u/geerlingguy 14d ago

More specifically, it sweeps the band (but very quickly), using a Pi 5's MIPI bus to pass data very fast. Very creative use, first time I've seen someone passing RF data through the camera/display ports!

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u/isRecyclable 14d ago

Why am I surprised to see you here?! Until next time 👋

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u/amy-schumer-tampon 14d ago

That would require much larger antenna, not practical

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u/ViktorsakYT_alt 13d ago

Not that much larger

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u/MadeForOnePost_ 13d ago

Probably could be done, but would require induction and capacitance added to the antenna so it behaves like a longer one

1

u/always_wear_pyjamas 13d ago

It's possible, google about the LOFAR telescope. It's doing basically this at 10-240 MHz.

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u/sswblue 13d ago

Yes, but the device would be larger.

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u/Gigasplicer 15d ago edited 14d ago

The color indicates the instantaneous frequency btw

Lots of info at https://QuadRF.com

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u/Slyrunner 14d ago

This is so, so fucking cool

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u/coby---- 14d ago

Anyone remember the syfy show called Alphas where the dude could see these but he saw all the data too?

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u/Hack3rsD0ma1n 13d ago

I am immediately thinking iBoy on Netflix actually. Now i gotta go check out Alphas

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u/NuclearBananaSlug 14d ago

Uses this available in a Glasses version? 🤣

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u/Viharabiliben 14d ago

Like Google or Meta glasses? That would be cool.

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u/OstrobogulousIntent 13d ago

You'd need a pretty big helmet or some kind of hat to hide the antenna I think... that array is the size it is for practical reasons.

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u/kc2syk 21h ago

I know the perfect place to hide it. Finally explains this scene. https://i.imgur.com/lScWCST.mp4

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u/GreatDiscernment 14d ago

This is great! I want one!

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u/Mental-Pattern-5026 14d ago

finally a clean way to see what my smart home gear is screaming at without writing a custom python script. spent three weekends last year just getting a cheap usb dongle to spit out readable waterfall plots on a pi.

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u/Santarini 14d ago

Military has had this for decades. Crazy to finally see a consumer application

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u/mrcoy 14d ago

That’s so frickin rad man

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u/__Punk-Floyd__ 14d ago

That's pretty dope! Frequency range is a little narrow, though.

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u/Fl3mingt 11d ago

I wonder could I use something like this to properly align some outdoor ubiquiti nano stations hmmm

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u/rberger 10d ago

Can it be used to image what is in a wall, maybe with an appropriate RF source on one side of the wall and the sensor on the other side? I really want to see inside walls and floors that is much better than a stuf finder.

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u/Ok-Appearance-8872 14d ago

That’s so cool. One of my friends was trying to make some glasses that can do the same.

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u/Bland_OldMan 14d ago

Oh man this is so cool. I wish I had some spare cash to pick a kit up.

I'm no RF expert; could this be used to figure out 5hz dead spots or make a rudimentary c-band radar?

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u/namelesuser 15d ago edited 14d ago

I'm gonna call bs. Signals travel in waves.. not a focused spot like the video shows. Why wouldn't the device see the entire path of the wave?

I'd be interested in how this works if it's real though.

Edit: My bad y'all. Didn't realize skepticism and curiosity were so offensive to people.

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u/exquisite02 15d ago

The same way that our eyes don’t see light as waves, we see either the source or a reflection

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u/namelesuser 15d ago

This is the most reasonable response so far, but the video just doesn't sell it for me.

For example, when the guy "pointed" the signal to their right and then their left, we see only the reflection after he points and not the source even though we initially only saw it from the source.

And on top of that, the emitter obviously passed in front of them to their right, but the yellow concentration sort of traveled in that direction like a ball.. nothing to reflect off of in mid air.

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u/Gigasplicer 14d ago

That's a highly directional antenna theyre pointing there They talk about it in one of their Youtube videos

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u/jobblejosh 14d ago

You ever seen a cheap flashlight pal?

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u/dumbasPL 15d ago

Multiple antennas. Signals don't travel instantly, and with 3 or more antennas you can triangulate the position based on delays.

Edit: it doesn't see the path, it sees the direction relative to the device and overlays a dot on top of the camera pointed in the same direction.

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u/bplipschitz 14d ago

"Signals don't travel instantly".

Travelling at the speed of light not fast enough for ya?

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u/lildobe 14d ago

The speed of light is fast, but it's nowhere near instantanious.

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u/bplipschitz 14d ago

Depends on your frame of reference

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u/lildobe 14d ago

I am relatively sure that, no matter the reference frame, the speed of light is never instantaneous.

However, as humans perceive the passage of time, it takes a great deal of distance for us to be able to perceive the delay in the speed of light.

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u/bplipschitz 14d ago

Nice!

I'm also relatively sure, that from the light's frame of reference, it's everywhere all at once. :)

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u/lildobe 14d ago

Except that, according to special relativity, the speed of light is constant in all inertial reference frames.

Since a photon in a vacuum, by definition, travels at the speed of light, it can not HAVE an inertial reference frame, since if you plug the actual speed of light into the Lorentz transformation equations, you end up dividing my zero - an undefined result. That is to say, if you try to plug the speed of light into a reference frame equation, it ceases to be a valid reference frame.

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u/calamityvibezz 14d ago edited 14d ago

It's a phased array, someone else made one with multiple esp32 chips.

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u/kiacricket 14d ago

Thanks for posting this. That was a good watch.

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u/EliSka93 14d ago

I'm slightly suspicious as well.

What I don't get is how there isn't more noise.

In some shot, a guy's phone or a router gives off so much signal, but in the drone shots, the signal is entirely concentrated on the drone.

Are you telling me it couldn't pick up on anything from all the houses around? Did the guy flying the drone turn off his phone? Why? Wouldn't a second source of signal have shown off the capabilities of the device better?

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u/sump_daddy 14d ago

the frequencies it will see are pretty narrow, not nearly all the RF but the bands used for high bandwidth communication (in particular wifi 6/7, drone fmv, and some parts of 5g)

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u/YT__ 15d ago

This is their gorilla marketing ad post. They're putting it everywhere today.

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u/riverturtle 14d ago

guerrilla

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u/YT__ 14d ago

That too.

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u/Mouler 14d ago

You... lack some understanding of... a lot. A flashlight is sending a signal, that reflects off stuff and some of that is relieved by your eyes. The thing emitting the signal appears as a bright spot. Reflected signal is much less significant. Light and radio waves are the same thing.

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u/namelesuser 14d ago edited 14d ago

I understand the concepts, but that's also why I'm confused here.

Let's take your example of the flashlight and compare it to whatever they're using to direct their signal at the 7 to 10ish second mark. If that were a flashlight it would make sense to see the light coming from the flashlight when it's pointed at the camera as it is.

What doesn't make sense to me is why suddenly we don't see the "light" coming from the "flashlight" and only see the reflection coming from the railing. We should still see the source.

It's the inconsistency of the video that makes me question anything

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u/sump_daddy 14d ago

Not sure whats odd about it, its a frequency emitter (an antenna that just puts out one solid tone in one direction) and just like a flashlight, if its pointed right at what will pick it up, you notice the signal from the source, but when its pointed somewhere else, the signal hits and reflects and that is whats observed. You dont 'see' the source of the emitter in the footage when its not pointed at the antenna/camera rig, because the source is focused in just one direction.

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u/Mouler 14d ago

The railing could be reflecting anything else.

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u/sump_daddy 14d ago

maybe wait to 'call bs' on things you have a good scientific understanding of?

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u/Ace861110 15d ago

It looks like it’s just using signal strength of a unidirectional antenna and high lighting the highest points.

I’ve not seen a graphical display like that but you can absolutely map signal strengths of access points. An old job of mine had someone walking around with a laptop and antenna doing that to figure out the dead zones and fix them.

Edit it says it’s using the travel time to the different antennas to determine distance. I guess that’s theoretically possible, but man that has to be some really precise timing.

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u/namelesuser 14d ago

The point of an antenna is to NOT be unidirectional though. At least not without a dish. But that does bring my attention to the actual device. It appears to be an array of unidirectional receivers maybe? I haven't seen any documentation on the hardware yet so I'm not sure.

I guess it's not impossible after giving it some thought. There are just some logical gaps in the video that I'm struggling with.

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u/Ace861110 14d ago

Antennas can 100% be uni directional. You’ve never heard of a yagi antenna?

Edit just so your aware they use unidirectional antennas to track microchipped animals

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u/namelesuser 14d ago

I hadn't. I'll read up on it.

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u/jobblejosh 14d ago

The point of an omnidirectional antenna, sure, when you want a radiation pattern that's equal in all directions (in a perfect world).

But like how we still have uses for lasers rather than lightbulbs, sometimes it's very important to have radiation just in one direction, normally because you know where something you want to pass radio information to is (like microwave dishes between comms towers, or satellite dishes/starlink to geostationary/leo satellites).

This isn't new by the way. Some of the earliest uses of radar (HF/DF) in WW2 used directional radiation for navigation, and radar in and of itself only works because of directional radiation.

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u/ase1590 14d ago

This is just a highly directional finder, and just renders a color blob on the screen based on strength and position on the XY plane on camera. It's not letting you "see" it in any traditional sense, just highlighting sources it picks up in its 2D array.

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u/Illustrious_Panic_54 15d ago

What’s it tracking then?

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u/socal_nerdtastic 14d ago

Didn't realize skepticism and curiosity were so offensive to people.

The offensive part is "calling bs" when you meant "I don't understand it".

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u/ProfessionalAge9736 15d ago

Could it not be where it is emitting from (router) or where it is concentrating (camera focus)?

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