TheFlipper Zero may be one of the most various , and most controversialkeychain - sized devices ever put to mart . The twist can scan , experience , send , and mimic several types of signals . It can scan NFC and RFID signals used by many common products . It can replicate the relative frequency used for your workplace ’s ID card . It ’s a $ 169 doohickeyuseful for everyday surgical process like opening your garage dooror playpen - testing security department system . It ’s also been charge by the Canadian authorities of beingcapable of replicating fomite primal fobsor evenshutting down iPhones with DDoS flack . Apple fixed that issue so the Flipper arguably did its problem as a examination dick .
Flipper cofounder and COO Alex Kulagin has get a line much of the arguing , but he still ascertain the ware as more than the layman ’s idea of a go - to twist for the Mr. Robot - style hackerman . WithFlipper release its biz controller add - onthis calendar month , Kulagin sees the Zero as a Swiss army knife for the extra geeky or the merely technical school - curious . To him , the Flipper Zero is a whistle-blower for the earth ’s surety systems that trust on older , shoddy , and easily hacked tech . Gizmodo speak with Kulagin at distance about what plans Flipper has to expand their premiere product beyond its Tamagotchi - sized torso and his Bob Hope to move beyond the wide - ranging controversy that continues to survey it .
This consultation has been redact for clarity and brevity .
Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
Gizmodo : So can you give me a summation of what the Video Game Module is and what it adds to the Flipper Zero that ’s not already there .
Alex Kulagin : We ’re very emotional because it ’s our first collaboration or partnership of such scale . Raspberry Pi are legends in this public . The Video Game Model bring amusement capabilities , as the Flipper miss some of those of import features . First of all , with video end product , you’re able to actually now mirror the Flipper screen to a self-aggrandising video . It ’s very fun to see . It ’s uncanny , because the Flipper blind is super low . It ’s like 640х480 resolution , but we are able to scale it up . And it ’s fun to see it on a vast 4 super acid TV . So the Flipper becomes very big , but it ’s very penetrating . We build in a apparent movement sensing element , the IMU , so you may play by tilt the twist . One of the first demo game build for this is the Air Arkanoid game , which is very fun .
Giz : Like a Wii controller ?
AK : Yeah . The third primary feature article , though it ’s not less significant , is that it ’s build on the Raspberry Pi microcontroller . It can use the be library of apps and computer code that ’s already there and construct for the Raspberry Pi Pico . The chip is quite powerful and has some alone features . For example , you could run Python on it . The Flipper can normally only run C [ the coding language ] , and Python is much easy to understand .
Giz : So it could already connect to TVs [ through IR sign ] and other IoT tech , but will you be capable to mold your own video from a separate machine to another screen through the Flipper . Even go so far as to cast it onto the screen of Times Square ?
AK : No , it really command the cable connectedness to do so . It ’s like a standard DVI - five hundred yield , which many TVs livelihood . I do n’t consider you may do anything in that area with this , but you never know . Sometimes the community of interests comes up with some crazy abilities . But , by design , it ’s more for entertainment and not for hacking material .
Giz : Gotcha . That sort of full point to your company ’s philosophy . You guys create this tech very much for the DIYers and the people are just make their own stuff . When you ’re designing something like this , where does your brain go ? How did this kind of affair come together in the means that it did ?
AK : fin is a very expandable matter . So its core invites purpose . We made it subject reservoir , it has all these GPIO pins , it has many feature article out of the box already . But we designed it that manner to expand it even more . So often , we have some intragroup computer hardware and software program we need for employment , or it ’s just fun to do . This idea of outputting the telecasting from Flipper to an external proctor actually start as a projection from one of our developer because we wanted to show the Flipper projection screen on the front doorway of our office . They were using a Raspberry Pi Pico for this , and we had some examination that showed it really mold . So we hacked some things to do it . Then it became like this idea that we can actually make a product out of it . It ’s similar to how we arrive up with the WiFi dev board we deal because our supplier did n’t have this debugging hardware in stock because of the chip shortage . So we had to come up with our hardware to actually debug and practice it inside the team .
Giz : How did you get unite to Raspberry Pi ? Did you reach out to them or had you been in communication with them for a while for some sort of partnership ?
AK : I think they reach out to us first . At some gunpoint , we just started talking about what we could do together . Because for them , before they were buy chips from other seller , and now they ’re trying to make their own chip . And it ’s an significant area of business for them . So we were trying to find where we can be link so their audience and our audience will be happy about the ware .
Giz : You guys are in an interesting place . The devices are effectual pretty much everywhere , but you ’ve caught flak from people who I do n’t know if they really understand what the machine is , or how it ’s used . What are your thoughts on the current discussions about the Flipper itself and how people are using it now , for both “ lawful uses ” or just permeate dissimilar systems to prove that they can ?
AK : It ’s authoritative to know that Flipper is actually not , you know , cutting bound technology . We bundle all this technology , all this , like access control technologies that we use every day , in one twist . But it ’s not like it can interact with most of the super modern , cutting - border technologies , right ? Like a modern cable car , the Flipper ca n’t really do anything with that . I think it ’s important to infer there are a set of thing around us that are really out-of-date and old , something hoi polloi do n’t really call back about a lot . Like , you attempt to put the most secure key lock in your doorway , but many people do n’t think that you should have a unattackable service department door as well , and they have a service department opening gadget from the 2000s . People just do n’t call back that it can be hack in any mode , but masses use these cheap product that are not encrypt , and these vulnerabilities have been known for decennium . We do n’t do anything novel in this area . But the consciousness of exploiter who possess these devices is very humiliated .
Giz : So you see yourselves as bestow knowingness to these issues ?
Giz : What about the people who do n’t use it in the prescribed way ? There ’s several other firmware that support the Flipper Zero
AK : We monitor a batch of stuff that chance with a twist . We have Discord and we have a Reddit to see what ’s encounter . We supervise alternative firmwares and what ’s happening there because it ’s also open - sourced . And if we see that something can be sensitive enough , we attempt to check it . Like with sub - Ghz frequence and login codification . Even if it ’s really erstwhile and hacked in many ways , even if it ’s technically possible to replay it , we do n’t permit exploiter do it , there ’s no button . The doctrine of analogy I have is if it ’s like a keylock or a doorhandle . If it ’s a doorknob , it ’s not encrypted in any way . It ’s not actually hacking something , you ’re just making people realize that your matter is not secure at all .
Giz : I call up that goes back to the very minimal way of life that some hoi polloi call up of hacking , peculiarly when most hacking is literally just societal engineering . Do you find like sometimes that you ’re almost on a mission to educate the world about what these definition mean from a proficient position ?
AK : Many people buy Flipper without knowing anything . They see a TikTok and suppose its cool , they see it do something unearthly like unfold a Tesla accuse port and they think what is this cyber-terrorist machine ? They buy it , and they say “ okay , what can I do with it . ” This is just technical school - curious people , not establish oddball , who never touched a Raspberry Pi or Arduino clobber . But these little hacker make for them to an awareness of how it in reality work . We think it ’s important to train people about how this poppycock ferment and what the risks are . There are many people with much more advanced devices . There ’s stuff sell on Amazon [ Flipper has been cast out from the site ] that is far more up to . We do n’t see it as creating more risk . We see it as we ’re subdue the risk for many people just by letting them live their stuff has flaws .
Giz : Will we ever reach a item when our expert ability is equivalent to our technical knowledge as a society ?
AK : I retrieve with enough promotion about it . Before 2015 , nobody was intend about information privacy too much . We were just put thing on Facebook and did n’t think about what happened next . For the last eight year , it ’s become a very big thing to blab out about . And now everybody ’s cerebrate about seclusion , about cookie , all this clobber . It ’s become so big because the media is sing about it so much and Flipper makes the media let the cat out of the bag about these things too . For example this Apple DDoS thing . It was there for a prospicient time , you could do it with many twist , but Flipper made it more approachable and mass started lecture about it , and Apple had to actually set it , which is a secure affair . you could not reach maximum awareness . It ’s not possible to have total cognizance , but perchance we could have it at some basic tier , at least .
Giz : What are your future architectural plan ? Are you go to keep expanding the Flipper ’s capabilities with more module ?
AK : In footing of manakin , we have a few in development right now . It ’s endure to be depressed in terminal figure of other thing coming out this class , less significant than [ the Video Game Module ] , but we have some important applied science we always want to do on paper , but there ’s no physical hardware to do it with yet . Our ultimate finish is to make a market place for it . We did n’t restrict people from making and selling their own modules . We want to be like the Arduino market , which has tons and tons of model and people can buy from different seller . The groovy destination is to show what you in reality can do . But we ’ll plunge a couple more module and we ’ll see . We also have our tending on new devices we construct outside of Flipper Zero .
Giz : Any probability you’re able to give me a speck on those plan for future , non - Flipper gadget ?
AK : Ehh , not really , not at the moment . But we ’ll allow you know .
Gizmodo
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