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badaboomxx ,

One question, has the Canadian police actually arrested people using the flipper to steal cars?

golden_zealot ,
@golden_zealot@lemmy.ml avatar

This is our government in a nutshell. Don't like guns? Ban them from licensed owners instead of working against smuggling or changing the license requirement from a PAL to an RPAL. Don't like gas cars? Ban them instead of working on public transit and infrastructure. Don't like the flipper zero? Ban it instead of either licensing purchase and use like a billion other radio devices that exist, or holding car manufacturers responsible for ass security practices.

Can't wait to find out what they don't like next, I wonder what they'll do? /s

Grass ,

People are cutting locks so we should ban long arm metal snips and angle grinders.

paws ,
@paws@cyberpaws.lol avatar

Go for the source, ban the locks

jaschen ,

Um.... You don't even need the flipper zero to steal a car. I'm not even sure it's strong enough to emulate the key.

banneryear1868 ,

Pretty sure you can't even use the Flipper in the way thieves are using cheap alibaba radio amplifiers on the proximity fobs that people keep near their front door...

mods_are_assholes ,

Might as well outlaw crowbars because they can be used to break into houses...

Fucking idiots who's microwaves blink midnight for decades think they can make meaningful decisions about tech.

Shenanigore ,

That's all Trudeau has been good for, for years, attempting to appear to do something about a problem but never, never, ever, actually fixing anything, but also inconveniencing/ removing rights or making criminals out of ancillary people to the actual issue.

quaddo ,

“This here’s the Lockpocking Lawyer, and today we’re going to take a closer look at the Flipper Zero….”

badbytes ,

Oh Canada...

Xavier ,

Honestly, I am embarrassed with the whole "look like were doing something" shtick by my government. An expensive gathering of decision makers from various sectors, a National Summit, just to say: we are now gonna be soooo tough on crime and let's ban the toy we just saw on TikTok.

Car theft was a major problem before 2010 until engine immobilizers became mandatory since 2007 on all vehicles made in Canada

Then everyone got too comfortable. The regulatory bodies and car manufacturers were too focused pretending doing some work and publishing all the buzzword-of-the-day "accomplishments" they were doing while patting each others backs without explicitely requiring manufacturers to comply/implement immediately anything. Meanwhile, manufacturers were happy to integrate almost off-the-shelf "children's RC" car starter pack obfuscated through invisible/non-existent security and protected under dubious industrial secrets.

Obviously, criminals smelled the easy money. Starting around 2013 — mystery car unlocking device | 2015 — signal repeater car burglary, car thefts by relay attacks were known by automakers but ignored as one-offs, too technical, already dealt with by law enforcement to lets pretent it's not that big of a problem or leave it to the police. Meanwhile, insurance claim replacement vehicles are selling like hotcakes and it is "convenient" to ignore the problem.

The following years various reprogramming theft become known and finally CAN bus injection — new form of keyless car theft that works in under 2 minutes or in depth investigation by Dr. Ken Tindell, becomes so easy, so cheap and widely available that even kids uses them to gain Youtube/TikTok followers.

Car hacking was a becoming serious concern during the pandemic, but now it's simply ridiculous and as if current automaker included/provided anti-theft/GPS tracking were (un)knowingly made "defective".

Hence, everyone is playing catch up and blaming left and right on who is responsible for this in-slow-motion public safety disaster.

Brian Kingston, president and CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association, which includes Ford Motor Company of Canada, General Motors of Canada and Stellantis, said increasing the risk of prosecution is the most effective way to deter vehicle theft.

"And at the same time, providing more outbound inspection controls at the ports to prevent the flow of stolen vehicles to foreign markets by organized criminal organizations," he added.

New vehicle safety standards have been published (rushed?) recently. We will see if all the panic settles down like after 2007.

Moreover, the exponential prevalence of car theft also laid bare the incredibly poor and ineffective security at the various ports of Canada. Unsurprisingly, it has been a known constant devolution:

The devolution of port authorities in Canada has not been without debate over the past 70 years. This paper provides a brief introduction to the role of ports in Canada and then examines the history of port policy and devolution, concluding that past policies were considered to have failed due to their inability to respond to changing circumstances.

(Reposting my same reply for a similar thread about the Canadian Government banning the Flipper Zero, please check my post history for the other thread)

Player2 ,

Good thing I ordered one a couple days ago

SpaceCowboy ,
@SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca avatar

This has made me think that I should order one too. Must be a good tool if it needs to be made illegal.

can ,

You can break into thirty year old cars!

Fades ,

That’s fucking bullshit wtf. This is exactly like bad gun reform that comes from someone who doesn’t know shit about the thing they are trying to reform

ikidd ,
@ikidd@lemmy.world avatar

Welcome to Canada. Turning dials that aren't connected to anything is the specialty of our "leaders".

febra ,

Next, ban radio waves, because car companies are too damn dense to create a proper product lol

sebinspace ,

I’m surprised no fobs use a time-based token to prevent replay attacks. Would make it a bit of a bitch to replace the battery, but hey-ho, tradeoffs.

KairuByte ,
@KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

More of an issue with the fob being to connect to a service to get the current time. Technically possible, but would add cost. And if that time is ever out of sync it just won’t work.

sebinspace ,

I can put an RTC in an Arduino for about $8. It keeps time accurately. If it gets out of sync, maybe a Bluetooth connection to let it do an NTP request through another device.

Cellular connectivity is not required.

KairuByte ,
@KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

RTC’s are not inherently accurate. You have an RTC in your computer, but disconnect it from the internet for a year and it’s extremely unlikely it will be able to pass an OTP check.

Add to that the fact that RTCs run off power, means that the fob would need to actively pull from the battery 24/7. What happens when that battery voltage drops below the required power level? The time goes out of sync. Not to mention you need to change the battery at some point.

Adding Bluetooth would be a terrible idea. You’d then need to make sure the device can receive firmware updates, and we all know the reputation car companies have for updates to things.

Better option would be to receive the date and time from a transmission, be it FM or cell. And no, you wouldn’t have to pay for cell.

The problem comes when you’re in an area that doesn’t have these available, which is still quite possible in the US.

So we loop back to these not really being that viable. They will work most of the time, in most instances. But they’d be shooting themselves in the foot in certain places and with certain users.

Chriswild ,

Instead of a time based token they should have authentication. To start the car you need biometric or passcode or Bluetooth to connect and the fob.

For the life of me I don't understand why my phone has better security than my car.

rottingleaf ,

Cause what's in the title is normal news. That's why. Dumbasses having power to decide for us that it's the tools to blame.

ikidd ,
@ikidd@lemmy.world avatar

They use rolling codes that aren't susceptible to FlipperZero anyway. This is a dog and pony show.

sebinspace ,

they use rolling codes

All of them? Source?

ikidd ,
@ikidd@lemmy.world avatar

It's been that way for a long time, it's just kinda the accepted way. The vehicle builders had seen what garage door systems problems came about from hard-switched or dip-switched codes and just went that way from the start.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_keyless_system#Security

The newer vehicles have these always-on systems now, the owner doesn't have to press a specific button. So theives can amplify the fob signal that's constantly being emitted in the house and get the car to open, then program new keys once they're in the vehicle and drive away. But that has nothing to do with the Flipper, that's just a radio repeater.

Natanael ,

Challenges-reponse protocols are what's needed

Socsa ,

Literally nobody is using flippers to steal cars. Grow the fuck up.

jabathekek ,
@jabathekek@sopuli.xyz avatar

They're just doing it to get the votes of the people that see headlines like this and think it's a good thing without reading the article at all.

moistclump ,

What is a flipper zero?

moistclump ,

I still don’t understand

The Flipper Zero is a portable and programmable pen-testing tool that helps experiment with and debug various hardware and digital devices over multiple protocols, including RFID, radio, NFC, infrared, and Bluetooth.

wunami ,
@wunami@lemmy.world avatar

Pen-testing is short for penetration testing. Which is testing if you can break into the things. Like a locked office or a computer system, etc. Legally, it's done to find flaws that need to be fixed before they get used nefariously.

Pen testing techniques and tools are essentially break in tools. In this case, a tool for mimicking car key fobs and the wireless signals they send to the car.

Fondots ,

Pen-testing: penetration testing, basically good guy hacking to find security vulnerabilities so that they can be fixed, basically finding out how easy a security system is to penetrate.

Debugging: fixing problems in hardware and software

RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification), radio, NFC (Near Field Communication,) infrared, Bluetooth: different forms of wireless communication.

RFID is used for stuff like security tags on merchandise, car key fobs

NFC is similar (you could probably make an argument that NFC is basically a type of RFID) with a very short range used for things like making payments with your phone

Bluetooth you're probably somewhat familiar with, in used for a lot of consumer electronics, wireless headphones, speakers, computer mice, etc.

All of those use radio waves in some form to pass information from one device to another.

Infrared uses a infrared light to send information, the most common use you've probably seen is for TV remotes, which is why you have to point the remote at the TV to work, you're basically flashing an invisible flashlight at the sensor on the TV

This device can basically mimic any of those kinds of signals allowing it access, control, or bypass devices and systems that use those protocols.

This can be useful for people working on those kinds of systems, you don't need to have the actual key card, remote, device, etc. to test it out, you can try a bunch of different configurations without needing to reprogram the card a bunch of times, and gives you a lot of options to test for different vulnerabilities and issues.

But those same capabilities make it attractive to people who would use it maliciously. If they don't have the right security measures in place, something like this device could be used to gain access to secure areas by spoofing a key card, unlock cars, interfere with cell phones, snoop on wireless communications, gain access to a someone's devices, etc.

Psythik ,

It's basically a 2 way radio with tools for those who like to mess with the radio spectrum. That's the most simple explanation I can make for such a device.

ilost7489 ,

It has a bunch of abilities, but the most important one is that it can recieve and transmit radio signals that can trick devices like remote door locks and garage door openers into thinking that a key was pressed to open them, but only if they don't have proper security systems set up. It's built for penetration testing on systems to see how secure they are

JustUseMint ,

The sheer cognitive dissonance of everyone in this thread saying "criminals don't follow laws so banning this will do nothing!!" But will turn around and say "dur it'll with guns though," is painful.

Player2 ,

Build multi-use guns with hobbyist supplies in your house and then we'll talk

JustUseMint ,

Lol you can this isn't even a new concept

hyperhopper ,

Bro you can make an ak-47 out of a shovel.

https://militaryhumor.net/homemade-ak-47-made-from-shovel/

The FGC-9 is a gun designed to be built only from common hardware store tools and a shitty 3d printer and has been used by even the myanmar rebel forces who built it themselves. (Also you can build 3d printers themselves from hardware store and hobbyist electronics store supplies).

Guns are just metal tubes with some extra bits, as knowledge and materials get better, making them gets easier. You're making this statement like it hasn't been a common thing for years

Player2 ,

You may be right. From my understanding it was quite difficult to build a weapon that is accurate and functional after several shots. Either way it seems quite a bit more involved and more dangerous to the builder than a breadboard and a radio transmitter you can buy off the shelf.

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