7 ms·
I’ve had one of these guys sitting around for a while - love the hardware, love the concept, but I haven’t really found a lot of use for it - what are y’all usi
by roughly 3y ago
I’ve had one of these guys sitting around for a while - love the hardware, love the concept, but I haven’t really found a lot of use for it - what are y’all using them for?
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoYeah I’m in the same boat. Had it a few years and the whole Tesla port trick gets old quickly.
- twosdai 3y agoJust a party gag so far with some friends. Like if I'm at a friend's house and they're using their phone I'll Bluetooth spam them to lock up their phone for a second to mess with them.
- rubatuga 3y agoSome people are using them to break smart meters: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36253591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36253591
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gleenn 3y agoMy friend found out the school he sysadmins for was using weak rfid card keys (despite the readers being smart enough to handle higher level encryption) and found he could clone his key and get in places. So basically he pen tested and then they decided to upgrade to the less or non-cloneable card keys. Security for the win.
- Vegenoid 3y agoBefore anyone tries this, doing this without first checking with security/facilities would likely be grounds for “disciplinary action, up to and including termination”
- spacebacon 3y agoTermination is a favor if security is that lax.
- spacebacon 3y ago[flagged]
- spacebacon 3y ago[flagged]
- BizarreByte 3y ago> Termination is a favor Losing your job is never a favour. Would you prefer termination if any issue was found with your work place?
- spacebacon 3y agoLosing your job may not seem like a favor at first, it depends on how high you bounce after the fact. Being self employed for 20 years after being laid off was the best favor anyone ever did for me. I would have never taken that initial risk without being pushed into it. Now risk is comfortable.
- WantonQuantum 3y agoI don't know why you're getting downvoted for this. It's 100% correct advice. The person you're replying to is a sysadmin so they are probably okay in this situation but cloning access cards without permission would be a serious breach no matter how well intentioned or how easy.
- spacebacon 3y agoI countered the statement and also getting down voted. The key is to train your brain to like down votes just as much as up votes. When the number is just a number not attached to dopamine then you are free.
- infinitedata 3y agoYou can achieve this exact same use case with a $15 RFID reader/writer, supporting higher frequencies and encryption.
- rekoil 3y agoQuite often the keycards have sequential IDs which means you can increase or decrease the number a few times and find a colleagues card with higher or lower privileges than you.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- boopmaster 3y agoI’m also in this place. I have the wifi card as well and I’ve not taken to writing any hobbyist software for mine. I had perhaps foolishly hoped to at least get a fun universal remote out of it, and it’s somewhat possible yet the software just isn’t there to bring a robust family of device RF and Bluetooth commands together. It’s no harmony remote.
- DigiDigiorno 3y agoSpoofing amiibos on TOTK
- conradev 3y agoIt's my backup key for my garage and my office door. I also use the universal remote to change TVs in public spaces occasionally. It's a chunker, so it's not a pocket carry, but I keep it in my backpack. I recently discovered this, which I want to try: https://electroniccats.com/store/flipper-add-on-magspoof/ https://electroniccats.com/store/flipper-add-on-magspoof/
- 29athrowaway 3y agoWhat kind of garage opener do you have? I thought the Flipper zero won't provide that functionality unless you flash the firmware.
- HanClinto 3y agoNot terribly difficult to flash the firmware.
- 29athrowaway 3y agoBut now you have to trust some random person from GitHub.
- speedgoose 3y agoAlmost all software supply chains rely on random persons at some point.
- Eji1700 3y agoThe part I don't get is even if you flash the firmware, does that mean you can make sure it doesn't make all other remotes fail? My understanding of the whole rolling code system was that you could get a few uses and then you were screwed. If that's not the case I really need to do this because having it handle my tv's, ceiling fans, and garage door would be a nice trick.
- ec109685 3y ago
- arthurcolle 3y agoI cloned my apartment key-fob The WeWork key-fob uses rolling codes so couldn't use it for that...
- tpetr 3y agoWhich WeWork do you belong to? Boston’s are all low-frequency rfid
- arthurcolle 3y agoThis is one in SF. I can clone the card, and it'll work, but then within a few days it won't work any longer.
- ThePowerOfFuet 3y agoDoes the original keep working?
- arthurcolle 3y agoYes
- EricBetts 3y agoDo you recall any of the details? "Rolling code" is not a term often associated with RFID/NFC. The Portland Custom House WeWork used HID Prox.
- hnav 3y agoBasically the reader writes data back to the fob and expects to see it the next time it reads it. This results in either the original or the copy getting de-synced. One interesting capability that this unlocks is that battery powered, offline readers (think apartment door that uses the same fob as the lobby) can write out things like battery state so that apartment maintenance knows when it's time to swap out batteries.
- robbiet480 3y agoJust used it + the MCT app on Android to clone my apartment key fob (Schlage 9691T) to a Dangerous Things Magic Ring https://dangerousthings.com/product/magic-ring/ https://dangerousthings.com/product/magic-ring/
- margalabargala 3y agoI use it as an easy voltage tester for various hardware projects. I wrote an app that can do GPIO input (the built in only does output) so I can check which parts of a given circuit I'm building are high or low at a given time. Basically like a parallel multimeter.
- gregshap 3y agoNice try FBI agent
- Lwrless 3y agoCloned a 125KHz RFID keycard on my Flipper as a backup, my Android phone is able to clone 13.56MHz MIFAREs, but not these 125KHz ones.
- sidmitra 3y agoMy building charges USD 40+ to replace the white rfid cards if you lose it and something similar for the remote control for the parking gate. So i just cloned all my cards and remotes and keep them as backup, just in case.
- Havoc 3y agoThat’s what keeps me hesitant. Can’t figure out what I’d do with it once unboxed
- sneak 3y agoI use the IR universal remote function to turn off distracting TVs in bars and restaurants.
- bookofjoe 3y agoI had a TV-B-Gone [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV-B-Gone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV-B-Gone] back when they came out in 2004: good fun. They cost $15 and were hugely controversial. >Digging Deeper::TV-B-Gone Device Shuts Public TVs Down https://mediashift.org/2006/04/digging-deepertv-b-gone-device-shuts-public-tvs-down101/ https://mediashift.org/2006/04/digging-deepertv-b-gone-devic...
- sureglymop 3y agoSo you just take the liberty to turn off someone elses devices in someone elses establishment? That's... questionable.
- sneak 3y agoSo is forcing me to watch ads. TVs everywhere in public spaces in America is a cancer and I’ll happily turn them off or unplug them whenever and wherever I see them. This isn’t a thing in other countries, it’s part of American culture.
- sureglymop 3y agoI have a hard time telling whether you are being sarcastic here. It's one thing to block ads when they have been loaded into your web browser that is in your room (completely morally and ethically fine). It's a completely different thing to go into someone elses space and start making decisions about what is or isn't running on a tv there. I like ads as little as you so what I can do is just boycott that restaurant or bar entirely or ask the staff to turn it off. I think it's part of being a well adjusted adult to know what you want or don't want and go about it in a reasonable way (such as asking staff). It's immature though to just do that forcibly. It is however not my duty to teach you that, so let's leave it at that.
- willis936 3y agoWell I found that my apartment NFC key is hardened against dictionary attacks and I'm not able to copy it. It also helped me learn that my parents' garage door is pretty secure. I'm able to have the opener learn my flipper like any other remote, but not crack it. This is even with the unleashed firmware that doesn't mind violating FCC regulations (some of the frequencies it hops to are restricted). I was able to copy my work NFC badge, but I'm not really interested in trying it out. It's handy as a pocket spectrum sniffer, but I don't have much day-to-day use for it outside of that. I'm glad it was given to me because I learned a lot. Potential future use for me might be an amiibo emulator, but I've grown out of those sorts of things.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoAll garage doors have rolling keys which are non trivial to deal with unless you have pro stuff.
- dawnerd 3y agoBesides easy to open garage doors with a metal shim to pop the emergency latch. Happened to me once before just zip tying the latch.
- willis936 3y agoYou can sync up on rolling codes with the flipper without too much effort. When there are a few private keys involved it gets more difficult.
- epcoa 3y agoMore like most garage doors sold in the last 20 years have a rolling code system, a few of which are non trivial to deal with. This is already Western centric, but even here there are a ton of older static and fixed frequency systems still chugging along. Of these rolling code systems most are not difficult to crack, especially those more than a decade old (and which are still sold today)
- tzs 3y agoSpeaking of garage door rolling codes I've noticed there is some sort of slack in the synchronization, probably so that if you press the remote button a few times while out of range your remote still opens the door. My guess is that the receiver looks not only for next code after the last one used, but also for several codes after that. Question: how many times would you have to press the button on the remote for it to get so far ahead of what the receiver looks for that the remote no longer works without reprogramming the receiver?
- peblos 3y agoExtra ceiling fan remote was my favourite use. Couldn’t find a ceiling fan remote one time ( I have 3 with the exact same remote ) and used it to manage fan speeds Still doesn’t justify the cost but I guess it’s like my leatherman. Hardly use it but handy when I do. I actually bought it when seeing the pwnagotchi comparison and expected functionality from the wifi/marauder dev boards to be included. Meaning I got my flipper in the first batch for my country but couldn’t get a dev board even months later
- rzazueta 3y agoI bought it in the hopes of causing mostly harmless mischief, but its capabilities in that realm are oversold. That said, I knew very little about UART communication or SPI until I started playing with this and an ESP32 device. I also knew very little about bluetooth, RF, and RFID/NFR type stuff until I started exploring the world with this. It's been a fun journey that's rapidly advanced my understanding of quite a few things. Others have said its overpriced or that you can build your own or whatever, but it's actually just the right price for a cool little educational tool that also works beyond the educational stage. It may even inspire me to build my own advanced version at some point. If you're already a hardware hacker or EE, this is probably not much more than a toy for you. If you've always wanted to explore some of these topics but had no idea how to start, the Flipper is a good introduction. I immediately flashed it with custom firmware and it was easier than flashing my BIOS.
- sli 3y agoA bit different than the other replies, but I'm using mine like a very extensible input/output device for my own hardware projects and as a general STM board for fiddling with embedded on an STM chip (I usually stick to RP2040s and ESPs). I'm really interested in making expansion boards for the Flipper, especially ones built on the RP2040. Just sounds like a ton of fun.
- spookie 3y agoCloning my NFC cards, being my garage opener (I wasn't given a key and couldn't be bothered getting one... and yes, it's my garage), testing equipment using the GPIO pins and what not. Last one is really handy tbh Edit: oh! I used it today to snap pictures with my phone every second for photogrammetry work, that was neat! Wish I had gotten better point clouds out of Gaussian splatting though
- brobinson 3y agoMine is just a cool-looking paperweight now.
- ekianjo 3y agohow much paper can it hold down?
- thot_experiment 3y agoI would 100% spend an unreasonable amount of time looking at a website that did wind tunnel testing on paperweights.
- xyst 3y agoScanned a pet microchip lol. I had planned to build out my own kit but not enough time
- peblos 3y agoInteresting! What kind of animal? Everything I had read suggested it wasn’t strong enough to read these and I couldn’t read my small dog’s chip
- jjav 3y agoI've succesfully read a few pet microchips with it. Of course, it wasn't useful to do, but hey it worked!
- fullspectrumdev 3y agoI’ve had no problems reading chips from a few cats, but you do have to scan around a bit because often the chip has moved a bit from where you expect it to be
- selecsosi 3y agoA specific but satisfying use case, my apt building was being stingy* with handing out RFID tokens so I used it to copy and program a cheap RFID token for lending to a trusted visitor. * Stingy => security protocols that I agree with in sentiment but unfortunately I need to let my pet sitter in and it's nice to allow them to keep the keys as I travel frequently and key exchanges are less than optimal for my spouse and I
- INTPenis 3y agoI gave two of them away at a hacker con last year. During the event it was used to open up the charging lid of a Tesla and to remote control a fog machine. I'm not competent of interested enough to make full use of them but I get the impression that they still have a lot of use in a large part of the world where simple RF is used to open gates and garages. And of course you can copy and store RFID but you still have to get your hands on the tags. And that's where it falls down in certain more developed countries because they've mostly moved to RFID.
- la_fayette 3y agoYou can emulate any tonie figurine for the toniebox.
- rjh29 3y agoI used it a lot at first and it taught me about NFC, IR, etc. I made a few remote controls on it, which is convenient to e.g. turn a fan on at night due to its backlight. I also clone Amiibos for Switch games. And make copies of hotel room keys and RFID tokens for backup purposes although some keys can't be cloned. You can monitor all kinds of wireless signals like garage doors getting fired off around you, which is fun. I know some people use the USB feature to somehow install Windows automatically when they have a bunch of laptops to set up.