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Hacker Cracks Smart Gun Security To Shoot It Without Approval (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader shares a CNN report:Smart guns are supposed to be safer than traditional weapons. They're designed to only fire when paired with a second piece of technology that identifies the shooter, like an electronic chip or a fingerprint. Supporters say they could stop accidental shootings or misfires. And they've been lauded by law enforcement to prevent criminals from using stolen or misplaced guns. However, like any technology, they're not unhackable. A hacker known by the pseudonym Plore doesn't want to put a stop to smart guns, but he wants the firearm industry that's increasingly manufacturing these devices to know that they can be hacked. The model Plore hacked is called the Armatix IPI. It pairs electronically with a smart watch so that only the person wearing the watch can fire it. The devices authenticate users via radio signals, electronically talking to each other within a small range. Plore broke the security features in three different ways, including jamming radio signals in the weapon and watch so the gun couldn't be fired, and shooting the gun with no watch nearby by placing strong magnets next to the weapon.
The next step after smart guns is Cloud Connected guns.
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The government could keep track of how much ammunition is used. This would provide valuable statistics for the department of the census bureaucracy.
Instead of requiring a fingerprint or gadget to authorize your gun to fire, you could authorize it to fire using an app on your smartphone. "hold on, just a sec, Mr. burglar, while I authorize my gun to activate . . . where did I put my phone . .
The government could revoke the firing of weapons that have been stolen. The government could also revoke the ability to fire any weapon to certain individuals. Especially crazy people. And crazy could have a technical definition, such as "the desire to own or use a firearm".
It's all for your protection.
Think of the children!
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
This hacker just demonstrated what gun advocates and critics of smart guns have been saying for years. The use of a gun is to stop a person or animal, often in a life or death situation. Guns are a powerful tool, and have historically relied on training to ensure gun safety and proper use. Smart guns attempt to take away some of that responsibility from the owner and in the process sacrifice key functionality. Guns have been developed over hundreds of years, and the modern gun is both extremely simple (relative to other technologies) and very reliable. As soon as you start adding other technologies, there are unintended consequences (or intended if you are a bit more cynical).
I am a firm believer in a constitutional amendment that subjects lawmakers first and foremost to their own legislation, and this is just another example of where that would be an excellent idea. I think that the every politician who voted to require smart guns who is armed, and every armed bodyguard that they have (all the gun grabbing libtard politicians are armed and/or have armed bodyguards BTW; classic do as I say, not as I do) should be required to carry only smart guns first and foremost. Tax dollars well spent in my opinion. That way they can experience the problems first hand (running out of battery or malfunctioning or being jammed by a wide band transmitter etc.) when their lives depend on it. After the first few politicians have their guns fail when their lives depend on it, I suspect their positions will change.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
You have to read very closely, but unintended fatal shootings in the US from 2005-2010 resulted in 3800 deaths, or roughly 760 per year. As a frame of reference, approximately 250,000 people die from medical mistakes at hospitals every year, yet there aren't any politicians trying to ban hospitals or regulate doctors.
Smart guns are a dumb idea trying to fix a problem that is much more effectively mitigated by proper education, training and proper storage of firearms (as evidenced by the fact that gun ownership is at an all time high, but accidental shootings are at nearly the lowest they have been ever). Smart guns tamper with and make less reliable the most effective self defense tool on the planet, potentially endangering the thousands of lives that are saved daily (every day hundreds of citizens use their concealed carry to protect themselves or others, and police officers do the same).
As with any tool in this imperfect world, there are accidents, misuse and abuse, but we must weigh the cost vs benefit of guns, something that the fascist progressives and Dims refuse to do (and have prevented the FBI from collecting statistics on; there is a very cynical reason that you can't find statistics on incidents where citizens save lives or property using their lawfully owned firearm, you can only find "gun deaths").
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Fired my first gun at the age of 9, owned my first gun at 11 and was allowed to take it out and use it anytime I wanted unsupervised.
Was taught some very simple rules about guns and have followed them my whole life, without exception ever.
1. Treat a gun as if its always loaded, even if you just unloaded it yourself, you act as if it is still loaded.
2. Never ever point a gun at anything you dont actually intend to shoot.
3. Finger off the trigger.
4. Identify risk down range.
There are more rules, but good teachers and role models make a big difference too.
But man..."smart" guns IMHO are NOT a good thing to have.
To the contrary, smart guns are a good thing to have, and the fact that they can be hacked is almost irrelevant.
The primary useful thing about smart guns is that they prevent your toddler from finding your gun and killing you, themselves, or each other. This happens all the time-- 1300 children get killed by firearms per year. (alternate source)(another story on the subject).
Even, if as you say "I mean, having a firearm that my life may depend on in a home invasion, that may not fire if I'm not wearing a watch" -- that's actually a good thing, because the thing that you should most be worried about in a home invasion is getting killed by your own gun.
Worrying that a hacker is going to break into your home, hack your gun, and then kill you with it is pretty remote.
You really want a gun that only fires when you fire it. A gun that fires when you don't want it to is not a good thing.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Who cares? This tech will protect home owners from escalating the level of violence against a burglar.
You mean "protect burglars from home owners", of course. And, obviously, burglars already have a sure-fire way to protect themselves: not breaking into homes. And note that smart guns that work correctly won't protect burglars from homeowners.
Simply breaking into a place shouldn't be a death sentence.
I actually agree with this. The problem is that it's very difficult to know what the burglar's intentions are. If I could be certain that all the guy wanted was my TV, and that if he got it no one would get hurt, I'd help him carry it out. My TV isn't worth anyone's life, and anyway, I have insurance.
But if someone breaks into my house in the middle of the night, I can't know what they intend, other than that it's very unlikely that they intend to be nice to me or my family. So unless they can convince me pretty quickly that they don't intend to do my family any harm, I will be aiming a gun at them. Whether or not I pull the trigger will depend on what they do next. Raise their hands, turn around slowly and leave the house the way they came? Fine. I'll do my best to give the police an excellent description. Make any move that seems aggressive or threatening? I'm shooting first and dealing with the outcome -- which will probably include a lifetime of regret -- later.
A 15 year-old kid was shot in my neighborhood a few years ago after walking through an unlocked sliding glass door. No thinking person would ever believe that he deserved to be executed for that.
Deserved? Absolutely not. Even if he intended to rob the place. But neither does the homeowner deserve to be in fear for his life and that of his family... none of them did anything wrong at all! As for the young burglar, it's a tragedy, but the tragedy is not just that he got shot, it's also that he chose to commit a violent felony. He didn't deserve to die, but he made the choice to place his life in serious jeopardy, by threatening the lives of others. Or appearing to, at least, which is the same thing in the eyes of the law.
I'm assuming that it was deliberate here, and not some sort of accident, of course. If it was an accident, that's also a tragedy, but it's way, way down the list of the ways that 15 year olds accidentally die.
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Too many Republicans believe that you have the right to shoot an intruder.
I'm not a Republican, but I believe I have the right to shoot anyone who threatens my life or my family's lives. Do you honestly disagree with that? The right of self-defense is the most natural of natural rights.
I'll grant that an intruder may not intend harm, but I'm pretty certain he doesn't intend kindness. He's already demonstrated the willingness to commit a violent felony against me, and if I wait too long to see what he's going to do, I may lose the opportunity to stop him.
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"I like to keep my guns loaded, chambered and hidden throughout the house...where I'm never but a few steps away from any weapon that I can grab, and pull the trigger on"
Not that your a paranoid nutjob or anything. What are you expecting, a home invasion by Chuck Norris?
Is it paranoid to have multiple fire extinguishers throughout the home, ready to go?
Better to have it and not need it...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I have no desire to have a firearm ever present for safety. I just like to shoot.
And I shouldn't have to justify it, either.
Oh, admit it: Nobody wants "safe" guns because of the mandates stated above: that once on the market, even if decidedly buggy, would then force ALL guns to be illegal that weren't "safe" guns. The laws exist, it's not a matter of conjecture.
In the end, you're just hoping to use this as a run around to eliminate firearms altogether, because they simply make you nervous.
If you really wanted to end gun violence, you'd address the root causes: gangs, drugs-such as the opioid epidemic, criminal culture, etc. You'd address gun safety training instead of barring it as a bogeyman in schools.
The key to safety is knowledge, not fear.
The key to safety is knowledge and a healthy respect for the dangers involved. One without the other leads to mistakes and, since we are humans, mistakes will always happen. This is one of the many reasons why most countries strictly control firearms. It's not fear of them but a healthy respect for the dangers they pose in the hands of random humans who are sometimes drunk, forgetful, distracted, insane etc. While it's fine for you to suffer from your own mistakes and actions when firearms are involved it is usually others who do the suffering.
So you get a choice: either to restrict access to firearms or you learn to live with mass shootings, a high murder rate and toddlers accidentally killing themselves. "Smart" guns are just one way to restrict access so if you prefer the deaths to restrictions on personal freedoms you should be opposed to them. Just don't fool yourself that guns are perfectly safe and pose no risks to anyone. They are designed to be lethal and are only safe when handled correctly which is never going to happen 100% of the time.
Uh, no. Get down on their knees and wait until the police come as you keep them under control, yes. You are simply allowing them to go on the the next house, making you a passive accomplice in the next crime.
Utter nonsense.
Oh, I have no problem with holding the intruder for the police if I can do so in safety... but that's a really tough thing to do. Not only might the intruder be able to do something, but more than one homeowner has been holding a gun on a perp, and been shot to death by the police when they arrived.
In one example, from a few years ago, the guy sent his family into the yard and his wife called 911. She told the dispatcher that her husband had the intruder at gunpoint, and described in detail their location, clothing, etc. The dispatcher passed all of that along to the police officers responding. When the police arrived, the wife reiterated all of this information to them directly before they went in. But when they walked in and saw a man holding a gun, they shot him, putting six bullets into him before he could hit the ground. Oops.
Nope, unless it's absolutely certain that I can hold the perp and turn him over to the police safely, I want him to run away. And I'm a former police officer, who actually received training in how to safely disarm and secure a prisoner.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I like to keep my guns loaded, chambered and hidden throughout the house...where I'm never but a few steps away from any weapon that I can grab, and pull the trigger on (some do have safety on, but the glocks do not).
Sweet Jesus, are you that paranoid that someone wants to come take your shit? What is going on with you mentally that you have multiple guns, cocked and loaded all over your house? What is wrong with you, why are you so scared of everything?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!