Woke up to like 100 tags on this iPhone implant. Which is found in this video here: https://t.co/9khbpmUQEH

I don’t speak Russian, but I do have a first grade language fluency in hardware. So lets take a look!
Thread 1/n

So a lot of people have correctly identified it as this GPS & Wifi based location tracker with microphone.
A very common type of device, similar to what is found in those extremely suspicious looking USB cables: https://t.co/uBhi7tRhiW

2/n
The headers are designed to attach a specific USB connector that fits a micro SD card in the tip.
3/n
A repurposed board is very “hobby implant” but... we see the SIM card was removed, which would make this a wifi-only implant. Yet an external GSM antenna is attached and only the ground for power? Cant see the other side though...
4/n
Upon closer inspection, they removed the SIM slot housing and soldered a SIM card directly to the pads. That gains a little more space.

Thanks @dcuthbert

5/n https://t.co/Sq9X6yByPV
You can see an antenna in the upper right. Right on a metal shield which will hurt the range.
There is normally not a convenient place for an implant, but they swapped the battery for a smaller one.
6/n
This feels like a proof of concept done for the video, or a fairly low grade implant done with a tiny budget. It could be done way smaller by not repurposing an existing thumb drive module.

7/n
For many adversaries that want location & mic, I suspect they generally don’t need a hardware implant. But there are always exceptions. That’s not really my area though.
8/n
Looks like @Requiem_fr has a nice visual comparison showing the battery reduction for clearing space.

This is a technique I have also used in power supplies when needing a little extra space for... activities 😈

9/n https://t.co/KjgfREmhZt
If true, this seems almost like it was intended to be found. The work is really primitive for gov work, not to mention the other ways they can pull location & mic.

10/n https://t.co/AwNiFpIE2V
The “shrink the power source” approach was what I used for this project:

11/n https://t.co/gz3cuKC6jb
Here is a previously unpublished picture of the internals. It’s all cannibalized COTS hardware.
This was before I got into hardware design. Not very good, but enough for a proof of concept.

12/n
One plausible idea: this only needed to last long enough to see where the phone went before it was torn open. That would give some valuable info.

13/n https://t.co/M77sGjOmcW
Anyway. I’m just going off a few pictures as I haven’t had the time to properly research it. For all I know, this was created as a stand-in for video demo purposes.
14/n

More from Tech

These past few days I've been experimenting with something new that I want to use by myself.

Interestingly, this thread below has been written by that.

Let me show you how it looks like. 👇🏻


When you see localhost up there, you should know that it's truly an experiment! 😀


It's a dead-simple thread writer that will post a series of tweets a.k.a tweetstorm. ⚡️

I've been personally wanting it myself since few months ago, but neglected it intentionally to make sure it's something that I genuinely need.

So why is that important for me? 🙂

I've been a believer of a story. I tell stories all the time, whether it's in the real world or online like this. Our society has moved by that.

If you're interested by stories that move us, read Sapiens!

One of the stories that I've told was from the launch of Poster.

It's been launched multiple times this year, and Twitter has been my go-to place to tell the world about that.

Here comes my frustration.. 😤
Ok, I’ve told this story a few times, but maybe never here. Here we go. 🧵👇


I was about 6. I was in the car with my mother. We were driving a few hours from home to go to Orlando. My parents were letting me audition for a tv show. It would end up being my first job. I was very excited. But, in the meantime we drove and listened to Rush’s show.

There was some sort of trivia question they posed to the audience. I don’t remember what the riddle was, but I remember I knew the answer right away. It was phrased in this way that was somehow just simpler to see from a kid’s perspective. The answer was CAROUSEL. I was elated.

My mother was THRILLED. She insisted that we call Into the show using her “for emergencies only” giant cell phone. It was this phone:


I called in. The phone rang for a while, but someone answered. It was an impatient-sounding dude. The screener. I said I had the trivia answer. He wasn’t charmed, I could hear him rolling his eyes. He asked me what it was. I told him. “Please hold.”

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