Flipper Zero Panic Spreads To Oz: Cars Unaffected

A characteristic of coming to maturity for any younger individual within the final quarter of the 20 th century would have been the yearly warnings in regards to the hazard of adulterated Halloween treats. Tales had been breathlessly repeated of apples with razor blades in them, or of chocolate bars laced with rat poison, and although such tales usually carried examples of youngsters who’d died horrible deaths in different far-away locations, the entire panic was (so far as we all know) a baseless city legend.

It’s troublesome to not be reminded of these occasions immediately then, as we read news from Australia warning about the threat from the Flipper Zero wireless hacking tool. It has the identical elements, of an imaginary menace earnestly repeated by regulation enforcement officers, and lapped up by a credulous media with little urge for food for verifying what they print.

This can be a story which first appeared in mid-February in Canada, when a government minister singled out the Flipper Zero as a car theft tool and promised to ban it. This prompted a storm of derision from tech-savvy Canadians and others who instantly identified that vehicle security has long ago eclipsed the capabilities of the Flipper, and that there are far more pertinent threats resembling these from CAN bus assaults and even RF boosters. Regardless of this debunking, it appears to have unfold. The place will Flipper Mania pop up subsequent?

Canada and Australia are each nations with a free press; that press must be doing their job on these tales by fact-checking and asking pertinent questions when the details don’t match the story. With regards to expertise tales it appears not doing this has become the norm.

Thanks [Peter Caldwell] for the tip.