As someone in cybersecurity, it is handy as a low frequency RFID reader as Android phones only support higher frequency. Having something compact and in a single unit (compared to a Proxmark) makes it easier to 'grab-n-go'. It is neat to show people how insecure common access control systems are.
I've also used it as a universal remote more than a few times on devices that didn't come with a remote. The App running on a phone makes it somewhat easy to transfer new remote templates to the Flipper over Bluetooth.
It also comes in handy as a serial adapter as it has GPIO pins you can connect to things (UART headers).
The RF transceiver is also cool to capture RF remotes (garage doors, overhead fans, etc.) and replay them.
Yeah, the Flipper Zero has a "sub 1GHz" transceiver, from memory its a CC1101?
It can receive and transmit from about 300MHz to 930MHz (with a few gaps in between).
I've used my Flipper to sniff the signals for my wireless controlled projector screen, projector, and home theatre amp. I then used the data I sniffed to program an ESP32 with a CC1101 module attached, so I can roll down the screen and turn on the project and amp via wifi (with Homebridge and iOS Home app).
I later sniffed my garage door opener, added that into the ESP32/CC1101 gadget. I needed to add a better antenna to make sure it reliably had range to get to the garage door, but it now works more reliably than the keychain fob, and I can use an "arrived home" automation to have the door open without me needing to stop the motorcycle and take off my gloves and get the key fob out of my pocket. I may replace this with an Arduino/CC1101 triggered by the hi beam switch.
The Flipper Zero is a super useful tool when having ideas like this, but like most tools, it really does sit in the drawer most of the time. But I'm glad it's there, I don't regret a cent of it's purchase price.
This is a great run down of the process to extract the firmware from these types of devices without desoldering the flash. I've done a fair amount of reverse engineering and a lot of devices have similar vulnerabilities.
I think more time needs to be spent looking into these commonly used, cheap IoT devices and educating consumers on the risks of using a poorly secured device on their network.
The upside of these vulnerabilities is that you can run your own code on these! 'Declouding' is great as it can extend the lifetime of these devices and make using them more private.
I just added a ticket to my Google Wallet for a concert last night and it was very similar to the Ticketmaster/LiveNation app. The PDF417 barcode changed and had an animation around it. My guess is that it is the same or very similar on Apple devices.
The barcode is just another field in there, so it can be updated the same as anything. Passkit is very simple. For the barcode part you just tell it type of code (from the available types) and value to encode.
With Google Wallet (the only one I have at the moment), it is not static for the ticket. It has a NFC and barcode option. The barcode changes every 15 seconds for me.
One issue I have with the Flock cameras installed in my city is that they are installed on public land (right next to the road) and paid for with tax dollars.
"going private is likely saving 90% over". How's that working out for your private US healthcare system? Some of the most expensive private care in the world. The toilet you mention is in one of the richest most capitilistic states in the world, they have super expensive public toilets alongside homelessness. In other countries they have cheap public toilets. I'm not sure public/private is the deciding factor. I think it's San Francisco.
It’s used by the governments, how can they pay for it if not with tax money? Would you be happier if Flock installed them for free in exchange for advertising space in town?
People are going to start making spray paint/foam attachments for drones so that they can equip their drone with a little can of 'fuck that camera right up'
it won't be cost effective to repair the cameras, so they'll go away.
No, what I think will happen then is that the govt will transition to flying cameras, but the problem with that will be expense and poorer performance for a while until batteries improve.
One of the Flock cameras was installed in my city nearby where I live. Once I noticed it, I thought it was a red light camera at first since it was near an intersection.
I did some research on them and found that they are completely wireless (cellular network most of the time) and powered by a 65w solar panel. Since they capture every license plate that passes by, I wasn't thrilled it was a private company keeping the data, even if they say they only keep it for 30 days.
I did a FOIA request with my city to see how many are in use and their locations to share with my community. I also plan on asking why my city thinks it is a good use of tax dollars. I think it should be a requirement for cities to disclose their use since it is a private company installing private equipment (and a camera at that!) on public land to monitor the public.
Call me old fashioned, but I think the constant monitoring of citizen's movements is bad even (especially?) when the state does it. If we're going to live in 1984, the involvement of corporations seems like the least of our troubles.
Good on you though, for actually going after this information and sharing it with your community. People absolutely have the right to know if they're being subjected to this.
I'm curious what the FOIA request will yield. Many of these are in private shopping centers or convenience stores, so I'm not sure any particular government body is accountable for them.
It would cost money for your city to buy its own camera system. These are presumably free, or perhaps even paying private property owners to lease the parking space. They can then turn around and charge municipalities and cities (and car repo companies, etc) for access to the information.
The police, et al, have <rules> about what they can gobble up and save, but there's nothing in the constitution about buying evidence from data brokers.
I'd bet having the comings and goings of everyone from the local WalMart and a few convenience stores at key intersections is very useful for tracking people down. At least one brand advertises the ability to get notifications when a vehicle is seen on any camera.
I believe in most of the arrangements the police are getting free access. Walmart decides to pay for a couple cameras at a few thousand per year and Walmart gets access to the data with the option to share it. So it’s even stickier since the police are not paying for it.
Flock got introduced to my municipality (Oak Park, IL) when OPPD was able to use data from a neighboring muni (it may have been Chicago, I forget which) to work back on an incident. OPPD had (has) authority to make arbitrary technology acquisitions so long as they're under a fixed cost (I believe $20k) --- this is a common arrangement in area munis, and maybe around the country --- which, if you're a product manager at Flock, gives you a trivial and effective game plan: go close deals to get <$20k pilot deployments up and running, and then work on expanding them.
The problem you have if Flock squicks you out is that you're not a normie. Flock's pitch to normies is incredibly compelling. Flock theoretically lights up any time a stolen car drives into your muni; stolen cars are a primary vector for crimes (here, especially: carjacking, but also thefts, burglaries, etc). The data it collects is shareable only, and with consent, to other law enforcement agencies. It records make/model/color/plate, but no other direct identifying information. Assume for the moment that it all works as advertised, and it's on paper a weird capability to push back on your local police having.
Our own OPPD messed up acquiring Flock. I think they tried to skip the pilot, and go straight to a muni-wide rollout, which required board approval. That blindsided the board. Instead of rubber-stamping it as expected, the board kicked it out to the technology and police oversight (CPOC) citizens commissions. I serve on one of those. Here's what we came up with:
* A negotiated special-purpose police general order governing use of Flock, limiting it to violent crime, and installing procedural safeguards (most notably: a monthly readout to CPOC on Flock hits).
* A rollback down to 8 cameras from 20+.
* A one-year review of how Flock went.
The glaring hole left open: we have no direct public input on which munis we share Flock data with.
A year later, the monthly readouts to CPOC were FOIA'd and published, and the results are in: overwhelmingly, Flock stops in Oak Park were not responsive to crimes in Oak Park, but rather had OPPD doing warrants enforcement work for neighboring munis. Worse: the premise of Flock, that we could plug into regional hot-lists of stolen cars and cordon Oak Park off from them, turned out to be terribly flawed: the CPD hot-list is full of bullshit reports or recovered cars never cleared, so we were regularly pulling random innocent people over. The Flock technology worked fine! But the municipal systems it depends just aren't ready to safely use it.
The big thing coming off Flock for us is ACLU's CCOPS model ordinance, which adds mandatory board review for any surveillance technology (broadly defined in the ordinance). We worked for 4-5 months getting it prepped for the board, which has counsel drafting a local enacting ordinance; I'm optimistic we'll get it this year. CCOPS is something any muni can get; it's a good pitch, with something for a lot of different constituencies to like.
I think the "private company monitoring public land" thing is an argument that carries a lot of weight on Twitter and HN, but my experience in (our own specific) local politics is that it's a good way to get people to look at you like a Martian.
> The data it collects is shareable only, and with consent, to other law enforcement agencies.
> It records make/model/color/plate, but no other direct identifying information. Assume for the moment that it all works as advertised, and it's on paper a weird capability to push back on your local police having.
Ex Flock employee here... the first part may have changed, but private organizations (HOAs, mostly) can also have Flock deployments, and are not subject to the same sharing restrictions.
Also, image recognition does a lot more, it can identify vehicles by mismatched panel colors, roof racks, trailer hitches, bumper stickers and other factors, too.
Can data be reviewed retroactively to track someone that wasn't a suspect at the time the image was captured. E.g., "we now suspect john doe was involved in a series pf bank robberies. Tell me everywhere his car allowed up in the last 30 days."
If banks would spend money on this and not enabling support for hard to phish MFA options like hardware keys (FIDO2), I would change banks.
We have solutions to most of the phishing attacks, but most people find them hard to use or don't want to use them as they are seen as not important. I've made comments to several companies that SMS or TOTP based MFA is not phish-proof and that they need to implement something stronger, but it often is ignored.
Wow, I just submitted the consumer disclosure report this morning after finding out about it from somewhere else. I am VERY interested to see if anything is reported from my car since I don't have any of the addons/monthly fees.
This sounds like HomeLink and is indeed more complex. My understanding of it is that they partner with lots of companies to support their rolling/fixed codes and remotes so that they can be paired to your garage door.
I linked this in a sub comment, but the largest garage door maker in the US is Chamberlain [0] (which owns a ton of other brands) and uses known rolling code algorithms that can be decoded. [1]
The largest garage door manufacture in the US uses the Security+ and Security+ 2.0 algorithms that are rolling, but can be fairly trivially decoded to gain the serial number and rolling value of a remote. [0] This is how the flipper zero decodes remotes for playback later.
[1] https://github.com/DarkFlippers/unleashed-firmware