Evil Week: All the Dark Things You Can Do With Flipper Zero
Welcome to Evil Week , our annual dive into all the slightly sketchy life hacks that we usually refrain from recommending. Want to snag free drinks, play challenging mind games, or launder some money? We have all the information we need to successfully engage in questionable behavior.
Since it’s Evil Week at Lifehacker, let’s take a look at a gadget that can be used for mild evil: the Flipper Zero . Despite its toy-like appearance, this pocket multitool can be used for all types of hacking and penetration testing. It gives anyone, even beginners, a simple and intuitive way to interact with the invisible waves that surround us, be it RFID, NFC, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or radio. It’s sort of like a hacker’s Swiss Army knife that you can buy for under $200.
You can use Flipper Zero to control your TV, trick Nintendo, change your work ID, open your hotel room door, and more. I’m sure you can see where the “evil” part can come in. But on the other hand, it is just a tool, and its ability to commit crimes is greatly exaggerated.
Is Flipper Zero legal?
Despite the possibility of using Flipper Zero for illegal purposes, Flipper Zero is legal in the United States. But it seems to make some people nervous. A shipment of 15,000 Flippers was seized by customs in 2022 , but later allowed through. In April 2023, the South Dakota Fusion Center warned authorities across the country of the device’s potential use by domestic terrorists, and Amazon banned the sale of the Flipper Zero on its website as a “card skimming device.”
How does Flipper Zero work?
Flipper Zero is essentially a two-way remote control that can receive, read, store, and transmit various wireless signals. There are plenty of other devices that can do some of these things, but Flipper brings them all together. Plus, it’s easy to understand: Anyone can take it and use it to read the NFC code on a credit card or turn off the TV at their neighbor’s house. Flipper Zero’s playful presentation and ease of use can be seen as a means of demystifying the technology that surrounds us, or as a way of giving people with limited knowledge a powerful tool to create chaos. It’s all about how you use it.
What can you do with Flipper Zero?
This is by no means an exhaustive list of what you can do with the Flipper Zero—there are many possibilities—but here are some common ways to use the device.
Use it as a universal remote
You can use Flipper Zero instead of an infrared remote control so your stereo, TV, air conditioner and more can be controlled from the same device. Flipper uses brute force to send its library of IR codes wherever you point it, so you can use it to control devices with an IR remote within range, as long as they’re not connected to a specific remote control. So you can use it to change the TV channel at the bar or turn off your neighbor’s stereo at 2am. ( You shouldn’t , but you can.)
Take your pet’s temperature
If your pet has been implanted with a microchip, Flipper can read your pet’s ID number and take its temperature if it is a thermal chip. Just hold it near the place where the RFID chip is inserted for a few seconds and bam – your pet’s number. If you don’t know where the chip was inserted, you can “scan” your pet with Flipper and find it too. It can’t find a lost pet, but any scanner can’t do that either.
Cloning keyless entry cards
If you have an ID that opens a door, you can (probably) clone it with Flipper Zero, whether it’s your work badge or your hotel room key. This sounds like a security nightmare, but to clone you must have the original key, so you won’t be able to open any hotel room lock, only the one you already have a key card for, and they’ll make you another one copy on the front. table anyway.
Read your credit card information
Flipper Zero can read credit cards. It is because of this feature that the device was blocked by Amazon, but in reality, everything is not as bad as it seems. If you scan a card with Flipper, it will be able to read the card number and sometimes the date, but it won’t be able to transfer the information or read the CVC number, so you won’t be able to use it to make purchases or clear anyone’s data. Bank account.
Smartphones are destroyed
You can use Flipper Zero to disable nearby Android devices by bombarding them with Bluetooth messages. It’s not entirely easy—you need to download third-party firmware to run the Destroy My Enemy’s Phone app—but it is possible.
Update: 12/15/2023. This used to be possible on iPhones, but in the latest iOS update, iOS 17.2, Apple removed Flipper’s ability to overload iPhones with Bluetooth spam requests. You can still send requests, but this will not disable the target. There is no word yet on a similar patch for Android phones.
Open the Tesla charging port
You can’t use the flipper to steal a Tesla, but you can use it to troll a Tesla owner by opening their car’s charging port (assuming this vulnerability is not patched).
Open garage door or security gate
This is doubtful. Some older garage doors and security gates can be opened with this type of device. Newer models have a higher level of security and use floating codes, so saving the code on such a device will not work.
Ring someone’s doorbell from a distance
This will only work with some kinds of wireless devices, usually older doorbells – Ring or Nest doorbells are probably secure – and you’ll need to read the doorbell first to get the correct frequency, but if you do that you can play “ding-dong-drov.” from afar.
Cloning Amibos
Nintendo’s Amiibo are essentially RFID chips surrounded by figurines. You can use Flipper to scan, emulate the code, and send it back to the Nintendo Switch. Or you can use this database of Amiibo codes and cut out the middleman to unlock in-game extras without purchasing a vinyl doll.
Explore the invisible world around you
Many people who buy the Flipper are no doubt disappointed by its limitations – it’s not an all-in-one device for hacking anything. However, it is a tool to check all the invisible fields around you. You can use it to see where your Wi-Fi signal is weakest, or find out how often your iPhone emits IR waves in your face. You can use it to check the security of all your devices—doorbells, garage doors, locks, etc.—to make sure no one else can use Flipper to contact you.
Things Flipper Zero Can’t Do
There is a lot of misinformation about the Flipper Zero’s capabilities. This is not a pocket device that can instantly hack anything, and there are security measures in place to prevent the most obvious illegal use. (Of course, that doesn’t mean Flipper Zero itself can’t be hacked to offer darker possibilities.) So here are some evil things Flipper can’t do—at least right out of the box.
Steal a car
Despite TikTok videos that claim otherwise, you can’t use Flipper to unlock and start a car, even your own. Cars with keyless entry are unlocked when the key fob sends a radio signal to a receiver in the car. For Flipper, it’s a piece of cake, except that all but the oldest cars with keyless entry use rolling codes that change every time you use them. So you might be able to use it once , but that’s it. However, installing a one-off car door frame is an easy way to impress your friends. (However, there may be exceptions .)
Change gasoline prices
TikTok videos showing a Flipper user changing prices on a gas station sign are fake.
Steal money from an ATM
Obviously, you won’t be able to empty an ATM using a commercially available handheld device.
Change traffic lights
This is tricky because you can use the flipper to control a set of external infrared LED lights that mimic an optic – a device that can change some traffic signal signals – but in reality it’s not the flipper that changes the signal, it’s the LED lights. and you can also use something else to control them.
Open the door of someone else’s hotel room
While Flipper can store and transmit the RFID signals needed to open a locked hotel room door, it can’t do so without first holding a card near the device. So you won’t be able to open all the doors in a hotel unless the establishment has a master key card that you somehow got your hands on. But then why do you need Flipper?
Is Flipper Zero evil?
Flipper Zero is not evil. It’s overrated for evil hacking anyway. Flipper is a collection of tools rolled into an attractive package – it’s useful and cool, but won’t let you break into a bank vault or steal someone’s identity. While a nefarious person could use Flipper to do a limited set of nefarious acts, he could also use a hammer to break windows instead of hammering nails. In other words: it’s just a tool. Evil comes from how you use it.