Ethical Hacking - Social Engineering Task #4 - Video Stalking

My task was to "take a video of a stranger without them knowing".

This is/was an easy enough task, merely that I could not use any of the students in the class, and I could not take a video of someone whom I have been in class with in the past.

But seeking to gain the maximum number of points, I also did not want to make this too easy, as merely accomplishing the task would award minuscule points, but accomplishing it in a "big way" would garner more points.

I felt that the best way to handle this would be to engage in three variations of this task, semi originating in or around the school, than one involving video recording my following a person from school for about an hour (who was driving), as this maximized the "creepy" factor, and then a third video surveillance in which I had better control of the environment, but which would be "less creepy". It is not to say the assignment was creepy to me, but rather another people who viewed the video might find it creepy.

1) My initial surveillance was of people in and around the patio around the C-Lounge, where people step outside to smoke a wide assortment of substances. Specifically, I set up a video camera system in the bushes and aimed it so that it could view people standing within 30 feet of the building and smoking. When the weather is cold, smokers tend to cluster close to a building to smoke, and the school has a policy that no person can smoke near the school, so I oriented the camera to view the door, and then out to 30 feet of the door, and also so that each persons face would be clearly visible. I also used a video camera that was highly sensitive to the infrared spectrum of light so that the camera would be able to "see" a match or lighter being lit, and which could record details deep in shadow. I recorded the video on 2/18/2016, for a period from 11:15 AM to 8:30 PM. The device was rigged to only record when the camera detected motion in the infrared spectrum, and the ability to record audio was disabled as this was to a video only project. The device was also positioned in a location that would normally be regarded as a publically accessible location, and viewing strictly activities in a publically accessible location where

The results of this video surveillance was rather eye opening as not only did students come stand here to illegally smoke, so did a number of faculty members and staff members, since I recognized people on the video, the results fell outside the bounds of the tasks as I was to take a video of a "stranger" and as many of the people on the video were people I knew, I have to exclude these results.

While the school has numerous video surveillance cameras around campus, this fellow was standing in a blind spot of the cameras the school has positioned here.

It does raises a bit of an ethical conflict, as it is against school policy to smoke this close to the buildings, and the video could likely get students kicked out, or even cost the staff members their job. For this reason, the I erased the recording I do not wish to possess a video that could have a negative impact on either a persons job or their education. The really serious ethical conflict that emerged on this video is that this area of the school appears to be a market-place for contraband substances, and I base this on a specific person stepping outside repeatedly, not smoking, but a large number of people approaching this person for a short period of time (no more than a few seconds), passing something from the person I must presume that one person (who approaches) is a buyer, and that the person who was approached repeatedly I presume to be the seller passing something back. I do not know what the contraband item was, and it is possible they were merely passing love note back and forth, but I suspect given the nature of the illegal smoking around this door and the general area wreaking of cannabis, that the items being traffic'ed on campus is contraband narcotics. This same person "the seller" repeated this behavior several times on the video on a fairly regular basis, and he appears to have a regular schedule for distribution at this location.

I regard this as an unsuccessful attempt, while I was successful in making the video, I am not comfortable in sharing the video and purged it as I am uncomfortable causing another person at the school drama. I felt that the most ethical and appropriate action was to purge the entire recording.

2) For my second subject, I situated myself near one of the staff parking lots, the one that is parallel to the elevated roadway, train lines, and  building on campus and waited for person to walk to their car, so that I could follow them out of the parking lot and video them as they departed school and video them as they approached and entered their car to leave campus, and then to follow them to wherever they were going (for up to an hour). I put a four-hour limit on this, and when nobody apporeached their car in during the time and area are I had staked out, I broke off the surveillance and scraped this as a means to complete the assignment. My plan was to obtain a good solid hour of video, obscure their plate and face, and post it, but I was not lucky enough to get someone in a row of cars to depart when I needed them to do so.

3) For my third attempt, I went for something a little easier, and selected my weekly grocery shopping, and merely situated my phone in the shopping basket, looking forward, and looked for a person who was by themselves, or who were distracted and who I did not have to worry about recording audio, as I sought to video record a person, but not to capture them speaking. While shopping, I located an aisle that had the fewest number of people in it, and thus the least chance of inadvertently recording people speaking.

 

The assignment was a success, in that I scoped out an aisle with a few people as possible, and what initially appeared to be two adult males shopping, but as I got closer I observed that there were two males standing up, and half way for the aisle the second male was with a child, who was down on the floor trying to retrieve some food item from the back of the bottom shelf. So as not to risk contact with, or recording audio of what I presume to be father and daughter shopping I moved the cart rather quickly so that the cart wheels would mask any voice I might accidently capture.

I was not uncomfortable in performing any of this surveillance, and I have done surveillance work in the past. None of my assignment required any form of social engineering, but rather merely positioning of a video recording device in an optimal location, and then patient wait, of in the case of the grocery store recording, to locate an aisle with the least amount of people.

The moral stakes were high with my first attempt, as I could have taken the video to the President and likely gotten several staff members who were on the video fired, or in the case of the student obtained  a suspension from the school for either smoking too close to the door, or for being in possession of contraband, etc. There were no moral stakes in my 2nd and 3rd attempt. In the 2nd case, as I was not able to obtain video, there was nothing that could be done with something I did not have. In the third case, the video did nothing more than record three people shopping.