Expert creates Raspberry Pi-powered Tool that can Track whether you’re being followed

Last year, a federal agent and 21-year veteran with the Department of Homeland Security received a call for help from a friend. Agent Matt Edmondson got the call from his friend – who worked in another part of the government – when they were worried that they were being followed as they were meeting with a confidential informant who had links to a terrorist organization. If indeed they were being followed, the informant’s cover could have been blown.

“It was literally a matter of life and death,” Edmondson says.

“If you’re trying to tell whether you’re being followed, there are surveillance detection routes,” he continued. When driving you can change your route or perform a U-turn. Each can help you figure out if you’re being tailed. It didn’t feel like enough Matt said. “He had those skills, but he was just looking for an electronic supplement. He was worried about the safety of the informant.”

Edmondson searched for a tool to help in these instances, and was unable to find one. As a hacker and digital forensics expert – he decided to build his own anti-tracking tool. The tool he created is powered by Raspberry Pi, can be carried around or sit in a car, and scans for nearby devices. The tool will alert you if the same device is detected multiple times within a 20-minute span. In theory – it is designed to alert you if someone might be following you. The tool Matt created costs around $200 total. He’s also open-sourced its underlying code.

There are several reasons why someone might choose to follow someone, and also several ways in which one can be followed or tracked.

“There’s so much out there to spy on people, and so little to help people who are wondering whether they’re being spied on,” said Edmondson.

The homemade system is designed to scan for wireless devices around it. It will check its logs to see whether wireless devices were present multiple times in a 20 minute span. It is designed to be used while you’re are on the move, rather than when the user is say, in a coffee shop.

The anti-tracking tool is small enough to sit inside a shoebox, and is made up of only a few components. Raspberry Pi 3 runs the software, and a Wi-Fi card scans for nearby devices. It is housed inside a waterproof case for protection, and is powered by a portable charger. A touchscreen allows users to see any alerts that may occur, notifying you that you are being tailed.

The device runs Kizmet – a wireless network detector. Kizmet is able to detect smartphones and tablets around it that are looking for Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connections.

Edmondson explains that Kismet will make a record of the first time it sees a device and then the most recent time it was detected. However to make it work, he had to write code in Python to create lists of what Kismet detects over time. The code will create lists of devices that were spotted in the past 5 to 10 minutes, 10 to 15 minutes and 15 to 20 minutes. If a device appears twice, an alert will appear on the screen. It can show a phone’s MAC address, and also record the names of Wi-Fi networks that devices around it are looking for.

To stop the system from detecting your own phone or those you are traveling with, the device has an “ignore” list. By tapping a button on the devices touchscreen, you can “ignore everything that has already been seen.” Edmondson says that in the future, the device can be modified to send a text alert instead of showing them on the screen. He also mentions that a GPS unit could be added so you can see where you were when you were being tracked.

“It’s purely designed to try to tell you that you’re seeing something now that you were also seeing a few minutes ago,” Edmondson says. “This isn’t designed to follow people in any way, shape or form.” Matt said he tested the device in the desert, in places where nobody else was. He carried multiple phones with him that could be detected by the tool. He says he believes this device can be effective, as even spies for the government still carry devices. “You still have your phone in your pocket,” he says. “You still have your phone sitting next to you, or in the center console.”

Edmondson does not have plans to release the device commercially, however he says the design is easy to copy and reuse by anyone with some technical knowledge. Many parts of the device are easy to obtain, or may even be lying around the homes of people in tech communities.

Ultimately, Edmondson says that the tech community needs to take tech-enabled tracking and surveillance more seriously.

“It was really kind of disheartening and depressing to look at the ratio of tools to spy on people versus tools to help you not get spied on,” he says, adding that a person close to him had been stalked in the past. In the case of his friend who thought they were being tracked – the device he created was useful. “It was really designed to help someone who came to me asking for help,” Matt says. Fortunately for Edmondson’s friend (and his source), they used the device in the real world, and the device didn’t find anyone tailing them.

Story via WIRED