Canada declares Flipper Zero public enemy No. 1 in car-theft crackdown
Canada declares Flipper Zero public enemy No. 1 in car-theft crackdown
How do you ban a device built with open source hardware and software anyway?
Read everyone, this is hype, and Canada is being dumb on this one.
The Flipper Zero is also incapable of defeating keyless systems that rely on rolling codes, a protection that's been in place since the 1990s that essentially transmits a different electronic key signal each time a key is pressed to lock or unlock a door.
Most of this reaction is due to staged videos on TikTok and politicians not understanding technology. Maybe they'll stop a few joyriding kids, but car thiefs aren't using F0s.
Im a security professional who works to harden medical devices. I use the flipper zero to easily test many different protocols that would be a pain in the ass to do "manually".
The flipper makes it easy for me to verify IR, sub GHz, USB, SPI, and many other protocols while being able to walk around the devices I test.
Without the flipper I could totally do these checks with homebrew tools, a pi and an rtlsdr (unless thats gonna be illegal too?) But it would take me writing new tools and procedures rather than the ease of the flipper.
Anybody in the know can tell you that the hardware isn't anything special, and like many others have said, its like making a swiss army knife illegal cause the toothpick can be used to pick a lock.
This isn't gonna stop anybody, if pentest tools are showing flaws in your product, maybe we should send flippers to the car manufacturers and tell them to fix their shit. You shouldn't be allowed to sell a car that can be wirelessly hacked like this, just like how the FDA doesn't let you sell medical devices that can be hacked like that.
You don't just put the cat back in the bag...
The device only gives easy access to already extremely weak/non existent security systems. That's literally it.
It's just something that's existed forever, but put into a convenient package and marketed well enough that suddenly normal people are realising how insecure their electronic systems actually are.
Kinda like how they used to make pacemakers hackable because they never thought to add any security at all. I bet many of them still don't.
Anyway, the issue lies not with this device, which can't "hack" anything with any actual security, the issue is with manufacturers making devices that literally leave the door wide open to anybody with an extremely basic electronic sniffer/cloner device.
It's called pretending to do something about the problem.
The way they get access is by amplifying a signal of a car key near the entrance to trick the car into thinking the key is nearby. Others do just pick the driver's side lock. Then once inside, they connect to the vehicle and pair new keys so they can drive away in less than 10 minutes.
I've never understood the way modern cars just unlock without any button press, that seems really insecure. Some organized thieves probably aren't even bothering with lock-picking and ignition hot-wiring these days as older cars would be low value to them. Oh and if a random crackhead really wanted something in the car they would probably just smash the window or pry the door anyway.
A solution would be a 24 hour lockout timer to program new keys. That would prevent mall jackings and be a small incovenience for repair shops to need to keep cars in the garage overnight.
I see how that might make sense to lawmakers. It does present itself as a problem. But the fact that it is a symptom of a security issue is the reason it shouldn't be outright banned. I haven't used the thing, but it has looked to me like a pretty snazzy multitool.
It's like banning swiss army knives. I can see why it looks like it makes sense, but it really doesn't.
Car security is horrible
I bought a copying remote from aliexpress thinking "no way my car has a static code and not a rolling one... right?"
Nope, fuck you Kia, any stupid cheap remote from aliexpress can be used to copy keys from a surprising amount of cars.
Car security should improve and I hope this becomes a big enough issue that it get's better regulated
RollJam and RollBack are the exploits for bypassing rolling codes. These exploits are possible because you can replay captured codes at a later time.
What's happening in most cases is the proximity-based fobs are simply amplified with a device to reach the person's car in the driveway, since most people keep their keys by the door, and in some cases even within reach of the car without a device. It's this low hanging fruit where the theft happens, or just a tow truck...
The Flipper is more of an enthusiast and pranking device. The devices used in actual thefts are like disposable $50 alibaba pieces of shit. Canada is effectively creating a clandestine market for simple radio amplifiers made from the most basic electronic components. As someone in Canada who used to build the classic cmoy Altoid-tin headphone amps to sell on etsy, this is tempting...
Honestly, I am embarrassed with the whole "look like were doing something" shtick by my government. An expensive gathering of decision makers from various sectors, a National Summit, just to say: we are now gonna be soooo tough on crime and let's ban the toy we just saw on TikTok.
Car theft was a major problem before 2010 until engine immobilizers became mandatory since 2007 on all vehicles made in Canada
Then everyone got too comfortable. The regulatory bodies and car manufacturers were too focused pretending doing some work and publishing all the buzzword-of-the-day "accomplishments" they were doing while patting each others backs without explicitely requiring manufacturers to comply/implement immediately anything. Meanwhile, manufacturers were happy to integrate almost off-the-shelf "children's RC" car starter pack obfuscated through invisible/non-existent security and protected under dubious industrial secrets.
Obviously, criminals smelled the easy money. Starting around 2013 — mystery car unlocking device | 2015 — signal repeater car burglary, car thefts by relay attacks were known by automakers but ignored as one-offs, too technical, already dealt with by law enforcement to lets pretent it's not that big of a problem or leave it to the police. Meanwhile, insurance claim replacement vehicles are selling like hotcakes and it is "convenient" to ignore the problem.
The following years various reprogramming theft become known and finally CAN bus injection — new form of keyless car theft that works in under 2 minutes or in depth investigation by Dr. Ken Tindell, becomes so easy, so cheap and widely available that even kids uses them to gain Youtube/TikTok followers.
Car hacking was a becoming serious concern during the pandemic, but now it's simply ridiculous and as if current automaker included/provided anti-theft/GPS tracking were (un)knowingly made "defective".
Hence, everyone is playing catch up and blaming left and right on who is responsible for this in-slow-motion public safety disaster.
Brian Kingston, president and CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association, which includes Ford Motor Company of Canada, General Motors of Canada and Stellantis, said increasing the risk of prosecution is the most effective way to deter vehicle theft.
"And at the same time, providing more outbound inspection controls at the ports to prevent the flow of stolen vehicles to foreign markets by organized criminal organizations," he added.
New vehicle safety standards have been published (rushed?) recently. We will see if all the panic settles down like after 2007.
Moreover, the exponential prevalence of car theft also laid bare the incredibly poor and ineffective security at the various ports of Canada. Unsurprisingly, it has been a known constant devolution:
The whole "these can be used for high scale crimes" argument is straight up fearmongering. One or two people have reverse engineered the remote protocol on one or two specific models of Volkswagen car, and, after listening to the car being locked and unlocked several times using a laptop and $500 SDR, can reconstruct a signal to unlock the car. When a cybersecurity professional figures out this is possible at all, it makes the news.
If your car can get broken into by any random script kiddie with a Flipper Zero, sue the car company for gross negligence.
It seems like maybe the problem is that automakers were able to widely market vehicles that use wireless protocols that are relatively easy targets for attack. This was never properly secure.
Automakers should absolutely be held to higher standards (in general) than they are, and it's not likely that banning specific devices is going to have any measurable outcome here. It's pretty well known that people buy and sell malware, and people can just... make devices similar to a Flipper with cheaply and readily available hardware.
This is just dumb posturing to avoid holding automakers and tech companies accountable for yet another dumb, poorly thought out, design feature.
And obviously it doesn't stop at cars. It seems pretty clear that snooping on any feature using RFID or NFC tech is only going to become more widespread. Novel idea: what about using... actual keys as the primary method of granting physical access? Lock picking is obviously possible but a properly laid out disc-detainer lock is pretty goddamn hard to bypass even with the proper tools, and that skill can't just be acquired in the same way as with electronic methods of bypass.
This reminds me of IMSI catchers, which governors and mayors don't mind if law enforcement has them, but when your neighbor makes one out of a mail-order kit and a soldering gun then suddenly it's an instrument of terror.
Oh and police aren't supposed to have them in the US, but no one punishes them for using one. It's inadmissible in court, so they have to parallel construct (id est, lie ) about how they got your location from an informant or through detection dogs or something.
In fact, a lot of security is lax, and we don't bother until it's private interests rather than law enforcement that are using them with malicious intent.
I absolutely love mine :)
I think people need more visibility over the electromagnetic spectrum, not less, to catch car thieves. This needs to be white hat into a car theft attempt detection kit.
I understand and appreciate the point of the childish look of the f-zero, but I often find myself wishing it was in more of a phone or phone case form factor.
Why? No one questions a phone in your hand. You can be literally anywhere, including places that disallow phone usage, and no one is going to bat an eye. But a f-zero raises questions. I can’t tell you have many times I’ve been asked “what is that thing?”
And now, it’s reached a level of popularity that people will recognize it for what it is. It’s not generic looking, in fact quite the opposite. Whereas a long, wide, thin black box looks like every other phone out there.
I’ve got one and it’s a lot of fun. Can’t lock me out of anything now.
It's a multi faceted blame. Yes, you blame the hardware that's helped used to commit the crime, then you blame the people using it to commit the crime, then you blame the people still allowing it to be done. Look at America for example. People use guns to kill children in schools. Then you blame the person for committing the crime, then you blame the politicians who refuse to make it harder to get a gun
The truth of the matter is, Canadian laws are intentionally non-sensical and intentionally don't address the root cause of crime. Our country's leaders are openly engaging in numerous large scale scams not the least of which is the stolen car market. How do you think alllllll of these stolen cars wind up in Africa and SE Asia? Shipping manifests, inspections, public awareness of the string of thefts. How does the government manage to always miss these blind spots do you think?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Presumably, such tools subject to the ban would include HackRF One and LimeSDR, which have become crucial for analyzing and testing the security of all kinds of electronic devices to find vulnerabilities before they’re exploited.
This slim, lightweight device bearing the logo of an adorable dolphin acts as a Swiss Army knife for sending, receiving, and analyzing all kinds of wireless communications.
People can use them to change the channels of a TV at a bar covertly, clone simple hotel key cards, read the RFID chip implanted in pets, open and close some garage doors, and, until Apple issued a patch, send iPhones into a never-ending DoS loop.
The price and ease of use make Flipper Zero ideal for beginners and hobbyists who want to understand how increasingly ubiquitous communications protocols such as NFC and Wi-Fi work.
Lost on the Canadian government, the device isn’t especially useful in stealing cars because it lacks the more advanced capabilities required to bypass anti-theft protections introduced in more than two decades.
The most prevalent form of electronics-assisted car theft these days, for instance, uses what are known as signal amplification relay devices against keyless ignition and entry systems.
The original article contains 617 words, the summary contains 195 words. Saved 68%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I wanted to get one one day. This sucks. Now I'm gunna have to import it from some rando in Brazil like I did for my switch mods.
At least the article did a good job of calling this ban the bullshit it is.
Why is that shit even legal?
This is about more than just cars. Anything that uses RFID, NFC, etc, such as an employee badge or even contactless credit/debit card payments, are vulnerable to such an attack.
Jason Thor Hall (ex-Blizzard employee) explains how such things can be used in social engineering attacks. A Proxmark is a similar device to the Flipper Zero.
Regardless of whether it's open source hardware/technology, should we be authorising sales of such prebuilt devices for $170 which can allow the average Joe to break into an office or steal a car?