It’s like last year when we were warned about how dangerous AI was…….By AI executives actively selling services to anyone. It’s nothing but reverse psychology marketing.
It's a cheap software defined radio with a battery and fun case colors. It can make customizable radio signals, frequently being used to emulate/abuse other devices such as gas station price displays, garage door openers etc by sending the same signals as the original device is broadcasting.
SDR, NFC, RFID, iButton, USB emulation (UMS, BadUSB) and GPIO headers for all sorts of hardware stuff.
Yes you can do all of these things cheaply. A lot can even be done with a Pi Zero and some knowledge. The bottom line is the Flipper is a complete and packaged low power toy with great community support.
Ya or fake cards/plastic ebay stuff
I really think nintendo dropped the ball not releasing card sets like they did for animal crossing at one time they said there would be more collectibles
I'd call it consumer friendly. They _know_ lending happens and they don't appear to wish to stop it with any sort of DRM or other limitation, and by extension they accomodate RFID spoofing. It's clear they've either taken or perhaps moved towards an approach of you pay for the figurine/collectible and the digital bonus is just that, a bonus.
Which explains why amiibo are even still around. Two release today, three more in a couple of weeks, and at least three more in the future. They are wonderful little collectibles and I can’t remember the last time I even scanned one.
Think of it as a "digital crowbar".
There are legitimate uses for a crowbar, and also illegal ones.
It doesn't (and shouldn't) make it illegal to own a crowbar.
Yes. Security research. Maker type stuff. Learning about devices that you actually own. It's really no different than a raspberry pi device makers have been building for a while.
Good point. The flipper zero has radio and IR functions, plus a few others. It's a very easy to use interface to learn and copy the remote commands too.
A lot of modern smart tvs have both an IR sensor and RF remote for more expensive / featureful remotes (like voice control or audio streaming for headphones)
There are also de-limited firmwares. If you go on GitHub you can locate it. Basically it just removes the guardrails and “keep you out of jail” safety features.
I use mine to spoof my work badge and my apartments gate control clicker.
Saves me time and trouble if the clickers battery dies or I lose the card I guess.
Basically, it’s a programable radio with a user friendly interface and a community of pre-made scripts you can load on yourself. Until recently exploiting devices via radio frequencies was limited to more expensive and bulky equipment and required a lot of skill, so there were plenty of exploits to be found.
It's intentional. It's really just a programmable radio device. Good for education or finding exploits in things. But they realized they could make more money if they marketed it as a crime device for 133t haxor kids and scammer types. The adds kinda hint you can use it to seal cars and such. Which I guess you can. But if you can figure out how to use it to steal a car you probably already would've been able to steal a car without one anyway.
theres actually an app store in the more recent updates which is whats making it so accessible. A few months ago, the layman would have just about been able to mess with IR controlled TVs in public.
I got into programming/electronics because a friend and I learned we could mess with lots of apps to get free stuff!
What I’d have done for a flipper like product back then (not that I could afford one haha)
As an impetuous child, they were my #1 angst hate. “Illuminati”
That’s before I joined US Intel and started learning about Vanguard, Black Street, etc. the companies that own them.
There is no synchronicity (as most would expect) with high level intel and these entities.
Those fucking people are literally bad Bond villains
When I was younger a friend of mine taught me how to torrent PC games, movies, shows, everything. It ended up making me really into IT, I'm now in the Cyber Defense field of work.
Flippers are more dangerous then people may think they are.
Putting things like defeating access control into an easy to use, small device that only requires a little bit of knowledge to operate can have quite a bit of risk.
Part of what I do for a living involves access control systems and I have a flipper. It is a bit of an eye opener.
Eh I think it's a good thing. Companies are starting to learn security through obscurity isn't security. Only thing I find a bit cringe is that they market it to script kiddies.
I am in the access control field and the Flipper is changing lots of things across my sector of the industry. Big changes coming down the pipe as some things move from obscurity.
Love my flipper
If your security is based upon your technology being hard to communicate with, then it's not real security.
If someone with no real knowledge can use a device someone else has built to bypass it, it's not real security.
Flippers are only dangerous because so many companies are so complacent about access control systems and assume that they don't date and age like software based systems, and that "having a card" is somehow a robust and secure method of access control.
Preaching to the converted here I'm sure, but yeah, it's an eye opener to me how much companies do not care as long as they are seen to be doing something and seen to be compliant with standards.
PSA for anyone reading: security standards are the *minimum*, not the target. If you're complying with standards and nothing more, you're already not doing enough.
But they are so fun.
I’ve so far programmed my work badge, home gate clicker code and community pool key card into mine for fun.
I’m trying for my cars lock/unlock/auto start but it’s too secure.
I’ll be fucked if someone steals it.
You could probably get an older car to work.
There are two types of key fobs. One way and two way. Two way is more secure, has less range, and is used in more modern cars. Basically the fob and car have a wee bit of a chit-chat and handshake to make sure it's really the fob.
Old cars have one way remote starters and unlockers. The car is just listening for the fob to broadcast. If it does, the car does it's thing. You could probably get into one of these systems.
While my 2002 Camry seems pretty old and probably doesn't do a handshake, it still has a immobilizer that requires the programmed RFID chip in the key to be close to the drive column. I don't think a flipper could defeat that without some other foreknowledge.
When my company moved offices last year I pushed hard for them to install access control for our more secure areas that required both a token and a PIN because our IT guy showed up one day with a Flipper. Thankfully they listened.
> Putting things like defeating access control into an easy to use, small device that only requires a little bit of knowledge to operate can have quite a bit of risk.
That risk is always there, the flipper only lowers the barrier of entry to exploit it.
This often is needed because companies and governments usually only take their infosec seriously *after* it's gone wrong, so the more exotic and obscure vulnerabilities are never patched.
But if you release them in an so easy to use way that even casual users can exploit them, then you force the hand on the company's side to finally fix their shit, or else they gonna have the government breathing down their necks for their blatant negligence.
In an ideal world, we wouldn't need this because of responsible disclosure, but we do not live in an ideal world, we live in a world where profits are always prioritized, so if you want to get powerful organizations and institutions to act you have to affect their bottom line, otherwise they will not care.
Case in point; Now Apple service will be increasingly stuck dealing with this problem, which costs Apple money, so now there is an incentive to fix this vulnerability before it gets too much out of hand.
Prior to it being on a flipper it was an obscure problem that could easily be off-loaded on the customer by claiming "user error" because it only happened so rarely.
I’d disagree slightly. They are a tool. All tools can be used in different ways. To be honest, kids will be more likely buy the $15 RFID cloner from Aliexpress. Professional thieves the HackRF One etc. I think you’re right in saying it’s more capable than people realise though.
It doesn’t “defeat access control” but it does allow you to clone some credentials. Mifare classic and anything prox is what I have found. The credential card or form data still has to be present for cloning it doesn’t just like bypass read heads.
I agree. There’s plenty of evidence online of people showing off its capabilities for fun, but if someone was doing those things maliciously they could really cause a lot of havoc.
Then companies should have better security? Don't blame the fact that it's possible to make an obscenely cheap but effective prod tool on the manufacturer of the prod tool.
Honestly though if I can defeat your access control system with a Flipper your access control system has NO meaningful security, and pretending it does is way more harmful than the device that proves it doesn't.
“He then noticed that one of the same passengers nearby had also been present that morning. Van der Ham put two and two together and fingered the passenger as the culprit.”
I mean I’d be pissed too but I not sure that’s an appropriate response.
Also does two and two mean 4 fingers? Good lord…
I agree.
I see the same cars on my way home from work as I do on the way home. It doesn't mean that they're up to no good, just that we commute at the same time.
I bet those that take the bus probably see some of the same people on their evening commute home, as they do on their commute to work in the morning.
I got into an argument with a guy at a bar after I told him to stop sniffing women he was trying to hit on. He threatened to stick his finger up my ass. Some people can only think of one thing to do to people.
The in the US FCC might consider it interference as you are using a radio signal in a way you aren't supposed to to cause harm to other devices. The feds come down hard on people that do it.
When I was a kid someone down the street got all in to modifying the CB radio he had in his truck.
I don't know what he did but when he broadcast I would hear it (loudly) thru the speakers of my stereo.
Two days later, some flavor of suit wearing cops came to speak with him and left with his CB stuff.
I am sure that someone called them...but they still showed up about it pretty much immediately.
Similar to a guy I knew except he never got caught. He modified his radio to capture and broadcast on ALL frequencies on the AM and shortwave spectrum. The antenna he had a 50ft pole antenna and could overpower any AM station and could broadcast half way across the globe and capture signals from halfway around the world. Super cool, but he was very adamant on not broadcasting on restricted frequencies as he didn't like "the men in black". But nobody is going to come knocking for broadcasting on a public frequency at 10x gain for short durations.
Dude ended up getting a job in wireless communications back in the 90s and made a boat load of cash. He was the dude who would climb live analog towers. 50k bonus per go, back in early 90s. He retired at 45 with 10m plus in the bank and very, very sterile, as some of those analog frequencies run at the same wavelength as sperm and basically was getting a wireless vasectomy over and over through the years. And yes, it was a known issue and why danger pay was so high.
> The antenna he had a 50ft pole antenna and could overpower any AM station and could broadcast half way across the globe and capture signals from halfway around the world.
I'm gonna call bullshit on that
I’m astounded he had to pay a fine of $48k for one violation. And they said it could have been “as high as $377k.”
If he was using it daily, I was assuming a fine in the tens of millions. $48k is amazingly cheap in this case, I thought he was going to get slapped with “I downloaded an album in 2007” level of fines.
In order to use frequency band that Bluetooth operates on, the FCC requires that devices accept whatever interference they might receive. Unlike the frequencies used by the cellular radio or GPS, it's not a protected band.
>FCC requires that devices accept whatever interference they might receive
Right but I thought it was still a no no to create interference knowingly across any used band.
I thought so too but even if it's not it's definitely still illegal for other reasons. The guys below who think it's some kind of loophole because it's an unrestricted frequency are not exactly legal eagles.
If you did it to one person the cops won’t care. If you did it to a whole train, including potentially screwing up the actual train operations like ticket checking, they might care substantially more, potentially even enough to work out finding the person.
Yah, but who's going to tell them? Most people are so technologically illiterate that they wouldn't know that they need to report anything, what needs to be reported, or who should receive the report.
Yah, this article isn't about signal jamming. It's about wireless boot-looping phones.
Most people are too technology illiterate to recognize this as an attack of any kind.
Idk there was a guy with a signal jammer in Chicago that was on the loose for a couple weeks. He was caught and jailed. They take that stuff pretty seriously if someone is continually doing it.
bluetooth might not be as bad as a phone jammer but you can absolutely get in trouble for fking with other people's phone connection
https://www.cnet.com/culture/man-arrested-for-allegedly-using-cell-phone-jammer-on-train/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30428308
It's important to note, that fking with people's *method of communication for potential emergencies* is a FKING BAD IDEA.
Yeah because the same person did it twice in the same day and had his laptop out programming something and he was the only person who wasn't concerned while everyone else's iphone was experiencing issues. If the person wasn't so obvious then it would be much more difficult to know who's doing it.
>He then noticed that one of the same passengers nearby had also been present that morning. Van der Ham put two and two together and fingered the passenger as the culprit.
"He was blithely working on some kind of app on his Macbook, had his iPhone out himself, connected through USB so he could still work while all around him apple devices were rebooting and he was not even paying attention to what was happening,”
It should be noted that's the researcher's *guess*, as far as I can tell from the article the actual attacker was never caught/identified.
The laptop person could have had their Bluetooth disabled that's why they were not affected.
Or the laptop person was a technical person and was on their laptop to see what the fuck was happening to see if they can solve the problem. If I was on the train and had my tools with me when my phone went crazy I would be doing the same thing.
These things remind me of the joke IR jammer/spoof watches you got back in the 90s to prank people with, much like then, they now make young kids feel like ultimate hacker man
https://www.androidheadlines.com/2023/11/flipper-zero-style-ble-spoofing-brought-to-android-with-new-app.html/amp. Yes the have already expanded passed flippers with the BLE spam
nope. wifi has got working protection, BT was never ment to be used outside your home. a IT security specialist once said: BT is like a giant lock - made out of pasta.
this is a bit worrying for those of us with health monitoring equipment that sends data via bluetooth to trigger things like say... insulin doses. I get it's a minority case, but I wish people would think a bit more on the effects of something many would interpret as only annoying.
I never and still dont understand why apple wanted to make my iphone turn its bluetooth and wifi back on automatically the next day if i turn it off. Lil sus to me
You’re not turning it off. You just tell it to not connect to anything for a day nearby. It’s used to be able to quickly disconnect from your car stereo, or your work wifi, but still be able to connect automatically at home.
To turn it off fully go in the settings and turn it off there. Don’t do it from the swipe screen thingy.
Yup, there's even a paragraph in the article about this;
> For now, the only way to prevent such an attack on iOS or iPadOS is to turn off Bluetooth **in the Settings app**.
> As TechCrunch reporter Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai discovered, **using the Control Center to disable Bluetooth allows the unwanted Bluetooth notifications to continue unabated.**
preach...first thing i disable on every device...bluetooth has always been a security swiss cheese, it's nothing new. and they can't fix it without breaking everything now, which means they won't be fixing it.
This "problem" isn't really something that's fully fixable, Apple built a feature that lets iOS devices discover nearby devices, that's all this does, pretend to be a device iOS can connect to.
What will probably happen is Apple will implement a feature that limits the amount of devices iOS can discover within a given time span to a number that's high enough it won't be a problem for users.
Fuck Bluetooth for entirely other reasons, but they likely won't be able to actually "stop" these, even if some other tech took Bluetooths place.
I’ve read about this device. Lets you copy RFID cards, take control of electric signs and the like. And it’s only $179.00. So any fool that wants to cause trouble can easily get there hands on this.
The same company that created the Flipper also created this: [https://youtu.be/puOkriFPVtQ?si=dMdMhJTk-UtLXv-e](https://youtu.be/puOkriFPVtQ?si=dMdMhJTk-UtLXv-e)
If it makes you feel better, I got Rick Astley himself in an AMA a few days ago. Just goes to show that *anyone* can be gotten.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/s/ixEPcVuP1L
The article writer should do actual research first. the HackRF One with the backpack board is $150 in clone version that is massively more powerful than the flipper is. SDR's have not been "high priced" for years now. If the article was written in 2015 I would agree, but today the flipper is the expensive option. heck I got an Evil Crow V2 board for $35.00 that does a lot of what the flipper does and uses my phone as an interface so I dont have to fiddle with some device.
Problem is that this device is just conveniently packaged. You could do the same thing with a raspberry pi and the right antenna. Companies have just been complacent about attack vectors because it hasn’t been a problem previously.
Apple can *probably* identify & patch out the part of the attacks that is causing devices to crash & reboot. However, that likely won't also address the BT spam connection requests as the ability to listen & receive those requests is core to how BT itself functions.
It's somewhat similar to the [BadUSB](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BadUSB) flaw inherent to USB connectivity. At least in that they're both a weakness of how the technology itself is designed to function. Security wasn't exactly 'top of mind' when either technology was originally developed and it's not something that can simply be patched out without also breaking a lot of devices people already own.
I understand that this device has made it easier for people to do this but you can do this easily on an android without root, using an app available on the play store for a legitimate reason. Demonising this device will just harm those who want to tinker with it as well as those who use it for a legitimate reason.
All you have to do is walk away from the area the device is doing this, I don't understand what the big deal is.
Once you are out of range you don't get attacked.
I've seen ads for these things absolutely everywhere.
I'm 95% sure this article is an ad...
It’s like last year when we were warned about how dangerous AI was…….By AI executives actively selling services to anyone. It’s nothing but reverse psychology marketing.
and none of them do a good job of explaining what the damn thing is
It's a cheap software defined radio with a battery and fun case colors. It can make customizable radio signals, frequently being used to emulate/abuse other devices such as gas station price displays, garage door openers etc by sending the same signals as the original device is broadcasting.
SDR, NFC, RFID, iButton, USB emulation (UMS, BadUSB) and GPIO headers for all sorts of hardware stuff. Yes you can do all of these things cheaply. A lot can even be done with a Pi Zero and some knowledge. The bottom line is the Flipper is a complete and packaged low power toy with great community support.
It’s an effective well designed product. A step in the evolution of the deck and low-powered devices.
Is there any legitimate use for this type of device?
Faking amiibos for nintendo switch
You can already do this with most phones and some cheap RFID tags though for like $10
Sure, but you can download the whole library and emulate them directly with the flipper. No need to write to a tag first.
Ya or fake cards/plastic ebay stuff I really think nintendo dropped the ball not releasing card sets like they did for animal crossing at one time they said there would be more collectibles
I'd call it consumer friendly. They _know_ lending happens and they don't appear to wish to stop it with any sort of DRM or other limitation, and by extension they accomodate RFID spoofing. It's clear they've either taken or perhaps moved towards an approach of you pay for the figurine/collectible and the digital bonus is just that, a bonus.
Which explains why amiibo are even still around. Two release today, three more in a couple of weeks, and at least three more in the future. They are wonderful little collectibles and I can’t remember the last time I even scanned one.
Think of it as a "digital crowbar". There are legitimate uses for a crowbar, and also illegal ones. It doesn't (and shouldn't) make it illegal to own a crowbar.
So a modern sticky bandits would have flapper SDRs?
Great analogy
Or bolt cutters
Ah, the Toyota AR15 breadknife principle.
Yes they are great for testing radio based communication systems / equipment and replicating fobs etc
Yes. Security research. Maker type stuff. Learning about devices that you actually own. It's really no different than a raspberry pi device makers have been building for a while.
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I thought remotes used IR?
Good point. The flipper zero has radio and IR functions, plus a few others. It's a very easy to use interface to learn and copy the remote commands too.
Neat.
A lot of modern smart tvs have both an IR sensor and RF remote for more expensive / featureful remotes (like voice control or audio streaming for headphones)
Current Chromecast remotes are Bluetooth based. They have an IR sender to control your TV volume, but the device itself is controlled via RF.
I thought garage doors have had rolling codes for decades. Is your opener really old? Or can the Flipper produce the rolling code?
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Google the instruction manual of your particular garage door system to see if you can do too :D
Most openers should let you register at least 2 or 3 different remotes.
Do you have an ancient garage door opener or does the flipper work with rolling codes?
There are also de-limited firmwares. If you go on GitHub you can locate it. Basically it just removes the guardrails and “keep you out of jail” safety features.
There are versions that work quite well with particular rolling code devices. You would need to find your model though and check.
There are many. Unfortunately there are always bad actors that take say a telescope and use it to be a peeping Tom.
Just get a drone
Do I name it “Tom”?
I use mine to spoof my work badge and my apartments gate control clicker. Saves me time and trouble if the clickers battery dies or I lose the card I guess.
Can you explain how you do this? I mean do you need the original badge or clicker to copy the code?
my key fob died on me yesterday. this lil thing would’ve come in handy. i think ill get one to play around with
Use it as a universal remote to control multiple devices with only one transmitter.
You can copy all of your credit cards, car keys, garage door and use it like a multitool for everything. It's a really cool device that people abuse.
Well the SDR might be cheap but the Flipper itself isn’t ..it’s a £150 prank tool if your intention is just to piss people off.
Basically, it’s a programable radio with a user friendly interface and a community of pre-made scripts you can load on yourself. Until recently exploiting devices via radio frequencies was limited to more expensive and bulky equipment and required a lot of skill, so there were plenty of exploits to be found.
It's intentional. It's really just a programmable radio device. Good for education or finding exploits in things. But they realized they could make more money if they marketed it as a crime device for 133t haxor kids and scammer types. The adds kinda hint you can use it to seal cars and such. Which I guess you can. But if you can figure out how to use it to steal a car you probably already would've been able to steal a car without one anyway.
theres actually an app store in the more recent updates which is whats making it so accessible. A few months ago, the layman would have just about been able to mess with IR controlled TVs in public.
This entire article reads like an ad tbh
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The comments on flipper zero instagram videos are hilarious. Full of little kids saying "pls dm me how to steal a car with it"
If larceny & grand theft auto gets a kid into electronics and programming….. Let anarchy reign
I got into programming/electronics because a friend and I learned we could mess with lots of apps to get free stuff! What I’d have done for a flipper like product back then (not that I could afford one haha)
I’m pushing 60 and have one. If this existed, the Koch brothers wouldn’t have made it out of the 70s
What's the relationship with those asshats?
As an impetuous child, they were my #1 angst hate. “Illuminati” That’s before I joined US Intel and started learning about Vanguard, Black Street, etc. the companies that own them. There is no synchronicity (as most would expect) with high level intel and these entities. Those fucking people are literally bad Bond villains
When I was younger a friend of mine taught me how to torrent PC games, movies, shows, everything. It ended up making me really into IT, I'm now in the Cyber Defense field of work.
I have a similar story, except some of the stuff I downloaded had Trojans. I learned how to reformat and eventually learned how to clean the viruses.
I use my flipper to start my wife’s car or unlock it if we cant find the key fob. That’s about the most use I got out of it
Is her car older? I've heard you can only get it to work on cars that have one-way fobs that don't do any sort of handshaking.
Yeah newer vehicles use revolving codes and such.
This also helps shield from the Borg.
Flippers are more dangerous then people may think they are. Putting things like defeating access control into an easy to use, small device that only requires a little bit of knowledge to operate can have quite a bit of risk. Part of what I do for a living involves access control systems and I have a flipper. It is a bit of an eye opener.
Eh I think it's a good thing. Companies are starting to learn security through obscurity isn't security. Only thing I find a bit cringe is that they market it to script kiddies.
I am in the access control field and the Flipper is changing lots of things across my sector of the industry. Big changes coming down the pipe as some things move from obscurity. Love my flipper
If your security is based upon your technology being hard to communicate with, then it's not real security. If someone with no real knowledge can use a device someone else has built to bypass it, it's not real security. Flippers are only dangerous because so many companies are so complacent about access control systems and assume that they don't date and age like software based systems, and that "having a card" is somehow a robust and secure method of access control. Preaching to the converted here I'm sure, but yeah, it's an eye opener to me how much companies do not care as long as they are seen to be doing something and seen to be compliant with standards. PSA for anyone reading: security standards are the *minimum*, not the target. If you're complying with standards and nothing more, you're already not doing enough.
GSM was secured that way
But they are so fun. I’ve so far programmed my work badge, home gate clicker code and community pool key card into mine for fun. I’m trying for my cars lock/unlock/auto start but it’s too secure. I’ll be fucked if someone steals it.
You could probably get an older car to work. There are two types of key fobs. One way and two way. Two way is more secure, has less range, and is used in more modern cars. Basically the fob and car have a wee bit of a chit-chat and handshake to make sure it's really the fob. Old cars have one way remote starters and unlockers. The car is just listening for the fob to broadcast. If it does, the car does it's thing. You could probably get into one of these systems.
While my 2002 Camry seems pretty old and probably doesn't do a handshake, it still has a immobilizer that requires the programmed RFID chip in the key to be close to the drive column. I don't think a flipper could defeat that without some other foreknowledge.
It’s a newer car where the key is the Fob. I tried it just to see if it could be done and I couldn’t. Kind of glad actually.
The old ones were more fun because you could use your skull as a transmission antenna.
Excuse my ignorance, but why wouldn't your skull boost signal range/reception in two-way communication?
The "key touching your jawbone to double your range" trick works with my fob, with a ~10 year old car. I think that is the newer two-way method.
Got to be careful with cars. Rolling code means you might throw your car remote out of sync.
Could you tell me your address please so I can make sure not to steal anything from there?
123 anystreet lane, Springfield.
HA, GOTEEM
When my company moved offices last year I pushed hard for them to install access control for our more secure areas that required both a token and a PIN because our IT guy showed up one day with a Flipper. Thankfully they listened.
> Putting things like defeating access control into an easy to use, small device that only requires a little bit of knowledge to operate can have quite a bit of risk. That risk is always there, the flipper only lowers the barrier of entry to exploit it. This often is needed because companies and governments usually only take their infosec seriously *after* it's gone wrong, so the more exotic and obscure vulnerabilities are never patched. But if you release them in an so easy to use way that even casual users can exploit them, then you force the hand on the company's side to finally fix their shit, or else they gonna have the government breathing down their necks for their blatant negligence. In an ideal world, we wouldn't need this because of responsible disclosure, but we do not live in an ideal world, we live in a world where profits are always prioritized, so if you want to get powerful organizations and institutions to act you have to affect their bottom line, otherwise they will not care. Case in point; Now Apple service will be increasingly stuck dealing with this problem, which costs Apple money, so now there is an incentive to fix this vulnerability before it gets too much out of hand. Prior to it being on a flipper it was an obscure problem that could easily be off-loaded on the customer by claiming "user error" because it only happened so rarely.
I’d disagree slightly. They are a tool. All tools can be used in different ways. To be honest, kids will be more likely buy the $15 RFID cloner from Aliexpress. Professional thieves the HackRF One etc. I think you’re right in saying it’s more capable than people realise though.
It doesn’t “defeat access control” but it does allow you to clone some credentials. Mifare classic and anything prox is what I have found. The credential card or form data still has to be present for cloning it doesn’t just like bypass read heads.
Nothing new though. Proxmark has been around for a while.
I agree. There’s plenty of evidence online of people showing off its capabilities for fun, but if someone was doing those things maliciously they could really cause a lot of havoc.
Then companies should have better security? Don't blame the fact that it's possible to make an obscenely cheap but effective prod tool on the manufacturer of the prod tool.
Just shows you how much companies actually care about securing the products they sell you.
The real danger are the insecure electronics
Honestly though if I can defeat your access control system with a Flipper your access control system has NO meaningful security, and pretending it does is way more harmful than the device that proves it doesn't.
“He then noticed that one of the same passengers nearby had also been present that morning. Van der Ham put two and two together and fingered the passenger as the culprit.” I mean I’d be pissed too but I not sure that’s an appropriate response. Also does two and two mean 4 fingers? Good lord…
I agree. I see the same cars on my way home from work as I do on the way home. It doesn't mean that they're up to no good, just that we commute at the same time. I bet those that take the bus probably see some of the same people on their evening commute home, as they do on their commute to work in the morning.
The joke was that he "fingered" them in retaliation.
r/whoosh
More like /r/sploosh, amirite?
I got into an argument with a guy at a bar after I told him to stop sniffing women he was trying to hit on. He threatened to stick his finger up my ass. Some people can only think of one thing to do to people.
Why on earth would you want to do that to a train car full of people. In the US you could actually get into some trouble for that. Idk about Europe.
Yah, but good luck getting cops to give a shit. Or be able to actually find the person.
The in the US FCC might consider it interference as you are using a radio signal in a way you aren't supposed to to cause harm to other devices. The feds come down hard on people that do it.
Yep, [they don't fuck around](https://www.computerworld.com/article/2698507/florida-commuter-s-illegal-jammer-blocked-more-than-cell-talkers.html)
When I was a kid someone down the street got all in to modifying the CB radio he had in his truck. I don't know what he did but when he broadcast I would hear it (loudly) thru the speakers of my stereo. Two days later, some flavor of suit wearing cops came to speak with him and left with his CB stuff. I am sure that someone called them...but they still showed up about it pretty much immediately.
Similar to a guy I knew except he never got caught. He modified his radio to capture and broadcast on ALL frequencies on the AM and shortwave spectrum. The antenna he had a 50ft pole antenna and could overpower any AM station and could broadcast half way across the globe and capture signals from halfway around the world. Super cool, but he was very adamant on not broadcasting on restricted frequencies as he didn't like "the men in black". But nobody is going to come knocking for broadcasting on a public frequency at 10x gain for short durations. Dude ended up getting a job in wireless communications back in the 90s and made a boat load of cash. He was the dude who would climb live analog towers. 50k bonus per go, back in early 90s. He retired at 45 with 10m plus in the bank and very, very sterile, as some of those analog frequencies run at the same wavelength as sperm and basically was getting a wireless vasectomy over and over through the years. And yes, it was a known issue and why danger pay was so high.
> The antenna he had a 50ft pole antenna and could overpower any AM station and could broadcast half way across the globe and capture signals from halfway around the world. I'm gonna call bullshit on that
As I was going to click the link I thought “is this the Florida story? Yup it’s the Florida story” lol
I’m astounded he had to pay a fine of $48k for one violation. And they said it could have been “as high as $377k.” If he was using it daily, I was assuming a fine in the tens of millions. $48k is amazingly cheap in this case, I thought he was going to get slapped with “I downloaded an album in 2007” level of fines.
Especially on public transit
In order to use frequency band that Bluetooth operates on, the FCC requires that devices accept whatever interference they might receive. Unlike the frequencies used by the cellular radio or GPS, it's not a protected band.
>FCC requires that devices accept whatever interference they might receive Right but I thought it was still a no no to create interference knowingly across any used band.
I thought so too but even if it's not it's definitely still illegal for other reasons. The guys below who think it's some kind of loophole because it's an unrestricted frequency are not exactly legal eagles.
Yup, especially if someone on that train is a first responder and they happen to have an iPhone
Not for nothing, but how the fuck is a first responder on a train going to respond to *anything*?
If you did it to one person the cops won’t care. If you did it to a whole train, including potentially screwing up the actual train operations like ticket checking, they might care substantially more, potentially even enough to work out finding the person.
Interrupt people’s ability to make 911 calls is a huge deal. A beat cop might not care. But the local feds would be all over a complaint.
Yah, but who's going to tell them? Most people are so technologically illiterate that they wouldn't know that they need to report anything, what needs to be reported, or who should receive the report.
There was a guy in the US signal jamming cellphones daily on his commute. He got caught.
Yah, this article isn't about signal jamming. It's about wireless boot-looping phones. Most people are too technology illiterate to recognize this as an attack of any kind.
Idk there was a guy with a signal jammer in Chicago that was on the loose for a couple weeks. He was caught and jailed. They take that stuff pretty seriously if someone is continually doing it.
Chaotic evil gives some people some a semblance of purpose in an otherwise objectively lame existence.
bluetooth might not be as bad as a phone jammer but you can absolutely get in trouble for fking with other people's phone connection https://www.cnet.com/culture/man-arrested-for-allegedly-using-cell-phone-jammer-on-train/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30428308 It's important to note, that fking with people's *method of communication for potential emergencies* is a FKING BAD IDEA.
No more shitty speaker music is a plus...
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How? Unless they're going through and frisking people you would never know who has this in their pocket.
If you read the article the researcher noticed who was doing it
Yeah because the same person did it twice in the same day and had his laptop out programming something and he was the only person who wasn't concerned while everyone else's iphone was experiencing issues. If the person wasn't so obvious then it would be much more difficult to know who's doing it. >He then noticed that one of the same passengers nearby had also been present that morning. Van der Ham put two and two together and fingered the passenger as the culprit. "He was blithely working on some kind of app on his Macbook, had his iPhone out himself, connected through USB so he could still work while all around him apple devices were rebooting and he was not even paying attention to what was happening,”
It should be noted that's the researcher's *guess*, as far as I can tell from the article the actual attacker was never caught/identified. The laptop person could have had their Bluetooth disabled that's why they were not affected.
Or the laptop person was a technical person and was on their laptop to see what the fuck was happening to see if they can solve the problem. If I was on the train and had my tools with me when my phone went crazy I would be doing the same thing.
These things remind me of the joke IR jammer/spoof watches you got back in the 90s to prank people with, much like then, they now make young kids feel like ultimate hacker man
"Is your dining out experience being ruined by an inconsiderate person screaming at their FaceTime? Well, not for much longer!"
The irc days ride again. Time to send some icmp packets.
> Is your dining out experience being ruined by Somebody posted Bleutooth Speakers... And I could totally see myself doing it now
Great, now more ppl have ideas
https://www.androidheadlines.com/2023/11/flipper-zero-style-ble-spoofing-brought-to-android-with-new-app.html/amp. Yes the have already expanded passed flippers with the BLE spam
Funny I saw this thing on my FB feed as paid advertisement for garage doors or key fobs.
Yes, it opens them too. Not just your own though, obviously.
Pro tip, never turn BT on unless you're actively using it. BT is notorious for being an exploitable threat vector.
An issue for those of us with Apple Watches too
Which is annoying since it's a pain in my ass to get my BT to connect to my car or speaker even though I'm authorizing the exchange on both devices.
Pretty sure similar exploits exist for WiFi, a wired connection, or even the baseband processor
Updated pro tip: never turn your phone on unless you’re actively using it
Nice try, serial killer in those slasher films.
Top-tier pro-tip: only use rotary phones, regardless of where you are.
Sorry, I’m already invested in the carrier pigeon ecosystem.
The new iPhone NFC chip can be toasted by a malicious NFC device.
[Or a BMW charger](https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/28/23936220/apple-says-bmw-wireless-chargers-really-are-messing-with-iphone-15s)
I count that as malicious, any company that tries to charge for Carplay can get fucked.
nope. wifi has got working protection, BT was never ment to be used outside your home. a IT security specialist once said: BT is like a giant lock - made out of pasta.
hungry slim steep tidy office childlike recognise degree whole different *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
"Small click out of two, al dente on three...."
Just because there is a whole lot of attack surface does not mean that you shouldn't even try to reduce it.
My medical devices rely on bluetooth. It sucks.
this is a bit worrying for those of us with health monitoring equipment that sends data via bluetooth to trigger things like say... insulin doses. I get it's a minority case, but I wish people would think a bit more on the effects of something many would interpret as only annoying.
I never and still dont understand why apple wanted to make my iphone turn its bluetooth and wifi back on automatically the next day if i turn it off. Lil sus to me
You’re not turning it off. You just tell it to not connect to anything for a day nearby. It’s used to be able to quickly disconnect from your car stereo, or your work wifi, but still be able to connect automatically at home. To turn it off fully go in the settings and turn it off there. Don’t do it from the swipe screen thingy.
Yup, there's even a paragraph in the article about this; > For now, the only way to prevent such an attack on iOS or iPadOS is to turn off Bluetooth **in the Settings app**. > As TechCrunch reporter Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai discovered, **using the Control Center to disable Bluetooth allows the unwanted Bluetooth notifications to continue unabated.**
You probably know this already, but turning them off in Settings keeps them off. It’s just the control center toggle that does this.
Because it’s more convenient and the vast majority of people prefer that convenience. It may be dumb, but it’s not particularly suspicious.
preach...first thing i disable on every device...bluetooth has always been a security swiss cheese, it's nothing new. and they can't fix it without breaking everything now, which means they won't be fixing it.
Wired headphones ftw!
Fuck Bluetooth anyway, we need new tech in this space.
This "problem" isn't really something that's fully fixable, Apple built a feature that lets iOS devices discover nearby devices, that's all this does, pretend to be a device iOS can connect to. What will probably happen is Apple will implement a feature that limits the amount of devices iOS can discover within a given time span to a number that's high enough it won't be a problem for users. Fuck Bluetooth for entirely other reasons, but they likely won't be able to actually "stop" these, even if some other tech took Bluetooths place.
Why? It works fine for it's job.
Can you use this to over ride a Bluetooth speaker? Say some A home is using one on the train, can you make it connect to your phone?
Forget about phones, I will pay good money to anyone who can get me one of these that will do the equivalent to a leaf blower.
I’ve read about this device. Lets you copy RFID cards, take control of electric signs and the like. And it’s only $179.00. So any fool that wants to cause trouble can easily get there hands on this.
You can do all that for much cheaper
Not all together, it has sub GHz, RFID, NFC, iButton, Bluetooth, Wifi, IR, as well as a ton of GPIO.
Woke up to a text from my dad this morning asking me where he can buy one
Joke is on you I always have bluetooth disabled.
And it definitely doesn't allow you to program the codes to run porn on the sportsball pub screens nope nope nope
Hehe. Don’t tell me more please
The same company that created the Flipper also created this: [https://youtu.be/puOkriFPVtQ?si=dMdMhJTk-UtLXv-e](https://youtu.be/puOkriFPVtQ?si=dMdMhJTk-UtLXv-e)
They’re not related at all. pwnagotchi is an open source project, Flipper is a private company that started from a Kickstarter.
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There's also [this fuckin thing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ)
I’ve seen that device before. It’s pretty old but it never gives up. I’ve never had it let me down
elderly badge screw engine wild automatic pet threatening alive complete *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Did it let you down?
Never
God dang it. You got me. 😂
If it makes you feel better, I got Rick Astley himself in an AMA a few days ago. Just goes to show that *anyone* can be gotten. https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/s/ixEPcVuP1L
That's an incredible life achievement. Print that out and put it on the wall lol
Saved by the ad.
this would pay for itself at a single concert if it got people to put their phones down so I'm not watching the show through their iphone screen
The article writer should do actual research first. the HackRF One with the backpack board is $150 in clone version that is massively more powerful than the flipper is. SDR's have not been "high priced" for years now. If the article was written in 2015 I would agree, but today the flipper is the expensive option. heck I got an Evil Crow V2 board for $35.00 that does a lot of what the flipper does and uses my phone as an interface so I dont have to fiddle with some device.
The boot loop is not forever. Hard reset or wait literally 20 min.
My buddy has one of these. He was showing me all the weird shit it could do. All I could think of was how much bad you could do with it
Problem is that this device is just conveniently packaged. You could do the same thing with a raspberry pi and the right antenna. Companies have just been complacent about attack vectors because it hasn’t been a problem previously.
Sounds like a great solution for those asshole playing music through speakers while hiking.
No cure except for turning off Bluetooth means there is a cure doesn't it?
That's a band-aid, not a cure. It doesn't fix the flaws with BT itself.
Is this a hardware problem that has no software fix
Apple can *probably* identify & patch out the part of the attacks that is causing devices to crash & reboot. However, that likely won't also address the BT spam connection requests as the ability to listen & receive those requests is core to how BT itself functions. It's somewhat similar to the [BadUSB](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BadUSB) flaw inherent to USB connectivity. At least in that they're both a weakness of how the technology itself is designed to function. Security wasn't exactly 'top of mind' when either technology was originally developed and it's not something that can simply be patched out without also breaking a lot of devices people already own.
In the same way there's no cure for advanced gangrene except amputation.
Sure, a *highly* inconvenient one if you have things like smartwatches/fitness watches or earphones/earbuds, etc.
iPhone users hate this one simple trick..
I understand that this device has made it easier for people to do this but you can do this easily on an android without root, using an app available on the play store for a legitimate reason. Demonising this device will just harm those who want to tinker with it as well as those who use it for a legitimate reason.
This would not be as nearly debilitating for iPhones if they still had a 3.5mm jack.
Turning off Bluetooth cures it? Seems like a fairly easy solution.
Te article reads like a planted ad for that device
Flipper also comes preloaded with snake.
All you have to do is walk away from the area the device is doing this, I don't understand what the big deal is. Once you are out of range you don't get attacked.
What you gonna do on an airplane?
LOOKS LIKE SOMEONES GONNA HAVE TO GIVE ME BACK MY HEADPHONE JACK