Real-life Watch Dogs: Hacking the city cameras that spy on you

LAS VEGAS — The wireless networks that cities use to link surveillance cameras are vulnerable to hacking, according to two security researchers who spoke at the Defcon hacker conference here.

Police rely on these surveillance cameras and public loudspeakers to keep watch on areas of cities where they can’t always send patrols. But the mesh network cameras that the security researchers investigated had little or no security, and they found that virtually anyone could access them, including hackers pulling pranks or criminals who can inject them with fake videos. It is one more example of how vulnerable the “Internet of things” is to hacking.