I may be unlucky but I have at least two neighbours who think it is amusing to hack me via bluetooth and then wifi and immediately turn off ufw [firewall] on booting. I'm lucky to get the install done from DVD without them having hacked me ASAP. It is a race to beat them to the punch so that they can't install a rootkit / trojan before me reaching the desktop to turn of these programs.

So I'd like to make a request of developers that for security reasons these programs NOT automatically be turned on, but require user intervention to turn them on. I realise that newbies may find this annoying but I think everyone can benefit from not having them automatically started. Being hacked is much more annoying.

If I can do a clean install I automatically turn these features off. I then disable bluetooth and wifi and remove programs and drivers for bluetooth and wifi.

Like many hearing impaired people my "hearing instruments" which are now minituarised programmical computers, are bluetooth equipped. So I either find a program similar to "Bluetooth Firewall" for Android or use an attached USB bluetooth transmitter and audio plug to listen to music via a "remote control unit". So it goes - laptop, transmitter, RCU, hearing instruments. Even with this firewall though they attempt to imitate my "trusted RCU" connection by using its IP address ie a DOS attack.

Inadvertently yesterday I forgot to do this and my linux partition was completely wiped. I was attempting to do a backup via live DVD to my external hard drive.

To get rid of the trojan I basically have to overwrite the hard drive boot sector. This makes it difficult as I use a dual boot Windows 10, and the latest LinuxMintDebian. Is there some other way I can do this without losing data and reinstalling?

Secondly, as I'm not an engineer, is it possible to hack the transmitter to RCU connection, hearing aid connection and then hack laptop?

Other than that I would like to say I really like LinuxMintDebian and it's stability, lack of bugs, included programs, and lovely backgrounds. It does everything I need out of the box.

My apologies for bad spelling and lack of clarity.

I think I have found the hacked directory that was booting malware file that turned ufw off on booting. I can't post screenshot as reloading laptop. Can someone tell me if they have a file or directory dated 1 Jan 1970 named efi in their boot directory?

The other question is can a laptop with bluetooth disabled and not hacked at all be hacked using bluetooth when using this setup?

Laptop -> USB bluetooth transmitter -> Hearing aid Remote Control Unit (RCU) -> Hearing aids

I know that enabling bluetooth and setting up pairing with RCU directly

eg: Laptop using bluetooth -> RCU -> Hearing aids

can easily lead to being hacked on Android tablet and phone or linux laptop. My hacker uses a DOS style attack where they imitate my RCU's IP ie RCU 0:4:x:x etc. Using "Bluetooth Firewall" on Android helps, but I run the risk of not knowing if I am allowing their device or mine to connect. So maybe only safe option is to never use bluetooth -> RCU direct connection.

I'll see if I can contact the developers over the bluetooth, wifi being enabled on boot security problem. I've really only used bluetooth since getting hearing aids, so any input, polite comments appreciated.

It sounds like you might need to talk to your local police department about this, as well. (Don't confront your neighbor yourself.)

It is actually a violation of Federal law (in the US) to use radio to maliciously interfere with someone else. I'm sure that the laws must be similar in Australia.

I'm sure that you have a legally-enforceable complaint. You're entitled to use your computers and your medical devices without malicious interference or sabotage. Investigators can bring direction-finding equipment to confirm the presence of the signals and to pinpoint their source.

Thank you for your reply. I did get the police to act via posts on ISP website giving their address for wifi hacking. A stroll with my tablet enabled me to locate the offending SSIDs. (One showed up on router connections page, another consistently knocked me off the internet and their SSID would replace it). I had never met one of them.

The AFP police here require I see a local male Neanderthal to lodge a cpmplaint. I heard him say to desk policeman to "get rid of her". I'm not a serial complainant.

I've logged complaints with ISP via webpage. Will attempt to do so via phone but given the fact that a call centre employee outsourced by Telstra kept on insisting I had no problem with my connection though she could not reach me by phone, there was a national outage and there were Telstra and Optus vans lining the street, I doubt they will help.

I can disable wifi during boot via function keys, but can't find a way to disable bluetooth.

I'll try to do fresh unhacked installs on an overwritten drive in an abandoned underground carpark! If I manage this, then disable wifi and bluetooth as much as I can, and ufw starting on boot, I have no problems. I'll try using BT only with transmitters and see how I go.

I think I may have found a solution. It isn't high tech, but it seems to work. I've posted it in case it helps others. If it does could you please click the box at the bottom of this window.

Attached Files

Defeating Radio Wave Hackers.txt (3.3 KB, 23 views)

Based soley on the information you've posted I might guess you're mistaking hardware problems for "hackers". If you were telling the police a similar story, I'm not especially surprised they were dismissive. Note that I know next to nothing about you, your neighbours, or the whole situation, so don't take my snap judgement too seriously.

I guess that is possible, but very difficult. I would say the "point of failure" could be the hearing aid (IOT and all). In anycase I would be surprised they could get to Linux that way.

But you mentioned you dual boot windows, I do not use UFI(?sp) but I wonder if the 'hacks' take place while you are in windows, maybe something gets written to the boot partition while windows is up.

John

ntubski

"Note that I know next to nothing about you, your neighbours, or the whole situation, so don't take my snap judgement too seriously."

I won't as you appear to be trolling and have contributed nothing useful to the discussion. I haven't discussed it with local police at all. In the past over a business related hacking and personal account hacking [Paypal hacked] I did not have to do this. Hacking of an individual is less important than child pornography, financial fraud, terrorism etc.

jmccue

It is hard to know as Siemens contact persons mailbox is full. No help there. Then there are IP considerations. Raised the issue with the audiologist as well, but again it probably takes knowledge of linux based hacking which is not his field. I think you could be right, it may be the hearing aid. Fortunately turning it off and powering on wipes the last adjusted settings.

It is not that hard to get to linux this way at all, though it may involve the purchase of extra bluetooth and wifi hardware capable of snooping and antennas to extend the range and Kali DVD. One of the hackers may be a nut case electrical engineer who is so f.....d up psychiatrists refuse to admit him to psych wards as he is a danger to other patients. But that is purely speculation. He did admit to maliciously hacking me in the past though. But he would have these skills and he boasted about hacking work colleagues. Then he complained that he found it hard to get employment! Unbelievable but true. Just saying there are some real a... out there. Or it could just be a gamer or cheapskate. Bluetooth hacking can be done from a mobile phone in either Windows or linux. See Bluebugging, bluesnarfing etc.

I do all the usual things for Windows security. But the two systems are on different partitions and don't share a common boot partition. You have to select legacy OR UEFI in BIOS settings to boot each one. I mainly have windows there in case I need to reference it for some reason or for one or two programs that are Windows based. Neither system can be accessed from the other one normally. You need to use "shutdown /s" in Win10 for linux to mount it. So it is unlikely to have happened this way.

Anyway I'm getting an in depth education in hacking from this b ...d.

I'll have a go at contacting the AFP who may direct the local sergeant to take it seriously. After all medical equipment is involved.

Update:

After some searching and testing etc, I believe the point of entry was the Microsoft Sculpt mouse that came bundled with the number pad and the Sculpt keyboard. Bastille.net list both my transceiver and mouse as vulnerable to mouse jacking. Currently the Sculpt keyboard is not. They can't patch this mouse as preventing the transmission of keystrokes from the mouse also prevents the keyboard working. Mice bought seperately and not part of a keyboard bundle can be patched. I decided to buy a different brand of wired ergonomic mouse.

The linux listing for these from lsusb is: ID 045e:07a5 Microsoft Corp for the mouse and
ID 045e:0745 for the Microsoft Nano transceiver v.10 for Bluetooth

Other things that happened was they turned on my webcam, and disabled touchpad, also keyboards would not work. Strangely they managed to setup a "Wired Connection 1" though I was sitting in a car park 100ft from my house. However when I pressed the laptop Fn key for touchpad it worked again but I immediately lost my real ethernet internet connection! On one particular USB port, at odd times when I would insert a drive, or USB stick the whole system would freeze. A hunt for malware on these seems to have fixed the problem. Now all peripherals appear to be working ok.

Just updating in case anyone has similar issues. I'm going to be optimistic and mark it as solved. Anyone interested in a less geeky but good explanation of mouse jacking can read this: https://www.cnet.com/au/news/i-got-mousejacked/. Geeks and those infected might like this: https://www.bastille.net/research/vu...fected-devices

Afterthought: For Australian readers ACORN is a good place to report security breaches and Telstra Ph: 133933 for tech support they get you to fill in a form to report a breach. These agencies then contact the AFP to investigate if they think it is worthwhile.