Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Canadian government banning Flipper Zero to combat auto theft

canada.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 341 posts

Re: Canadian government banning Flipper Zero to combat auto theft

#241

Post by w4 »

akanet wrote: post #201
vdqtp3 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prop 13 is far from being agreed on as a problem amongst Californians. When your property tax could reasonably exceed your mortgage, something must change.

That prop 13 is not agreed upon by residents of California's population as a major destructive force here is precisely their point. It has been both absolutely disastrous and incredibly popular.

Disastrous in your view. In the view of many homeowners, not so much.

There are competing interests and multiple perspectives to most of these issues where one position is not absolutely right as compared to the other.

Re: Canadian government banning Flipper Zero to combat auto theft

#242

Post by tonyarkles »

barbazoo wrote: post #46
neilv wrote: post #10

The Flipper Zero is a general-purpose tool and STEM educational device. By banning the device, a country would be setting back their workforce of engineers and scientists a bit. How can you use a Flipper Zero to steal a car? Flipper Zero can't crack hard encryption. Is the real problem that cars were made with security that they already knew was negligently weak at the time? If so, is a recall of those cars more appr…

It’s not the law yet. There must be a way to raise this.

Here's the unfortunate part of how the Canadian government works. Many of our laws (legislation) defer the specific implementation details to regulations. This specific ban likely doesn't need to go through the House of Commons or the Senate and can just be passed as an Order-in-Council that directs ISED (Canadian FCC) and CBSA (Canadian CBP) to modify their regulations to prohibit the device from use and import respectively. So long as there's an existing law in place that defers to regulations for banning specific devices or specific categories of devices, those regulations can be modified without parliamentary oversight.

It's the same approach they used for their recent (last 5 years) firearm bans. Whether or not I agree with what they're trying to accomplish with the bans, the ability to arbitrarily ban specific items without meaningful oversight isn't great for democracy.

Re: Canadian government banning Flipper Zero to combat auto theft

#243

Post by data-ottawa »

soerxpso wrote: post #191
data-ottawa wrote: post #134

This feels like a loud solution to assuage the outrage of the month. None of the articles on this are actually showing the numbers. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230727/cg-b0... Car thefts have increased by a significant amount outside of their normal fluctuations, but they are still much much lower than they were before 2010. To call it a crisis is hyperbole. Canada's car thefts are the approximate…

I wouldn't trust that data at all without associated data on reporting rates over time. There's absolutely a crisis, and it's bad enough that people have stopped bothering to report thefts to the police since they know nothing will come of it.

How are people dealing with the situation then?

Without a police report your insurance won’t pay for a new car.

Re: Canadian government banning Flipper Zero to combat auto theft

#245

Post by stavros »

mistercheph wrote: post #106
15457345234 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What would be okay is to ban the use of an F0 to steal a car. Ban carrying them. If it's truly an educational tool you don't need to carry it around with you. Same as (in the UK) carrying a set of lockpicks is grounds to be arrested for 'going equipped' unless you're a locksmith.

Forgive me if as an American I hold up the English people and their government as a model of how a free and democratic nation ought not to be.

This comment is basically "I see UK, I downvote". Zero relevance to the point that was being made, just wanted to say "US > UK".

Re: Canadian government banning Flipper Zero to combat auto theft

#246

Post by Thaxll »

AnarchismIsCool wrote: post #140

In the grand scheme, these are remarkably unsophisticated devices. It's almost a meme in RF circles to excitedly buy one and then immediately realize it's just a Girl Tech IM-me with NFC. If you want to do real damage there are portable SDRs that can jam GPS and transmit just about any arbitrary radio signal from DC to 6GHz for less than $500. This is a mildly powerful toy that has a large, intelligent and curious co…

Those devices are already banned in most countries.

You can't import / use devices that have jamming capabilities.

Re: Canadian government banning Flipper Zero to combat auto theft

#247

Post by [deleted] »

advael wrote: post #102

So if I'm reading this right, they're banning something that is too underpowered to run the exploits people are using to steal cars (which are only possible in the first place because car companies' threat model is mostly about their customers rather than thieves) in order to pretend to do something about car theft I've been pretty happy on balance with measures introduced through direct democracy in recent years (mo…

[deleted]

Re: Canadian government banning Flipper Zero to combat auto theft

#248

Post by atemerev »

tim333 wrote: post #240
herbst wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swiss here, curiously interested, what does direct democracy in the US look like? Direct democracy means a lot around here, like not having a single party long term in some control positions who could block or manipulate bills. Voting on topics instead of politians is only a small aspect of this all working.

I've been curious as a Brit living thought the mess that was the brexit vote and implementation, how the Swiss would have dealt with such a matter? I'm told they have better systems and wouldn't have done it like we did but I'm not sure quite how.

We have voted in Schengen membership in 2008, but opted out of many association agreements with EU. We have a referendum like every 4 months, so all of this is not a big deal, things like these are routinely decided with a direct all-nation vote.

Re: Canadian government banning Flipper Zero to combat auto theft

#249

Post by randomdata »

postpawl wrote: post #221
randomdata wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course the system is not something that magically descended to the heavens, it is simply what people have agreed to go by. If it is unequal, it is so because the people have decided that they want it to be unequal. No doubt because, as you point out, the typical person would rather spend their time making ends meet (i.e. pay for the luxuries of life) than the worry about making agreements with their neighbours day…

Although people have a role in forming societal structures, it's not a simple matter of choice when entrenched interests shape the rules. The perception that individuals consent to inequality by focusing on their own lives misses the broader context of systemic barriers. Expecting people to prioritize civic action over making a decent living underestimates the challenges they face. The system needs to facilitate equa…

> The system needs to...

The system isn't handed down to us by a higher power. It's just people. It's shaped simply by what people decide to do. Want different? Then you must do different.

There is no alternative. There is no magical genie that will grant you three wishes. If you don't do the work someone else will, and they will do it the way they want it done, same as you would.

Re: Canadian government banning Flipper Zero to combat auto theft

#250

Post by riwsky »

happytoexplain wrote: post #28

I was under the impression that cars and garage doors are essentially 100% immune to replay attacks. How could they possibly be susceptible to something to rudimentary? Or am I not understanding some context?

Not 100%. Some are basically CSPRNGs that iterate with every successful unlock; if you capture the “play” from a key AND block the car from getting the signal, you get a replay attack you can only use once. And which desyncs the key with the car, making it useless until a dealer re-pairs them.
Post reply on HN