Book Image

Raspberry Pi for Secret Agents - Third Edition

Book Image

Raspberry Pi for Secret Agents - Third Edition

Overview of this book

This book is for all mischievous Raspberry Pi owners who’d like to see their computer transform into a neat spy gadget to be used in a series of practical pranks and projects. No previous skills are required to follow along, and if you’re completely new to Linux, you’ll pick up much of the basics for free. We’ll help you set up your Raspberry Pi Zero, Raspberry Pi 2 and Raspberry Pi 3 and guide you through a number of pranks and secret agent techniques that are so inconspicuous yet high on mischief. You’ll learn how to configure your operating system for maximum mischief and start exploring audio, video, or Wi-Fi techniques. We’ll show you how to record, listen, or talk to people from a distance and how to set up your own phone network. Then, you’ll plug in your webcam and set up a motion detector with an alarm and find out what the other computers on your Wi-Fi network are up to. Once you’ve mastered the techniques, we’ll combine them with a battery pack and GPS for the ultimate off-road spy kit.
Table of Contents (7 chapters)

Better security with a true random number generator


We looked at encryption in the section Keeping your conversations secret with encryption in Chapter 4, Wi-Fi Pranks - Exploring Your Network; however, the key to secure cryptography is entropy—a high-quality source of randomness.

Most random numbers used in computer programs are pseudo-random, which means they are generated in a predictable manner using mathematics. In many circumstances this is fine, but for strong cryptography, this is may not be suitable, even with a good random seed, so we need a True Random Number Generator (TRNG).

Usually, this requires expensive hardware, or weird physical events such as noise analysis to generate random number using a high level of entropy. But did you know that your Raspberry Pi—including the Pi Zero—also contains a hardware-based TRNG?

Kernel entropy pool

In the Linux environment, the root of all randomness is something called the kernel entropy pool. This is a 4,096-bit secret number stored in...