Glassholes Switched off with Google Glass Detector

Julian Oliver, a New Zealand artist living in Berlin, is cutting off people accessing Wi-Fi with Google Glass with his new detector, reports WIRED magazine.

Oliver has written a simple program called Glasshole.sh that detects any Glass device attempting to connect to a Wi-Fi network based on a unique character string that he says he’s found in the MAC addresses of Google’s augmented reality headsets.

Install Oliver’s program on a Raspberry Pi or Beaglebone mini-computer and plug it into a USB network antenna, and the gadget becomes a Google Glass detector, sniffing the local network for signs of Glass users.

When it detects Glass, it uses the program Aircrack-NG to impersonate the network and send a “deauthorisation” command, cutting the headset’s Wi-Fi connection. It can also emit a beep to signal the Glass-wearer’s presence to anyone nearby.

“To say ‘I don’t want to be filmed’ at a restaurant, at a party, or playing with your kids is perfectly OK. But how do you do that when you don’t even know if a device is recording?” Oliver tells WIRED. “This steps up the game. It’s taking a jammer-like approach.”

Oliver’s program is still a mostly-unproven demonstration, though the 40-year-old has successfully tested it by booting Glass off his own studio’s network.

“These are cameras, highly surreptitious in nature, with network backup function and no external indication of recording,” Oliver says. “To focus on the device is to dance past a heritage of heartfelt protest against the unconsented video documentation of our public places and spaces.”

Oliver’s work and lectures have been presented at many museums, galleries, international electronic-art events and conferences, including the Tate Modern, Transmediale, the Chaos Computer Congress, Ars Electronica, FILE and the Japan Media Arts Festival.

Original article by Andy Greenberg, WIRED, June 3, 3014

Image by Julian Oliver.