5 ms·

I'm curious what the impact of this would be on non-flippers. The flipper is just some common off-the-shelf radios and microcontroller, albiet in a nice packag

I'm curious what the impact of this would be on non-flippers. The flipper is just some common off-the-shelf radios and microcontroller, albiet in a nice package. That's it. Like common radios found in your everyday stuff, like say a garage door remote. Would regulations affect every product using these? I assume they'd have to in order to have any teeth? Would this impact a developer who wants to buy an cc1101 evaluation board for development?

neom 3y ago
This is very much my concern. Flipper is cool and all, but I'm more concerned about the chilling effect it might have across the industry. As pierat mentioned in the comments here, it could end up being a real mess and hamper innovation in Canada, that's why I'm willing to stick my neck out a bit.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  The term "chilling effect" gets thrown around a lot online, but if this isn't the correct application I don't know what is. I truly can't imagine the thinking behind such sloppy legislation.
  - notatoad 3y ago
    the thinking is that the federal justice minister's government-issued vehicle has been stolen three times in the last three years, and he's pissed. it's the classic "we must do something" problem, where the definition of "something" isn't the important bit.
    - graemep 3y ago
      Politician's syllogism from Yes Minister: We must do something This is something Therefore, we must do this I also love the touching naivety of legislators who seem to think that to stop bad people doing things all you need to do is pass laws making the bad things they do illegal.
      - Verdex 3y ago
        > I also love the touching naivety of legislators who seem to think that to stop bad people doing things all you need to do is pass laws making the bad things they do illegal. This is something that always frustrated me for hot button political issues. One side wants to make the thing everyone already agrees is bad double illegal, and the other side wants enforcement of existing options. Or if we're talking about something that ought to be done. One side wants to throw money at the problem; the other side suggests that people should just try to not have bad things happen to them. Ultimately, the refrain endlessly repeated is that people who want something to happen or don't want something to happen both want someone else to fix it. Somehow. Lets make flipper zero illegal. Huh, someone stole the car again. Using a (now illegal) flipper zero (I mean technically it sounds like this isn't being facilitated by flipper zero, but use some imagination for a sec). Now what are you going to do. Make flipper zero MORE illegal? Stealing a car is already pretty high up there in terms of things that people don't want you to do. The neat thing about automation and consumer electronics is that I can fix things myself. I don't have to influence a policy that is going to harness the efforts of potentially millions of other people (taxes, more laws, enforcement).
        AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > Stealing a car is already pretty high up there in terms of things that people don't want you to do. This is the core flaw in laws like this and DMCA 1201. You have something which is already illegal, people are breaking the law, so you pass a law to make it illegal to have shoes because the criminals were wearing shoes while breaking the law. Obviously this needs to be prohibited because it helps them to run away. Then criminals continue to both commit crimes and wear shoes and all you've really done is force people who obey the law to go barefoot.
        wwweston 3y ago
        "Make things you don't want people to do harder" can be a pretty reasonable course of action even when you can't make them impossible. The real problem isn't that you can't make things harder (certainly we could cross the threshold "can't sell off-the-shelf products that make car theft easy"), it's how far you get into making things harder before you hit tradeoffs making entirely innocent things harder. And where that tradeoff stops being worth it isn't always clear. Personally I'd like the convenience of a device like Flipper Zero but it's hard for me to say that my right to have someone else make me something turnkey trumps people's rights to maybe not have it quite so easy to have their cars stolen. And yes, I absolutely get it that people will still make/have them. That's not the point. The point is that fewer people would, the fruit gets higher hanging and that changes the statistics. Worth it? Maybe, maybe not, but it's not a ridiculous position.
    - philistine 3y ago
      To be extra crispy clear: the justice minister's governmental car has indeed been stolen three times in three years. But there have been two different persons who were minister in the last three years to whom it happened.
    - rasz 3y ago
      Sounds like what happened after Wolf ate Ursula von der Leyen’s family pony. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/eu-commission-proposes-lowering-wolf-protection-status-europe-2023-12-20/ https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/eu-commission-p... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/27/a-wolf-killed-the-eu-presidents-precious-pony-then-the-fight-to-catch-the-predator-began https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/27/a-wolf-k...
wkat4242 3y ago
Yeah it's just an ESP32 with a few cheap radio modules really. I'm surprised how expensive it is in fact. Also, banning it is not going to actually make it unavailable to bad actors obviously. It will just hamper white hat security researchers.
- kramerger 3y ago
  I was hoping to see a much cheaper alternatives (say $20-30) but is yet to happen. After all its a fairly simple hardware with a tiny bit of RF. But maybe discussion about banning it will push creation of some alternatives?
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Seems to be happening already yes: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/monstatek/the-m1-a-compact-multitool-for-technophiles-and-hackers/ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/monstatek/the-m1-a-comp...
    - kramerger 3y ago
      I've seen that one. Better than nothing, although 119 feels still a bit too high for a $30 BOM. What do we know about the company behind this?
- declaredapple 3y ago
  They have an esp expansion board but the default flipper is an stm microcontroller + CC1101, I was actually surprised it didn't use an esp32.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Oh oops, I must have been confused with the addon board yeah. Sorry.
- redserk 3y ago
  > It will just hamper white hat security researchers. And deter at least some script kiddies. I'd wager far more script kiddies would be turned away by this move than white hat security researchers.

neom 3y ago

This is very much my concern. Flipper is cool and all, but I'm more concerned about the chilling effect it might have across the industry. As pierat mentioned in the comments here, it could end up being a real mess and hamper innovation in Canada, that's why I'm willing to stick my neck out a bit.

EA-3167 3y ago
The term "chilling effect" gets thrown around a lot online, but if this isn't the correct application I don't know what is. I truly can't imagine the thinking behind such sloppy legislation.
- notatoad 3y ago
  the thinking is that the federal justice minister's government-issued vehicle has been stolen three times in the last three years, and he's pissed. it's the classic "we must do something" problem, where the definition of "something" isn't the important bit.
  - graemep 3y ago
    Politician's syllogism from Yes Minister: We must do something This is something Therefore, we must do this I also love the touching naivety of legislators who seem to think that to stop bad people doing things all you need to do is pass laws making the bad things they do illegal.
    - Verdex 3y ago
      > I also love the touching naivety of legislators who seem to think that to stop bad people doing things all you need to do is pass laws making the bad things they do illegal. This is something that always frustrated me for hot button political issues. One side wants to make the thing everyone already agrees is bad double illegal, and the other side wants enforcement of existing options. Or if we're talking about something that ought to be done. One side wants to throw money at the problem; the other side suggests that people should just try to not have bad things happen to them. Ultimately, the refrain endlessly repeated is that people who want something to happen or don't want something to happen both want someone else to fix it. Somehow. Lets make flipper zero illegal. Huh, someone stole the car again. Using a (now illegal) flipper zero (I mean technically it sounds like this isn't being facilitated by flipper zero, but use some imagination for a sec). Now what are you going to do. Make flipper zero MORE illegal? Stealing a car is already pretty high up there in terms of things that people don't want you to do. The neat thing about automation and consumer electronics is that I can fix things myself. I don't have to influence a policy that is going to harness the efforts of potentially millions of other people (taxes, more laws, enforcement).
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > Stealing a car is already pretty high up there in terms of things that people don't want you to do. This is the core flaw in laws like this and DMCA 1201. You have something which is already illegal, people are breaking the law, so you pass a law to make it illegal to have shoes because the criminals were wearing shoes while breaking the law. Obviously this needs to be prohibited because it helps them to run away. Then criminals continue to both commit crimes and wear shoes and all you've really done is force people who obey the law to go barefoot.
      - wwweston 3y ago
        "Make things you don't want people to do harder" can be a pretty reasonable course of action even when you can't make them impossible. The real problem isn't that you can't make things harder (certainly we could cross the threshold "can't sell off-the-shelf products that make car theft easy"), it's how far you get into making things harder before you hit tradeoffs making entirely innocent things harder. And where that tradeoff stops being worth it isn't always clear. Personally I'd like the convenience of a device like Flipper Zero but it's hard for me to say that my right to have someone else make me something turnkey trumps people's rights to maybe not have it quite so easy to have their cars stolen. And yes, I absolutely get it that people will still make/have them. That's not the point. The point is that fewer people would, the fruit gets higher hanging and that changes the statistics. Worth it? Maybe, maybe not, but it's not a ridiculous position.
  - philistine 3y ago
    To be extra crispy clear: the justice minister's governmental car has indeed been stolen three times in three years. But there have been two different persons who were minister in the last three years to whom it happened.
  - rasz 3y ago
    Sounds like what happened after Wolf ate Ursula von der Leyen’s family pony. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/eu-commission-proposes-lowering-wolf-protection-status-europe-2023-12-20/ https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/eu-commission-p... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/27/a-wolf-killed-the-eu-presidents-precious-pony-then-the-fight-to-catch-the-predator-began https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/27/a-wolf-k...

wkat4242 3y ago

Yeah it's just an ESP32 with a few cheap radio modules really. I'm surprised how expensive it is in fact. Also, banning it is not going to actually make it unavailable to bad actors obviously. It will just hamper white hat security researchers.

kramerger 3y ago
I was hoping to see a much cheaper alternatives (say $20-30) but is yet to happen. After all its a fairly simple hardware with a tiny bit of RF. But maybe discussion about banning it will push creation of some alternatives?
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Seems to be happening already yes: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/monstatek/the-m1-a-compact-multitool-for-technophiles-and-hackers/ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/monstatek/the-m1-a-comp...
  - kramerger 3y ago
    I've seen that one. Better than nothing, although 119 feels still a bit too high for a $30 BOM. What do we know about the company behind this?
declaredapple 3y ago
They have an esp expansion board but the default flipper is an stm microcontroller + CC1101, I was actually surprised it didn't use an esp32.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Oh oops, I must have been confused with the addon board yeah. Sorry.
redserk 3y ago
> It will just hamper white hat security researchers. And deter at least some script kiddies. I'd wager far more script kiddies would be turned away by this move than white hat security researchers.