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Insecure vehicles should be banned, not security tools like the Flipper Zero

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111–120 of 916 posts

Re: Insecure vehicles should be banned, not security tools like the Flipper Zero

#111

Philosophy warning: I don't know if there is a term for it, or if a philosopher/etc. has written about this phenomenon, but: a noticeable trend to me is what I'll call "the replacement of ethical expectations with specific, written down laws." Rather than expecting a human being to behave in certain ways intrinsically (i.e., normative ethics ) we tend to assume they will behave in the worst way possible, and then pas…

> Instead of discussing how car theft is fundamentally an unethical behavior, the discussion is about preventing some thing from being sold or existing, whether that be insecure vehicles or Flipper Zeroes.

There are already laws against theft. They apply to vehicles, secure and insecure alike.

A law mandating a minimum level of security, as GP suggests, seems to me to fit the suggestion, that auto manufacturers have a minimum standard to ethically sell a vehicle which buyers would, presumably, expect to have locking mechanisms suitable to prevent theft.

Re: Insecure vehicles should be banned, not security tools like the Flipper Zero

#112
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you calculate this value of zero percent? Divide all the crime cases of the previous day by the number of humans? And who wrote the headline?

> How do you calculate this value of zero percent? This gets messy for obvious topological/continuity reasons, but a shocking number of applications are both correct and simple to reason about if you choose to define 0/0 == 0 (kind of like how if you choose to universally define sum(empty_set) == 0 and product(empty_set) == 1 then tons of higher-level formulae just work and don't have to special-case a base case). In…

"Kill all humans except for one" would be a way to resolve this (at least for 1-80 years).

Re: Insecure vehicles should be banned, not security tools like the Flipper Zero

#113

This has to be one of the dumbest things I've read in a while. All vehicles are insecure. I can hook a tow truck to almost any vehicle, including an 80,000 lbs tractor trailer and drive off with it. That'd actually attract less attention that outright hotwiring a vehicle. The solution is to identify, arrest, and prosecute criminals. Which the government is not obligated to do in the US.

The US has the most prisoners per capita, but go on. "They aren't doing enough about car hackers! Car hackers are just running free and the gubmint won't stop them!" Ridiculous.

That’s actually not true anymore. El Salvador has the most prisoners per capita now.

They also have a lower murder rate than the US. The lowest murder rate in the entire Western Hemisphere, actually. Previously they had the highest murder rate in the world.

Mass incarceration works. It doesn’t work in the US because we didn’t do enough of it.

Re: Insecure vehicles should be banned, not security tools like the Flipper Zero

#114

Philosophy warning: I don't know if there is a term for it, or if a philosopher/etc. has written about this phenomenon, but: a noticeable trend to me is what I'll call "the replacement of ethical expectations with specific, written down laws." Rather than expecting a human being to behave in certain ways intrinsically (i.e., normative ethics ) we tend to assume they will behave in the worst way possible, and then pas…

This is a very interesting point, but it is genuinely easier to simply ban flipper zeros, or insecure vehicles, then to try to change the Judiciary and prosecution system wholesale.

It might very well take longer than the remaining lifespan of most folks reading this, so it's a moot point for anyone that wants to not have their car stolen.

Re: Insecure vehicles should be banned, not security tools like the Flipper Zero

#115
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These cars are being sold with defective security measures. They don't work the way manufactures promise or customers expect. It shouldn't be any different than a car sold with headlights that are too dim

But that is my point. All security measures are defective. I can always tie a chain to your vehicle and leave with it. Security measures deter criminals, they can never stop them. Only the government can do that. The government is not obliged to do that in the US. Thus, no one can stop criminals To metaphorically put it: no matter how good your 2FA is, I can always get around it if I can torture you or threaten your…

I think there is a meaningful and useful difference between "defective" and "not comprehensive".

Re: Insecure vehicles should be banned, not security tools like the Flipper Zero

#116
I agree that Flipper shouldn't be banned in Canada, but I think the headline won't help them make their case. For many reasons, it's easier for people to support banning a device they don't personally care about than it is to call for millions of cars on the road to be made illegal, or for instituting new regulations on an industry with entrenched lobbyists. If the option you are presenting is to ban the Flipper (easy, painless) or turn the auto industry on its head (hard, painful) guess what they're going to do? The option you want to present is between going through a lot of work to ban a device that is ultimately harmless, and not doing any extra work and letting it go.

Re: Insecure vehicles should be banned, not security tools like the Flipper Zero

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kia and Hyundai saved like $20/car by skimping on a part that all the other major manufacturers include by default, leading to cars that were insecure by design. That's negligent. Punishing people for taking advantage of that vulnerability is certainly warranted, but it's also closing the barn door after the horse has already bolted.

What harm did Kia cause its customer? How are those locks adequate in say, South Korea, where there are 1:20,000 car thefts per capita yearly vs 1:350 in the US. The locks are not the problem. Stealing cars is the problem.

> What harm did Kia cause its customer?

They sold a negligently defective product.

> How are those locks adequate in say, South Korea...

They aren't. If I write code with a SQL injection in it, it's bad code even if no one winds up attacking it.

Re: Insecure vehicles should be banned, not security tools like the Flipper Zero

#118

Philosophy warning: I don't know if there is a term for it, or if a philosopher/etc. has written about this phenomenon, but: a noticeable trend to me is what I'll call "the replacement of ethical expectations with specific, written down laws." Rather than expecting a human being to behave in certain ways intrinsically (i.e., normative ethics ) we tend to assume they will behave in the worst way possible, and then pas…

> Instead of discussing how car theft is fundamentally an unethical behavior, the discussion is about preventing some thing from being sold or existing, whether that be insecure vehicles or Flipper Zeroes. There are already laws against theft. They apply to vehicles, secure and insecure alike. A law mandating a minimum level of security, as GP suggests, seems to me to fit the suggestion, that auto manufacturers have…

And Canada already did this with immobilizes. We also used to do bait cars.

Both these things helped a ton, until the new wave of weak car security

Iirc the Kai stealing spree didn’t hit Canada as hard because of said immobilizer law too

Re: Insecure vehicles should be banned, not security tools like the Flipper Zero

#119

Sooo they have been stealing Infiniti's from my area recently with relative ease allegedly by using a Bluetooth obd2 reader connected to an android tablet running a pirated copy of some Nissan service tech software. Nobody from any of the Infiniti groups is 100% certain how they are doing it, but the best theory out there is above. Just the other night, a crew of dudes stole 3 Q50’s from my neighborhood with relative…

Obviously, we want owners to have full access to their car's CANBUS. So the question is: how should the OBD-2 plug (or wiring) be protected?

Perhaps the OBD port should only work when the car is validly unlocked and the engine immobilizer accepts a key? Maybe it could stay unlocked thereafter while a device is connected?

Android (adb) and iOS (iTunes backup) have solved this issue years ago.

Re: Insecure vehicles should be banned, not security tools like the Flipper Zero

#120
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people in the Infiniti groups were recommending this obd2 lock haha https://www.amazon.com/Tune-Saver-OBDII-OBD2-Lock/dp/B0BRF5D...

seems like a sophisticated theft ring would have access to the keys for the most common guards like this, reminds me of the TSA key debacle[1] [1]: https://github.com/Xyl2k/TSA-Travel-Sentry-master-keys

The TSA locks have widely circulated master keys because that's a basic requirement of the system–every airport has to have some to be able to open bags. I don't know anything about these OBD port locks, but I don't see any reason they'd have a master key, other than laziness on the part of the manufacturer.

Additionally, I'd imagine that such a tiny fraction of a percentage of cars have these kinds of locks that it'd barely be worth it for thieves to figure out how to bypass them, at least until there's more widespread adoption.

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