Sonar Warfare via Smartphones

By COMMANDER ENTERPRISE

Smartphones can track, map, and show locations using sensors and positioning. But with a few enhancements and adjustments, it could also act as a sonar device, just like what submarines have for deep ocean tracking and navigation.

It may seem ridiculous, but a hit movie a few years back already placed the concept in our consciousness that smartphones today can be almost anything, even as a sonar tracking machine.

The basic technology needed already exists in smartphones and mobile technology, and with a few enhancements, adjustments, and also more advancement and testing, we can create the same device. It’s totally unaffected by the absence of light, surrounding walls/structures, and even the madness of the man they call the Joker (in a brilliant performance by the late Heath Ledger).

Bruce Wayne’s Visionary Sonar System

In the blockbuster hit The Dark Knight, one key scene sees Bruce Wayne introduce a powerful sonar network to Lucius Fox to hunt down the Joker. Careful observation of how it would work on smartphones is shown, based on the tracking of a bat’s natural echolocation system. It uses small audio signals or sounds to approximate how near or far one is from a structure around them. This is used to
effectively create a “3D map” from the processing of the sound echo response from all sides and its imaging, which are transmitted directly to Batman via his lenses, becoming the eyes of the sonar system.

Using all the smartphones in the city collectively as a huge sonar network, they are interconnected into a hub with multitudes of television monitors showing the phones that are interlinked, for easy but rather super wide viewing and tracking. They also have all voice data tapped to trace and listen in on conversations.

We also have the triangulation tracking part, which is also largely dependent on this network, benefitting the accuracy of locating the Joker. These three important components will work together to form a powerful universal tracking system. Its use is solely in the hands of the owner, but using a huge network of users and their phones and the fact that they’re not even aware what’s going on makes security issues inevitable (more on that later).

Complete with voice data in the system, they successfully apply pinpoint echolocation to “see” where the Joker is, and where the real hostages are, who are bound, gagged, and dressed up as Joker’s henchmen clowns with fake guns taped to their hands. His gang members are wearing doctor suits and ordinary clothes to fool the police that they are the hostages. It’s a clever move until The Joker finally comes face to face with The Dark Knight for that explosive final scene – and thousands of smartphone owners around the vicinity will never know.

How does he do it? The answer is unanimously simple: he’s Batman. And well, it is based on technology that already works, with just a few more advancements.

Sonar Basics and… Fishing?

Life (or rather present technology) does imitate art (bat armor suit not included), and building a similar sonar network or some sort of equivalent to its system is very much possible even without Bruce Wayne or Lucius Fox around. The basic technology applied on smartphones does exist and is being used practically with an app and a separate device to act as the sonar scanner via Bluetooth.

One would be hard-pressed to find that the technology is being used – of all things – as a fishing device and app, using a device called T-BOX SonarPhone as a sonar device as a nautical map, and to help detect fishes in the surrounding water area with accuracy and precision. It also allows the operator to see invisible regions below. Other applications already use similar concepts and technology, such as Deeper Sonar and Fishfinder App.

Sonar For Sleep Apnea… and Stealing Passwords?

Another development that serves as effective use of sonar technology using smartphones is ApneaApp. The sonar application is even more direct, as it tracks changes in a person’s sleeping patterns. Here, the phone emits the soundwaves direct to the person’s body that the app uses to observe sleep apnea occurrences. It uses algorithms that interpret that data. The smartphone’s mics and speakers are key elements that make this app work like a charm.

Another research that makes good use of a smartphone’s mics and speakers for advanced sonar applications is in the form of SonarSnoop. This one, however can steal passwords from a smartphone by winding down the stealing attempts by up to 70%. And just like Lucius and Batman’s tech, it does so without the victim, or victims knowing it.

The main method of SonarSnoop is by using sonar tech to analyse the acoustic (sonic) signature coming from the owner’s own fingers when they enter their password. This sonic-based side channel attack is inconspicuous and indirect, allowing hackers to get the password without any direct actions.

Sonar Analysis Using… Pop Music?

Another prime example of hackers using sonar tracking through smartphones (and other devices with) mics and speakers is CovertBand. Through the power of pop music, and also other types of music, the developers of this app integrate sonar emissions to track and analyse what people are doing. And yes, they work through walls and floors too. You can carry out these activities remotely, with victims never having a clue what’s going on.

Wi-Fi Signals and Sonar-like capabilities

Another development that adds and integrates into these concepts and technology is Wi-Fi body tracking. Similar to the concept of the sleep apnea app, RF Capture is even more extensive. It can track bodies in a building, behind concrete walls and floors. The device that scientists developed uses wi-fi to transmit wireless signals with bounceback data that algorithms can analyse. This creates a virtual image that shows the specific shape and height of each person.

Integrating Existing Tech For The Ultimate Sonar Tracking Device

For sonar to work like the system in the Batman movie, there are crucial elements that have to be working together, plus some adjustments. This hypothetical prototype device can integrate all these various types of technology using a very advanced phone that can integrate all functions with enough power, heavy-duty versions of the main elements (speakers, mics, echolocation systems), and a display that emits through the lenses for the sonar visualisations.

These are some of the enhanced elements that have to be in place: for 3D visuals from the echo mapping to form the images onscreen, the phone has to have a good combination of a deca-core or higher processor and the best GPU system to work with the app.

The microphones are already in the handset for the echolocation system and will send out audio signals to map out an area. All other needed capabilities that will work together, such as wireless connections (Bluetooth, NFC, DLNA), sensors, and GPS – are already in place.

However, these mics need to have no background noise canceling for more accuracy and precision, as the echolocation system relies on the waves “mapping” the area and creating what it looks like as is. The audio signals that are received back are then processed through an app that calculates approximate distances in the structure to build the “scene” from this process, together with algorithms in “creating” a visual representation of the structure and the other elements and people in it.

Because the system relies on its huge network connection of phones, the huge number of handsets that are interconnected will work together to map out an even bigger area and allow even greater visibility and area reach, by using its bigger triangulation network. The call tapping can be done from the hub, while using the same network, and can then be tuned to the specific phone and then transmitted to Batman’s helmet, although this feature is just secondary.

With this device, all matters of surveillance and advanced security will hugely benefit from its capabilities and will advance government, military, and police forces, and anyone who can get their hands on such a powerful tool.

Again, as great as this technology can possibly be, it undoubtedly raises international security issues, especially in light of several security breaches that occurred over the past year for many Cloud accounts, email accounts, and even phone calls. This is where such a device draws controversy and doubt.

Smartphone Sonar’s Evil Potential

All throughout, one ponders Bruce’s rather NSA-security breach-style surveillance using the unknowing public’s phones. After all, he broke international security policies by using all available phones in the area, accessing them, and planting code and apps without permission – just like U2 and their free album on those countless iPhones, but without telling the owners and them not knowing it’s working in the background, and then using them directly as part of a surveillance system without any public knowledge or permission as well, however important and life-threatening the mission was.

The system also tapped into all voice data, another big global security no-no, which scans all these personal calls to track down the Joker’s conversations, which also triangulated his position without knowing it. Although Bruce Wayne does hand over total control to Lucius (who later activates a self-destruct mechanism in it) after helping him complete the mission. Still, that happened in the movies and is not representative of reality and people in power having control over themselves.

There may be a reason why something of this magnitude hasn’t been developed yet, and if it has already been, it remains under wraps from the general populace. If it’s already here, we probably will remain blissfully ignorant, while someone (Bruce Wayne if he exists?) works away from some unknown location, planning their next move.