How to hack a teddy
BEFORE contacting animal welfare organisations, readers should note that "hacking a teddy" does not necessarily involve using an axe or any other weapon to chop the poor creature to bits.
Under the guidance of teacher Chris Aitken, S3 computing science pupils at Wick High School pupils have, for the second year running, taken part in an ethical hacking course about penetrating and securing networks.
Chris said: "We are not learning this for illegal purposes but are doing so to ensure that network vulnerabilities are identified and secured before criminals cause possible damage or financial loss."
The topic had two main strands – "how to rob a bank" and "hacking a teddy".
"Last year we tried to hack the school smart board with great success but this year I thought we could take things a step further and hack a teddy," said Chris.
"In the news in the past few years we have seen various incidents where internet connected devices such as teddies, dolls and webcams were easily hacked due to security vulnerabilities, but as you can imagine, these were rather hard to purchase so I decided to make my own."
Chris took one of his son’s teddies, stitched a camera into its nose and implanted a small computer called a Raspberry Pi into it – making the teddy internet connected. The task for his pupils was to then hack into the teddy and get it to secretly take a photo and email it to themselves.
"As an extension, I got pupils to remotely download a sound to the teddy and have it play over its built in speaker. Almost every pupil managed to do this,"
Chris said that the children learned about security vulnerabilities and how to use a Linux based operating system.
"Most importantly, it has raised many points for discussion around privacy and the prevalence of internet connected devices in our lives," he added.
The topic will provide useful practical information for the pupils as they work on completing their SQA Level 4 Award in cyber security.