by John P. Thomas
Health Impact News

Will smart meters and 5G cellular services become a threat to the security of people’s computers and smart phones? Breaches in security from these new microwave technologies are quite possible. Let’s take a look at how it could happen.

It Seems that There’s Always a Way to Break Computer Security

I remember an amusing incident about computer security that happened to me about 7 years ago when I took my computer into the repair shop. I handed my laptop to the technician and asked him, “Do you want me to write down the password that I use for logging-in?” He laughed and said, “I don’t need it – I have a disk.” I must have given him a strange look that said, “A disk?” “Yes, I just put the disk in your drive and it bypasses the Windows security system.”

That was in 2010, and computer and cell phone security has been substantially improved since then. However, we shouldn’t assume that these improvements are totally secure. Having complex passwords with a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters with numbers and punctuation symbols tossed into the mix is a good idea, however this will not keep our information completely safe. Smart meters and 5G cell towers could be used to bypass our security systems just as that disk did on my computer many years ago.

Intercepting Data on Highly Secure Air-Gapped Computers

An air-gapped computer is simply a computer that is not connected to the internet. It could be a single standalone computer or a computer that is part of a network that is not connected to the world outside of the office building where it is housed. Air-gapped computers are considered to be the most difficult to hack, because of their isolation. [1]

However, Cyber Security Labs at Ben Gurion University in Israel have been able to intercept information such as passwords from these highly secure computers through three unconventional methods. They were able to use temperature manipulations, electromagnetic frequencies in the FM radio band, and ultra-high frequency sounds to hack into air-gapped computers in their lab. The instrument that they used to record the transmission of data from the computer was a 9-year old cell phone. [2, 3]

A smart phone would work even better for intercepting information, but these are usually forbidden in highly secure air-gapped computer environments.

In some of their experiments, they installed a tiny program to slightly alter the electrical activity in the computer and installed another small program on the cell phone. These programs were very small and were often not of concern to antivirus and antispyware software. The programs did not deliver data, they just changed certain behaviors of the computers so that a cell phone could listen to the electromagnetic activity at the binary level. Binary information consists of a string of zeros and ones, which all computers use to manage their operations.

How could these Programs Get into an Air-Gapped Computer and on to a Cell Phone?

In the real world, we might wonder how such programs could get into a computer if it had never been put online. They gave two explanations of how this might happen.

These types of programs could be installed on the computer at some point in the supply line of manufacturing and sales. Such programs also could have been installed on a cell phone when it was used online, and then transferred to an air-gapped computer when the phone was plugged into its USB port for charging.

There are three key points that I want to highlight about this research.

1. A cell phone was the instrument that was used to break into the computer and gather information such as passwords. They noted that cell phones in some situations could perceive and record information from as far away as 30 meters.

2. They were working with air-gapped computers, which are much more secure than the computers that most people use at home or at work. This means that our regular computers will be much easier to hack into than the air-gapped computers used by the U.S. military, the U.S. government, the financial sector, nuclear power plants, law enforcement, and major corporations.

3. The methods they used couldn’t download massive amounts of information, but once they were able to get passwords, then presumably the door was open to download information and to even make modifications to computers, which could provide even easier access in the future.

You may wish to watch the following presentation on the research conducted by Ben Gurion University in Israel.

[DS15] Bridging the Air Gap Data Exfiltration from Air Gap Networks – YouTube – 37 minutes:

Cell Phones and Smart Meters are Tools for Invading Privacy

As was just explained, cell phones have the hardware to record information coming from a computer and to transmit the information through the 5G network to those who are intent on knowing what people are doing with their computers.

In a similar way, smart meters are also highly effective tools for gathering information imbedded in electromagnetic frequencies coming from computers and to transmit that information to those who might be listening to smart meter activity.

Smart Meters are Extremely Vulnerable to Hacking

According to Bell Labs, the smart meter is actually the weakest element in the data security system used by utility companies. Security systems designed to prevent unauthorized use of smart meters would be very expensive, and utility companies do not have the resources to apply high security control over hundreds of millions of smart meters. [4]

This means that the likelihood of smart meters being hijacked and adapted for harmful purposes without utility company cooperation is high. Smart meters are definitely not secure air-gapped devices.

Smart meters are designed to send and receive microwave signals and they perform that function well. If they can receive transmissions from the utility company and send responses, then they also could receive and respond to signals from unauthorized sources.

Yes, I understand that smart meters use encryption systems, but I also understand that encryption systems can be circumvented by those with evil intent as was shown by the Israeli researchers.

Smart Meters are Black Box Devices

Smart meters are sealed black box technology. We can’t look inside them, and even if we could, it might be very difficult to assess their full range of capabilities. No one other than the utility companies and the manufacturers know exactly what is in the meters and fully understands their full range of potential uses.

All we really know is that they can send and receive data at various microwave frequencies and can send and receive data at various density levels. Density refers to the amount of electromagnetic waves that pass through a square centimeter or square meter in a single second. The greater the density the further the microwaves will travel and the greater their ability to penetrate the human body.

In addition to the microwave frequencies that smart meters use to communicate with one another and with utility company routers that are typically located on top of electrical poles, smart meters also transmit and receive ZigB frequencies. These are the frequencies that are used by smart appliances. ZigB is a wireless microwave protocol that is similar to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Those who have smart meters will eventually be encouraged to establish a Home Area Network (HAN) to monitor their appliances. These systems will use software installed on computers or cell phones. The software will interact with a ZigB controller/monitor, which establishes wireless connections with the smart appliances and with the smart meter.

Utility companies say they will not collect information gathered by the HAN. They indicate that the HAN is purely for the benefit of the consumer. [5]

This means a potential hacker could access the smart meter and our computers and/or our smart phones through two levels – through the microwave receiving and transmitting equipment of the meters and through the ZigB frequencies used to communicate with our appliances and the HAN, which includes the smart meter.

Even though ZigB is encrypted, it might be a relatively easy task to crack into these systems and monitor what is going on inside a home equipped with a HAN system. The lack of certain types of appliance usage during the day or over the course of a week would show whether people are home or away. ZigB might also be an open door for hackers to gain access to your cell phone or computer when they are integrated with the HAN.

We don’t know whether these black box smart meters have other abilities. Can they monitor other electromagnetic activities such as those used in the Israeli research? In other words, what could they be monitoring without our knowledge? Could specially adapted smart meters with more sophisticated technology be installed on the homes or offices of suspected terrorists or people who object to the plans of mega-corporations and big government, or is such equipment already there?

We don’t know the answers to these questions, because smart meters are secret devices owned by the utility companies, and thus far they have not been forthcoming about the details of these devices.

Using 5G and Smart Meters to Harm Human Health and Control our Minds

In the previous article, I discussed the intentional abuse of this technology to damage health and to alter our cognitive processes.

See:

Can New 5G Technology and Smart Meters be Used as Weapons?

Microwave technology also could be used for mind control. There are some who believe that it is possible to use microwaves to implant ideas into the human mind and to alter human emotions. The evidence in support of this claim is actually becoming visible through research grants.

For example, research is underway at Massachusetts General Hospital to use High-Bandwidth Wireless Interfaces for Continuous Human Intracortical Recording with the goal of monitoring neurons and triggering muscle movement. [6, 7]

Researchers are building a device that can watch the firing of certain neurons in the brains of physically disabled people, so that when a person has a thought such as, “I want to move my right hand.” The device will then respond by triggering the right hand to move.

The natural extension of this research will ultimately be the development of devices that can read our thoughts and emotions.

I reported on research of this type in a 2015 article. The research is being funded by the U.S. government’s BRAIN initiative.

See:

Will the Government “BRAIN Initiative” Improve Mental Health or Increase Medical Tyranny?

Scientists believe that if they can watch and record brain activity inside the skull while it is happening and trigger brain cells, then they can eventually understand how human memory, human emotions, human thought, and human expression of intelligence normally operate. They can then look at people with certain conditions and find where the brain has become dysfunctional.

The next step would be to use technology and drugs to target the dysfunctional activity in the brain and make the brain behave “normally,” i.e., make the person behave as other people think they should feel, think, and behave.

In the context of a doctor-patient relationship this could be called medical treatment. In the context of government agents addressing non-compliant people, this same technology would be called mind control.

Isn’t the Government Going to Prevent Abusive Use of 5G and Smart Meters?

There are few regulations that control telecom companies and utility companies with respect to what they do with microwave technology and smart meters. The way things are now functioning in the federal government, corporations design the regulations they want, and federal regulators do a minimal amount of due-diligence before applying their rubber stamp of approval to the plans of mega-corporations. We should not assume we will be protected – after-all, it might be the government that someday uses this technology against uncooperative citizens, not just dangerous terrorists.

The MK Ultra program and its many secret sister mind control programs operated in the shadowland of the U.S. government for decades, and as far as we know, they are still in operation though these programs are now very well hidden from public view. These covert programs use every imaginable form of technology to break down the human mind and to obtain control over people. [8]

I can’t imagine that these programs would ignore microwave technology as a tool for their purposes. This is probably why the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), are involved in the government’s BRAIN initiative. [9]

How long will it be before microwave research turns 5G, smart phones, ZigB, Wi-Fi, and smart meters into tools of mind control? As far as I know, we are not there yet, but the government’s BRAIN initiative appears to be laying the foundation for the eventual development of such systems.

Conclusion: Your Private Data is not Safe

If you have a computer that uses a wireless Wi-Fi router, then there is no reason to assume that someone with the right technology couldn’t read everything that goes through the router. If you have a wireless printer, wireless keyboard, wireless mouse, wireless scanner, etc., there is no reason to assume your information is secure from being monitored by your smart meter. Even if your devices are hard wired to your computer, the wiring produces electromagnetic frequencies that can be read and understood by devices that might have been put in place to monitor the computer. [10]

If a printer can receive your documents, then so can someone else who is intent on monitoring your information. If your computer can receive the keystrokes you type, then, as the Israeli researchers showed, others can record those keystrokes by using various means.

Yes, I know there are firewalls, encryption systems, antivirus programs, and antispyware programs, but these tools, like any other man-made scheme, can be broken by someone who tries hard enough. We should never assume that these tools will keep unauthorized people out of our private lives, especially those with nearly unlimited resources and malicious intentions.

I realize that the topic of safeguarding our “right to privacy” has fallen out of the interest zone of most Americans. It seems that we have been led to believe that we are free and no one is watching us or listening to our private activities.

The belief that our private lives are free from intrusion from government, mega-corporations, and illegal police actions is actually a myth created by mainstream media to lull people into a place of unmerited trust.

We are told to not be suspicious. We are told to avoid looking too closely at easily observable facts and to avoid drawing logical conclusions derived from those facts.

Mainstream media has a name for the practice of examining hard evidence too closely and connecting the dots – they call it “conspiracy theory,” and they call people who engage in such thinking “crackpots.”

People who make a habit of drawing attention to the dark side of government and the even darker side of mega-corporations may become targets of illegal surveillance. Those who cast doubt on the safety of vaccines, the safety of chemicalized food, the safety of public water, the safety of thousands of petrochemicals in the environment, the safety of cell phones, the safety of 5G, the safety of smart meters, just to name a few, may soon become targets of surveillance and perhaps even technological retaliation, as I described in my previous article.

The truth that we face today is rather grim with respect to our privacy. If unscrupulous people want to intrude into our private lives, then most individuals will be ill-equipped to stop them.

We are entering an era, where we will need to pay very close attention to what we say and write. It is often very easy to say more than necessary and to use highly inflammatory language, which might cause us to be seen as non-conforming rebels who are about to incite a revolution against our government.

We must not be afraid to defend our constitutional rights to free speech and to state unpopular facts in clear and concise language. Let us not shrink back in fear because someone may be watching us. Such a retreat is exactly what those who operate behind the cover of government institutions and the shadowy cover of mega-corporations desire.

About the Author

John P. Thomas is a health writer for Health Impact News. He holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan, and a Master of Science in Public Health (M.S.P.H.) from the School of Public Health, Department of Health Administration, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

References

[1] “Researchers Hack Air-Gapped Computer with Simple Cell Phone,” WIRED, 2015. https://www.wired.com/2015/07/researchers-hack-air-gapped-computer-simple-cell-phone/

[2 IBID.

[3] “[DS15] Bridging the Air Gap Data Exfiltration from Air Gap Networks,” YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bThJEX4l_Ks

[4] Abdulrahman Yarali and Saifur Rahman; “Wireless Communication for Smart Grids,” ThinkMind, 1/10/2012. https://www.thinkmind.org/download.php?articleid=colla_2012_1_10_50004

[5] “FAQs – Functionality of a Home Area Network,” Ameren Illinois, Retrieved 7/29/2017. https://www.ameren.com/illinois/advanced-meters/work-functionality

[6] “RFA-MH-14-215,” The BRAIN Initiative, Project Information – NIH RePORTER – NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools Expenditures and Results, Retrieved 7/28/2017. https://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_description.cfm?icde=0&aid=9054364

[7] “Institution – Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN),” National Institutes of Health (NIH), List of Grants, Retrieved 7/29/2017. https://www.braininitiative.nih.gov/funding/institution.htm

[8] “MK Ultra and Modern Day Mind Control: The Battle for America’s Soul,” John P. Thomas, Health Impact News, 8/3/2016. http://healthimpactnews.com/2016/mk-ultra-and-modern-day-mind-control-the-battle-for-americas-soul/

[9] “Will the Government “BRAIN Initiative” Improve Mental Health or Increase Medical Tyranny?” John P. Thomas, Health Impact News, 12/4/2015. https://healthimpactnews.com/2015/will-the-government-brain-initiative-improve-mental-health-or-increase-medical-tyranny/

[10] “An Introduction to TEMPEST,” Cassi Goodman, Document 981, Obtained from the SANS Institute InfoSec Reading Room, 4/18/2001. https://www.sans.org/reading-room/whitepapers/privacy/introduction-tempest-981