Last week we posted about University researchers who found that it was possible to recover live video images from the EM leakage emanating from various IoT security cameras. The 'EMEye' software to do this was released as open-source on GitHub.
Recently Aaron, who created DragonOS and WarDragon, has uploaded a video showing EMEye working on WarDragon. In the video, Aaron shows how to install and use the EMEye software on WarDragon, and demonstrates it working with a Wyze Cam Pan V2 that he purchased for this test.
In this video, I guide you through a practical demonstration of Tempest-based camera eavesdropping attack research. I'll be focusing on the EM Eye project, a tool derived from TempestSDR with some added features.
I'll show you how to construct the EM Eye project, step by step, and how to use it to tune into the EMI emitted by the Wyze Cam Pan v2 using an Ettus B210. By processing this EMI/RF signal, we're able to reconstruct the video stream using the algorithms provided by EM Eye and TempestSDR.
Additionally, I'll demonstrate how DragonOS FocalX and the WarDragon kit offer a cost-effective alternative by including a prebuilt version of TempestSDR that works with the Airspy R2. This allows for similar functionality at a lower cost.
Over on YouTube a bunch of new talks from the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers (SARA) have recently been uploaded from their recent SARA Western Conference that was held in April 2024. The talks typically involve small home-based radio astronomy setups that use small satellite or WiFi dishes and RTL-SDR or similar low-priced SDRs in their setup. Some of the latest talks include:
Nathan Butts: A Novice's Guide to Radio Astronomy (Link)
Dr Andrew Thornett: Detecting Cosmic Rays & Building your own version of the Large Hadron Collider (Link)
Dr Andrew Thornett M6THO: Lichfield Radio Observatory - Mapping Milky Way at 1420.405 MHz (Hydrogen) (Link)
Bruce Randall: IBT Eclipse and other Radio astronomy Failures (Link)
Felicia Lin: Mapping the Milky Way by Cross Section Data (Link)
Kent Britain WA5VJB: Antennas for Radio Astronomy (Link)
Charles Osborne: Eclipse Detection using a VLF Receiver (Link)
Dr Wolfgang Herrmann: Lunar Occultation Observation of Radio Sources (Link)
Keynote: Dr Linsay King - Gravitational Lensing (Link)
We note that the last talk was uploaded only a few hours ago at the time of this post, so we're not sure if more talks are yet to be uploaded. So please keep an eye on the SARA YouTube videos page.
Over on YouTube dereksgc has uploaded a video where he tests out a 2.4 GHz WiFi Grid antenna for L-band weather satellite reception. WiFi grid antennas are typically repurposed in the SDR community for L-Band weather satellite reception because they are cheap and mostly work out of the box. They can also be used for hydrogen line radio astronomy. TV dish antennas are an alternative but with them, a custom feed needs to be built.
In his video, dereksgc tests the WiFi dish on receiving various polar-orbiting L-band satellites including Metop, and Meteor M2. With the polar orbiting satellites the dish needs to point at the satellite as it passes over the sky and so dereksgc recommends using a mount if hand tracking them.
Later in the video he tests some geostationary satellites but finds that the dish is not tuned well enough to receive Elektro-LN3 properly without modifications. He was however able to receive a noisy image from FengYun-2H successfully.
We note that we also currently have our Discovery Dish product available for pre-order, which is similar to the WiFi grid dish, but smaller and lighter weight with a built-in optimized active feed.
Recently Reddit user magicint1337 brought attention in a post to PhantomSDR, a web SDR program for the RX888 MKII SDR. PhantomSDR is not new, having been first uploaded to GitHub two years ago, but it appears that it hasn't gained much attention so far. Web SDR software allows an SDR to be accessed publically or privately remotely over an internet connection. He writes:
PhantomSDR is a Web SDR Software that can sample the whole HF Band using the RX888 MK II, it utilizes the GPU to do so efficiently, the CPU can also be used but has to be strong enough to handle it.
The Software itself supports nearly all Devices, as they are passed from another program like rx_sdr to PhantomSDR. It features high quality Waterfall Zoom efficiently, it can handle hundreds if not thousands of users depending on the Hardware and is open source. There is also a sdr-list linked below.
It's a good alternative to OpenWebRX or WebSDR as it's easy to set up and can handle higher bandwidths and more users than the other alternatives i named. Decoders will also come and run in WebAssembly on the Client, so the Server has no Usage and can handle many Users. It can also handle higher bands, for example VHF.
It is developed further and further because it's open-source and everybody can help develop it further!
The author of PhantomSDR also chimes in on the comments noting:
Author of PhantomSDR here, wondering where all the traffic to the github repo came from and discovered someone has posted it here.
This is started off as project to publish a self-made direct sampling SDR to the internet. Then it grew to became a learning project about SDR and DSP. I picked RX888 as the SDR to put in the screenshot due to it being easily available as compared to the one I built myself. This wasn't really meant to be much apart from a fun learning exercise!
I wanted to open source this because I think others might find it useful also to host higher bandwidth SDRs, or just have a different user interface.
sdr-list.xyz is made by a contributor to the project, but I would prefer to have more infrastructure under the PhantomSDR domain. This will happen once I get a suitable domain name and the server code up. And yes it will be https and the server will be open source.
Currently, there appears to be one publicly hosted server that can be accessed via the list at sdr-list.xyz.
This web SDR software is reminiscent of the University of Twente WebSDR software which is currently closed source. It is also similar to KiwiSDR and OpenWebRX which is also an online web-based SDR system.
We note that there has been controversy over the RX888 SDR in the past as developers of popular software in the SDR community such as SatDump and SDR++ have frowned on it due to its poor driver support, the lack of any developer support from the manufacturer, and poor overall RF design.
UPDATE: Jie Feng, the author of the software would like to add that the official server list is at https://phantomsdr.github.io/servers. sdr-list.xyz is a third party list set up by a fan, and Jie is working out how to integrate it with his official list. Jie also notes that PhantomSDR also supports many other SDR's like RTL-SDR, HackRF, SDRplay RSP etc.
Over on his YouTube channel 'saveitforparts' has uploaded a new video showing how he has been successful at receiving and decoding L-band weather satellites using his setup made from scavenged parts. He uses a custom-built helical feed on a scavenged dish, and an automatic pan-tilt rotator built from an old security camera mount. With this setup combined with an RTL-SDR and LNA and filter he is able to receive polar orbiting L-band weather satellites.
In the video, he shows how his system works and what his software setup looks like. He uses SDR++ to record the pass initially, then SatDump to decode the data into images. We note that SatDump can be used to decode the images live, and can also record the raw radio files too, so SDR++ is not required.
How To Receive And Decode L-Band Weather Satellites
Back in early February we reported about how the Canadian government is making plans to completely ban the Flipper Zero, and popular pentesting tool. The wording from Dominic LeBlanc, Canada's Minister of Public Safety, also implies that software defined radio devices could also be banned.
The reason for the ban is because the Canadian government claims that Flipper Zero and 'consumer hacking devices' are commonly being used as tools for high tech vehicle theft. However, as mentioned in the previous post, this has been debunked.
The team behind Flipper Zero have recently started a petition on change.org to stop the ban. At the time of this post the petition has already reached over 8,000 signature. The team have also penned a comprehensive "Response to the Canadian government" blog post, explaining why the ban makes no sense. In the post they debunk the myth of Flipper Zero being used for car theft, and show the real way high tech car theft is being done.
Last week, I attempted the challenge to try to find 50 things to do with an RTL-SDR device in a week!
It was quite an adventure: I received satellites and radio from the other side of the world, I went on a hunt for a radiosonde, and I invented a method to communicate using the NFC tag in a library book!
I used the RTL-SDR Blog V4 for everything, plus the antenna kit, plus a long piece of wire.
Congratulations Blinry for achieving your goal and taking us on a whirlwind ride through the different applications of RTL-SDR!
NOTE: We note that Blinry's website appears to be a bit slow to load, presumably because or the large image file sizes, and because his article has become quite popular. If you're having trouble loading the images and videos, maybe try again at a later time. Alternatively, thanks to user pbnjeh on Hackernews you can try loading directly from Archive.org or https://archive.is/ZHnfV.
Blinry Receiving and Tracking a Weather Balloon using SDRAngel and an RTL-SDR Blog V4
Over on his YouTube channel, 'saveitforpaarts' has uploaded two new videos. The first shows how he was able to build a very cheap satellite antenna for GOES satellites out of an umbrella and a metallic emergency blanket. The blanket is simply spread over the inside of the umbrella, creating an RF reflective surface. Then a linear feed with LNA and amplifier is placed at the feed point. The makeshift dish works, though the SNR is marginal, and he is only able to receive slightly corrupted images from GOES satellites.
Satellite Antenna Made From Emergency Blanket
In his second video saveitforparts builds a satellite dish rotator out of an old thrown away security camera pan/tilt mount. The mount is hacked to be controllable via an Arduino microcontroller.
I Built A Cheap Satellite Tracking System From Spare Parts
