7 ms·

I'm going to disagree with current comments here, I think the rationale for banning here is not far-fetched. It is analog to the guns vs knives argument in my o

by epups 4y ago

I'm going to disagree with current comments here, I think the rationale for banning here is not far-fetched. It is analog to the guns vs knives argument in my opinion: of course you can kill people with any tool, but guns just make it too easy, and thus should be more tightly controlled. Before Brazil figures out how to contain the damage from such tools that ultimately facilitate crime, their sales can wait.

kfkfodl 4y ago
Figures that someone who is against the personal right of self defense would also be against citizens having access to basic tech that may be used in a nefarious way The comparison between knives and guns is especially funny, darkly though, in light of the "knife crime" narrative in the UK where the subjects of the crown have already been completely disarmed of guns, so now the state has moved on to taking away knives as much as possible I bet you're against encryption, too. That can facilitate crime, you know.
- BiteCode_dev 4y ago
  Guns have only one purpose: physical combat. Either commit it, or, hopefully, prevent it. Blades and encryption main purposes are not physical combat. Blades are mostly use for cutting material we use in our daily life, encryption is mainly use to hide communications. I don't agree with Brazil move, mind you. Flippers are not dangerous to the point I would consider seizing them a priority.
  - criddell 4y ago
    > Guns have only one purpose Not a fan of biathlon? Although I guess competitive shooting could be seen as a form of combat the same way competitive chess could be.
    - BiteCode_dev 4y ago
      I use my keys to open my amazon packages. But keys are still made to open doors.
      - criddell 4y ago
        But you wouldn't say keys have only one purpose.
        BiteCode_dev 4y ago
        Yes I would. Purpose has a very specific definition.
  - superkuh 4y ago
    >Guns have only one purpose: physical combat. This premise is not true. But I agree, it's generally ignorance about a tool, weather it's firearms or radio, that leads to people and so governments, making false claims and so taking stupid regulatory actions.
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      It is really. You can use a gun as a doorstop or a paperweight, but it wasn't designed to that end. It's designed to deliver massive force to a small target at range and though that could be an object (eg in a target shooting competition), the intended target is usually an animal or person. Please don't insult people's intelligence with semantic games.
      - superkuh 4y ago
        It's understandable that most people don't have the lived experience to realize that firearms are mostly for recreation. Most people live in high population density areas where firearms discharge is not allowed or feasible. But for most firearms uses the vast majority of use, and indeed the marketing by the companies that manufacture them, is about the recreational aspect, not shooting people or animals. There's certainly marketing and intent towards hunting but those are .308 rifles and larger calibres explicitly designed for it and they are not the majority of the market. It's not the 1800s anymore.
        anigbrowl 4y ago
        Many people use firearms for recreation, and I agree that they are great fun. They are designed to put force on a target at range. If you only care about the recreation aspects, you'll be equally happy with a paintball or BB gun.
        superkuh 4y ago
        I have paintball and pellet guns and I can assure you while they are fun it is not the same. Although high calibre (.30) precompressed pneumatic air rifles are approaching the capabilities and fun of combustion propellant firearms pretty rapidly these days. And as a plus you can fire them full auto and with noise mitigation attachments without the legal worries of combustion firearms.
  - xdennis 4y ago
    > Guns have only one purpose: physical combat. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of gun owners have never actually shot anyone. More common uses are: training, hunting, collecting, and plain old having fun shooting things. I used to be pretty anti-gun, but the 2020 home protests and Ukrainians initially training with wood guns changed that.
    - krapp 4y ago
      >I'm pretty sure the vast majority of gun owners have never actually shot anyone. More common uses are: training, hunting, collecting, and plain old having fun shooting things. You're confusing use with purpose as if to imply the utility of firearms as tools to commit violence is merely arbitrary, rather than specific to their design. Which is weird because your second sentence makes it clear you know otherwise. Setting aside that hunting is physical combat, the purpose of guns is not to be collected, or to shoot inanimate targets. The founding fathers didn't create the Second Amendment to protect the right of the people to keep and bear arms against watermelons on stumps. Guns may have multiple uses, but their purpose is combat.
  - 29athrowaway 4y ago
    It's a form of insurance. You don't get a car insurance to crash your car, just like the US doesn't have nuclear weapons to use them.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
blastonico 4y ago
The problem is, as with firearms, criminals always have access to them. In this Flipper Zero case, dissemination of such tool can actually improve common people awareness on tech security.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  improve common people awareness on tech security Not really. Nerds think this is true because they imagine everyone else is similarly interested in technology; they're not. You would have to spend 5 or 10 minutes explaining to an average non-tech person what the F0 does and then they would probably throw up their hands or mention the police rather than learn security stuff themselves. Very few people want to know about security, they just want to buy it. Learning has a high and unpredictable time cost. People who want to develop defensive security awareness can do it anyway, same as criminals. Common people absolutely do not.
  - serf 4y ago
    >Not really. Nerds think this is true because they imagine everyone else is similarly interested in technology; they're not. opening up a car door or a garage door is an EASY sell to a laymen. It affects their personal security. I showed my elderly father some tricks with the flipper, he's not technical in the least -- his first reply was : "Well how do we prevent people from ... " Awareness is bought with information. Had my father not been shown a demonstration it's unlikely that he'd try to protect himself with just the mention of a verbal warning. In fact, given that an entire country is moving towards legislation on such devices I am not sure how anyone could argue that 'everyone else' isn't interested in technology -- an entire country just announced laws against the thing; surely this isn't some kind of mass collective hallucination and indicates that the general pedestrian sector is at least considering the danger, no?
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      I'm not arguing that 'everyone else' is 'disinterested in technology, but that they're not similarly interested, that is they are not going to invest the same time as you would in learning about it. As I said, their default response to a demonstrated security failure is to either express dismay or refer to the police. Most people want to just buy security. Now, if you see a commercial opportunity in being a security salesman and using a F0 as a demonstration tool, have at it. But if you expect this to lead to some mass upgrade of security consciousness, you're fooling yourself. Look at lock picking/hacking videos on Twitter and realize how in the US, a rich and technologically advanced country, even the police default to laughably bad security measures. People prioritize convenience, and showing them the error of their ways will just result in most of them choosing to pay more money for a more secure-seeming solution while still prioritizing convenience. You could show people two different-sized padlocks with identical bad locking mechanisms, and people would still assume the larger one offers better protection. In a way they're right, because causal/opportunist criminals are also lazy and while they might use force to pop a small lock, they might not consider the effort and time to pop the big one worth the increased risk of being spotted. Smart criminals that know how to pick or finesse a lock (perhaps even putting it back afterwards) are much less common.
treeman79 4y ago
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1703503427818 https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1703503427818 Imagine if government officials in any red state in America tried welding doors shut to keep people trapped. They wouldn’t because people with guns can only be pushed so far. Never trust anyone that wants to take guns away from law abiding citizens.
- endigma 4y ago
  With action this severe I don't think party allegiance would have much to do with it, unless you're purely referring to ownership statistics.
  - treeman79 4y ago
    Party has nothing to do with it. If government has no fear of abusing it citizens. Eventually it will.
happytoexplain 4y ago
Yeah. I don't think it should be banned, but what you're referring to is a common example of the tendency of people, especially engineers, toward binary thought. You see the same thing with AirTag concerns - people say, "there have always been small GPS trackers available", without elaborating. By itself, it's such a weak argument. Ironically, the more "human" a variable is, the more humans tend to ignore it when asserting, "X is no different than Y."
29athrowaway 4y ago
There are laws that regulate guns: acquisition, registration, carrying, etc. Do you know what all those laws have in common in all territories? 1) Criminals give absolutely zero fucks about your any laws, regulations, rules, ordinances or any form of compliance with authorities. Many of them see the law as a challenge, not as something to comply with. They are set out to compete against the system, not collaborate with it. 2) Pre-industrial humans without power tools could manufacture guns. Now, virtually anyone has more than enough resources to make a gun if so they wanted, or a ballistic knife, crossbow, sword, etc. Or a fucking trebuchet or a cannon. This means that any regulations about acquisition, registration, carrying, etc. are worth shit. 3) Firearm regulations also apply to law enforcement. But guess what happens when organized crime acquires more firepower than law enforcement? Then law enforcement is fucked and they lose territorial control. Because if you have a fucking squirt gun and criminals have fully automatic weapons you will think twice before attending a dispatcher call. Go to Mexico, they have very comprehensive laws that you will love. They also have narcos executing policemen on the streets on video. And organized crime armies with uniforms, insignia, marked vehicles and a war arsenal including anti-aircraft weapons. The system you live in is facilitated by gun ownership. A system that does scale well. Gun control doesn't fucking scale, it never has, unless you live in a police state that you also hate. But extortion and organized crime does scale once gun control is in effect, and can take over a country very quickly. Feel free to downvote now, I don't care. Gun control sucks. If you love it so much go live to a country with strict gun control (in this continent). If you are lucky and make it to age 80, you will find yourself outliving your closest family members, living alone on some shitty retirement money that is now worth shit due to inflation, without health insurance, having to rent the house you once lived in and living in a cheaper neighborhood where people will know you are an old, slow, harmless person. You cannot afford a dog because you spend all your money on meds. So you will be crying for a gun to protect yourself. But you won't have a gun because you spent your life arguing against them, and after several consecutive administrations with your favorite political party in power, gun control is a reality. Your last moments in this world will be some criminal causing you to lose your balance, fall and die as he escapes with all your valuable shit, thanking you for supporting gun control. He is loving that shit. It is cruise control for crime. In an alternate universe, you opposed gun control, you deterred the crime using your the gun you bought in the supermarket without registration or permits, and smiled as you pulled the trigger ending the criminal's attempt to rob you. Then you went back to your living room, put on some chill music and continued solving your Sunday sudoku.

by epups 4y ago

kfkfodl 4y ago

Figures that someone who is against the personal right of self defense would also be against citizens having access to basic tech that may be used in a nefarious way The comparison between knives and guns is especially funny, darkly though, in light of the "knife crime" narrative in the UK where the subjects of the crown have already been completely disarmed of guns, so now the state has moved on to taking away knives as much as possible I bet you're against encryption, too. That can facilitate crime, you know.

BiteCode_dev 4y ago
Guns have only one purpose: physical combat. Either commit it, or, hopefully, prevent it. Blades and encryption main purposes are not physical combat. Blades are mostly use for cutting material we use in our daily life, encryption is mainly use to hide communications. I don't agree with Brazil move, mind you. Flippers are not dangerous to the point I would consider seizing them a priority.
- criddell 4y ago
  > Guns have only one purpose Not a fan of biathlon? Although I guess competitive shooting could be seen as a form of combat the same way competitive chess could be.
  - BiteCode_dev 4y ago
    I use my keys to open my amazon packages. But keys are still made to open doors.
    - criddell 4y ago
      But you wouldn't say keys have only one purpose.
      - BiteCode_dev 4y ago
        Yes I would. Purpose has a very specific definition.
- superkuh 4y ago
  >Guns have only one purpose: physical combat. This premise is not true. But I agree, it's generally ignorance about a tool, weather it's firearms or radio, that leads to people and so governments, making false claims and so taking stupid regulatory actions.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    It is really. You can use a gun as a doorstop or a paperweight, but it wasn't designed to that end. It's designed to deliver massive force to a small target at range and though that could be an object (eg in a target shooting competition), the intended target is usually an animal or person. Please don't insult people's intelligence with semantic games.
    - superkuh 4y ago
      It's understandable that most people don't have the lived experience to realize that firearms are mostly for recreation. Most people live in high population density areas where firearms discharge is not allowed or feasible. But for most firearms uses the vast majority of use, and indeed the marketing by the companies that manufacture them, is about the recreational aspect, not shooting people or animals. There's certainly marketing and intent towards hunting but those are .308 rifles and larger calibres explicitly designed for it and they are not the majority of the market. It's not the 1800s anymore.
      - anigbrowl 4y ago
        Many people use firearms for recreation, and I agree that they are great fun. They are designed to put force on a target at range. If you only care about the recreation aspects, you'll be equally happy with a paintball or BB gun.
        superkuh 4y ago
        I have paintball and pellet guns and I can assure you while they are fun it is not the same. Although high calibre (.30) precompressed pneumatic air rifles are approaching the capabilities and fun of combustion propellant firearms pretty rapidly these days. And as a plus you can fire them full auto and with noise mitigation attachments without the legal worries of combustion firearms.
- xdennis 4y ago
  > Guns have only one purpose: physical combat. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of gun owners have never actually shot anyone. More common uses are: training, hunting, collecting, and plain old having fun shooting things. I used to be pretty anti-gun, but the 2020 home protests and Ukrainians initially training with wood guns changed that.
  - krapp 4y ago
    >I'm pretty sure the vast majority of gun owners have never actually shot anyone. More common uses are: training, hunting, collecting, and plain old having fun shooting things. You're confusing use with purpose as if to imply the utility of firearms as tools to commit violence is merely arbitrary, rather than specific to their design. Which is weird because your second sentence makes it clear you know otherwise. Setting aside that hunting is physical combat, the purpose of guns is not to be collected, or to shoot inanimate targets. The founding fathers didn't create the Second Amendment to protect the right of the people to keep and bear arms against watermelons on stumps. Guns may have multiple uses, but their purpose is combat.
- 29athrowaway 4y ago
  It's a form of insurance. You don't get a car insurance to crash your car, just like the US doesn't have nuclear weapons to use them.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

blastonico 4y ago

The problem is, as with firearms, criminals always have access to them. In this Flipper Zero case, dissemination of such tool can actually improve common people awareness on tech security.

anigbrowl 4y ago
improve common people awareness on tech security Not really. Nerds think this is true because they imagine everyone else is similarly interested in technology; they're not. You would have to spend 5 or 10 minutes explaining to an average non-tech person what the F0 does and then they would probably throw up their hands or mention the police rather than learn security stuff themselves. Very few people want to know about security, they just want to buy it. Learning has a high and unpredictable time cost. People who want to develop defensive security awareness can do it anyway, same as criminals. Common people absolutely do not.
- serf 4y ago
  >Not really. Nerds think this is true because they imagine everyone else is similarly interested in technology; they're not. opening up a car door or a garage door is an EASY sell to a laymen. It affects their personal security. I showed my elderly father some tricks with the flipper, he's not technical in the least -- his first reply was : "Well how do we prevent people from ... " Awareness is bought with information. Had my father not been shown a demonstration it's unlikely that he'd try to protect himself with just the mention of a verbal warning. In fact, given that an entire country is moving towards legislation on such devices I am not sure how anyone could argue that 'everyone else' isn't interested in technology -- an entire country just announced laws against the thing; surely this isn't some kind of mass collective hallucination and indicates that the general pedestrian sector is at least considering the danger, no?
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    I'm not arguing that 'everyone else' is 'disinterested in technology, but that they're not similarly interested, that is they are not going to invest the same time as you would in learning about it. As I said, their default response to a demonstrated security failure is to either express dismay or refer to the police. Most people want to just buy security. Now, if you see a commercial opportunity in being a security salesman and using a F0 as a demonstration tool, have at it. But if you expect this to lead to some mass upgrade of security consciousness, you're fooling yourself. Look at lock picking/hacking videos on Twitter and realize how in the US, a rich and technologically advanced country, even the police default to laughably bad security measures. People prioritize convenience, and showing them the error of their ways will just result in most of them choosing to pay more money for a more secure-seeming solution while still prioritizing convenience. You could show people two different-sized padlocks with identical bad locking mechanisms, and people would still assume the larger one offers better protection. In a way they're right, because causal/opportunist criminals are also lazy and while they might use force to pop a small lock, they might not consider the effort and time to pop the big one worth the increased risk of being spotted. Smart criminals that know how to pick or finesse a lock (perhaps even putting it back afterwards) are much less common.

treeman79 4y ago

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1703503427818 https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1703503427818 Imagine if government officials in any red state in America tried welding doors shut to keep people trapped. They wouldn’t because people with guns can only be pushed so far. Never trust anyone that wants to take guns away from law abiding citizens.

endigma 4y ago
With action this severe I don't think party allegiance would have much to do with it, unless you're purely referring to ownership statistics.
- treeman79 4y ago
  Party has nothing to do with it. If government has no fear of abusing it citizens. Eventually it will.

happytoexplain 4y ago

Yeah. I don't think it should be banned, but what you're referring to is a common example of the tendency of people, especially engineers, toward binary thought. You see the same thing with AirTag concerns - people say, "there have always been small GPS trackers available", without elaborating. By itself, it's such a weak argument. Ironically, the more "human" a variable is, the more humans tend to ignore it when asserting, "X is no different than Y."

29athrowaway 4y ago

There are laws that regulate guns: acquisition, registration, carrying, etc. Do you know what all those laws have in common in all territories? 1) Criminals give absolutely zero fucks about your any laws, regulations, rules, ordinances or any form of compliance with authorities. Many of them see the law as a challenge, not as something to comply with. They are set out to compete against the system, not collaborate with it. 2) Pre-industrial humans without power tools could manufacture guns. Now, virtually anyone has more than enough resources to make a gun if so they wanted, or a ballistic knife, crossbow, sword, etc. Or a fucking trebuchet or a cannon. This means that any regulations about acquisition, registration, carrying, etc. are worth shit. 3) Firearm regulations also apply to law enforcement. But guess what happens when organized crime acquires more firepower than law enforcement? Then law enforcement is fucked and they lose territorial control. Because if you have a fucking squirt gun and criminals have fully automatic weapons you will think twice before attending a dispatcher call. Go to Mexico, they have very comprehensive laws that you will love. They also have narcos executing policemen on the streets on video. And organized crime armies with uniforms, insignia, marked vehicles and a war arsenal including anti-aircraft weapons. The system you live in is facilitated by gun ownership. A system that does scale well. Gun control doesn't fucking scale, it never has, unless you live in a police state that you also hate. But extortion and organized crime does scale once gun control is in effect, and can take over a country very quickly. Feel free to downvote now, I don't care. Gun control sucks. If you love it so much go live to a country with strict gun control (in this continent). If you are lucky and make it to age 80, you will find yourself outliving your closest family members, living alone on some shitty retirement money that is now worth shit due to inflation, without health insurance, having to rent the house you once lived in and living in a cheaper neighborhood where people will know you are an old, slow, harmless person. You cannot afford a dog because you spend all your money on meds. So you will be crying for a gun to protect yourself. But you won't have a gun because you spent your life arguing against them, and after several consecutive administrations with your favorite political party in power, gun control is a reality. Your last moments in this world will be some criminal causing you to lose your balance, fall and die as he escapes with all your valuable shit, thanking you for supporting gun control. He is loving that shit. It is cruise control for crime. In an alternate universe, you opposed gun control, you deterred the crime using your the gun you bought in the supermarket without registration or permits, and smiled as you pulled the trigger ending the criminal's attempt to rob you. Then you went back to your living room, put on some chill music and continued solving your Sunday sudoku.