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

saveflipper.ca

191–200 of 916 posts

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

#191

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…

Religious norms and laws were the same for much of history. You could get stoned for adultery for a good while... The decoupling of the two is a pretty recent phenomenon.

For a while after, religious and secular norms still provided a fairly rigid template for how you're supposed to behave, but we dismantled a lot of that too. For good reasons, just with a lot of unforeseen consequences.

I don't think the phenomenon you're describing is a matter of replacing the old system with something completely different. The laws we're passing are a consequence of belief systems too. One of the beliefs is that businesses are inherently greedy / immoral / destructive. Another is that individuals are. For people who see the world that way, these beliefs are unfalsifiable, just like the belief in an adultery-hating god.

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

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be a slight oversimplification? I think there's whole fields dedicated to these questions, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_law?wprov=sfla1 or the overarching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics?wprov=sfla1 , with overlaps into sociology and anthropology. Not all societies are so law-heavy, especially the ones that are more shame-driven: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt%E2%80%93shame%E2%8…

Yes I think the shame and guilt discussion is probably relevant here. Although Japan has a shame culture, and the West supposedly has a guilt-based one, I'm not convinced that guilt is all that widespread anymore.

I think that specific subquestion is an interesting one for sure (whether guilt has been replaced by strong authority, like it's not wrong unless you're caught and punished).

I'd love to see how it trends with factors like responsiveness in the political system (Canada vs the USA vs Russia or whatever), wealth inequality and social mobility (both between and within classes), softer things like expectations of "honor", etc.

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

#193
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All CANBUS packages that are useful to drive a car should be encrypted using a public/private key that is in the owner key. Decryption chips are cheap and fast.

Maintenance is a big key management problem though: if only the owner has it, there will be problems when people inevitably lose it. If there are shared keys for service departments or databases, thieves will get access to them. Things like time-limited on-demand keys can limit those problems but now you can’t get your car serviced when Toyota’s servers go down and they need to commit to not breaking API compatibilit…

The manufacturer should maintain a root cert that can be used. If that root cert is compromised then they should have a way of rotating keys if the vehicle and physical keys are present. Breaches then constitute what amounts to a software recall, putting the onus on the manufacturer to report them or be held liable for thefts. The recall notice puts the liability on the driver to have their vehicle updated (for free) in a timely fashion.

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

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because whenever it's even vaguely cold outside, my neighbor likes to be able to start and idle her giant truck in her driveway without leaving her house (for 40 minutes before she drives a mile to work).

Car ownership is way too cheap and accessible in North America for the amount of damage they cause.

This. Owning cars should be something that corporations and the rich and hobbyists do. If you dont want your car broken into maybe dont leave it lying around unattended in public?

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

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

We aren’t very serious about enforcing our laws, especially when kids are involved. We had police catch 12 and 13 year olds (Kia Boyz) this weekend in a car with guns, and they are out already. They will get some restorative justice, but no real correction in behavior and I’m sure they will do it again. Our real problem is just the pendulum swinging too far towards assuming people want to be good and they just need s…

Sounds like they had some rich parents to bail them out. I highly doubt they had court in less than a week.

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

#196
This is not a tenable position. Most cars are older than these devices- and even big tech co's like Apple were late to patch flipper vulnerabilities. I was on a plane last month and someone was flipper-jamming DOS-ing via continual bluetooth connection requests and completely bricked all iOS devices in range for the 4 hour flight.

These sort of devices are nuisances with very low positive utility, and there is plenty of precedence for banning them.

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

#197
There's a conflict of interest on the part of car manufacturers, if insurance just pays out and they get to do another sale, they're happy that your car got stolen.

Also, I agree with the main point of the article, but it shouldn't be so easy for any 16yo Tom, Dick or Harry to buy a gadget and start stealing cars. If it's so easy to make with off the shelf parts, then let the 'security experts' create their own.

Consumers need to be educated about keeping their keys away from doors/in a faraday cage.

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

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

We aren’t very serious about enforcing our laws, especially when kids are involved. We had police catch 12 and 13 year olds (Kia Boyz) this weekend in a car with guns, and they are out already. They will get some restorative justice, but no real correction in behavior and I’m sure they will do it again. Our real problem is just the pendulum swinging too far towards assuming people want to be good and they just need s…

Just to help not spread misinformation, the 12 year old was released as he was a passenger and police believe he was forced by the driver (his brother) into the car.

The 13 year old driver was not released and will remain in jail until his trial.

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

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guns can be made DIY, but laws still mitigate.

There is a big difference in putting together deadly artifacts and electronic devices you can fabricate using off-the-shelf chips and open protocols. Not saying you can't discuss regulating them, but to me they are in a different set of categories. Weapons are by default dangerous, their sole purpose being to cause physical harm, while a flipper zero can be used for instructional purposes and research. As much as I h…

>while a flipper zero can be used for instructional purposes and research.

Only in the same way a weapon can be used for instructional purposes and research. Someone buying an off the shelf product and using it in the way it was intended isn't doing research except in the loosest sense of the word. E.g. "Does the radio transmission open this garage door? Does it open this garage door? Does it open this garage door?" v "Does this rock swung hard cave in this skull? Does it cave in this skull? Does it cave in this skull?"

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

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I think the shame and guilt discussion is probably relevant here. Although Japan has a shame culture, and the West supposedly has a guilt-based one, I'm not convinced that guilt is all that widespread anymore.

I think that specific subquestion is an interesting one for sure (whether guilt has been replaced by strong authority, like it's not wrong unless you're caught and punished). I'd love to see how it trends with factors like responsiveness in the political system (Canada vs the USA vs Russia or whatever), wealth inequality and social mobility (both between and within classes), softer things like expectations of "honor"…

The idea that guilt has been replaced by a strong authority sounds like a more precise framing of what I'm talking about, definitely.
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