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This could have been prevented if they had hired someone to test designs against potential hacking during prototyping but I don't believe that it would have bee

This could have been prevented if they had hired someone to test designs against potential hacking during prototyping but I don't believe that it would have been worth the money. Unless someone knows exactly how to put the magnet against the gun, they can't beat it. Everything is vulnerable to some risk and I believe that this gun is sufficiently well designed to prevent most if not all would be threats.

pps43 9y ago
The main threat is that the gun does not fire when it should. As soon as those "smart" guns are mandated (they can't win on the merits, as nobody is buying them), there will be $5 gun jammers all over eBay.
- cc439 9y ago
  AKA spark gap generators. Take $50 worth of parts, connect it to a lightweight motorcycle battery, throw it in a backpack, and you've jammed all useful frequencies within several hundred yards of your transmitter. You can even jam military satellite communications with a surprisingly reasonable budget (sub-$10,000). The only defense is the fact that the signal source's location is incredibly conspicuous, thus easy for the military to blow up but civilians can't exactly rely on EM-homing missiles to keep their lines of communication open.
pps43 9y ago
It's been done before. Colt tried to do it, failed, then announced that they have eventually solved all technical problems and invited a bunch of journalists for the demo. The turned out to be perfectly safe - it did not fire during the demo, even when it should have. The story made headlines back in the day, and was pretty popular. Nobody has tried building "smart" guns for a while. Looks like it's been largely forgotten now, and we're due for another cycle. Edit: source http://www.npr.org/2016/04/07/473416699/how-an-idea-to-develop-a-safer-smart-gun-backfired http://www.npr.org/2016/04/07/473416699/how-an-idea-to-devel...
bifrost 9y ago
This gun is extremely poorly designed in the case that it doesn't fire when the person using it can't fire it when they need to. This is a solution in search of a problem because the number of deaths it will prevent is likely zero.
- kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
  This is a problem with all smart guns. They necessarily have a non-zero failure rate associated with the electronic interlock. An integrated physical key operated lock would be more reliable.
  - Nition 9y ago
    Good point, having a key instead of a watch, and inserting the key into the gun to make it work, sounds far more reliable and only slightly more difficult for the user. "But the criminal could steal the key." Yeah but they could also steal your watch...
    - lostapathy 9y ago
      It's immensely more problematic. Getting out a key, inserting it into a gun, and operating it under tremendous stress (likely the most stress you've ever been under in your life) requires an amount of fine motor control that most people simply won't have. It'll also completely removes the element of surprise - you can't draw your gun and fire in one motion, you have to draw, fart around with a lock, then fire. Which is all the opening the bad guy needs to use his against you. I suggest taking a class, or even watching youtube videos of classes, about active self protection to understand exactly how much stress and how little time is involved in these situations.
    - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
      But the delay could mean the difference between life and death. Which would encourage users to draw and arm the gun before there's immediate danger, "just in case"...
germinalphrase 9y ago
Considering the largely accepted belief that a knife wielding attacker can cover 20 feet more quickly than an average trained individual can draw and fire a pistol (it is - at best - very close), it would seem to me that the jammer is the mostly problematic exploit. It firmly tips the engagement in favor of the knife wielding attacker without the pistol wielding defender understanding their weapon had been disabled until it is far too late to change tactics. I don't see law enforcement ever adopting smart weapons.
- MBCook 9y ago
  The military has plenty of anti-jamming technology don't they? I'm guessing if they wanted to do this right there would be ways that are a lot more sturdy than something a simple RF jammer can stop.
  - pps43 9y ago
    It's much easier to attack such a system than to defend it. Attacker only needs a short window of time, so can emit a lot of power. "Smart" gun can't do that, it has to work for years on small battery, so its signal must be weaker by many orders of magnitude.
  - cc439 9y ago
    The only effective "anti-jamming" technology is a radar/EM homing missile or some sort of artillery fired smart-shell acting on the same principle. There are technologies which work around specific functions of electronic warfare equipment but they are only effective in specific scenarios. There is no way to defeat a nearby spark gap generator without disabling the source itself.
  - LeifCarrotson 9y ago
    > anti-jamming technology Like what? SNR-boosting encoding tricks to get around high-power noise are not going to be fast like you want with a gun. The form factor needs to be omnidirectional. You don't have high power available in a portable device. You can't just change frequencies, because an attacker is likely broadcasting high-bandwidth noise. And you don't know whether the user needs it to fail safe (the bad guys got the gun) or fail hot (the good guys need to use the gun). After that, physics doesn't leave a lot of other options for technology to fix anything!

pps43 9y ago

The main threat is that the gun does not fire when it should. As soon as those "smart" guns are mandated (they can't win on the merits, as nobody is buying them), there will be $5 gun jammers all over eBay.

cc439 9y ago
AKA spark gap generators. Take $50 worth of parts, connect it to a lightweight motorcycle battery, throw it in a backpack, and you've jammed all useful frequencies within several hundred yards of your transmitter. You can even jam military satellite communications with a surprisingly reasonable budget (sub-$10,000). The only defense is the fact that the signal source's location is incredibly conspicuous, thus easy for the military to blow up but civilians can't exactly rely on EM-homing missiles to keep their lines of communication open.

pps43 9y ago

It's been done before. Colt tried to do it, failed, then announced that they have eventually solved all technical problems and invited a bunch of journalists for the demo. The turned out to be perfectly safe - it did not fire during the demo, even when it should have. The story made headlines back in the day, and was pretty popular. Nobody has tried building "smart" guns for a while. Looks like it's been largely forgotten now, and we're due for another cycle. Edit: source http://www.npr.org/2016/04/07/473416699/how-an-idea-to-develop-a-safer-smart-gun-backfired http://www.npr.org/2016/04/07/473416699/how-an-idea-to-devel...

bifrost 9y ago

This gun is extremely poorly designed in the case that it doesn't fire when the person using it can't fire it when they need to. This is a solution in search of a problem because the number of deaths it will prevent is likely zero.

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
This is a problem with all smart guns. They necessarily have a non-zero failure rate associated with the electronic interlock. An integrated physical key operated lock would be more reliable.
- Nition 9y ago
  Good point, having a key instead of a watch, and inserting the key into the gun to make it work, sounds far more reliable and only slightly more difficult for the user. "But the criminal could steal the key." Yeah but they could also steal your watch...
  - lostapathy 9y ago
    It's immensely more problematic. Getting out a key, inserting it into a gun, and operating it under tremendous stress (likely the most stress you've ever been under in your life) requires an amount of fine motor control that most people simply won't have. It'll also completely removes the element of surprise - you can't draw your gun and fire in one motion, you have to draw, fart around with a lock, then fire. Which is all the opening the bad guy needs to use his against you. I suggest taking a class, or even watching youtube videos of classes, about active self protection to understand exactly how much stress and how little time is involved in these situations.
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    But the delay could mean the difference between life and death. Which would encourage users to draw and arm the gun before there's immediate danger, "just in case"...

germinalphrase 9y ago

Considering the largely accepted belief that a knife wielding attacker can cover 20 feet more quickly than an average trained individual can draw and fire a pistol (it is - at best - very close), it would seem to me that the jammer is the mostly problematic exploit. It firmly tips the engagement in favor of the knife wielding attacker without the pistol wielding defender understanding their weapon had been disabled until it is far too late to change tactics. I don't see law enforcement ever adopting smart weapons.

MBCook 9y ago
The military has plenty of anti-jamming technology don't they? I'm guessing if they wanted to do this right there would be ways that are a lot more sturdy than something a simple RF jammer can stop.
- pps43 9y ago
  It's much easier to attack such a system than to defend it. Attacker only needs a short window of time, so can emit a lot of power. "Smart" gun can't do that, it has to work for years on small battery, so its signal must be weaker by many orders of magnitude.
- cc439 9y ago
  The only effective "anti-jamming" technology is a radar/EM homing missile or some sort of artillery fired smart-shell acting on the same principle. There are technologies which work around specific functions of electronic warfare equipment but they are only effective in specific scenarios. There is no way to defeat a nearby spark gap generator without disabling the source itself.
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  > anti-jamming technology Like what? SNR-boosting encoding tricks to get around high-power noise are not going to be fast like you want with a gun. The form factor needs to be omnidirectional. You don't have high power available in a portable device. You can't just change frequencies, because an attacker is likely broadcasting high-bandwidth noise. And you don't know whether the user needs it to fail safe (the bad guys got the gun) or fail hot (the good guys need to use the gun). After that, physics doesn't leave a lot of other options for technology to fix anything!