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Comment by Apreche | Hacker News Reader

The cops made this list. The idea that a smartphone can do everything a Raspberry Pi can do, and more, is a concept so far beyond their level of understanding that the discussion is pointless.

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Sibling comments have good points but in addition: there are a great many legitimate reasons to bring a phone to the inauguration and many fewer legitimate reasons to bring a Raspberry Pi. These guidelines aim to reduce risk, not remove it entirely.

>are a great many legitimate reasons to bring a phone to the inauguration and many fewer legitimate reasons to bring a Raspberry Pi

By that logic, I assume they've banned ski masks, skis, fake snow and pinecones. ;-)

I bet ski masks are, in fact, banned

Since NYC repealed its anti-mask law during Covid, that's no longer something that can be taken for granted. In another thread it came out that radio jammers weren't banned. It would fit in with the humor of it all if ski masks weren't banned.

Is this a reference to something?

I think someone or a group really motivated to cause harm will laugh at these rules.

Just an anecdote but I was screened several times in the airports (more after 9/11 because of... face) but never caught a pepper spray or other prohibited non obvious items carried accidentally.

This is not really accurate though. Both a Raspberry Pi and a Flipper Zero can easily and readily be turned into a signal jammer or spammer with off the shelf parts and nearly no technical skill. Modern smartphones are generally both more locked down and also don't come with an external antenna option.

Readily turned into a signal jammer? Do you know this or are you just guessing? Raspis are SBCs not tricorders from star trek.

In terms of actual knowledge, wifi chips, like the one on your laptop or a raspi do not have software settings for that. They are predominately defined by hardware and by opaque binary blobs the kernel developers have their hands full reverse engineering compatible interfaces for. In addition, electrical interference far beyond what a tiny communications radio is capable of can come from dangerous items such as microwaves, electric motors and nine volt batteries plus spools of wire.

Literally the first result on Google gives a simple to use jammer that works out of the box. Hook up an external antenna and you're good to go. Plenty of more sophisticated options if you dig a bit more.

Are any of the options you found banned?

Same for Android phones and laptops.

> Modern smartphones are generally both more locked down and also don't come with an external antenna option.

There are USB On-the-Go compatible SDRs [1] that you can hook up to an Android phone that cost like $50 (don't know if there are any that would work with iOS though).

[1] https://www.nooelec.com/store/sdr/sdr-receivers/nesdr-nano-t... (this one doesn't support wifi frequencies, but this was off the top of my head)

The device you linked does not, and cannot, transmit RF.

Like a General Electric AM/FM clock radio from 1983, and also my purple bike: It jams nothing.

Even if this could jam signals, which a sibling comment attests that it cannot, I wouldn't be surprised if it gets flagged by security if you try to bring it in and hook it up to your phone

Any mobile computer can be easily and readily turned into a signal jammer/spammer with an off-the-shelf SDR. There is nothing particularly special about the Raspberry Pi. I didn't see laptops on the list.

Isn't that like saying that a pipe can be turned into an organ with a wrench and a pipe organ? ;-)

I have a $5 ESP32 board that does the same, my phone is just the UI!

So can a rooted Android phone.

Like the article asks, why ban these two specific brand name devices? If you're worried about signal jammers, why not communicate that you're banning, oh, I don't know, "signal jammers"?

"no no officer this is an orange pi! an orange pi!"

> The cops made this list.

with the help of which LLM(s) ?

Since smartphones are already locked down by their vendors, the cops have a point.

Some smartphones are locked down by their vendors. There's plenty of options to get full root access on something that's for all intents and purposes a smartphone, especially if you don't particularly care about warranty and/or keeping commerical apps functional.

The radio on all commercially available smartphones are locked down to meet regulatory requirements and runs on an entirely different CPU from the Android OS that you might have root on.

The same's true for the radio on a Raspberry Pi, though.

True but they are commonly used to control other non-consumer (e.g. unregulated) radios via GPIO, and in POCs for threat exploitation demonstrations which are all over YouTube for idiots to mimic... and unlike phones they aren't carried around by almost everyone on a daily basis.

I simply adore how flexibly-placed the goalposts are in this particular game of Calvinball.

Seriously, this thread reads almost as if 5 different people have chimed in with their own individual thoughts

I'd reply very directly and in earnest, but such a reply would violate the guidelines.

Smartphones need to remove their agnostic USB-C power source, otherwise nefarious parties will use it to power a radio jammer!

Pretty soon we'll all be texting each other on tin cans tied together with string. Until one of the cops trips over our cables.

> Smartphones need to remove their agnostic USB-C power source, otherwise nefarious parties will use it to power a radio jammer!

OTG SDRs usually come with power splitter cables to power the radio from a battery pack anyway :)

It is trivial to get an older, unlocked cell phone that you can root. You then have a device equally or more powerful than a Raspberry Pi with built-in radios.

I can host a wifi router and a Raspberry Pi with a web server that then connect to my phone regardless of OS and now I can run anything remotely. You cannot lock down any OS that has a browser and wifi. I don't need root, just under $50 worth of equipment.

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