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It's not like they're banning them across all of NYC... it's just security at the inauguration event. "Large bags" are banned too. > When a policy bans specifi

It's not like they're banning them across all of NYC... it's just security at the inauguration event. "Large bags" are banned too. > When a policy bans specific devices rather than behaviors or capabilities, it creates ambiguity for people on the ground. To the contrary, how the heck is someone working security at the entrance supposed to check for a device's "behaviors or capabilities"? This is a quick visual inspection, this reduces ambiguity. Presumably, the cops are aware of previous disruption with these specific devices, or threats thereof. And it's not like they're going to say exactly what, nor should they, lest it give people ideas... > Today it’s Raspberry Pi and Flipper Zero. Tomorrow it’s BeagleBone Blacks, Arduino Qs, ESP32 dev boards, Teensy boards, Pine64s, Orange Pis... Which is totally fine. There's no legitimate purpose in bringing any of those to a high-profile political event. Drones, laser pens, and beach balls are prohibited too.

anigbrowl 10mo ago
Agreed. This comes off as self-absorbed and entitled - 'how dare the security team not recognize my ascended morality and technical genius! Suppose an evil hacker does plan to disrupt the event - the only thing that stops a bad guy with a Flipper Zero is a good guy with a Raspberry Pi running wireshark!'
- dfxm12 10mo ago
  Adafruit is headquartered in New York and selling raspberry pi is a big part of their business. Reading this as self absorbed or entitled is disingenuous. They're worried about their business & asking why these brand names are singled out is a legitimate question.
  - apetresc 10mo ago
    Literally not a single prospective RPi customer would have even known Mamdani banned them from his inauguration party if Adafruit hadn't gone out of their way to point it out. And literally not a single one of those prospective customers would have cared, similarly to how nobody cares that "strollers" are also banned. This is the stupidest thing to get mock-offended by.
    - Teknomadix 10mo ago
      Political Theater
  - philistine 10mo ago
    You know, dynamite is a brand name. Sometimes for security's sake it's easier to call something what everybody calls it. Small-scale user programmable portable radios does not convey what Flipper Zero does.
    - judahmeek 10mo ago
      If the intent is to ban that entire category, then that should be explicit for clarity 's sake.
whatshisface 10mo ago
>Presumably, the cops are aware of previous disruption with these specific devices, or threats thereof. You're presuming a lot for a single board computer that's less powerful in every way than your laptop - even as a blunt object. Sometimes authorities make arbitrary and capricious rules: that's why they are celebrating an inauguration, not a corination. If things like this never happened, we would have no need for regular elections. :-)
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
ssl-3 10mo ago
There's no legitimate purpose in bringing crayons and a coloring book, or a box of paperclips, either. We should probably see to it that nobody brings any of those things in, as well.
- kube-system 10mo ago
  This isn't an exercise in cataloging all worldly items. The criteria for the list is very obviously: [no legitimate purpose] + [identified as a potential threat or disturbance vector] + [described in a way useful for laypeople who will be consuming said list]
  - whatshisface 10mo ago
    The fact that these items were thought to satisfy your item number two, while more dangerous items did not, indicates that someone's feeding bad information to security, or alternatively, that was not the criteria. There is also some indication of Mr. Robot style fantasies about the power of individual computers.
    - kube-system 10mo ago
      What do you think is missing?
      - whatshisface 10mo ago
        If there was a legitimate purpose for banning SBCs (there is not), then all computers with wifi would have to be banned. The external fact is that raspis are not a security risk. The internal contradiction is that raspis are computers. It's their whole selling point - they're ordinary PCs.
        kube-system 10mo ago
        I don't think you understand the threat profile of a large public event. The typical threat to events like this are idiots who mimic crap they see on YouTube. Public safety isn't an exercise in evaluating every theoretical threat, because that list is too long to address with limited resources. It is an exercise in evaluating which threats are most commonly to be exploited, and the easiest to protect against. This is how you most effectively protect an event with limited resources. It is different than the theoretical threat evaluation that someone doing computer science might think about.
edgineer 10mo ago
>There's no legitimate purpose in bringing any of those to a high-profile political event. I've carried a flipper zero with me to use as a copy of my key when I misplaced my original.
- DoctorOetker 10mo ago
  "There is no legitimate purpose in misplacing one's original keys."
- crazygringo 10mo ago
  What key? All modern automotive and smart apartment keys can't be cloned that way. You can't do simple replay attacks. Are you talking about some cheap office RFID badge or something? Because if you have any important keys for things you own that can be cloned with a Flipper, you should be upgrading them to prevent that.
  - tadashi-hikari 10mo ago
    My modern apartment uses RFID keys to get in the front door. I use my flipper as a backup for when I misplace my keys
    - crazygringo 10mo ago
      Oof. Sorry it's so insecure. Anyways, I'm sure you can understand why a political event, where many of them do rely on RFID access badges for certain personnel to enter certain areas, would not want someone with a device that can clone badges. If you go to a political event like that... just take your actual key. Not a device that spoofs your actual key. What you're proposing is essentially saying you have a legitimate reason for carrying around a lockpicking set, because you use it to enter your apartment when you forget your keys. It's pretty understandable there are high-security places that won't let you in.
    - kube-system 10mo ago
      Did your landlord buy their locks on sale from Aliexpress? Major lock manufacturers switched to encrypted credentials 20 years ago.
Zenst 10mo ago
Next it will be smart phones which can do many of the things these devices can do when rooted the right model. Not hard to make a walking stick that can do wireless shenanigans, that gets overlooked by all. Oh well, be mobile free zoning soon at this rate.
- hnlmorg 10mo ago
  If your walking stick looks like it will be used as a weapon then you can safely assume you’ll have it removed upon entry. Events like these will have disclaimers like “admittance is subject to the discretion of our security staff”. The point of the list of prohibited items is to make it easier for attendees to know the kinds of items theyre allowed to bring. What it isn’t, is an exhaustive list of anything that could be used for bad intentions.
  - Zenst 10mo ago
    Nobody going to take a walking stick of an old man or some disabled person using it to walk, not unless it looks like it can pull apart into a sword. But security today and discretion does leave much in the wind. They should have just said any computers other than mobile phones, by drilling down they enable security to fail at their job as people could bring another SBC and go its not a raspberry Pi and that highlights the crux. Concern is this sets a standard moving forward that does not single out one SBC from others unfairly, which is what they are doing here.
    - hnlmorg 10mo ago
      > Nobody going to take a walking stick of an old man or some disabled person using it to walk, not unless it looks like it can pull apart into a sword. Which is just a more verbose way of saying exactly what I said ;) > They should have just said any computers other than mobile phones, by drilling down they enable security to fail at their job as people could bring another SBC and go its not a raspberry Pi and that highlights the crux. That would cause problems for reporters bringing laptops. What you’re missing is that this is a tech forum filled with a tech-literate people and a higher than average number of autistic and other neurological tendencies to be “technically correct”. Which isn’t who the target audience of the inauguration party will be. Their messaging is fine for the people it’s targeted for. It wouldn’t be fine for a Defcon event, but this isn’t that. > Concern is this sets a standard moving forward that does not single out one SBC from others unfairly, which is what they are doing here. Different parties have different admittance codes. Some will list drugs, some will list attire (eg no trainers), some will say “no food or drink” while others might say “no disposable bbqs”. This isn’t any different to any other party or location which have their own rules for entry. You might be right that this sets a precedence, but Occam’s Razor suggests you’re over reacting given the nature of the event and its target audience
borski 10mo ago
I don’t disagree with you in general, but: > Presumably, the cops are aware of previous disruption with these specific devices, or threats thereof. And it's not like they're going to say exactly what, nor should they, lest it give people ideas... I don’t think this is necessarily true. The TSA bans all sorts of crap solely because they feel like it, and not in the name of any kind of actual security. It is entirely possible that the NYPD “heard” these terms in media and got spooked, so here we are.
- kube-system 10mo ago
  I don't think the NYPD thinks "beach balls" or "large items that could obstruct views" or "flipper zeros" are spooky or scary. I think they think they're potential annoyances in a large crowd.
xnx 10mo ago
> beach balls are prohibited too. Clearly these should be banned based on capability. Am I allowed to bring a yoga ball?! /s

anigbrowl 10mo ago

Agreed. This comes off as self-absorbed and entitled - 'how dare the security team not recognize my ascended morality and technical genius! Suppose an evil hacker does plan to disrupt the event - the only thing that stops a bad guy with a Flipper Zero is a good guy with a Raspberry Pi running wireshark!'

dfxm12 10mo ago
Adafruit is headquartered in New York and selling raspberry pi is a big part of their business. Reading this as self absorbed or entitled is disingenuous. They're worried about their business & asking why these brand names are singled out is a legitimate question.
- apetresc 10mo ago
  Literally not a single prospective RPi customer would have even known Mamdani banned them from his inauguration party if Adafruit hadn't gone out of their way to point it out. And literally not a single one of those prospective customers would have cared, similarly to how nobody cares that "strollers" are also banned. This is the stupidest thing to get mock-offended by.
  - Teknomadix 10mo ago
    Political Theater
- philistine 10mo ago
  You know, dynamite is a brand name. Sometimes for security's sake it's easier to call something what everybody calls it. Small-scale user programmable portable radios does not convey what Flipper Zero does.
  - judahmeek 10mo ago
    If the intent is to ban that entire category, then that should be explicit for clarity 's sake.

whatshisface 10mo ago

>Presumably, the cops are aware of previous disruption with these specific devices, or threats thereof. You're presuming a lot for a single board computer that's less powerful in every way than your laptop - even as a blunt object. Sometimes authorities make arbitrary and capricious rules: that's why they are celebrating an inauguration, not a corination. If things like this never happened, we would have no need for regular elections. :-)

deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]

ssl-3 10mo ago

There's no legitimate purpose in bringing crayons and a coloring book, or a box of paperclips, either. We should probably see to it that nobody brings any of those things in, as well.

kube-system 10mo ago
This isn't an exercise in cataloging all worldly items. The criteria for the list is very obviously: [no legitimate purpose] + [identified as a potential threat or disturbance vector] + [described in a way useful for laypeople who will be consuming said list]
- whatshisface 10mo ago
  The fact that these items were thought to satisfy your item number two, while more dangerous items did not, indicates that someone's feeding bad information to security, or alternatively, that was not the criteria. There is also some indication of Mr. Robot style fantasies about the power of individual computers.
  - kube-system 10mo ago
    What do you think is missing?
    - whatshisface 10mo ago
      If there was a legitimate purpose for banning SBCs (there is not), then all computers with wifi would have to be banned. The external fact is that raspis are not a security risk. The internal contradiction is that raspis are computers. It's their whole selling point - they're ordinary PCs.
      - kube-system 10mo ago
        I don't think you understand the threat profile of a large public event. The typical threat to events like this are idiots who mimic crap they see on YouTube. Public safety isn't an exercise in evaluating every theoretical threat, because that list is too long to address with limited resources. It is an exercise in evaluating which threats are most commonly to be exploited, and the easiest to protect against. This is how you most effectively protect an event with limited resources. It is different than the theoretical threat evaluation that someone doing computer science might think about.

edgineer 10mo ago

>There's no legitimate purpose in bringing any of those to a high-profile political event. I've carried a flipper zero with me to use as a copy of my key when I misplaced my original.

DoctorOetker 10mo ago
"There is no legitimate purpose in misplacing one's original keys."
crazygringo 10mo ago
What key? All modern automotive and smart apartment keys can't be cloned that way. You can't do simple replay attacks. Are you talking about some cheap office RFID badge or something? Because if you have any important keys for things you own that can be cloned with a Flipper, you should be upgrading them to prevent that.
- tadashi-hikari 10mo ago
  My modern apartment uses RFID keys to get in the front door. I use my flipper as a backup for when I misplace my keys
  - crazygringo 10mo ago
    Oof. Sorry it's so insecure. Anyways, I'm sure you can understand why a political event, where many of them do rely on RFID access badges for certain personnel to enter certain areas, would not want someone with a device that can clone badges. If you go to a political event like that... just take your actual key. Not a device that spoofs your actual key. What you're proposing is essentially saying you have a legitimate reason for carrying around a lockpicking set, because you use it to enter your apartment when you forget your keys. It's pretty understandable there are high-security places that won't let you in.
  - kube-system 10mo ago
    Did your landlord buy their locks on sale from Aliexpress? Major lock manufacturers switched to encrypted credentials 20 years ago.

Zenst 10mo ago

Next it will be smart phones which can do many of the things these devices can do when rooted the right model. Not hard to make a walking stick that can do wireless shenanigans, that gets overlooked by all. Oh well, be mobile free zoning soon at this rate.

hnlmorg 10mo ago
If your walking stick looks like it will be used as a weapon then you can safely assume you’ll have it removed upon entry. Events like these will have disclaimers like “admittance is subject to the discretion of our security staff”. The point of the list of prohibited items is to make it easier for attendees to know the kinds of items theyre allowed to bring. What it isn’t, is an exhaustive list of anything that could be used for bad intentions.
- Zenst 10mo ago
  Nobody going to take a walking stick of an old man or some disabled person using it to walk, not unless it looks like it can pull apart into a sword. But security today and discretion does leave much in the wind. They should have just said any computers other than mobile phones, by drilling down they enable security to fail at their job as people could bring another SBC and go its not a raspberry Pi and that highlights the crux. Concern is this sets a standard moving forward that does not single out one SBC from others unfairly, which is what they are doing here.
  - hnlmorg 10mo ago
    > Nobody going to take a walking stick of an old man or some disabled person using it to walk, not unless it looks like it can pull apart into a sword. Which is just a more verbose way of saying exactly what I said ;) > They should have just said any computers other than mobile phones, by drilling down they enable security to fail at their job as people could bring another SBC and go its not a raspberry Pi and that highlights the crux. That would cause problems for reporters bringing laptops. What you’re missing is that this is a tech forum filled with a tech-literate people and a higher than average number of autistic and other neurological tendencies to be “technically correct”. Which isn’t who the target audience of the inauguration party will be. Their messaging is fine for the people it’s targeted for. It wouldn’t be fine for a Defcon event, but this isn’t that. > Concern is this sets a standard moving forward that does not single out one SBC from others unfairly, which is what they are doing here. Different parties have different admittance codes. Some will list drugs, some will list attire (eg no trainers), some will say “no food or drink” while others might say “no disposable bbqs”. This isn’t any different to any other party or location which have their own rules for entry. You might be right that this sets a precedence, but Occam’s Razor suggests you’re over reacting given the nature of the event and its target audience

borski 10mo ago

I don’t disagree with you in general, but: > Presumably, the cops are aware of previous disruption with these specific devices, or threats thereof. And it's not like they're going to say exactly what, nor should they, lest it give people ideas... I don’t think this is necessarily true. The TSA bans all sorts of crap solely because they feel like it, and not in the name of any kind of actual security. It is entirely possible that the NYPD “heard” these terms in media and got spooked, so here we are.

kube-system 10mo ago
I don't think the NYPD thinks "beach balls" or "large items that could obstruct views" or "flipper zeros" are spooky or scary. I think they think they're potential annoyances in a large crowd.

xnx 10mo ago

> beach balls are prohibited too. Clearly these should be banned based on capability. Am I allowed to bring a yoga ball?! /s