DRONE AND BOAT HACKS - NEED IDEAS

For a fun hackathon project a while back I outfitted one of my drones with a wireless weapon payload designed for drone war skyjack missions. Flying is fun, but flying off with someone else's drone is even more fun...

Most of my time is split on a couple of different lakes. One day after watching a couple of flat billed, jersey clad fishermen fight to fish the same spot on a relatively empty lake, I realized that some just might find it entertaining if they could use my drone hack to interact with fish finders and autonomous trolling motors…

For the drone hack a Raspberry Pi Zero W with a small wireless network adapter is ideal for keeping the aerial package lightweight. The primary drone feature sends a deauth attack signal that disconnects the target drone from Wi-Fi and reconnects it to the attacker’s flight controller. It’s simple and effective.

The fish finder and autonomous trolling motor attack payloads can be configured in an aerial package for long range stealth flight fun or in various handheld wardrive packages that can be concealed in your boat or outfitted to work from your dock or lakeside porch. This will allow dock owners to finally have a fun way to interact with someone thoughtlessly banging lures or their boat off your dock.

The features are currently limited so I'm reaching out to the tribe for suggestions. Currently the fish finder hack will disable wireless networked devices and GPS, download, erase or update waypoints, and in some cases allow you to send a special message to the device’s display.

I’m working on a few standard messages to send to display screens but wanted to ask the OT for suggestions for a few more. So far it will send the following messages:

• MOVE ON - NO FISH HERE
• NO WAKE A$$HOLE
• YES - YOU’RE TOO CLOSE
• CAUGHT YOU CHEATING
• YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG
• YOUR WIFE SAYS GO HOME
• I’M BROKEN - CALL TECH SUPPORT
• SHUT UP AND FISH SOMEWHERE ELSE
• GIVE UP AND GO HOME
• NO FISHING ZONE
• ELECTRONIC FREE ZONE
• CUSTOM SUBSCRIBE BUTTON
• DISQUALIFIED - RETURN TO RAMP
• YOUR WRAPPED TUNDRA IS OUT OF GAS
• YOUR FLAT BILL LOOKS STUPID
• I'M GOING TO HACK YOUR CYBERTRUCK
• PRIVATE DOCK - MOVE ON

The autonomous trolling motor package works similar to the drone skyjack package as it allows the attacker the ability to take control of the autopilot feature, plus it allows you to download, erase or update waypoints. It's fun to move someone's boat for them while they are on your dock retrieving a lure. Any thoughts on other features it needs?

BTW, I’m working on something similar that will allow messages to be sent to display screens in nearby vehicles. Since the spring spawn is just around the corner please send your suggestions ASAP so I can wrap up the fish finder/trolling motor project.

Tight lines ~

Blue Moon

probably should check into fcc law on what you propose, won't be that hard for a gw to catch you and the feds don't play well with us poor folk.

What’s happening here

From a drone, Ultrex full power left then right then left then right. Video the guy on the front deck.

Awesome! Added plus I'll add video capabilities to the flight package to monitor and maybe livestream reactions.

Distracting a boater/fisherman with a running motor or controlling someone’s boat that you don’t have insurance on; what could go wrong?

WE REALLY HAVE BEN WATCHING YOU HUMAN

not a good idea imo.

I just spent some serious (to me) money upgrading a new to me boat, start jacking with my electronics and we will have words at a minimum.

way too much krap could go wrong, screen won't come back, waypoints lost would be a major pizz off,

and drones make great targets.

Thanks! Added to the list

Hop as always thanks for your sage advice. I realize from your post that our core offering is going to open the door for a cybersecurity focused service. Thanks to you, we'll offer protection from rogue actors that could potentially misuse our platform. I’ve added the service offering to the master plan. Thanks again for the inspiration! Please feel free to update your LinkedIn profile and let everyone know you’re a valuable contributing member of a stealth startup's Advisory Board…

February 15 Update:

Good news - After a wild night of Valentine’s fun we somehow managed to launch and recover one of our UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), along with a manned fixed wing aircraft this morning that I’m sure many of you noticed flying low and slow over your favorite honeyholes. We accomplished the mission’s goal by collecting sonar, mobile and GoPro data from well over 1,000 targets fishing on Athens and Fork.

We’re in the process of analysing the data. One of the next steps will be to cobble it together with readily available aggregated mobile and social data. This process will allow us to associate known users with the newly acquired boat sonar, mobile and video data. Once we have the match, all future data gathered for each specific target and associated devices will be combined to build a more comprehensive user profile.

Flight missions will resume tomorrow. The initial results are very encouraging so we’ve decided to expand the scope of the project.

In the near future we’ll be offering fast internet with global coverage, for a low cost so you can connect, sync, store, and share all your personal and device data.

The following subscription based platform services will include:

• Monitor specific lakes for hotspots based on real time data
• Download your favorite pro’s honeyhole waypoint data
• Monitor ramp parking real time to find the best place to launch
• Interact and monitor any connected boat on the water from any location in the world
• Monitor your lake house and interact with anyone fishing near or accessing your dock
• Watch streaming video of anyone on the water with an active GoPro or wireless camera
• Download your favorite pro’s internet browsing history and contact info - Find out who Big O really is!!!
• Download boat lanes for your favorite lake
• More to come!

PROSTAFF UPDATE - We’ll soon add to our prostaff. We need wardrive volunteers to help capture device and digital information at major tournaments and area boat ramps. No experience is needed. Just a willingness to carry one of our fully automated wardrive devices along for the ride when you go fishing.

Lake home owners and lake front businesses can join our prostaff network by deploying small dock sensors and beacons that will automatically interrogate and upload data to our platform from nearby wireless devices.

Looking at our roadmap, we expect to offer the additional following services:

• Digital Tournament Experience - since we’re building the platform that will eventually connect and collect all boat device traffic, we’ll be able to create a much better digital experience for fishermen and fans.
• Catching Analytics - Find out what lure and technique is actually catching fish. Our real time data will show what is actually working and what’s not.
• Ramp Monitoring - Since we’ll be monitoring the lakes we’ll also have smart device metadata on everyone that enters a parking lot. We’ll be able to provide GPS coordinates to help you hunt down anyone that messed with your stuff!
• CyberSecurity - We’ll provide services to protect your honeyhole waypoint information, autopilot, video streams and browser history from being scraped and exploited by bad actors. This is a real 2020 thing you just read about on your favorite forum, but no need to worry, for a small monthly fee you can fish with peace of mind…

Again thanks for all the feedback. Please keep the suggestions coming!

Blue Moon

BS Alert!

No thanks. The less I know about Big O the better.

OK Blue Moon, now I see what you did there. You already had my attention with the AI facial recognition stuff you have been posting about, but this thread puts things in terms even I can understand. Good Job with that - I think I am now awake. (or is it woke nowadays?)

Question is, what can we do about the harvesting / selling of our personal information or is it already too late???
I don't Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, Quora, Nextdoor, TikTok or even Gaia Online.

I do use google and Gmail. Gmail by itself is nefarious but I still use it. TFF and THF is about the extent of my social media and I try to keep location services turned off on my phone unless using a weather app, Google Maps, or Waze. But to just use most apps or even run a smart phone, you pretty much have to choose the Accept box so what is the solution for privacy of myself and my data???

I too am going with BS-
And if not personally I think it’s a DH thing to do-
I would never send you any money for anything that would help support doing this-

This is great. It will do especially well in the SaltLife. Can we hack the Bluetooth controllers on Power Poles?

Thanks for all of the engagement and playing along. I enjoy writing stories that tie together things I’m passionate about. Flying, fishing, tech startups and the ongoing battle for digital privacy are all in my wheelhouse so I cobbled together a little story to try to lighten things up in the OT and as Jon suspected, to shine light on the privacy, or more specifically, data aggregation issue.

Some of you know that I’ve been involved with dozens of startups including several Tier 1 ISPs that carry the majority of the world’s Internet traffic. I’m also involved with traditional advertising and digital marketing. In other words, I have unique insight into the issue. My story is a simple example of how your data is being exploited.

In my analogy I used silly waypoint boat data to represent everyone’s personal data that is actually being scraped, combined, and exploited constantly from every source imaginable. The companies exploiting your actual data have the same level of ethics and concern for your personal data and wellbeing as the wicked startup hacker in my story.

I’ve been in the room dozens of times when ideas were hatched that launched startups, apps, products and services. Most follow a similar flow as my story. I’m just trying to provide some insight to give everyone an idea of what we’re up against.

The privacy issue is complicated and the technology behind it is mostly hidden from view so it's difficult for most people to get their head around it. Instead of thinking the cat is out of the bag and we can’t do anything about it, if we unite and come together, we can stop damaging data aggregation through regulation. Aggregated data is the headwater where most of the privacy problems that harm us start.

I felt like I made some progress by the way some of you responded to the villain in my story. I truly feel this is a liberty and freedom issue. We all need to rise up with passion to stop data aggregation and long term storage of our metadata. Your data, and the data of everyone you love, will continue to be exploited until you finally stand up and demand it stops. That means you and yours will be targeted, conned, and discriminated against, and otherwise harmed until you stop it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not inciting violence, just regulation...

What I’m suggesting will in no way hurt the Internet but it will go a long way toward fixing it. Amazon, Google (Alphabet), Facebook, Apple or Microsoft will all be fine. It might sting a few of their “third party partners” that are data aggregators but they will survive. They just need to be regulated.

To come up to speed on this issue I suggest everyone start by reading Data and Goliath, The Hidden Battle to Collect Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneier. It’s one of the best books on the subject written for a nontechnical mainstream audience. It also provides a high level overview on practical steps to take. If anyone needs guidance on the subject, feel free to look me up privately.

BTW, if your Ultrex goes wacky, don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger…

Blue Moon

Big data is a magnificent yet terrifying tool. Used for my purposes it is fine but marketing turns it into an onslaught of junk mail/email.

skynet will swallow us all up and all that will be left are the machines.

I stay unpredictable. Algorithms hate unpredictability so they toss it out. Skynet would exclude me from the dataset.

Just ordered a Rafael Drone Dome, bring it!

needs a "Stay off my brush pile" feature.