8 ms·
This has nothing to do with the flipper zero or any other device using the CC1101 chip. It is the responsibility of the manufacturer of such smart meters to mak
by sschueller 3y ago
This has nothing to do with the flipper zero or any other device using the CC1101 chip. It is the responsibility of the manufacturer of such smart meters to make them safe and if they are incapable of preventing a sub $10 chip found in thousands of devices from causing catastrophic failure then who is guaranteeing me that the meter is actually counting correctly!
This is a failure of regulators and manufacturer, the media will spin it and next thing you know flipper zeros will be banned and smart meters will be as shitty as this one.
- Daz1 3y agoIncredible mental gymnastics
- atoav 3y agoIf any sequence of (radio) button presses can lead to the violent destruction of your product, you are at fault. To rate limit switching would be a no brainer here.
- stavros 3y agoHow are you sure that it was the number of presses that caused it? It could have exploded on the first switching, because it's not designed to be switching off heavy loads.
- gdprrrr 3y agoThen why does it switch heavy loads if it shouldn't do that?
- stavros 3y agoBecause someone unauthorized used a device to force it to do that. These devices are not built to be operated by the general public. Anyone who operates these devices knows to reduce the load first. I don't see the sense in saying "these devices, built for a specific industry with specific, exacting specs, should instead have been built with different specs that were never meant to occur". Everywhere in industry we train operators to know how to operate machinery that can be made to break itself, because it's cheaper to train the operator than to make the machine unable to break itself.
- Dylan16807 3y agoWhen I press the power button on my remote, I ain't "forcing" anything.
- stavros 3y agoYou have a remote to your smart meter? Or are you talking about an entirely different device?
- Dylan16807 3y agoDo you think the type of device matters? The remote sends a signal to the chip in the device, and that chip decides what to do, often ignoring the signal if it's currently busy or otherwise doesn't want to. There is no force here. Even if it wants to turn off on request in case of dangerous external circumstances, it doesn't need to turn back on so easily and rapidly.
- stavros 3y agoYes, I think it matters whether it's a consumer device or specialized equipment that will be handled by trained operators. You're looking at a $500K farming tractor and complaining that it doesn't have collision avoidance.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Ekaros 3y agoI would probably expect a collision avoidance in ultra-modern farming tractor. Or at least it to monitor what is in front and stop if clearly unexpected object would be in the path. They are nearly self-driving anyway. And critical failure is expensive in many ways. Now, smart meter being able to shut power off is somewhat expected. But I would also expect it to be protected command.
- atoav 3y ago
- atoav 3y agoThen you can sue the electrical engineer who placed that component into a destructive path. If you use a lamborghini car instead of a lamborghini tractor to plow your field don't be surprised if the car breaks. But if you use a smart meter (which by definition is in the path of the load) to switch something on/off it should not break as long as the load is within the spec of the meter. If it is out of spec of the meter, see above. On a electrical component level the switching element they are using is rated for a maximal temperature. If they continue switching when it is outside of that temperature, because they did not observe a cooldown phase or don't guard against overheating in any other way, it is totally on them. They are operating the switching element outside of the scope, and they should never do that, even if some input tells them to do so.
- diydsp 3y agoIt appears to have broken after only a small number of switch changes. My guess is the radio'd commands are an incorrect sequence which operates the meter in an incorrect sequence. E.g. 1. Disconnect circuit 1 2. Connect circuit 2 Bypass step 1 by only sending 2 and bad things happen.
- nvy 3y agoEver actually read the FCC certification on products? Ever see the bit about "this device must accept even harmful interference"? That is what this is about. It's not necessarily the fault of the manufacturer if a device can be harmed by deliberate RF-based (mis)use.
- goodcanadian 3y agoYou have that completely backwards. That line means that even deliberately harmful interference should not break it.
- nvy 3y agoI don't think that's correct, because otherwise it would require all devices to have significant EM shielding which clearly they do not.
- atoav 3y ago> It's not necessarily the fault of the manufacturer if a device can be harmed by deliberate RF-based (mis)use. I am not too familiar with the FCC as I am from Europe, but even the linear motor of a standing desk will rate limit the amount of movement you can make it do within a given time frame (those linear motors are not designed for permanent operation). If your meter is rated to switch a certain current, that rating is made under the assumption of a certain ambient temperature and temperature of the switching element. Switching it heats it up, so there has to be a cooldown period if you plan to still operate it within spec. Operating components within spec is the task of the manufacturer, and checks to avoid going out of spec should be one of the first things to design into such a product to prevent house fires or malfunction. Guard mechanisms like rate limiting are cool because they can protect you against liabilty if your programmer makes an error, but they become more important the more exposed the controls are. There is a reason why e.g. a RCD cannot be permanently be fixed in the on-position (the switch is not tied to the lever internally), because you want it to switch off even in the case of misuse in order to save lives. This is magnitudes more important if your controls are exposed to external inputs (e.g. via radio, or over the network/internet), as accidental or malicious misuse might be more prevalent there. Note: I am not saying there is a strict legal requirement to do this, I say that this is what I expect from a modern design made by professional electrical engineers.
- teawrecks 3y agowho is "you" in your post. your first sentence makes it sound like you think the owner of the device is at fault, but the second sentence makes it sound like the maker of the device should be held responsible. maybe unintentionally ambiguous?
- proto_lambda 3y ago> your product "you" is the manufacturer of the device that bricks itself if touched wrong by arbitrary (untrained) personnel.
- atoav 3y agoSorry for the ambiguity, you as in you, the designer/manufacturer of the product. The owner has no way to know the thermal limits of some unknown internal switching component, and even if they have who says the radio signals are emitted by the owner?
- Daz1 3y agoPlease qualify that ridiculous statement? Any device powerful enough to do so can be intentionally and catastrophically destroyed through misuse. This is one step removed from even that - a third party device designed for hackers being intentionally used for destructive purposes.
- raverbashing 3y agoNo device is built for abuse like this. You could flip a switch manually multiple times and cause failure Do you even know how much regulation exists behind meters and electrical equipment? What's next, complaining that the meter can't handle a sledgehammer? You call weakness I call vandalism Same as the brats who go and do a "tiktok challenge" of robbing an easily accessible car than finding out they're not immune to handcuffs and jail cells Edit: and while a self-protection/rate limiting would be good, this could as well as easily be turned into a denial-of-service attack by causing the switch to be off. Better than failure, sure, but still an issue.
- slow_typist 3y agoThe meter shouldn’t react to the flipper’s orders at all in the first place.
- sschueller 3y agoA smart meter should be capable of noticing that it is being turned off and on over and over which could harm it. My freaking standing desk has protection if I go up and down too much within a certain period of time. Like I said, I have zero trust this meter is accurate when it doesn't even have simple protective circuitry.
- jrflowers 3y agoHow do you know this about your desk?
- atoav 3y agoNot the poster, but they are right. The linear motors in standing desks are not made for permanent use (they would heat up too much if used that long). In the datasheet they will typically put something like "can be used for maximum of x minutes within x+y minutes". The desk controllers I have seen check for that limit (as one should). Every controller should reject input that leads to destruction, especially if the input is wireless or comes over network.
- 3y ago
- zirgs 3y agoIn my country they have been banned already.
- zwirbl 3y agoThe flipper specifically or the way they are typically used?
- zirgs 3y agoFlipper and other similar devices. Even possession is a crime here, unfortunately.
- pyrolistical 3y agoHow was this banned? By name? By intent?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rnhmjoj 3y agoThey're probably talking about Brazil: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/flipper-zero-devices-being-seized-brazils-telecom-agency https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/flipper-zero-devices-b...
- zirgs 3y agoHacking devices similar to Flipper have been banned. It's a crime to possess a device like that without a licence.
- Sosh101 3y agoThe biggest failure of responsibility is not requiring any form of authentication.