A model aeroplane hobbyist and an Air Force vet decided to put their combined skills to use by creating a spy drone. But it’s not just any spy drone — it’s designed to record private phone conversations. Great.
There’s no doubt the electric WASP — Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform — is technically impressive. It manoeuvres using a built-in HD cam, runs a tiny onboard Linux box, and, most importantly, can pretend to be a GSM cell tower to intercept calls. These calls are then rerouted over VoIP using a 4G card. A pretty impressive snooping package! But DigitalTrends reports the WASP flies without breaking a single FCC rule, using Ham radio frequencies to do its penetration.
But, um, I have a feeling eavesdropping on private phone calls and pretending to be part of national cellular infrastructure runs afoul of some law or another. Hey, I’m no lawyer! But that seems like a pretty safe bet. [DigitalTrends via Engadget]