Phreaked Out - Documentary.mp4

Documentary - 2014 (41 Mins.)

Phreaked Out

Inspired by the video game Watch Dogs, Motherboard meets in person with today's most skilful security experts and white-hat hackers to get an empirical data on the various ways to hack into our most commonly used devices. Whether these technologies control our cities, cars or phones, one thing's for sure, is that with sufficient persistence, nothing is really secure. It is kind of possible to hack into almost anything that uses technology. If someone wants to break it in a certain way, it's possible with enough work.

The only benefit from actually hacking these systems is demonstrating how possible it is. Technology is a moving target; every time you introduce a new technology you have produced new vulnerabilities. Even the best secure products have holes in them. The proper way to maintain a system's security is hacking it.

Smartphones betray their owners every day. Most of the things that really are computers are not things you would recognize as computers and they were never designed with security being an important function. There are devices that can take over another wireless networks such as the paired AR Drone. Once you're connected you can just remotely use them to manipulate anything. For example you can remote-kill the engine of a car or you can even open the door of the car without being inside the car.

Some think that insurrectionists among us are healthy elements in society. If there weren't folks out there that were prepared to insist on teaching us some of the important lessons we'd never take delivery on the information.

The story begins with a real-world attack. It wasn't a proof of concept that was done by some white-hat hacker in a laboratory or at a security conference. These were real individuals who broke into a real-world system that had an effects on hundreds of thousands if not millions motorists over days in one of the most traffic congested areas of the world.