
Smart gun beaten by dumb magnets - 0xbadf00d
http://hackaday.com/2017/07/25/smart-gun-beaten-by-dumb-magnets/
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Animats
There's a very simple technology for this.[1] It's a purely mechanical gun
lock operated by a magnetized ring on the user's finger. Some cops use it, in
case someone grabs their gun. It's useful to cops who have to work in dense
crowds, like transit police. About 10% of cops who are shot are shot with
their own gun.

[1]
[http://www.smartlock.com/smartgun_detail-r.htm](http://www.smartlock.com/smartgun_detail-r.htm)

~~~
lostapathy
Sources, please, on the claim that "some cops use it."

I know a lot of cops, and none of them would get close to something like this.
Too many ways for it to fail and get them killed.

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pitaa
Are there any gun- and tech-literate people who actually think smart guns like
this are a good idea? Anytime someone (cop or civilian) pulls a trigger in
self defense, they do so as a last resort. Not a time when you want to be
worrying about whether you have your smart watch or if you changed the
batteries in your firearm.

~~~
zzalpha
_Are there any gun- and tech-literate people who actually think smart guns
like this are a good idea? Anytime someone (cop or civilian) pulls a trigger
in self defense, they do so as a last resort._

Have you honestly never heard of an accidental shooting occurring? Heck, it
seems like at least once or twice a year we hear about a parent being shot by
their own toddler...

Trigger locks and smart guns are specifically intended to prevent these types
of accidents.

~~~
lostapathy
There's no such thing as a "smart gun" that's actually useful in the real
world. There are too many failure modes that cannot be tolerated when a gun is
needed to save your life.

To your point about toddlers - safe storage and safe methods of carry solves
that, and they work with every gun in circulation already.

1) Lock up your gun if it's not directly under your control (i.e., in a
holster).

2) Carry your gun in a proper holster, on your person. Not in your purse in
the shopping cart, but on your hip.

These two, together, would prevent every case where a toddler shoots somebody.

It's not appreciated outside gun circles, and sadly even in gun circles a lot
of people don't get it, but good holsters are the most important investment
you can make. A huge fraction of gun accidents trace back to cheap holsters.

~~~
zzalpha
I'm going to play devil's advocate, here:

 _1) Lock up your gun if it 's not directly under your control (i.e., in a
holster)._

"But then it's not available when someone breaks into my home!"

 _2) Carry your gun in a proper holster, on your person. Not in your purse in
the shopping cart, but on your hip._

"How does that help me when I'm in bed and someone breaks in in the middle of
the night?"

I'm going to be blunt: while I recognize my own reply is somewhat simplistic
and idealistic, yours is no better. There is simply no technology, today, that
makes gun ownership in the home both safe and is perceived as 100% effective
in circumstances where a weapon is needed for self-defense in an emergency
situation.

This type of technology is a search for a solution to that problem. Is it
_the_ solution? Or a perfect solution? Clearly not.

But to imply there is no solution, or that it's a solution in search of a
problem, belies a profound cynicism.

This is Hacker News. Folks, here, believe technology can solve everything,
from world hunger to poverty.

But for some reason, apparently it's impossible to improve on the firearm.

it's baffling.

~~~
lostapathy
It's not impossible to improve firearms - tons of innovation happens in that
space. At the same time, anything that decreases reliability is a deadly
liability that cannot be tolerated.

To your counter-examples. Carry your gun at home if you're worried about
break-ins. Put your gun in a quick-access safe when you sleep. Problems solved

~~~
zzalpha
So, suppose we live in a fantasy world where a smart gun is developed that has
extremely high reliability. Would you agree that would represent an overall
improvement in firearm technology?

I'm trying to understand if the objections are rational, or religious.

I honestly can't tell.

~~~
lostapathy
If you can make a smart gun that is as reliable and foolproof as a Glock,
without destroying the ergonomics, you'd have something.

Failure is not an option. 5 9's isn't good enough, and we can't manage that in
software with redundant systems. Beating that, in the meager amount of free
space a gun offers, is a pretty tall order.

I'm not being religious, I'm being realistic about just far away "good enough"
is for a smart gun.

~~~
zzalpha
Thank you! I appreciate that you took my comment seriously and decided to
respond in kind.

I totally agree with you. It's an extremely difficult ask, and I'd never claim
that the current iteration of this technology is anywhere near workable.

Another commenter, here, used the analogy of self-driving cars, and I think
it's an apt (if imperfect... the problem spaces are profoundly different) one,
though perhaps not the way they were intending.

In both cases, the technology problems are enormous, and the failure modes
could result in the loss of human life. So it better be pretty damn foolproof
if it's to gain any kind of widespread adoption. Yet, you don't get the same
level of negativity levelled at efforts to build self-driving cars... that
it's impossible and car companies should have never tried.

The original question was: "Are there any gun- and tech-literate people who
actually think smart guns like this are a good idea?"

I think the nuanced answer, here, is: Not yet. But perhaps some day.

It seems we might agree on at that!

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haburka
This could have been prevented if they had hired someone to test designs
against potential hacking during prototyping but I don't believe that it would
have been worth the money. Unless someone knows exactly how to put the magnet
against the gun, they can't beat it. Everything is vulnerable to some risk and
I believe that this gun is sufficiently well designed to prevent most if not
all would be threats.

~~~
germinalphrase
Considering the largely accepted belief that a knife wielding attacker can
cover 20 feet more quickly than an average trained individual can draw and
fire a pistol (it is - at best - very close), it would seem to me that the
jammer is the mostly problematic exploit. It firmly tips the engagement in
favor of the knife wielding attacker without the pistol wielding defender
understanding their weapon had been disabled until it is far too late to
change tactics.

I don't see law enforcement ever adopting smart weapons.

~~~
MBCook
The military has plenty of anti-jamming technology don't they? I'm guessing if
they wanted to do this right there would be ways that are a lot more sturdy
than something a simple RF jammer can stop.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
> anti-jamming technology

Like what? SNR-boosting encoding tricks to get around high-power noise are not
going to be fast like you want with a gun. The form factor needs to be
omnidirectional. You don't have high power available in a portable device. You
can't just change frequencies, because an attacker is likely broadcasting
high-bandwidth noise. And you don't know whether the user needs it to fail
safe (the bad guys got the gun) or fail hot (the good guys need to use the
gun). After that, physics doesn't leave a lot of other options for technology
to fix anything!

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cstrat
That was a really interesting read and watch, both high tech and low tech
hacks.

Given that these guns mean life/death for people I hope this find is enough to
take them off the market. So many chances for failure given all these holes.

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Pinckney
Why does anyone think the magnet attack matters? The wireless safety is
designed to defeat a child, or an assailant who manages to wrestle the gun
away from you. The idea that they're going to pull out a big-ass rare earth
magnet and fire it that way just doesn't make any sense in real-world
scenarios.

The problem with the iP1 is that it can be jammed, and this should be a
surprise to absolutely nobody.

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Grue3
So he hacked a smart gun and the result was.... a regular gun. How is this
supposed to be dangerous? He can't fire it over the internet or anything, just
disable it's lock. It's like "hacking" an elevator by stopping it: it just
becomes stairs!

~~~
LyndsySimon
> How is this supposed to be dangerous?

He was also able to disable the weapon from a distance.

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zaroth
In weighing whether we should _legislate_ whether the technology must be used
and whether we fine or imprison people who refuse to use the technology, even
forgetting for a moment about the ~300 million guns already in the US, it's a
prudent question to ask... will this technology potentially cost me my life?
Clearly the answer for the current state-of-the-art in "smart" guns is YES,
this is currently dangerous and error prone technology which IMO should not be
legal to sell in a gun because it makes it overall _more_ dangerous not less.

But assuming we want to let companies sell these prototypes and let people buy
them assuming they do so fully informed of the risk, and let the courts decide
in the end if companies are liable when the "smarts" malfunction...

To the point about legislating whether guns _must_ implement this technology,
I think this is a constitutional question, and so I think the bar is much
higher than questions like seat belts, airbags, speed limits, etc.

We have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have the
right to bear arms. And I think that means we have the right to own firearms
which are free from DRM, if we so personally choose.

Your laptop can be infected with malware and potentially further spread
malware or participate in DDoS attacks. Malware and DDoS as a whole cause
great economic damage and potentially loss of life. However, if we let
government whitelist all apps and require all computing devices to implement
hardware trust zones to verify apps are signed and trusted by the government,
this technology could prevent certain malware attacks. Is it Ok for government
to pass legislation requiring this? We have the right to free speech and so I
think it's a similar constitutional issue and I think the answer must be
consistent with the firearm question, and the answer must be NO.

Just because a technology will absolutely save money and save lives, does not
mean that technology can be mandated when it would impinge on constitutionally
guaranteed rights. Under strict scrutiny a legislative remedy must be
compelling, narrowly tailored to its purpose, and the least restrictive means
possible to achieve the desired policy outcome.

DRMing all guns, like DRMing all computing devices, doesn't pass the test in
my opionion.

