Preface

The Raspberry Pi was developed with the intention of promoting basic computer science in schools, but the Pi also represents a welcome return to simple, fun, and open computing.

Using gadgets for purposes other than the intended ones, especially for mischief and pranks, has always been an important part of adopting a new technology and making it your own.

With a  £25 Raspberry Pi computer and a few common USB gadgets, anyone can afford to become a secret agent.

This third edition by Matthew Poole takes the previous edition's projects and brings them up to date to now support the new Raspberry Pi Zero, Raspberry Pi Version 3, and the Raspbian Jessie operating system.

There is also a new chapter that looks at ways to connect sensors and gadgets to our Pi to protect ourselves against other would-be secret agents.

What this book covers

Chapter 1,Getting Up to No Good, looks at all of the different models of the Raspberry Pi available, and then takes you through the initial setup, preparing it for sneaky headless operations over the network.

Chapter 2,Audio Antics, teaches you how to eavesdrop on conversations with a Pi Zero-based wearable voice recorder, or play pranks on friends by broadcasting your own distorted voice from a distance using the Bluetooth audio.

Chapter 3, Webcam and Video Wizardry, shows you how to set up a webcam video feed with built-in motion detection that can be used to detect intruders, or to stage a playback scare by automatically switching on a TV.

Chapter 4, Wi-Fi Pranks – Exploring Your Network, teaches you how to capture, manipulate, and spy on the traffic that flows through your network.

Chapter 5, Taking Your Pi Off-Road, shows you how to encrypt your Pi and send it away on missions while keeping in touch with it via smartphone, GPS, and Twitter updates. You'll also learn how to turn your Pi into a cellular 4G-connected router while staying anonymous on the Internet.

Chapter 6, Detecting and Protecting Against Your Enemies, looks at ways to detect infiltrations and protect ourselves against other would-be spies, by plugging sensors and other gadgets into our Raspberry Pi, alerting us when people stray into our territories.

What you need for this book

The following hardware is recommended for maximum enjoyment:

• The Raspberry Pi computer (Version 2/Version 3, and Pi Zero)
• An SD card (4 GB minimum, class 10 recommended)
• A PC/laptop running Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X with an internal or external SD card reader
• A Pi Zero connector kit
• A USB microphone / sound card (projects verified with Formosa AS301 Tube Delight and pluggable USB audio adapter.
• A USB Bluetooth adapter (projects verified with Cambridge Silicon Radio dongles) or Pi 3 onboard Bluetooth
• A Bluetooth headset and/or speaker
• Official Raspberry Pi Camera module
• A camera module or USB webcam (projects verified with Logitech C270)
• A USB Wi-Fi adapter (projects verified with Farnell element14 Wi-Pi dongle)
• A USB 3G/4G modem (projects verified with Huawei E3372 HiLink modem)
• A USB GPS receiver (projects verified with U-blox7)
• A lithium polymer battery pack (projects verified with RS Components USB Power Banks and iMuto X4)
• Waveshare Laser Sensor module
• LED matrix display (project verified with the Ciesco Pi-Lite board)
• Passive IR motion sensor (projects verified with Parallax 555-28027)
• USB to 3.3V TTL serial/UART converter
• An Android phone or iPhone (projects verified with Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and iPhone 4S)

All software mentioned in this book is free of charge and can be downloaded from the Internet.

Who this book is for

This book is for all the mischievous Raspberry Pi owners who would like to see their computer transformed into a neat spy gadget to be used in a series of practical pranks and projects. No previous skills are required to follow the book, and if you're completely new to Linux, you'll pick up most of the basics along the way.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "The cat command is commonly used to output the contents of text files, and /proc/asound is a directory."

A block of code is set as follows:

#!/bin/bash 
sudo echo 17 > /sys/class/gpio/export 
sudo echo in > /sys/class/gpio/gpio17/direction 
 
# loop forever 
while true 
do 
  # read the beam state 
  BEAM=$(sudo cat /sys/class/gpio/gpio17/value)

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cat /proc/asound/cards

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "Just right-click on the image file and select Send to, then click on Compressed (zipped) folder."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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