Developer comes with device to keep Google Glass from network

A New Zealand developer has built a device that can block a Google Glass that connects to the Internet. In this way he wants to prevent users of the glasses from secretly trying to visualize everything.

With the device, the Cyborg Unplug, New Zealander Julian Oliver builds on one of his scripts. He wrote that program after an artist friend came to him and said that a visitor to his gallery may have posted images of his work on the internet using Google Glass, Wired knows.

Oliver went to investigate and discovered that Google’s glasses have a unique prefix in the MAC address, which should be easy to find. He then wrote a script that searches for a Google Glass on a Wi-Fi network and sends a DeAuth command with the program Aircrack-ng to disconnect the internet connection. The script, Glasshole.sh, is open source and can be installed on a Raspberry Pi, among other things.

Now Oliver has expanded on his idea and comes up with the Cyborg Unplug, which basically does the same job. The device plugs into a wall outlet and then searches a Wi-Fi network for a Google Glass. As soon as it finds one, the device sounds an alarm and, depending on the settings, can ban the glasses and the paired smartphone from the network. The alarm options differ per version of the Cyborg Unplug.

The device, which is built around Qualcomm Atheros and Ralink routers, will be available at the end of this month in two flavors: a cheap variant for $50 and a more expensive $85 variant. The cheap version only has a flashing LED lamp to sound the alarm. The more expensive alarm sounds with a sound and can also be controlled with an Android app. Oliver replaced the routers’ firmware with a proprietary variant of the Linux-based Open-WRT.