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Comment by zactato | Hacker News Reader

Is the Flipper Zero still legit? I know it’s only quasi legal in some places. I see a lot of ads for it to the point where I kind of suspect it’s some sort of FBI entrapment program. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.

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It is an software defined radio with a nice interface built around it. Perhaps the nice interface has lowered the bar enough for it to now be in the crosshairs of the state, this has happened before, sometimes just making the tool easy enough for anybody to use is enough to make it illegal/controlled.

The point being the flipper does not do anything that is not possible with other tools, it just makes it easy.

It's not actually an SDR, it just has a discerning collection of hardware radio modules on it. If it was a self contained SDR you would expect a much beefier processor and power draw from the device from all the digital signal processing.

The device is worthwhile if you are exploring this kind of hardware security and also want to poke at other things while you're on the go to enhance your learning. The fact they added a Javascript engine so you don't have to program in C/C++ when you want to run something custom, I think will be a huge boon.

Don't undervalue getting all these features in a purpose-built device with a purpose-built OS.

Not as small or sleek, but you can still get everything Flipper Zero is doing with Arduino or a small laptop with basic antenna hardware. Flipper Zero is the iPhone of radio pentest gadgets.

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