Medtech

Your Home WiFi Can Now Reveal Your Location to Hackers – MLB Uses Face Scans for Entry to Ballparks

If you are among the majority of Americans who could care less that you are being tracked almost every minute of your day by the technology that you use…

Published

9 months ago

August 31, 2023

This article was originally published by The Vaccine Impact

Comments by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

If you are among the majority of Americans who could care less that you are being tracked almost every minute of your day by the technology that you use because you believe that “I have nothing to hide,” then this is not the article for you.

If, however, you believe that it is nobody’s business where you live, what kind of car you drive, whether or not your children are vaccinated, whether or not you wear face diapers outside, what kind of food you eat, who you are spending time with and sleeping with, etc., and you don’t want strangers listening in on your conversations and reading your emails, among a thousand other reasons, then this is another in a series of articles that I publish regularly explaining how to hang on to your personal privacy in the new Digital Age.

I have not used WiFi in the place I live for years now, mainly due to concerns about EMF radiation pollution.

But I do use the technology, because I am a technologist who has earned my living from the technology for over 2 decades now, so years ago I started turning off my Internet router’s WiFi signals and instead plugged my computer and home network directly into my Internet router through a hard-wired Ethernet network cable.

Now, according to a report in PCMagazine, malware that could infect your computer has the ability to use your home’s WiFi signal to triangulate with other nearby WiFi access points and reveal the location of your computer, and of course you.

New Malware Component Can Use Wi-Fi Triangulation to Determine PC’s Location

Smoke Loader malware has been around for years, but security researchers recently spotted a new payload that can determine an infected PC’s real-world location.

A strain of malware that’s been around for over a decade has a new trick: the ability to triangulate an infected PC’s approximate location.

The malware known as Smoke Loader has been sold on cybercriminal forums and to Russian hackers for years. It’s typically used to load additional malicious programs, which can allow the attacker to hijack a Windows PC. Earlier this month, security researchers at Secureworks spotted the malware dropping a new and creepy payload dubbed “Whiffy Recon.”

“Every 60 seconds it triangulates the infected systems’ positions by scanning nearby Wi-Fi access points as a data point for Google’s geolocation API,” Secureworks says. “The location returned by Google’s geolocation API is then sent back to the adversary.”

Whiffy Recon can triangulate a PC’s location, thanks to the Google Maps’ Geolocation API, which is designed to return latitude and longitude coordinates for devices that lack a native GPS. To return the coordinates, Google’s API relies on public data on cell towers and Wi-Fi access points. (Full article.)

So just turning off GPS or “location services” is not enough if you don’t want to broadcast your location. Your home WiFi can now potentially do that, and remember, the most dangerous and nefarious hackers are the ones who work for the alphabet agencies, such as the FBI, CIA, NSA, DHS, etc.

You are a threat to these government agencies by simply existing as a human being, and especially if you are among the very tiny minority of the public who actually likes to tell the truth these days, instead of following the lies.

Simple solution: DON’T USE YOUR HOME WIFI!

MLB testing hands-free entry for fans utilizing facial authentication, AI security

Major League Baseball is rolling out facial recognition software and cameras so that fans can now enter a ballpark without using the “burdensome, older” technology of scanning a bar code.

This is from AP:

Major League Baseball is testing facial authentication-based entry that would allow ticketed fans to walk directly into stadiums — a convenient new arrival method that the league says won’t compromise on safety and security.

No more fumbling for a phone at entry, waiting through a wonky bar code scan, or shuffling through a lengthy line at one gate to catch a baseball game at the home of the National League champions.

The Philadelphia Phillies have partnered with MLB to use their stadium as the site of a pilot program called Go-Ahead Entry, which uses facial authentication-based entry for ticketed fans.

Hmmm… I remember going to the ballpark in the “old days” where one had to have a physical paper ticket that had to be punched or torn off, and I didn’t think that was all that burdensome, let alone holding up a mobile device so they could scan a QR or bar code was “too slow.”

But this new method just scans your face, AFTER you take a selfie of yourself and let MLB store it. This is advertised as being more “hassle free” and “quicker.”

Except….

Fans seemed to enjoy mugging for the camera, smiling, laughing, as they walked inside.

One early hitch, the camera captured too many background faces, a problem resolved simply by spacing people out a bit more.

So explain to me how people can be lined up as close together as they want to be and simply hold up their phone to scan their ticket at the gate, but for the cameras to capture and process their image, people in line have to be spaced “out a bit more” for the technology, and this is somehow “quicker”??

The system is still voluntary, and they say they delete the photo of your face once you use it. And for all those cameras that “captured too many background faces“, we can trust them to delete all of those faces too, right?

After all, the owners of these major league teams are all billionaires who are completely trustworthy to keep their word.

Simple solution: stay away from these ballparks. Let them see that ballparks that implement this technology have fewer fans attending.

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