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Inside the Underground Trade of ‘Flipper Zero’ Tech to Break into Cars (www.404media.co)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The tech used here is the popular Flipper Zero, an ethical hacker’s swiss army knife, capable of all sorts of things such as WiFi attacks or emulating NFC tags. Now, 404 Media has found an underground trade where much shadier hackers sell extra software and patches for the Flipper Zero to unlock all manner of cars, including models popular in the U.S. The hackers say the tool can be used against Ford, Audi, Volkswagen, Subaru, Hyundai, Kia, and several other brands, including sometimes dozens of specific vehicle models, with no easy fix from car manufacturers.

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[–] 0 points 1 year ago (11 children)

"ethical hacker's swiss army knife" I hate it when they always add "ethical". First of all, when you say ethical you mean law-fearing, they don't really care about ethics and, secondly, "regular" hackers use it too, so it's just a hacker's swiss army knife...

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Dude, do you want individual hacking to become illegal? Because people who are not hacking daily are prone to forgetting that some hackers don't actually act maliciously.

    Also, yes, some hackers are ethical and do care. Not you, obviously. But some.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Yeah, I definitely read that as an effort to preempt the folks who were going to yell about how clearly this means the Flipper Zero should be illegal. Hacking has been so poorly represented in TV and films that there are a distressing number of people who don't realize the term can even have a positive connotation.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I do not want any hacking device to be illegal, as they can be used for good(overthrowing the state and capitalism).

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    That's what you think is good about hacking? That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. That's what you get when you get your education from TV.

    Hacking means "misusing/modifying crap to work how you want".

    Ethical hacking is e.g. modifying devices you own to run software you want, like e.g. running homebrew software on a game console. It is finding and reporting security vulnerabilities so that companies can improve their security. It is modifying software or devices to e.g. removing privacy problems or tracking.

    And ethical hacking and law-abiding hacking aren't the same either, since some ethical hacking activities might be illegal (e.g. violating restrictions on modifying devices) and some legal hacking activities might not be ethical (e.g. using legal hacking to dox people).

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    And ethical hacking and law-abiding hacking aren't the same either

    I prefer saying 'grey hat' instead of 'ethical hacker' because ethical hacker is now used to mean 'pentester', 'red teamer' and all the other cybersecurity stuff, or so it seems to me.

    that was the entire meaning of my comment, I clearly didn't make it clear enough.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    All of that is under the umbrella term of ethical hacker. Black/grey/white hat are some very outdated and unclear terms, and also terms that non-tech people don't really understand.

    Ethical hacker is a term that lay people also understand and because of that it has replaced the rest of these terms.

    (And also, "ethical hacker" encompasses both the grey and white hat. So it's not an equivalent term to "grey hat".)

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    not doing something by fear of the law is not ethical. that said, some of them are ethical, but ethical hacker would mostly include grey hats, which they wouldn't want because they can't say illegal hackers use their device.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    "ethical hacker" is not defined as "someone who only hacks in fear of law". That's my point. Hackers with ethics do lots of shit. Some of them work within the law, some of them work sideways to the law, but your code of ethics and your legal code aren't quite the same thing, and you assuming they are is surprising.

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