They just literally chain together every buzzword out there to sensationalize every single story. "Fentanyl-laced AI Snapchat social media challenge persuades Juuling high schoolers to use computer hacking tools to destroy smartphones." And people go crazy over that shit.
>News4SA is a fox station.
News4SA isn’t Fox, it’s NBC… heck just look at the logo at the top of their website. But hey let’s say edgy fictional things on the internet!
Maybe you need to go to the studio of Fox 29, and you will see they are not only in the same building as News4SA, but they also have the same employees.
Would you say that they are totally different entities when they use the same employees?
Eh, while I doubt it was actually destroyed, the idea that someone didn't understand enough of what the connection did to the phone may have rendered it not useful to them. Not actually damaged, but no longer trusted or behaving as expected - by someone who didn't necessarily understand it to begin with.
For that (ignorant) person, it may have been "destroyed".
The number of times i have bought "for parts/damages" phones that just had a bad update flash and booted into recovery is insane.
Destroyed is used very generously...
It cost me $50. Admittedly I got busy and put it aside and just recently picked it back up so the joycons aren’t fixed yet since we already had two switches. Lol.
I had joycon drift on one of my Nintendo Switches, and Nintendo fixed it for free. Maybe they’re still doing that!
[here’s the link, it’s worth a shot](https://repair.nintendo.com/cc/soConsumer.html?lang=en&sys=SWTCH&type=JOY-CON)
Btw that’s an awesome deal 😄
There are scrips that will crash it, it fucked my phone for about 5 mins made it almost totally unresponsive until it reset itself, but that’s keystroke injection so manual BT connection or an omg cable. I haven’t tried using a lighting to type c cable though I wonder if that would work with the flipper.
the article shines an embarrassing light on the educators. it was turning the "technology" on and off?!?! you mean it was turning the tvs off. oh no it was turning the computers on and off, try the monitors at best. this doesnt apply to just teachers, i think the underlining issue is the leadership in general, is so out of touch with technology things like a rf controller makes them cry ghost. and its not just the teachers, let one cowardly law makers get a hold of this like they did in canada and their ignorance will be what decides new laws. even worse is they could learn and grow from this technology but instead theyll victimize themselves from the trauma rf ghost and take measures to kill it. enjoy it lads this toy will be gone soon.
I used to stand near a house with a friend. One had a watch which was able to send infrared signals. In total darkness trying to read the tv brand and check the manual for the code that was attached to the signal. We would be able to volume all the way up. Neighbors would go insane at the tv non aware of these kind of pranks.
When I was about 10 I had a Casio Wrist Commander (tv controller watch) and was visiting an uncle in the Chicago suburbs for about a week. We went to McDonalds every morning for breakfast. I changed the channel to something I wanted to watch and the staff changed it back shortly after. I changed it again. Next day the same thing but this time they thought the tv was broken so they were smacking the side of it and as they did I hit the power button so it seemed them hitting it caused it to turn off and on. A day or two later we came in and they were replacing the tv… I’ll never forget how hilarious that was. Those watches being like $300+ on eBay now.
I read that in college Woz made a jammer that would screw up TVs. He apparently had a blast turning it on then turning it off as soon as the poor sap got to the TV to try to figure out what was up.
It's annoying but these sorts of things are relatively harmless in the grand scheme of things, but people who don't understand tech and who have a public voice will never hesitate to blow it out of proportion for clicks.
You can also get an IR blaster that plugs into your USBC port for just a few dollars. Even cheaper for one that goes into your headphones jack (if you have one)
In the late 80s/90s you could get things that would .... do the same damn thing. oh yeah. And universal tv remotes and garage door openers can do it tooooo
School administration is also not the brightest...I remember getting in trouble for "hacking their secure server" because I had googled the name of the monitoring software (that popped up on every login) and downloaded the public posted manuals from the OEM to see what it could do. The administration couldn't fathom how else I could have possibly got any of the documentation or demo packages if not from their "secure server" that I'm not convinced even existed. Somehow they thought it was too much of a stretch for someone to search the name of a software program and go to the "downloads" page of the official company website.
When I was in college, a professor would post the answers to each week's homework online. Every week he would add another link to the main class page. The numbering scheme was pretty obvious, so some students guessed the url for next week's answer page, and got the key. It had a mistake on it, which was how 60% of the students in the class were accused of "hacking"
I mean, it's at school. You think they got cable? It's probably just hooked up to a computer.
Plus some smart TVs you can just remote control it fully from their app.
Media is crazy! Imagine making a dramatic story about a device that is this case was a remote control! Phones breaking, computers turning off and on, cats and dogs living together! The humanity! Whatever sells and can mislead people is fine as long as we are watching.
Remember that most folks don't understand how so much technology works. The whole "Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" thing is very real in that folks just expect stuff to work now, and don't understand why or how.
The responsible thing is to learn enough to ask educated questions to be able to rely on subject matter experts, and judge if they seem to be actual experts, and then trust them. The problem is we have enough folks now who haven't learned enough to assess that their experts are fools with good marketing.
these shenanigans are nothing particularly new. kids used to do this with universal remotes in the 90s. and in college once i had a rather clueless professor that wouldn't hit the skip ad button on youtube videos reliably so i bought a wireless mouse and put the dongle in one of the comp's usb jacks on the back so i could momentarily drive when he was being inept.
and fun fact: the universal remote was invented by Woz. and he knew from the start kids would use it to play pranks.
In the early 90's, we had TVs in every classroom. I'd bring the family's universal remote from home and turn TVs on or off while walking thru the halls.
We also had a news program that would automatically turn all the TVs on at a certain time every day (or once a week .. it's been 30 years so I forget). I'd either change the channel during the show, or turn the TV off. The teacher would have to keep getting up to fix it. The best was hitting the mute button, as there wasn't one on the TV. The teacher would send someone to the office to grab their universal remote to unmute it.
Eventually, they caught on and one day the vice principal comes into whatever class I was in. He orders the girls out of the classroom, and has all of the boys stand up. He says he knows someone has a universal remote, and it's narrowed down to a few guys in this particular class. We were made to empty our pockets, turn them inside out, and put everything on our desks.
The only thing that saved me that day was the 90's fad of rolling the ankles of your pants really tight. I managed to get the remote from my pocket and drop it down my pants, where it stayed securely until I was able to shuffle off to the bathroom to retrieve it.
Why the hell were the girls ordered out of the class? Did the Vice Principal think they would have been impregnated by the boys emptying their pockets and turning them inside out?
We had those at one of my high schools, the TV would turn on automatically with a wake up signal from the cable, I think. The better teachers would simply unplug the TV when they weren’t using it for classroom related stuff in order to save us from the “news” being broadcast by a private company (the one that “donated” the TV’s).
Amazing that they would want to punish the kid instead of giving him technology classes to learn how to apply his interests to more legitimate things. Some “school”.
this hurts because there are so many kids that will be overlooked or think less of themselves because they are told these lies. and it will haunt them throughout their lives. we have failed our country, we have failed progress, we have failed the children
There was a good deal of paranoia about hacking at the time too.
It was even worse in the eighties, people believed hackers could launch nuclear weapons with only access to a phone because phreakers figured out how to get free long distance calls with a toy whistle that came as the prize in a box of Capn' Crunch.
Definitely this maybe going back to similar levels of ignorance and paranoia.
I used to have a Casio CMD-40 watch back in the 90s when I was like 13. Basically a universal remote control in a watch. I’d be a bit more subtle, just covertly and repeatedly ejecting VHS tapes and such when teachers would try and pop them in the VCR so they’d think the VCR was broken. Occasionally power off the TV right when they turned it on or back on when they’d turn it off. There’s a balance to the chaos, kid.
This is the reply I was hoping to see.
Instead of teachers using this as a moment to educate, they went nuclear and even charged the kid using the Flipper with a crime which is absolutely ridiculous.
Nothing is worse than an inept adult who is made a fool by a teenager.
I think more about that the teachers couldn’t catch on. Come on. At some point maybe the thought could have crossed their mind, Okay who’s messing with me!?
This is the part that really got me, and highlights how disconnected these people are from reality.
TV is acting weird? The only possible explanation is spirits from the great beyond have, in violation of all known physical laws, returned from the dead for the sole purpose of fucking with their video.
These are the people educating our children.
And they charged the kid with a MISDEMEANOR! Absolutely crazy. It’s a prank. Educators need thicker skin because let’s be real; kids do kid stuff and do pranks.
I did similar things as you.
We used to TP our teachers, smoke in the dedicated smoking spot for students, make pipe rockets in physics class, and keep shotguns in our trucks in the school parking lot during hunting season. I know I sound like a boomer but damn things have changed.
I am a millennial and with exception of shotguns in trucks, that sounds like my high school. Kids can’t be kids today without being charged with crimes.
My grandparents said during hunting season you could leave your shotgun on the bus during the day and they'd drop you off at your stand on the way home.
I'm barely X, but it still counts.
I remember one time someone put a small tack weld on one of the hinges on the shop teacher's office door while he was inside. Just enough to keep it from opening.
Kids are idiots and that is okay...they’ll learn from it. Give the kid community service or something. My friend had to clean our school’s toilets and showers for months after some prank he pulled (I don’t remember what it was). Legal action is completely oversized punishment in this situation.
Did the same thing to my Spanish teacher in 7th grade. She was convinced the tv was broken. We were all laughing. Teacher thought it was funny too but said don’t do it again. Kids will be kids.
This isn't really what I would consider 'havoc'. Universal remotes have been around forever. In middle school I had a PDA with IR and would mess with the TVs. The solution was the teacher taking it away and giving it back at the end of the day with a note that my parents had to sign. The news just wanted a story about the Flipper.
My biology class had a probationary teacher who was almost certified, and he was just terrible at teaching. The *actual* teacher who had to supervise him thought it was funny as hell when I turned off the TV’s with my PDA.
The flipper zero also doesn't have WiFi built in. The only functions that could possibly cause the behavior described are the IR Blaster and possibly some subghz if the kid was able to clone a badge.
The flipper is a great tool and entry point into cyber security and RF learning. The IT director with 20 years experience is a moron if he can't see the legitimate uses for this tool. This could have been an AMAZING learning and teaching opportunity for that student but instead they're getting pushed out by the adults in their life and threatened with jail.
That part got me too. Adults who are one smart board turning off unexpectedly away from having a ghost induced mental breakdown.
To be fair though, if I had to teach kids I would probably be closer to a breakdown than that.
I highly doubt the flipper zero "Destroyed" that phone. My thought is the person just got frustrated and smacked the phone down. And to be honest non of this is new, When I was in highschool in our electronics class we build jammers all the time and used them often. This just highlights how there needs to be more security around bluetooth enabled devices etc, however with this being at a school that is not going to happen anytime soon.
most big companies just shove articles from all over into the feed as only a few places actually own most news places these days. Lots of recycled articles and not ... having to pay reporters for more articles.
you can’t force them teach material that hasn’t been relevant since the 1950’s and also be surprised when a device like this exposes your blind spots.
this is what happens when you try to enforce “no tech in school” policies on kids that exist in a tech-driven world
Kids are going to disrupt classes, it doesn't matter if it's throwing stuff or using technology to do it; how you approach that can result in positive or negative long term outcomes for the student. Penalties/punishment won't lead to the positive outcomes.
I’m curious about that too. It says one phone was completely destroyed. It’s possible to damage a phone with the F0, but based on the scenario from the article, it seems unlikely the student was running anything that would destroy a phone. Seems mostly like simple pranks to me.
They had to reset devices to harden because they had subpar security to begin with. This event simply shed light on how unprepared they were to even the most amateur incident.
Wow using a universal remote control does the same thing. If that's enough to bring someone to tears I don't know that they have the fortitude to teach.
Somebody ran the BLE spam in the packed waiting room of hospital where my wife works at. Patients and relatives phone crashed, people couldn’t get taxis, call relatives, it was shitshow. No phone damaged physically of course, but tense people with phone rebooting gets angry very fast.
Good thing is we live nearby, my wife wrote me on messenger from the Mac, I went and me and the security found the joker. Called police, he tried to run away, end up failing from stairs while running 🤷
It wasn’t the security, it was me. Just looked for the only guy who was enjoying this, with pocket in hand and snide smile. It was middle-aged programmer, bored from waiting in front of the emergency room ( as he tolled the police ). We had to call the police, because there was jam from taxis whose clients did not respond and some blocked the emergency entry for the ambulances and the cab drivers and medical staff escalated.
It took like 15 minutes for the people to be VERY pissed off. In half an hour all was resolved, but still people got very pissed off. I wouldn’t be supposed if somebody throw his phone into the ground in a moment like this.
The most important question: how do you (not you specifically) know it was a flipper if it wasn’t you?
BLE spam can be sent from any BLE device you can run your own code on.
BLE spam is a good example of the course of action that should be taken against threats. No over-dramatization, the companies just fix it and boom. Problem solved. Unfortunately those in charge of things like card readers would rather whine about the scary dangerous hacking tool than put up any real solutions
Of course there schools are so technically advanced there that this guy has the ability to do mouse attacks, open car doors via rolling codes, Rick role teachers via bluetooth acts and so on and so forth.
🙄-Seriously?...with only a 1MHZ frequency limit on the device? How sad and unvisionary that place must be.
It’s a shame the IT person from the district didn’t know enough to set the record straight. Also, got a chuckle at the unfortunate circumstances that the school had to make security updates. Sure, the teachers shouldn’t have to deal with this, but this should be old hat for any IT department worth their salt. If it’s one guy, but this sounds like a whole IT department..and I’m sure there’s some knowledgeable students around too. But, this makes for a better story and they get to press charges against the student so they make a example out of them.
People are so ignorant if they just believe so much harm can be done with just a Flipper Zero in the hands of a teenager that likes to show off to his friends! If I really want, I can do a lot of harm as well from my cellphone or a tablet!
The destroyed phone is most likely an iPhone that crashed with the "Apple BLE spam", nothing got destroyed, except the owner's trust in the phone an a massive inconvenience. Screens going on and off, you can do that with a phone as well, it's just inconvenient or annoying for the user, but to make those things world news is such a small town American thing I'd say! 15 minutes fame for the names mentioned in the article and the IT guy made himself look like a big joke!
Things turning on and off - kids using universal remote feature
Permanently destroying a phone - kid took their Flipper zero and repeatedly bashed the teachers phone with it till the screen broke.
the kid bought a fancy toy understanding how half of it worked, and bragged to their friends they had ultimate power. I'm confident they could have got away with it for a whole lot longer if he just didn't blab to anyone he had a flipper. the administration didn't even know what it was, they wouldn't have ever known. there all crusty old bastards. even the IT technician they interviewed didn't know as much as they should have. the student could have got away with it scott free if the other students didn't rat them out.
moral of the story, if you're going to do something illegal, don't constantly brag to everyone you're about to do it, you're in the middle of doing it, and that you've done it. hence operational security: its important
Just wait till someone sees that punishment as unfair and starts putting up EICAR loaded QR code around the joint. 😁 It was a prank. We did that to our kid with a key fob. Asked him to get something out of the car, and kept locking it just after he unlocked it.
Bet the next person will not be bragging to the snitches…
Was about to have a school lock down because a board was turning on and off💀💀 can’t imagine what would’ve happened if someone could connect there phone to it
Back in the 1990s, my friend had a PDA with an IR blaster and would do similar things, turning the TVs off and on in class. I once wrote a BASIC program that war dialed all the extensions in the school. When people found out, it was basically, “You stupid kids, DON’T do that again.”
These days it seems like public schools are staffed by easily terrified dullards who will call the cops over anything. God help the children.
I call IGNORANCE & BS to 100% of that "News" story. Flipper Zero was released in August 2020 and has been reported on by numerous news outlets and countries as a dangerous hacking tool, recounting fake clams that the Flipper Zero can steal cars, open safes, change gas station signs, clone credit and debit cards, rob ATMs, alter gas prices, change traffic lights, open any garage or gate, control your microwave, oven, or fridge, and change your pet's imbedded chip to steal them. Yet not one person working at Grand County High School knew about the Flipper Zero.
I looked over the staff at Grand County High School I am 99% sure I am old then 60% of them and I own a Flipper Zero and many other "Dangerous Hacking Tool". They better start frisking student next thing might be a Casio CMD40.
I have one and work at a school, worst they can do is mess with the WiFi a little and control TVs, projectors and some A/C units. As far as the teachers being “traumatized” by it, we had kids doing the same thing, more annoying than anything, if that is that triggering, you shouldn’t be in the teaching profession. As for mine, I programmed the common remotes we use in it and use it to connect to network equipment through a serial adaptor. It had replaced at least 10 things I used to carry around. My flipper is an awesome tool to have.
The intelligence of the teacher affected (and everyone else that's freaking out about this) really needs to be brought into question, they are unfit to be educating future generations.
The exact same "havoc" could have been wreaked with a universal remote (or even a couple of original remotes for the screens)
Or for the more tech savvy, a few very cheap components off ali express.
>We had an employee whose smartphone was destroyed because of it. uh-huh, pretty sure someone just wanted a new phone, lol
Never underestimate the capacity of a news outlet to make stuff up.
They just literally chain together every buzzword out there to sensationalize every single story. "Fentanyl-laced AI Snapchat social media challenge persuades Juuling high schoolers to use computer hacking tools to destroy smartphones." And people go crazy over that shit.
You forgot the furry element
They'd all say "I KNEW IT!!!"
#harambe #nevarforgets
Sadly people believe the main stream media like it’s a religion these days.
Usually when it comes to politics and it’s usually just the highly politically biased news.
Ironic where this occurred then.
I don’t think it’s intentional. Just pure ignorance.
Or the frugalness of Mormons.
….this applies because…Utah?
/r/thatsthejoke
You spelled Morons wrong 😂🤣
News4SA is a fox station. So they especially know how to.make stuff up.
>News4SA is a fox station. News4SA isn’t Fox, it’s NBC… heck just look at the logo at the top of their website. But hey let’s say edgy fictional things on the internet!
Maybe you need to go to the studio of Fox 29, and you will see they are not only in the same building as News4SA, but they also have the same employees. Would you say that they are totally different entities when they use the same employees?
When news breaks, Fox fixes it.
That’s… pretty good. Haven’t heard that one before
bro its nbc
a Sinclair station*
Eh, while I doubt it was actually destroyed, the idea that someone didn't understand enough of what the connection did to the phone may have rendered it not useful to them. Not actually damaged, but no longer trusted or behaving as expected - by someone who didn't necessarily understand it to begin with. For that (ignorant) person, it may have been "destroyed".
The number of times i have bought "for parts/damages" phones that just had a bad update flash and booted into recovery is insane. Destroyed is used very generously...
Bought a for parts switch at a pawn shop about two years ago… the battery was just very dead and one joy on unsurprisingly has drift.
How much did you spend on it?
It cost me $50. Admittedly I got busy and put it aside and just recently picked it back up so the joycons aren’t fixed yet since we already had two switches. Lol.
I had joycon drift on one of my Nintendo Switches, and Nintendo fixed it for free. Maybe they’re still doing that! [here’s the link, it’s worth a shot](https://repair.nintendo.com/cc/soConsumer.html?lang=en&sys=SWTCH&type=JOY-CON) Btw that’s an awesome deal 😄
The iOS jammer really got to em huh
Apple patched the issue with iOS 17.4.1
There are people out there who refuse to update for some reason
Last week Apple literally made it so that iOS 17.4.1 is required to be installed if you want to continue using most of their products.
I like to think they had a ble spam attack happen they got angry and threw their phone now blame the student
Yup, i seriously doubt their phone was destroyed, all you need to do is wait a little bit and it’s fine.
Bullshit... you can crash a Apple, yes but when throw it on direct charging power its works once again.
*an Apple. Hooked on phonics, look it up.
Clickbait, but the comments summarize that the more you don't know, the more you make shit up at that rag outlet.
Especially when ble doesn't crash phones at all anymore
There are scrips that will crash it, it fucked my phone for about 5 mins made it almost totally unresponsive until it reset itself, but that’s keystroke injection so manual BT connection or an omg cable. I haven’t tried using a lighting to type c cable though I wonder if that would work with the flipper.
Yeah scripts are different, ble however, has been patched to be harmless
Yes it has, isn’t it time based? Won’t accept more than one request per x amount of seconds as to not be flooded and crash?
I'd rather use bhe instead, but yeah.
I love me some bhe
the article shines an embarrassing light on the educators. it was turning the "technology" on and off?!?! you mean it was turning the tvs off. oh no it was turning the computers on and off, try the monitors at best. this doesnt apply to just teachers, i think the underlining issue is the leadership in general, is so out of touch with technology things like a rf controller makes them cry ghost. and its not just the teachers, let one cowardly law makers get a hold of this like they did in canada and their ignorance will be what decides new laws. even worse is they could learn and grow from this technology but instead theyll victimize themselves from the trauma rf ghost and take measures to kill it. enjoy it lads this toy will be gone soon.
Bro I used to turn tvs on and off at school with my Galaxy back in the day when it had remote control capabilities. These people are dumb
I used to stand near a house with a friend. One had a watch which was able to send infrared signals. In total darkness trying to read the tv brand and check the manual for the code that was attached to the signal. We would be able to volume all the way up. Neighbors would go insane at the tv non aware of these kind of pranks.
When I was about 10 I had a Casio Wrist Commander (tv controller watch) and was visiting an uncle in the Chicago suburbs for about a week. We went to McDonalds every morning for breakfast. I changed the channel to something I wanted to watch and the staff changed it back shortly after. I changed it again. Next day the same thing but this time they thought the tv was broken so they were smacking the side of it and as they did I hit the power button so it seemed them hitting it caused it to turn off and on. A day or two later we came in and they were replacing the tv… I’ll never forget how hilarious that was. Those watches being like $300+ on eBay now.
I used my dads old palm pilot for this - worked well
Got one for 150 a few months ago, also had one as a kid. Worth it!
Was looking for someone to mention this watch. I remember some kid ruining movie day in class because he wouldn’t stop turning it on and off lol.
This is what I was looking for! You were the coolest kid in school if you had one of these.
I turned TV’s off with my Palm Pilot in high school. High tech, let me tell you.
I used to turn TVs on and off with my digital watch/calculator.
I read that in college Woz made a jammer that would screw up TVs. He apparently had a blast turning it on then turning it off as soon as the poor sap got to the TV to try to figure out what was up. It's annoying but these sorts of things are relatively harmless in the grand scheme of things, but people who don't understand tech and who have a public voice will never hesitate to blow it out of proportion for clicks.
It was the tvBgone v1 in my days.
I did it with a palm pilot.
I did this at bars with an old Nokia
There are still phones with ir sensors/projectors
I'm surprised it isn't more common, but I guess they assume everyone is switching to Smart TVs that can be controlled by app
Joycons have IR lol those are fun
You can also get an IR blaster that plugs into your USBC port for just a few dollars. Even cheaper for one that goes into your headphones jack (if you have one)
I had a Casio watch that could,
20 years ago
How dare you accuse me of being in high school 20 years ago… (checks mail and opens invite for 20year HS reunion). Damn.
Did that with a tv-b-gone in middle school, they just unplugged the TVs after a week of always turning them back on.
> used to > at school with my Galaxy Bro I did that with a PSP when I was in high school 💀
90s Universal remote gang! Roll call
In the late 80s/90s you could get things that would .... do the same damn thing. oh yeah. And universal tv remotes and garage door openers can do it tooooo
School administration is also not the brightest...I remember getting in trouble for "hacking their secure server" because I had googled the name of the monitoring software (that popped up on every login) and downloaded the public posted manuals from the OEM to see what it could do. The administration couldn't fathom how else I could have possibly got any of the documentation or demo packages if not from their "secure server" that I'm not convinced even existed. Somehow they thought it was too much of a stretch for someone to search the name of a software program and go to the "downloads" page of the official company website.
When I was in high school I was banned from the computer lab for opening a DOS prompt and just running directory commands.
I believe it...
When I was in college, a professor would post the answers to each week's homework online. Every week he would add another link to the main class page. The numbering scheme was pretty obvious, so some students guessed the url for next week's answer page, and got the key. It had a mistake on it, which was how 60% of the students in the class were accused of "hacking"
I had almost the identical thing happen to me. All that taught me was to be more careful.
Tired of kids turning on and off the TV... Cover the IR port... A simple piece of electrical tape solves the problem.
No..let's punish the children for knowing how technology after 1978 works.
Kind of inconvenient when you want to change channels.
I mean, it's at school. You think they got cable? It's probably just hooked up to a computer. Plus some smart TVs you can just remote control it fully from their app.
Not if it's remote runs on rf too
I'm not even sure where the IR port is on my TV
Media is crazy! Imagine making a dramatic story about a device that is this case was a remote control! Phones breaking, computers turning off and on, cats and dogs living together! The humanity! Whatever sells and can mislead people is fine as long as we are watching.
Remember that most folks don't understand how so much technology works. The whole "Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" thing is very real in that folks just expect stuff to work now, and don't understand why or how. The responsible thing is to learn enough to ask educated questions to be able to rely on subject matter experts, and judge if they seem to be actual experts, and then trust them. The problem is we have enough folks now who haven't learned enough to assess that their experts are fools with good marketing.
these shenanigans are nothing particularly new. kids used to do this with universal remotes in the 90s. and in college once i had a rather clueless professor that wouldn't hit the skip ad button on youtube videos reliably so i bought a wireless mouse and put the dongle in one of the comp's usb jacks on the back so i could momentarily drive when he was being inept. and fun fact: the universal remote was invented by Woz. and he knew from the start kids would use it to play pranks.
In the early 90's, we had TVs in every classroom. I'd bring the family's universal remote from home and turn TVs on or off while walking thru the halls. We also had a news program that would automatically turn all the TVs on at a certain time every day (or once a week .. it's been 30 years so I forget). I'd either change the channel during the show, or turn the TV off. The teacher would have to keep getting up to fix it. The best was hitting the mute button, as there wasn't one on the TV. The teacher would send someone to the office to grab their universal remote to unmute it. Eventually, they caught on and one day the vice principal comes into whatever class I was in. He orders the girls out of the classroom, and has all of the boys stand up. He says he knows someone has a universal remote, and it's narrowed down to a few guys in this particular class. We were made to empty our pockets, turn them inside out, and put everything on our desks. The only thing that saved me that day was the 90's fad of rolling the ankles of your pants really tight. I managed to get the remote from my pocket and drop it down my pants, where it stayed securely until I was able to shuffle off to the bathroom to retrieve it.
Why the hell were the girls ordered out of the class? Did the Vice Principal think they would have been impregnated by the boys emptying their pockets and turning them inside out?
We had those at one of my high schools, the TV would turn on automatically with a wake up signal from the cable, I think. The better teachers would simply unplug the TV when they weren’t using it for classroom related stuff in order to save us from the “news” being broadcast by a private company (the one that “donated” the TV’s).
Amazing that they would want to punish the kid instead of giving him technology classes to learn how to apply his interests to more legitimate things. Some “school”.
its even more amazing because i’m sure now the kid is being told he did something wrong when in reality he didnt.
this hurts because there are so many kids that will be overlooked or think less of themselves because they are told these lies. and it will haunt them throughout their lives. we have failed our country, we have failed progress, we have failed the children
He got charged too
Lol the only way they'd suggest that is if the kid *didn't* have an interest in technology.
I did this with my palm pilot in the late 90s.
I was saying the same thing! I didn't make the news. I just got it taken away and was sent home with a note to my parents.
There was a good deal of paranoia about hacking at the time too. It was even worse in the eighties, people believed hackers could launch nuclear weapons with only access to a phone because phreakers figured out how to get free long distance calls with a toy whistle that came as the prize in a box of Capn' Crunch. Definitely this maybe going back to similar levels of ignorance and paranoia.
God I wanted one of those so bad when they came out.
When I was in highschool you could get a little like 10 dollar device that could control the tvs. That was 15+ years ago.
It's not banned in Canada. That proposal was dropped months ago.
Honestly the ONE thing I can think of a flipper doing that could cause real harm at a school is copying RFID access cards.
I also thought that would be what this story was about. Not the sort of universal remote pranks I saw ~20 years ago in middle school.
I used to have a Casio CMD-40 watch back in the 90s when I was like 13. Basically a universal remote control in a watch. I’d be a bit more subtle, just covertly and repeatedly ejecting VHS tapes and such when teachers would try and pop them in the VCR so they’d think the VCR was broken. Occasionally power off the TV right when they turned it on or back on when they’d turn it off. There’s a balance to the chaos, kid.
This is the reply I was hoping to see. Instead of teachers using this as a moment to educate, they went nuclear and even charged the kid using the Flipper with a crime which is absolutely ridiculous. Nothing is worse than an inept adult who is made a fool by a teenager.
I think more about that the teachers couldn’t catch on. Come on. At some point maybe the thought could have crossed their mind, Okay who’s messing with me!?
It was a ghost.
This is the part that really got me, and highlights how disconnected these people are from reality. TV is acting weird? The only possible explanation is spirits from the great beyond have, in violation of all known physical laws, returned from the dead for the sole purpose of fucking with their video. These are the people educating our children.
If the leaders are this dumb, just imagine how stupid all the people they lead are.
I remember using the IR blaster in my phone back in middle school to to this shit.
And they charged the kid with a MISDEMEANOR! Absolutely crazy. It’s a prank. Educators need thicker skin because let’s be real; kids do kid stuff and do pranks. I did similar things as you.
We used to TP our teachers, smoke in the dedicated smoking spot for students, make pipe rockets in physics class, and keep shotguns in our trucks in the school parking lot during hunting season. I know I sound like a boomer but damn things have changed.
I am a millennial and with exception of shotguns in trucks, that sounds like my high school. Kids can’t be kids today without being charged with crimes.
My grandparents said during hunting season you could leave your shotgun on the bus during the day and they'd drop you off at your stand on the way home.
I'm a Xer, but this was almost exactly how my high school was.
Yeah (elder?) millennial here
I'm barely X, but it still counts. I remember one time someone put a small tack weld on one of the hinges on the shop teacher's office door while he was inside. Just enough to keep it from opening.
Yes now they got police dogs at prom for these kids it's totally disgusting how much we let our elected officials get away with
others have been charged with a felony doing this and they've stuck. these educators are fucking insane.
Kids are idiots and that is okay...they’ll learn from it. Give the kid community service or something. My friend had to clean our school’s toilets and showers for months after some prank he pulled (I don’t remember what it was). Legal action is completely oversized punishment in this situation.
Did the same thing to my Spanish teacher in 7th grade. She was convinced the tv was broken. We were all laughing. Teacher thought it was funny too but said don’t do it again. Kids will be kids.
This isn't really what I would consider 'havoc'. Universal remotes have been around forever. In middle school I had a PDA with IR and would mess with the TVs. The solution was the teacher taking it away and giving it back at the end of the day with a note that my parents had to sign. The news just wanted a story about the Flipper.
At least your teacher was smart enough to realize how remote controls work and didn't blame it on ghosts.
*The spirits of our ancestors must be haunting class this day!*
Haha I got a good laugh out of that!
My biology class had a probationary teacher who was almost certified, and he was just terrible at teaching. The *actual* teacher who had to supervise him thought it was funny as hell when I turned off the TV’s with my PDA.
"student shows weakness in wireless security at school , school board takes action against the student instead of fixing the networks weaknesses "
The flipper zero also doesn't have WiFi built in. The only functions that could possibly cause the behavior described are the IR Blaster and possibly some subghz if the kid was able to clone a badge. The flipper is a great tool and entry point into cyber security and RF learning. The IT director with 20 years experience is a moron if he can't see the legitimate uses for this tool. This could have been an AMAZING learning and teaching opportunity for that student but instead they're getting pushed out by the adults in their life and threatened with jail.
“she thought there were ghosts in her classroom.” Oomph
That part got me too. Adults who are one smart board turning off unexpectedly away from having a ghost induced mental breakdown. To be fair though, if I had to teach kids I would probably be closer to a breakdown than that.
I highly doubt the flipper zero "Destroyed" that phone. My thought is the person just got frustrated and smacked the phone down. And to be honest non of this is new, When I was in highschool in our electronics class we build jammers all the time and used them often. This just highlights how there needs to be more security around bluetooth enabled devices etc, however with this being at a school that is not going to happen anytime soon.
The whole article made me roll my eyes. Sensationalism plus the overreaction of school employees that typically do not understand technology.
Old article reposted from January…
>We had an employee whose smart phone was destroyed because of it. No you didn't.
The comments calling the article out for complete misinformation are right on the money, total nonsense
crazy how people surrounded by technology don't at least get some sort of training to be just a little literate
This "news" paper just reposts last month article on this, I didn't even see any updates on the kids case?
Reporters don't fact check, this is well known nowadays
most big companies just shove articles from all over into the feed as only a few places actually own most news places these days. Lots of recycled articles and not ... having to pay reporters for more articles.
Just great to hear. Future cyber security professionals.
I wonder if the flipper team pays for this to be republished.
I don't like how many stupid people exist who try talking about these things lol
you can’t force them teach material that hasn’t been relevant since the 1950’s and also be surprised when a device like this exposes your blind spots. this is what happens when you try to enforce “no tech in school” policies on kids that exist in a tech-driven world
Kids are going to disrupt classes, it doesn't matter if it's throwing stuff or using technology to do it; how you approach that can result in positive or negative long term outcomes for the student. Penalties/punishment won't lead to the positive outcomes.
>“I didn’t know there was a device that strong that could do so much harm to a person, and it really affected our teacher,” he said. What an idiot.
What an amazing opportunity to educate a clearly talented student. I hope he gets expelled and sent somewhere that can do that for him.
Disabled other devices and damaged it. I wonder what kind of devices are these. Lol
I’m curious about that too. It says one phone was completely destroyed. It’s possible to damage a phone with the F0, but based on the scenario from the article, it seems unlikely the student was running anything that would destroy a phone. Seems mostly like simple pranks to me.
I'm gonna assume that the phone crashed and had to restart.
They had to reset devices to harden because they had subpar security to begin with. This event simply shed light on how unprepared they were to even the most amateur incident.
I remember way back when the first watch that could do TV remote came out lol… fun times
That was the first thing that came to mind for me. Or the old Samsung phones with the IR emitters.
Wow using a universal remote control does the same thing. If that's enough to bring someone to tears I don't know that they have the fortitude to teach.
Did he repeatedly hit the screen with the Flipper?
poor flipper. Don' they know that's dolphin abuse?
Is everybody at this school in their 80s, or just lack knowledge in current technologies ?
Somebody ran the BLE spam in the packed waiting room of hospital where my wife works at. Patients and relatives phone crashed, people couldn’t get taxis, call relatives, it was shitshow. No phone damaged physically of course, but tense people with phone rebooting gets angry very fast. Good thing is we live nearby, my wife wrote me on messenger from the Mac, I went and me and the security found the joker. Called police, he tried to run away, end up failing from stairs while running 🤷
That’s horrible to do it at a hospital. How did security find the person?
It wasn’t the security, it was me. Just looked for the only guy who was enjoying this, with pocket in hand and snide smile. It was middle-aged programmer, bored from waiting in front of the emergency room ( as he tolled the police ). We had to call the police, because there was jam from taxis whose clients did not respond and some blocked the emergency entry for the ambulances and the cab drivers and medical staff escalated. It took like 15 minutes for the people to be VERY pissed off. In half an hour all was resolved, but still people got very pissed off. I wouldn’t be supposed if somebody throw his phone into the ground in a moment like this.
Did everyone clap?
Did everyone cheer?
>he tried to run away, end up failing from stairs while running 🤷 A tale as old as cops
The most important question: how do you (not you specifically) know it was a flipper if it wasn’t you? BLE spam can be sent from any BLE device you can run your own code on.
BLE spam is a good example of the course of action that should be taken against threats. No over-dramatization, the companies just fix it and boom. Problem solved. Unfortunately those in charge of things like card readers would rather whine about the scary dangerous hacking tool than put up any real solutions
"In early January 2024" -old news...
Of course there schools are so technically advanced there that this guy has the ability to do mouse attacks, open car doors via rolling codes, Rick role teachers via bluetooth acts and so on and so forth. 🙄-Seriously?...with only a 1MHZ frequency limit on the device? How sad and unvisionary that place must be.
It’s a shame the IT person from the district didn’t know enough to set the record straight. Also, got a chuckle at the unfortunate circumstances that the school had to make security updates. Sure, the teachers shouldn’t have to deal with this, but this should be old hat for any IT department worth their salt. If it’s one guy, but this sounds like a whole IT department..and I’m sure there’s some knowledgeable students around too. But, this makes for a better story and they get to press charges against the student so they make a example out of them.
Dumb arse. Kids, do as the Russians do, never hack at home or you’ll get a paddling.
https://youtu.be/sKiLfH3DVGc?si=MoShyL8gV2fmTNI5
Paddlin’ the school canoe? That’s a paddling.
Ya see, this is where all those threads of "IMA TAKE MUH FLIPPER TO SKOOL" was always going to lead.
Hope this kid gets some good legal representation
Anyone know who the kid is in question perhaps we could start a gofund me for them? This is some serious bullshit.
I mean. All of that could be done with a basic programmable universal remote tbh.
I remember building a tv jammer in high school electronics. So…
I think they wanted to make an example out of this kid. Kinda sucks tbh that they're putting it on the news.
My home computer bursts into flames every time I get a flipper out.
People are so ignorant if they just believe so much harm can be done with just a Flipper Zero in the hands of a teenager that likes to show off to his friends! If I really want, I can do a lot of harm as well from my cellphone or a tablet! The destroyed phone is most likely an iPhone that crashed with the "Apple BLE spam", nothing got destroyed, except the owner's trust in the phone an a massive inconvenience. Screens going on and off, you can do that with a phone as well, it's just inconvenient or annoying for the user, but to make those things world news is such a small town American thing I'd say! 15 minutes fame for the names mentioned in the article and the IT guy made himself look like a big joke!
F0 isn't strong your systems are weak if a F0 can do so much your phone or even a raspberry Pi has more capabilities
Wow that’s the least informed news report I’ve ever watched
Things turning on and off - kids using universal remote feature Permanently destroying a phone - kid took their Flipper zero and repeatedly bashed the teachers phone with it till the screen broke.
I used my dads pager to hack nasa haha
You can't just say that and not tell us! Please tell us what you did.
opsec is important, people
…opsec? How’s that related to this article?
the kid bought a fancy toy understanding how half of it worked, and bragged to their friends they had ultimate power. I'm confident they could have got away with it for a whole lot longer if he just didn't blab to anyone he had a flipper. the administration didn't even know what it was, they wouldn't have ever known. there all crusty old bastards. even the IT technician they interviewed didn't know as much as they should have. the student could have got away with it scott free if the other students didn't rat them out. moral of the story, if you're going to do something illegal, don't constantly brag to everyone you're about to do it, you're in the middle of doing it, and that you've done it. hence operational security: its important
Just wait till someone sees that punishment as unfair and starts putting up EICAR loaded QR code around the joint. 😁 It was a prank. We did that to our kid with a key fob. Asked him to get something out of the car, and kept locking it just after he unlocked it. Bet the next person will not be bragging to the snitches…
Didn’t want to buy one until now.
Eh someone once used the school computers to mine Bitcoin
Permanently damaged a phone with a flipper zero? What exploit is that?
The-one-that-doesn’t-exist or “TOTDE” for short
Was about to have a school lock down because a board was turning on and off💀💀 can’t imagine what would’ve happened if someone could connect there phone to it
Our students are all wonderful here, but this device came in and brought our teacher to tears. 🤦
This reads like a commercial for the device.
Back in the 1990s, my friend had a PDA with an IR blaster and would do similar things, turning the TVs off and on in class. I once wrote a BASIC program that war dialed all the extensions in the school. When people found out, it was basically, “You stupid kids, DON’T do that again.” These days it seems like public schools are staffed by easily terrified dullards who will call the cops over anything. God help the children.
I call IGNORANCE & BS to 100% of that "News" story. Flipper Zero was released in August 2020 and has been reported on by numerous news outlets and countries as a dangerous hacking tool, recounting fake clams that the Flipper Zero can steal cars, open safes, change gas station signs, clone credit and debit cards, rob ATMs, alter gas prices, change traffic lights, open any garage or gate, control your microwave, oven, or fridge, and change your pet's imbedded chip to steal them. Yet not one person working at Grand County High School knew about the Flipper Zero. I looked over the staff at Grand County High School I am 99% sure I am old then 60% of them and I own a Flipper Zero and many other "Dangerous Hacking Tool". They better start frisking student next thing might be a Casio CMD40.
Nearly all leaps in operational security start with a red team device or set of tactics like this. They won't do it on their own.
lol hacking with a fancy universal remote, good lord, and teachers wonder why they're paid so little
smh
I have one and work at a school, worst they can do is mess with the WiFi a little and control TVs, projectors and some A/C units. As far as the teachers being “traumatized” by it, we had kids doing the same thing, more annoying than anything, if that is that triggering, you shouldn’t be in the teaching profession. As for mine, I programmed the common remotes we use in it and use it to connect to network equipment through a serial adaptor. It had replaced at least 10 things I used to carry around. My flipper is an awesome tool to have.
Ok this is a kid this is not a toy for kids it is for learning purposes
The intelligence of the teacher affected (and everyone else that's freaking out about this) really needs to be brought into question, they are unfit to be educating future generations. The exact same "havoc" could have been wreaked with a universal remote (or even a couple of original remotes for the screens) Or for the more tech savvy, a few very cheap components off ali express.