Google Glass is the future. Or it’s not. In either case, there exists a serious problem in the head-mounted wearables category that is already causing a stir: Anywhere, at any time, a person wearing Google Glass might be recording you or photographing you without your knowledge.
There is no end in sight for this serious potential invasion of our privacy, but there are solutions that can help in some scenarios. Berlin-based artist Julian Oliver, for example, has created a solution that stops “Glassholes” in their tracks as soon as they walk into a room.
“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 asked Wired in a recent interview.
In order to answer that question, he created a program called program called Glasshole.sh.
Oliver says that Google’s connected eyewear all have a common string in their MAC addresses. As such, he created a program that will monitor for Glass and thwart any attempts to connect to the network.
Going further still, the program will impersonate a Wi-Fi network, connect to Glass, send a “deauthorization” command, cut the eyewear’s Wi-Fi connection and even cause it to emit a beep so others in the area are made aware that a Glass user is in their vicinity.
The solution needs only a Raspberry Pi or Beaglebone mini-computer to work, and it also needs a Wi-Fi antenna.
