Turn your Tesla into a CIA-like counter-surveillance tool with this hack

A software engineer has built an impressive real-time counter-surveillance tool for Tesla vehicles on top of Sentry Mode.

It looks like something the CIA or James Bond would have in their car.

The tool is called Scout, and it is the brainchild of Truman Kain, senior information security analyst at Tevora.

He describes the tool:

Surveillance Detection Scout is a hardware and software stack that makes use of your Tesla’s cameras to tell you if you’re being followed in real time. The name, as you likely gathered, pays homage to the ever-effective ‘Surveillance Detection Route.’ When parked, Scout makes an excellent static surveillance practitioner as well, allowing you to run queries and establish patterns-of-life on detected persons.

It uses the existing video feeds created by Tesla’s Sentry Mode features and uses license plate and facial detection to determine if you are being followed.

Scout does all that in real-time and sends you notifications if it sees anything suspicious.

Here’s a video demonstration:

Kain presented the tool at DefCon this weekend and released the open-source code for the tool.

Electrek’s Take

I don’t know how many people are actively worried about being followed, but if you are one of them, here’s your solution.

More seriously, this tool is interesting because it shows that there’s a lot more potential for Sentry Mode.

Tesla could easily build on the feature and make it a lot more robust than its current version, which isn’t much more than an integrated dashcam system with park mode — although that’s still more than any other car on the market.

However, there’s a balance between an aggressive and feature-rich surveillance system and power consumption. Sentry mode already drains more energy out of your Tesla when parked.

However, I am sure some people would be OK with a little more drain if it results in more protection.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments section below.