hackers only need a simple $169 hacking tool called Flipper Zero, a Raspberry Pi, or a laptop to pull it off.
At that point, why mention the Flipper Zero or RPi? Just say it can be done without specialized hardware. I feel like they’re trying to piggyback off of the buzz from the Flipper Zero being banned in Canada recently.
Flipper Zero doesn’t even have WiFi. At most it’s a screen and button input device for ESP8266, ect.
Maybe they’re trying to justify the stupidity of that ban. I’m still shaking my head over that, it’s like nobody bothered to ask the question “does this thing actually do the thing we’re mad about?”
Given how often it happens in other industries, it wouldnt surprise me to find out that someone, somewhere along the line has an agenda to push and are trying to lump certain things into the same category as a thing people aren’t supposed to like in order to get the thing that’s only kind of related banned.
Heck, I personally know people who want 3d printing to be banned because “you can 3d print guns”. I can make a gun with a trip to the hardware store and a few hours. The extra hours are to make sure I can use it more than once. I’m just using this as an example, it’s not quite the same.
I also know people who have seen the drone headlines for Ukraine and give me the side eye when I mention I have a drone and can build my own at home. One coworker has even asked why I “need” to build drones and that having a bunch of hardware to do stuff like that is “sketchy”. Drones are already being regulated into the ground over a few high profile incidents. And some try to lump rc devices into the same category. Sorry I can’t fly my 8oz foam plane here, it’s in the same class as 200lb agricultural drones with 12 rotors and I need special FAA authorization. You can build an ultralight aircraft in your garage and fly it across country without running it by anyone first, though.
I rambled a bit but my point is every time you see things being lumped together and you’re scratching your head as to why, ask yourself “who wrote/published/shared this, who are they affiliated with, and do they have a reason to want one of these things or similar products regulated” and you’ll see a surprising amount of shady bs going on that’s all perfectly legal.
People are weird. In my area, saying you run Linux because you hate ad tracking and don’t have a Facebook account makes people think you’re a child molester.
And the 3D printing thing is crazy. I’ve had 3D printers for well over a decade because I started out building my own before you could buy them, printed thousands of parts of varying degrees of toughness, but I would be damned if I would ever shoot a gun I printed off of one. I haven’t heard a word about banning lathes and mills though.
I just ignore the drone thing, our nearest neighbor is 2 miles away so I do what I want. I built a crop scouting drone that goes for a tour every morning and flies a 7 mile route unmonitored. Never heard a word about it from the neighbors.
It can sniff radio packets, so if you have a ridiculously simple security system using RFID, you can record the pattern it emits off a tag when its pinged and play it back to defeat a security system. But no vehicle since the 90s has used a single code system that it would be able to defeat, so it’s useless for that.
The way thieves are defeating car locks is when the car listens for a fob within it’s security range (like the ones that unlock when you walk up with a fob in your pocket), and if people leave their keys close to a wall where the radio signal can be boosted so it reaches the car, it’ll pop the locks. The unit they banned, which is opensource and easily built from components you can get from Digikey or Mouser anyway, can’t do this. A common radio repeater or SDR can do this but banning that would be ridiculously onerous on industry.
I believe this method came out weeks ago and I had thought I’d read tesla already took care of it, but may be wrong. You still have to hang out long enough to get someone who actually wants wifi, but doesn’t want to stay at their car where the wifi is at, and then will also fall for a phishing attack and put in their verification code sent to their phone into the fake site.
All to swipe a car that’s going to be noticed as being stolen very quickly, and when all teslas come standard with GPS location tracking.
So what’s the point of stealing a car after possible hours and hours of waiting for a mark and then taking it while the owner can report it and it’s location the entire time.
