The Los Angeles Police Department has warned residents to be wary of thieves using technology to break into homes undetected. High-tech burglars have apparently knocked out their victims’ wireless cameras and alarms in the Los Angeles Wilshire-area neighborhoods before getting away with swag bags full of valuables. An LAPD social media post highlights the Wi-Fi jammer-supported burglaries and provides a helpful checklist of precautions residents can take.

Criminals can easily find the hardware for Wi-Fi jamming online. It can also be cheap, with prices starting from $40. However, jammers are illegal to use in the U.S.

We have previously reported on Wi-Fi jammer-assisted burglaries in Edina, Minnesota. Criminals deployed Wi-Fi jammer(s) to ensure homeowners weren’t alerted of intrusions and that incriminating video evidence wasn’t available to investigators.

    • TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      It doesn’t even stop the cameras, which would continue to record and save in their SD cards locally.

      • WolfLink@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        Ones that have that feature. Some popular cheaper brands (e.g. Ring) the individual cameras can’t support SD cards but the base station can but they need wifi to be able to do that.

        • Psythik@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Ring is not a cheap camera. The $20 Chinese cloud cameras sold on Amazon are extremely common and they all have MicroSD card slots as a backup option.

    • xantoxis@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      If I’m out in the world around unfriendly cameras I’m probably not on Wifi anyway. And yes, I know all the reasons they’re illegal, this isn’t completely serious.