By Dawn Luger
Those on the left end of the political spectrum are constantly attempting to push the “Smart Gun” as if it’s some sort of magical device that will end all violence. It isn’t, of course, and you can easily fire any locked smart gun and it’ll only cost you $15.
Much to the chagrin of gun control activists everywhere, for the first time, a skilled hacker has taken a deep look into the security mechanisms of one leading example of a “smart gun.” A smart gun is one of those authenticated firearms, meaning only its owner may actually fire the weapon. The argument for the smart gun has been in the pockets of hoplophobes for years. But now, one hacker has found that if smart guns are going to become a reality, they’ll need to be much smarter than the one he hacked.
At the Defcon hacker conference later this week, a hacker who goes by the pseudonym Plore plans to show off a series of critical vulnerabilities he found in the Armatix IP1, a smart gun whose German manufacturer Armatix has claimed its electronic security measures will “usher in a new era of gun safety.” Plore discovered, and demonstrated to WIRED at a remote Colorado firing range, that he could hack the gun with a disturbing variety of techniques, all captured in the video. –WIRED
The IP1 purports to limit who can fire it by requiring that the shooter wears a special Armatix watch. If the gun and the watch can’t connect via a short-range radio signal that extends just a few inches, the gun won’t fire. But Plore shows how anyone can get around the simple technology. Plore showed that he can extend the range of the watch’s radio signal, allowing anyone to fire the gun when it’s more than ten feet away. But that’s not all.
Plore was able to jam the gun’s radio signals to prevent its owner from firing it even when the watch is inches away and connected. He also showed that he can mechanically disable the gun’s locking mechanism by placing some cheap magnets alongside its barrel, firing the gun at will even when the watch is completely absent.
Plore says that the politicized debate over smart guns hasn’t examined the far more basic question of whether they actually provide the security they promise. “If you buy one of these weapons thinking it’ll be safer, it should be,” Plore says. “In this case, it was so easily defeated, in so many ways, that it really failed to live up to its side of that bargain…Misplaced trust is worse than no trust at all.”
But what does one expect when those who hate guns and seek violent government policies to control those who own them get involved in things they know little about? It stands to reason that the market will continue to find ways around the left’s insistence on more laws.
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Contributed by Dawn Luger of The Daily Sheeple.
Dawn Luger is a staff writer and reporter for The Daily Sheeple. Wake the flock up – follow Dawn’s work at our Facebook or Twitter.
The first time I saw a “smart gun” my only comment was to point out that they will be very popular among bureaucrats – right up to the moment some enterprising criminal uses a radio frequency jamming device or EMP generator to turn a SWAT team into helpless targets.
I’d like to see that ??
That wouldn’t happen, as all gun control laws specifically exempt law enforcement and military from their controls.
To-wit: no “smart guns” required for LEOs and military.
Actually, it could end up being a requirement for law enforcement, depending on jurisdiction. The majority of police shot on duty are shot with their own guns. Several departments have had issues with stolen weapons, and guns “disappearing” from evidence lockers. Pencil pushing administrators and clueless city councils are in love with the idea of controlling guns. They may require smart guns for their LEO’s, even if it isn’t codified in yet more anti civil rights laws. Minnesota Democrats are pushing a bill right now to disarm police in their state. Cops are only immune when it is politically useful to the hoplophobes.
That will be interesting to watch.
So a smart gun would have to have the watch…no thanks…I’ll stay with old school no nonsense guns.
“Those on the left end of the political spectrum are constantly attempting to push the “Smart Gun” as if it’s some sort of magical device that will end all violence. It isn’t, of course, and you can easily fire any locked smart gun and it’ll only cost you $15”
This is a straw man fallacy since no one has ever claimed smart guns will end all violence.
Also it took a talented hacker to undo the smart gun limits.
87 percent of gun owners support allowing the sale of smart guns, which insanely cannot be bought by law enforcement or civilians.
.http://71.11.3.134/share/pdf/PSB_Pulse-Smart_Guns_v3.pdf
This is a shameful piece of fake reporting on behalf of the gun industry, which profits from a gun murder rate in the us 85-99.9% higher than in all the other 34 advanced nations. The more guns, the more violence (according to peer reviewed research); the more violence, the more guns sold. Insanity.
This article uses fallacies and lies to promote gun sales: cui bono?