It's not like they're banning them across all of NYC... it's just security at the inauguration event. "Large bags" are banned too.
> When a policy bans specific devices rather than behaviors or capabilities, it creates ambiguity for people on the ground.
To the contrary, how the heck is someone working security at the entrance supposed to check for a device's "behaviors or capabilities"? This is a quick visual inspection, this reduces ambiguity.
Presumably, the cops are aware of previous disruption with these specific devices, or threats thereof. And it's not like they're going to say exactly what, nor should they, lest it give people ideas...
> Today it’s Raspberry Pi and Flipper Zero. Tomorrow it’s BeagleBone Blacks, Arduino Qs, ESP32 dev boards, Teensy boards, Pine64s, Orange Pis...
Which is totally fine. There's no legitimate purpose in bringing any of those to a high-profile political event. Drones, laser pens, and beach balls are prohibited too.
Agreed. This comes off as self-absorbed and entitled - 'how dare the security team not recognize my ascended morality and technical genius! Suppose an evil hacker does plan to disrupt the event - the only thing that stops a bad guy with a Flipper Zero is a good guy with a Raspberry Pi running wireshark!'
Adafruit is headquartered in New York and selling raspberry pi is a big part of their business. Reading this as self absorbed or entitled is disingenuous. They're worried about their business & asking why these brand names are singled out is a legitimate question.
Literally not a single prospective RPi customer would have even known Mamdani banned them from his inauguration party if Adafruit hadn't gone out of their way to point it out. And literally not a single one of those prospective customers would have cared, similarly to how nobody cares that "strollers" are also banned.
This is the stupidest thing to get mock-offended by.
This isn't an exercise in cataloging all worldly items. The criteria for the list is very obviously:
[no legitimate purpose] + [identified as a potential threat or disturbance vector] + [described in a way useful for laypeople who will be consuming said list]
The fact that these items were thought to satisfy your item number two, while more dangerous items did not, indicates that someone's feeding bad information to security, or alternatively, that was not the criteria. There is also some indication of Mr. Robot style fantasies about the power of individual computers.
If there was a legitimate purpose for banning SBCs (there is not), then all computers with wifi would have to be banned. The external fact is that raspis are not a security risk. The internal contradiction is that raspis are computers. It's their whole selling point - they're ordinary PCs.
I don't think you understand the threat profile of a large public event. The typical threat to events like this are idiots who mimic crap they see on YouTube. Public safety isn't an exercise in evaluating every theoretical threat, because that list is too long to address with limited resources. It is an exercise in evaluating which threats are most commonly to be exploited, and the easiest to protect against. This is how you most effectively protect an event with limited resources. It is different than the theoretical threat evaluation that someone doing computer science might think about.
Idiots running script-kiddy exploits on any device is a threat. The list says "Raspberry Pi" because of the utility in communication to the parties reading the list, not because it is technically accurate.
Cops are going to turn you away from this event if you carry in something that looks like circuit boards and wires.
And? There’s a lot of things that people could theoretically do. The few seconds that someone is going through event security isn’t going to stop a competent attacker, nor is it reasonable to expect them to be able to do that.
The point is to stop the most common attackers who are sloppy idiots.
No incompetent person could feasibly use a Raspberry Pi to do any harm, and I invite you to find any examples to the contrary. It is easier to abuse a phone.
It is solving for the wrong problem. An idiot with a Pi or Flipper Zero isn’t the actual threat any more than Star Simpson was.
And if you don’t agree the stupidity that Star was put through was absurd, then we simply won’t agree on the matter.
There’s a difference between security/intelligence and theater. Too many people mistake the two, because they’ve been trained by folks like the TSA to mistake theater for security/intelligence.
You are all spot on with in terms of a technical information security evaluation here.
Unfortunately, the reality is there are not enough information security specialists in the world to hire them as event security for every large public event. And even if there were, the logistics of such an event would not allow for enough time for a proper information security screening.
What you're asking for is not theoretically wrong, it's just impossible to implement.
My argument isn’t that every event can and should build an intelligence apparatus. That would be impossible, though it would actually provide security. I agree.
My argument is that banning flipper zeros does not do anything to improve security, even if they wish it did. If they actually cared about security, it would cost them a lot more time and money. Instead, they’ve chosen theater. I don’t even have a problem with this necessarily, if it makes some people feel safer; I have a problem with anyone pretending it is security, and not theater.
When someone is given a placebo during a clinical trial, they are informed and unblinded after the trial so that they do not think they were on the actual medication; this is because otherwise, they would draw the wrong conclusion from the trial for themselves.
This is theater; that’s okay, maybe, but let’s not pretend it’s something it isn’t.
Anyway, I think we’re repeating ourselves, and I’m happy to agree to disagree.
You're really missing the forest for the trees here. It's arguable which one has more theoretical exploits. This is an issue of practicality. Phones are allowed because it's normal for everyone to have one in their pocket and impractical to ban them.
Yeah, they are probably a disturbance at best. Like pets, large signs, beach balls, and alcohol alcoholic beverages, which are other things on the list.
"security" is a lot more broad than just "preventing terrorist attacks"
You don't need to be a super l33et h4x0r to disrupt an event -- you could knock around a beach ball or turn off a display with the IR blaster on a flipper zero. Not everything is life or death.
What’s more likely? That they were banned due to misunderstandings of what these devices are, or that they were banned they are “causing a disturbance”? Can you find an example of such a case? I’m not sure why this feels so important to defend.
There are several definitions of security, but the most relevant (in this context) are:
1. the state of being protected against or safe from danger or threat.
2. the safety of a state or organization against criminal activity such as terrorism, theft, or espionage.
3. procedures followed or measures taken to ensure the safety of a state or organization.
I fail to see how these devices fall into those definitions. I also don’t see how beach balls do either.
So if your argument is changing to: it isn’t security, but rather preventing people from getting in each other’s way (large signs, strollers, beach balls) I once again don’t see how that applies.
I agree those items have nothing to do with security either.
I'm not changing anything -- my root comment in this thread specifically mentioned "disturbances". Mitigating disturbances to the proceedings of an event is plainly a part of event security. The "threats" evaluated in event security are not solely to life and limb but also to the proceedings of the event itself. I didn't think this required elaboration; I thought most people would be familiar with this function of event security.
> There's no legitimate purpose in bringing crayons and a coloring book, or a box of paperclips, either.
Do you genuinely think that a parent with a small child does not have a legitimate reason to bring crayons and a coloring book to an event for adults or are you being hyperbolic? Cause this suggests either bad-faith or a profound lack of clarity about the issue and neither is good for your argument.
Good point. There's probably no legitimate reason for non-voting children to be present at such a political event, either.
And by way of the process of excluding these children, the motivation for bringing other items without legitimate use like crayons, coloring books, and paperclips will be greatly diminished.
It's win-win. Thank you for the excellent insight!
Voting adults can’t necessarily afford or arrange childcare which is a legitimate reason to bring their non-voting children.
Effectively all non-voting children will one day be voting adults. Exposure to politics before participating in politics is valuable not only for them, but for everyone who will be eventually governed partially by their vote. Legitimate reason #2.
Regardless of the lack of vote, non-voting children are still governed by elected officials, giving them legitimate reason #3 to interact with politics, even if they can’t do so in the form of a vote yet.
You’ve picked a poorly thought out hill to die on.
That's a very well-reasoned argument. It is perhaps a shame that it's been placed against the most absurdly sarcastic train of thought I could come up with ("Coloring books have no legitimate purpose at such an event, and therefore nor do children"), but your take remains well-reasoned nonetheless.
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I won't be in NYC tomorrow. But if I were planning to go then there'd be a good chance I'd pack my usual way for a short-duration trip: A backpack with a laptop, a change of clothes rolled up tight, and a Raspberry Pi.
Some people bring things like cards or a [coloring] book, but those are not my preferred styles of distraction.
SBCs like that don't take up much space. They pack fairly well and give me something out-of-band to goof around with when I'm traveling and bored, where my usual household distractions don't exist.
I get some pretty creative systems stuff done on them sometimes by creating some whimsical problem, working out the steps for a solution, and then implementing it and seeing how it plays out -- in the field, away from my usual pile of resources. It's fun for me.
There's almost certainly some manner of Pi already in my bag right now, left over from my last trip -- probably housed in one of those cheeky red-and-white plastic cases that the Pi Foundation offers.
It would not be a huge loss if I had to dumpster it like a forgotten nail clipper at the airport after 9/11, but it sure would be surprising. It's not a particularly devilish device and has never attracted any sort of attention, and I would never have reasonably expected it to do so.
Anyways, I'm sure you can understand why a political event, where many of them do rely on RFID access badges for certain personnel to enter certain areas, would not want someone with a device that can clone badges.
If you go to a political event like that... just take your actual key. Not a device that spoofs your actual key. What you're proposing is essentially saying you have a legitimate reason for carrying around a lockpicking set, because you use it to enter your apartment when you forget your keys. It's pretty understandable there are high-security places that won't let you in.
We really should ban phones at events like concerts and parties, where people don't want to be recorded, people on their phones dull the vibe...
A mayoral inauguration? Personally I wouldn't ban it, but like rPIs, I don't see why it's a big deal either way. Your event, your rules (within reason).
If your walking stick looks like it will be used as a weapon then you can safely assume you’ll have it removed upon entry.
Events like these will have disclaimers like “admittance is subject to the discretion of our security staff”.
The point of the list of prohibited items is to make it easier for attendees to know the kinds of items theyre allowed to bring. What it isn’t, is an exhaustive list of anything that could be used for bad intentions.
Nobody going to take a walking stick of an old man or some disabled person using it to walk, not unless it looks like it can pull apart into a sword. But security today and discretion does leave much in the wind.
They should have just said any computers other than mobile phones, by drilling down they enable security to fail at their job as people could bring another SBC and go its not a raspberry Pi and that highlights the crux.
Concern is this sets a standard moving forward that does not single out one SBC from others unfairly, which is what they are doing here.
> Nobody going to take a walking stick of an old man or some disabled person using it to walk, not unless it looks like it can pull apart into a sword.
Which is just a more verbose way of saying exactly what I said ;)
> They should have just said any computers other than mobile phones, by drilling down they enable security to fail at their job as people could bring another SBC and go its not a raspberry Pi and that highlights the crux.
That would cause problems for reporters bringing laptops.
What you’re missing is that this is a tech forum filled with a tech-literate people and a higher than average number of autistic and other neurological tendencies to be “technically correct”. Which isn’t who the target audience of the inauguration party will be.
Their messaging is fine for the people it’s targeted for. It wouldn’t be fine for a Defcon event, but this isn’t that.
> Concern is this sets a standard moving forward that does not single out one SBC from others unfairly, which is what they are doing here.
Different parties have different admittance codes. Some will list drugs, some will list attire (eg no trainers), some will say “no food or drink” while others might say “no disposable bbqs”. This isn’t any different to any other party or location which have their own rules for entry.
You might be right that this sets a precedence, but Occam’s Razor suggests you’re over reacting given the nature of the event and its target audience
> Presumably, the cops are aware of previous disruption with these specific devices, or threats thereof. And it's not like they're going to say exactly what, nor should they, lest it give people ideas...
I don’t think this is necessarily true. The TSA bans all sorts of crap solely because they feel like it, and not in the name of any kind of actual security. It is entirely possible that the NYPD “heard” these terms in media and got spooked, so here we are.
I don't think the NYPD thinks "beach balls" or "large items that could obstruct views" or "flipper zeros" are spooky or scary. I think they think they're potential annoyances in a large crowd.
>Presumably, the cops are aware of previous disruption with these specific devices, or threats thereof.
You're presuming a lot for a single board computer that's less powerful in every way than your laptop - even as a blunt object. Sometimes authorities make arbitrary and capricious rules: that's why they are celebrating an inauguration, not a corination. If things like this never happened, we would have no need for regular elections. :-)
With A.I./ML and high def aerial and street video + other electronic signals you don’t need ineffective tools like stop and frisk.
They had the technology in Iraq to figure out where IEDs were coming from. (TF Odin)
They could also cut down on government fraud and all the homeless NGO waste/fraud. [1]
We need people to vote in governments who are interested in rooting out fraud as well as other crimes, rather than those seeking political careers who would rather freeze wheels take a blind eye to things.
Is digital stop in frisk run by a shadowy corporation better or worse than physical stop and frisk run by the police? Maybe it's better, but I'm not sure we should be ready to cheer it on either.
Or… criminals were caught and remained incarcerated leaving rates low. A large part of crime is committed by repeat offenders. Catch and imprison them and crime drops. This is well supported by data.
As you said, a large part of crime is committed by repeat offenders. Enough time has passed that those people are back on the street. If crime rates have remained low after the end of S&F, then it can't be that.
Chicago started with similar conditions as NYC (30 murders per 100000 in 1991), but they didn't have no-nonsense mayors like Bloomberg and Rudy. So its murder rate now is still 5 times that of NYC.
Broken window policing and stop-and-frisk absolutely worked. Stop-and-frisk was found to be unconstitutional, but it also was highly effective.
CPD generally does whatever NYPD does. The difference is that New York isn't Chicago. Different geography, different forces at work. Peter Moskos wrote a whole book about how NYPD turned things around in the 1990s, and "stop and frisk" and "broken windows", whatever Malcolm Gladwell wants you to believe, don't feature prominently in it.
Chicago had tried Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) in 90-s it was so famous that even I heard about it during my lessons on urban planning. In Russia.
And it was not entirely unsuccessful, but definitely much less effective than policing in NYC.
I read multiple articles from both conservative and progressive sources about the drop of crime in NYC. The evidence is decidedly mixed. "Broken windows" policies probably helped a lot during the 90-s but lost their efficacy by the early 2000-s. Stop-and-frisk probably reduced the rate of serious crimes, mostly through incidental arrests but undermined some of the community trust. It also was unconstitutional.
I obviously haven't read it completely yet, but I read the parts that mention "Broken Windows". So far they seem to basically affirm everything I said:
> Now Bratton had some success in Transit, and well-publicized success, because he decided to stop people from jumping over the turnstiles. It was rampant. They wound up locking up some guy who had like $10,000 and a gun and couldn't be bothered to pay the dollar subway fare. The idea was, if I keep these guys out of the system, crime will go down. And crime went down in Transit, which is why Bratton got Boston and why he got back here. It was like, "This guy might be on to something."
> Operation Alternative
> But you can use the Broken Windows theory. Stopping a guy for drinking beer gave you a chance to run him for a warrant. Is he wanted for a violent crime? Stopping a guy for pissing in the street gave you a chance to issue a summons. Which meant if he couldn't produce ID you could bring him into the station, run his prints, and then find out he was wanted for one of last week's shootings.
Chicago was run by Richard Daly 2 for 20 years during the Guliani era. I’m not sure what a no-nonsense mayor is but Daly resolved a dispute over an airport by having the runway jack hammered over night in the middle of negotiations.
During the 80s CPD ran a torture warehouse. They are currently operating under court direction for their mass use of pre textual traffic stops.
I’m not buying your “just so” story about mayors or hard nosed policing being the difference.
An unmarked car pulls alongside you, all men are masked inside and the windows tinted. You're ready to fight back or run, but then it turns out it's the police attempting to harass and bully you. Wonderful.
Look up Sean Bell - not a stop a frisk, just an open fire.
Once, my wife and I were stopped, but not frisked, and cited for riding bikes, on a sidewalk at 2AM on a stretch of Atlantic Ave that would kill you to ride on. It made no sense, until I found out that my neighbor and his friend had been murdered at a street party. There was a drag net out trying to find the killer and they stopped anyone for anything.
What's also hacker-unfriendly is giving all your hacker-friendly article's traffic to Cloudflare, and then letting Cloudflare block Tor exit nodes from reading your article.
I'm using Firefox on a Linux workstation (without Tor) and I still got the CAPTCHA. The statement "blog.adafruit.com needs to review the security of your connection before proceeding" is misleading at best. Shame on Cloudflare, this kind of dishonesty makes me not want to trust your RCA marketing pieces.
In addition to Cloudflare's usual nonsense (e.g., give us all the cleartext because reasons, and also unblock our bad-UX code that doubles as an additional tracker), it looks like Cloudflare here might also be blocking Tor exit nodes (either proactively, or in response to detected abuses from those addresses).
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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).
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
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.
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"?
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
The language is unfortunately imprecise (or rather too precise) but I’d imagine this is simply allowing security staff discretion to refuse suspicious circuit board looking devices. They’re not going to be checking for brand names.
They would not allow suspicious looking PCB's in regardless. If that's what you wanted to communicate, you would just add something like "suspicious electronic device" to the list. It's still a legitimate question as to why these two brand names were specifically added to the list.
Yeah, exposed circuit boards are things most people only see in three settings: (1) when one of their devices are broken, (2) bomb in a movie, or (3) it's the 00s.
I think they're more concerned with preventing a panic over any of the concerns about what someone can do with a Raspberry Pi.
Yeah, I'm not really sure how this became news. It's not weird at all for event security to have a discretionary rule for if you don't know what it is and its purpose isn't obvious then feel free to not allow it.
The reeks of someone new being in charge (at whatever level approves this list), and feeling compelled to "prove" themselves via a show of power - in this case, adding items to a prohibited list. As such behaviors go, this one is petty.
Adafruit's point on the banning of specific devices stands out as being particularly foolish. I doubt security would react well to any obvious cyberpunk cyberdeck build, regardless of the hardware inside.
Lots of products come with integrated rPis since they're so easy to work with and have good vendor support. I guess all those products are banned too lol.
I carried an RPi running a Meshtastic BBS around Def Con this year. I can kinda see why these combinations would make authorities nervous ("you have a computer-controlled radio what now?"), but the idea of getting arrested for toting around a souped up walkie talkie amuses me.
True, but exactly how unallowed an item is can greatly affect how their presence is handled. If you get caught with one, is this closer to having an air horn at a baseball game or a pistol in an airport? Neither are allowed, but one of those would make your day an awful lot worse than the other.
I brought a 5G Peplink modem (which has 4 external antennas) in my checked luggage and got "randomly searched" by TSA on both legs of a trip once, which I thought was pretty hilarious.
I used to travel with a case full of parts for work and just started leaving extra zipties inside because the TSA agents that would search it wouldn't always ziptie it back closed after they were done.
I've brought mini clusters of bare Pis many times before (and other strange contraptions with jumper wires all around), and the only time I was ever stopped for a deeper search was when I left my x-ray shielding bag for film in the same case with the mini cluster.
Their language here is imprecise and that’s crappy but the intent is clearly to ban little microboard computers, they’re just using “Raspberry Pi” to describe it.
You could also try American pie, apple pie (Hi mom) or perhaps freedom pi. A decent stars and stripes heat sink should be pretty easy to fiddle up, and probably exists already.
I feel like programmers model the law as a programming language, while it only works like that in very limited contexts.
They said Raspberry PI, but the spirit of the rule is "electronic looking thing that we can't immediately determine the function of". You could probably show up with an unpopulated PCB and get turned away because it's green.
Very few mayors have as many constituents as NYC, though. So of all mayoral inaugurations, this one has among the most potential people thinking about it, even disregarding how on-the-national-stage the election played out.
True, they are expensive, but that build quality and the availability of firmwares to do what you are looking for with just a quick flash makes them handy AF for keeping in a pocket to play with.
I have found several uses for mine which weren't in mind when I made my decision to purchase.
Somebody obviously raised the question in a meeting somewhere, and there's no incentive to be the guy who says, "Nah, that's perfectly safe" - and every incentive to CYA.
I noticed that they didn't ban "walkie talkies" or "radio transceivers", and I wonder...
Some of the more niche/hobby transceivers could be used by a group of bad actors at an event, for comms that are less-monitorable than smartphones and mainstream COTS handheld transceivers.
And such hobby transceivers/transmitters might not operate on the list of RF bands that would be jammed by authorities when there's a suspected terrorist situation.
Many of these devices have exposed PCBs (either general-purpose SBCs, or specialized). So, saying "no Raspberry Pi" could be an attempt to ban all exposed PCB devices. And "no Flipper Zero" is the non-exposed-PCB problematic device that everyone has also heard of.
Kudos to the people keeping the event safe, especially given all the recently emboldened bad actors right now, who might be attracted to the event.
For hobbyists, there are numerous opportunities to advocate for your right to, e.g., carry electronics hobbyist gadgets, or to wear an artistic blinking LED jewelry piece strapped to your chest. Some of those opportunities need help, while some other opportunities could be counterproductive to your cause.
I understand the weirdness of picking out a couple of examples, but I'd expect they'll confiscate and destroy any DIY SOC/microprocessor encased in a bundle of wires or aerials. An exhaustive list is tedious, a class would undoubtedly catch random consumer electronics.
They don't mention cookware or DIY either but try entering with a pressure cooker and a bag of nails. They won't pause to look for explosives.
For the sake of one day in one place, it's not worth getting angry about.
I feel like this isn’t the kind of thing that just shows up on normal people’s radars out of nowhere. There must be some precedent, maybe a bunch of kids recently showed up to a similar event with these items
lots of things. Remember the Cartoon Network PR stunt where they placed DIY LED "signs" of characters from a show around Boston not long after the bombing there? What about the kid in Texas that was accused of bringing a bomb to show his teacher his DIY electronics Arduino project? What about the Mr Robot episode using a RPi?
Also, people putting these regulations in place are not normal people but people that think about how people might cause mayhem. None of the things I mentioned were real threats, but they very easily could have been is the point.
Boston's reaction to the mooninite signs, especially in comparison to how all the other cities reacted to them, was ridiculous, and rightfully ridiculed.
The alarm clock wasn't an arduino project, the student took an alarm clock apart and put the insides into case, specifically so that it would look like a bomb, then brought it to school, and rather than receive detention and that be the end of it, the news went wild with it as a discrimination case.
These were cases of overreaction in the moment.
Maybe that's the real lesson here; these rules for the inaugural block party are not to secure the block from electronic interference, but as part of a system to manage the reactions of panicky, irrational people.
NYC (and other jurisdictions) have a long history of categorizing things as "not a weapon" so they can more strongly restrict them without 2A challenges.
Who cares about the Pi Zero? There's no umbrellas and no strollers/pushchairs/prams/etc. - and to add insult to injury you're not allowed booze as well.
Also, not seeing why someone would care - why are you bringing your Raspberry Pi to an inauguration? Or worse, your blatantly suspicious "Flipper Zero", which, quote:
> The Flipper Zero is a portable multi-functional Security device developed for interaction with access control systems. The device is able to read, copy, and emulate RFID and NFC tags, radio remotes, iButtons, and digital access keys. It also has a GPIO interface.
beach balls just cause havoc bouncing around and potentially knocking things over. they're a nuisance.
blankets tend to want to be laid out on the floor for people to sit on which takes up a lot of space causing havoc for foot traffic when people are not expecting to have to step over someone. also, they can be used to start fires. these are the same reasons they are no longer allowed at outdoor concert venues for specific types of shows.
i am the writer. which specific emotions are you asking me to mask? confusion? concern? expertise?
the blog is written by people who use these tools — raspberry pi, flipper zero — in classrooms, accessibility projects. occasionally puppet shows. when a policy names devices, brand names specifically, instead of the actual threat, i wrote about it. at least you cannot complain i am ai... oh way, a i adafruit industries ! PAID POST FOR BIG AI
if this is where you get your news, welcome. the weather is still up next.
This seems very amateur hour and likely to have the opposite of the intended effect, i.e. I expect there will be tons of Flipper Zeros that people bring as "jokes".
More than likely, this isn't the mayor's doing but his NYPD protection detail.
Actions will reveal if this mayor is honest or merely says a few populist things that sound "socialist"; whether he abolishes NYPD's civil-rights-violating SRG or not.
Congratulations on your hiring for head of digital security for the inauguration of the mayor of New York City.
The mayor elect has drawn scrutiny from right wing agitators and there are creditable threats that some of the "angry twenty something tech bros" are going to attempt to disrupt the event or otherwise prank it.
As this event makes significant use of projectors and large digital displays, please advise the security (regular law enforcement officers that may not be familiar with the latest digital devices) for any objects that may be things that are likely inconspicuous but could be used to disrupt the event. Items that would be conspicuous in their use or have other legitimate use that the general public or credentialed reporters would be using should not be considered (e.g. laptops, cellphones).
These items will be added to the standard list of items prohibited at political events.
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This is a bit of creative writing, but you could imagine it being fairly close to what the person who is hired to preform this role is faced with.
> le heckin' security theater targeting tinkerbros
and none addressing the elephant in the room of why Mamdani needs all of this security, or frankly, any security at all? Just a few years prior, he tweeted out #DefundThePolice, and of the NYPD specifically, suggested "Defund it. Dismantle it. End the cycle of violence." And even though he's walked some of that back, he still supports dismantling the NYPD's Strategic Response Group (whose duties including counter terrorism response). You can be sure however free of a rein the city's population of crazy transients are given to assault, slash, or push others in front of oncoming subway trains, he and his family will remain safe.
I don't know why mamdani would need security. maybe the hysteria around him hits a boiling point and a Christian nationalist bombs the place like they're prone to doing so or fantasizing about on hacker news.
Interesting. Adafruit is now on the list of sites I will no longer visit, given their locking down and harvesting visitor data, and explicitly preventing archive sites.
It's not like they're banning them across all of NYC... it's just security at the inauguration event. "Large bags" are banned too.
> When a policy bans specific devices rather than behaviors or capabilities, it creates ambiguity for people on the ground.
To the contrary, how the heck is someone working security at the entrance supposed to check for a device's "behaviors or capabilities"? This is a quick visual inspection, this reduces ambiguity.
Presumably, the cops are aware of previous disruption with these specific devices, or threats thereof. And it's not like they're going to say exactly what, nor should they, lest it give people ideas...
> Today it’s Raspberry Pi and Flipper Zero. Tomorrow it’s BeagleBone Blacks, Arduino Qs, ESP32 dev boards, Teensy boards, Pine64s, Orange Pis...
Which is totally fine. There's no legitimate purpose in bringing any of those to a high-profile political event. Drones, laser pens, and beach balls are prohibited too.
Agreed. This comes off as self-absorbed and entitled - 'how dare the security team not recognize my ascended morality and technical genius! Suppose an evil hacker does plan to disrupt the event - the only thing that stops a bad guy with a Flipper Zero is a good guy with a Raspberry Pi running wireshark!'
Adafruit is headquartered in New York and selling raspberry pi is a big part of their business. Reading this as self absorbed or entitled is disingenuous. They're worried about their business & asking why these brand names are singled out is a legitimate question.
You know, dynamite is a brand name. Sometimes for security's sake it's easier to call something what everybody calls it.
Small-scale user programmable portable radios does not convey what Flipper Zero does.
Literally not a single prospective RPi customer would have even known Mamdani banned them from his inauguration party if Adafruit hadn't gone out of their way to point it out. And literally not a single one of those prospective customers would have cared, similarly to how nobody cares that "strollers" are also banned.
This is the stupidest thing to get mock-offended by.
Political Theater
There's no legitimate purpose in bringing crayons and a coloring book, or a box of paperclips, either.
We should probably see to it that nobody brings any of those things in, as well.
This isn't an exercise in cataloging all worldly items. The criteria for the list is very obviously:
[no legitimate purpose] + [identified as a potential threat or disturbance vector] + [described in a way useful for laypeople who will be consuming said list]
The fact that these items were thought to satisfy your item number two, while more dangerous items did not, indicates that someone's feeding bad information to security, or alternatively, that was not the criteria. There is also some indication of Mr. Robot style fantasies about the power of individual computers.
What do you think is missing?
If there was a legitimate purpose for banning SBCs (there is not), then all computers with wifi would have to be banned. The external fact is that raspis are not a security risk. The internal contradiction is that raspis are computers. It's their whole selling point - they're ordinary PCs.
Also need to ban any Android phone models which can unlock the bootloader.
I don't think you understand the threat profile of a large public event. The typical threat to events like this are idiots who mimic crap they see on YouTube. Public safety isn't an exercise in evaluating every theoretical threat, because that list is too long to address with limited resources. It is an exercise in evaluating which threats are most commonly to be exploited, and the easiest to protect against. This is how you most effectively protect an event with limited resources. It is different than the theoretical threat evaluation that someone doing computer science might think about.
Raspberry pis are not a "likely threat," because they are not a threat. It's hard to get away from that fact when evaluating the absurdity of the ban.
Idiots running script-kiddy exploits on any device is a threat. The list says "Raspberry Pi" because of the utility in communication to the parties reading the list, not because it is technically accurate.
Cops are going to turn you away from this event if you carry in something that looks like circuit boards and wires.
Idiots runnings script kiddie exploits on their Android phone is also a threat. And?
Absolutely. The difference is that phones are in everyone's pocket.
Again, public safety has nothing to do with the elimination of risk. It is a practical exercise in the mitigation of risk.
> Again, public safety has nothing to do with the elimination of risk. It is a practical exercise in the mitigation of risk.
Sometimes. Sometimes, it is theatre.
A raspberry pi is a computer. It had HDMI ports on the back. You can put one in a box. Come on, man.
And? There’s a lot of things that people could theoretically do. The few seconds that someone is going through event security isn’t going to stop a competent attacker, nor is it reasonable to expect them to be able to do that.
The point is to stop the most common attackers who are sloppy idiots.
No incompetent person could feasibly use a Raspberry Pi to do any harm, and I invite you to find any examples to the contrary. It is easier to abuse a phone.
This is the point.
It is solving for the wrong problem. An idiot with a Pi or Flipper Zero isn’t the actual threat any more than Star Simpson was.
And if you don’t agree the stupidity that Star was put through was absurd, then we simply won’t agree on the matter.
There’s a difference between security/intelligence and theater. Too many people mistake the two, because they’ve been trained by folks like the TSA to mistake theater for security/intelligence.
You are all spot on with in terms of a technical information security evaluation here.
Unfortunately, the reality is there are not enough information security specialists in the world to hire them as event security for every large public event. And even if there were, the logistics of such an event would not allow for enough time for a proper information security screening.
What you're asking for is not theoretically wrong, it's just impossible to implement.
I agree.
My argument isn’t that every event can and should build an intelligence apparatus. That would be impossible, though it would actually provide security. I agree.
My argument is that banning flipper zeros does not do anything to improve security, even if they wish it did. If they actually cared about security, it would cost them a lot more time and money. Instead, they’ve chosen theater. I don’t even have a problem with this necessarily, if it makes some people feel safer; I have a problem with anyone pretending it is security, and not theater.
When someone is given a placebo during a clinical trial, they are informed and unblinded after the trial so that they do not think they were on the actual medication; this is because otherwise, they would draw the wrong conclusion from the trial for themselves.
This is theater; that’s okay, maybe, but let’s not pretend it’s something it isn’t.
Anyway, I think we’re repeating ourselves, and I’m happy to agree to disagree.
You're really missing the forest for the trees here. It's arguable which one has more theoretical exploits. This is an issue of practicality. Phones are allowed because it's normal for everyone to have one in their pocket and impractical to ban them.
With respect (I mean that in earnest), I think you may be the one missing the forest for the trees.
Nobody is arguing we should ban phones. The argument is that banning flipper zeros doesn’t accomplish anything meaningful toward security.
Yeah, they are probably a disturbance at best. Like pets, large signs, beach balls, and alcohol alcoholic beverages, which are other things on the list.
"security" is a lot more broad than just "preventing terrorist attacks"
You don't need to be a super l33et h4x0r to disrupt an event -- you could knock around a beach ball or turn off a display with the IR blaster on a flipper zero. Not everything is life or death.
What’s more likely? That they were banned due to misunderstandings of what these devices are, or that they were banned they are “causing a disturbance”? Can you find an example of such a case? I’m not sure why this feels so important to defend.
There are several definitions of security, but the most relevant (in this context) are:
1. the state of being protected against or safe from danger or threat.
2. the safety of a state or organization against criminal activity such as terrorism, theft, or espionage.
3. procedures followed or measures taken to ensure the safety of a state or organization.
I fail to see how these devices fall into those definitions. I also don’t see how beach balls do either.
So if your argument is changing to: it isn’t security, but rather preventing people from getting in each other’s way (large signs, strollers, beach balls) I once again don’t see how that applies.
I agree those items have nothing to do with security either.
I'm not changing anything -- my root comment in this thread specifically mentioned "disturbances". Mitigating disturbances to the proceedings of an event is plainly a part of event security. The "threats" evaluated in event security are not solely to life and limb but also to the proceedings of the event itself. I didn't think this required elaboration; I thought most people would be familiar with this function of event security.
> There's no legitimate purpose in bringing crayons and a coloring book, or a box of paperclips, either.
Do you genuinely think that a parent with a small child does not have a legitimate reason to bring crayons and a coloring book to an event for adults or are you being hyperbolic? Cause this suggests either bad-faith or a profound lack of clarity about the issue and neither is good for your argument.
Good point. There's probably no legitimate reason for non-voting children to be present at such a political event, either.
And by way of the process of excluding these children, the motivation for bringing other items without legitimate use like crayons, coloring books, and paperclips will be greatly diminished.
It's win-win. Thank you for the excellent insight!
Voting adults can’t necessarily afford or arrange childcare which is a legitimate reason to bring their non-voting children. Effectively all non-voting children will one day be voting adults. Exposure to politics before participating in politics is valuable not only for them, but for everyone who will be eventually governed partially by their vote. Legitimate reason #2.
Regardless of the lack of vote, non-voting children are still governed by elected officials, giving them legitimate reason #3 to interact with politics, even if they can’t do so in the form of a vote yet.
You’ve picked a poorly thought out hill to die on.
That's a very well-reasoned argument. It is perhaps a shame that it's been placed against the most absurdly sarcastic train of thought I could come up with ("Coloring books have no legitimate purpose at such an event, and therefore nor do children"), but your take remains well-reasoned nonetheless.
---
I won't be in NYC tomorrow. But if I were planning to go then there'd be a good chance I'd pack my usual way for a short-duration trip: A backpack with a laptop, a change of clothes rolled up tight, and a Raspberry Pi.
Some people bring things like cards or a [coloring] book, but those are not my preferred styles of distraction.
SBCs like that don't take up much space. They pack fairly well and give me something out-of-band to goof around with when I'm traveling and bored, where my usual household distractions don't exist.
I get some pretty creative systems stuff done on them sometimes by creating some whimsical problem, working out the steps for a solution, and then implementing it and seeing how it plays out -- in the field, away from my usual pile of resources. It's fun for me.
There's almost certainly some manner of Pi already in my bag right now, left over from my last trip -- probably housed in one of those cheeky red-and-white plastic cases that the Pi Foundation offers.
It would not be a huge loss if I had to dumpster it like a forgotten nail clipper at the airport after 9/11, but it sure would be surprising. It's not a particularly devilish device and has never attracted any sort of attention, and I would never have reasonably expected it to do so.
>There's no legitimate purpose in bringing crayons and a coloring book
Presumably there might be children (or very bored adults) at the event?
Perhaps so.
But that's not a legitimate use.
And the crayons' delicious nature can be used to distract and bribe the constabulary.
But there isn’t a risk either if you bring them. It’s about potential damage.
And the winner of the "could you be more obtuse award", ladies and gentlemen
>There's no legitimate purpose in bringing any of those to a high-profile political event.
I've carried a flipper zero with me to use as a copy of my key when I misplaced my original.
What key?
All modern automotive and smart apartment keys can't be cloned that way. You can't do simple replay attacks.
Are you talking about some cheap office RFID badge or something?
Because if you have any important keys for things you own that can be cloned with a Flipper, you should be upgrading them to prevent that.
My modern apartment uses RFID keys to get in the front door. I use my flipper as a backup for when I misplace my keys
Oof. Sorry it's so insecure.
Anyways, I'm sure you can understand why a political event, where many of them do rely on RFID access badges for certain personnel to enter certain areas, would not want someone with a device that can clone badges.
If you go to a political event like that... just take your actual key. Not a device that spoofs your actual key. What you're proposing is essentially saying you have a legitimate reason for carrying around a lockpicking set, because you use it to enter your apartment when you forget your keys. It's pretty understandable there are high-security places that won't let you in.
Did your landlord buy their locks on sale from Aliexpress? Major lock manufacturers switched to encrypted credentials 20 years ago.
"There is no legitimate purpose in misplacing one's original keys."
Next it will be smart phones which can do many of the things these devices can do when rooted the right model.
Not hard to make a walking stick that can do wireless shenanigans, that gets overlooked by all.
Oh well, be mobile free zoning soon at this rate.
We really should ban phones at events like concerts and parties, where people don't want to be recorded, people on their phones dull the vibe...
A mayoral inauguration? Personally I wouldn't ban it, but like rPIs, I don't see why it's a big deal either way. Your event, your rules (within reason).
People are dangerous - maybe just ban them.
People are disease vectors: children are especially horrifying.
If your walking stick looks like it will be used as a weapon then you can safely assume you’ll have it removed upon entry.
Events like these will have disclaimers like “admittance is subject to the discretion of our security staff”.
The point of the list of prohibited items is to make it easier for attendees to know the kinds of items theyre allowed to bring. What it isn’t, is an exhaustive list of anything that could be used for bad intentions.
Nobody going to take a walking stick of an old man or some disabled person using it to walk, not unless it looks like it can pull apart into a sword. But security today and discretion does leave much in the wind.
They should have just said any computers other than mobile phones, by drilling down they enable security to fail at their job as people could bring another SBC and go its not a raspberry Pi and that highlights the crux.
Concern is this sets a standard moving forward that does not single out one SBC from others unfairly, which is what they are doing here.
> Nobody going to take a walking stick of an old man or some disabled person using it to walk, not unless it looks like it can pull apart into a sword.
Which is just a more verbose way of saying exactly what I said ;)
> They should have just said any computers other than mobile phones, by drilling down they enable security to fail at their job as people could bring another SBC and go its not a raspberry Pi and that highlights the crux.
That would cause problems for reporters bringing laptops.
What you’re missing is that this is a tech forum filled with a tech-literate people and a higher than average number of autistic and other neurological tendencies to be “technically correct”. Which isn’t who the target audience of the inauguration party will be.
Their messaging is fine for the people it’s targeted for. It wouldn’t be fine for a Defcon event, but this isn’t that.
> Concern is this sets a standard moving forward that does not single out one SBC from others unfairly, which is what they are doing here.
Different parties have different admittance codes. Some will list drugs, some will list attire (eg no trainers), some will say “no food or drink” while others might say “no disposable bbqs”. This isn’t any different to any other party or location which have their own rules for entry.
You might be right that this sets a precedence, but Occam’s Razor suggests you’re over reacting given the nature of the event and its target audience
> Nobody going to take a walking stick of an old man
Okay Gandalf :)
I don’t disagree with you in general, but:
> Presumably, the cops are aware of previous disruption with these specific devices, or threats thereof. And it's not like they're going to say exactly what, nor should they, lest it give people ideas...
I don’t think this is necessarily true. The TSA bans all sorts of crap solely because they feel like it, and not in the name of any kind of actual security. It is entirely possible that the NYPD “heard” these terms in media and got spooked, so here we are.
I don't think the NYPD thinks "beach balls" or "large items that could obstruct views" or "flipper zeros" are spooky or scary. I think they think they're potential annoyances in a large crowd.
>Presumably, the cops are aware of previous disruption with these specific devices, or threats thereof.
You're presuming a lot for a single board computer that's less powerful in every way than your laptop - even as a blunt object. Sometimes authorities make arbitrary and capricious rules: that's why they are celebrating an inauguration, not a corination. If things like this never happened, we would have no need for regular elections. :-)
> beach balls are prohibited too.
Clearly these should be banned based on capability. Am I allowed to bring a yoga ball?! /s
Guess I'll have to bring my Arduino then... lol, what a weird thing to add to the list.
It's like someone watched Mr. Robot and determined their list of additional hacking tools from asking ChatGPT what tools Elliot would use.
Over under on cops just calling anything with an exposed circuit board is a Raspberry Pi anyway (à la grandparents calling any video game Nintendo)?
I think that's exactly what it was.
>New York City usually gets this right. It has decades of muscle memory for doing hard things in public, under pressure, without panicking.
Not something I would say about Stop-And-Frisk city but whatever.
With A.I./ML and high def aerial and street video + other electronic signals you don’t need ineffective tools like stop and frisk.
They had the technology in Iraq to figure out where IEDs were coming from. (TF Odin)
They could also cut down on government fraud and all the homeless NGO waste/fraud. [1]
We need people to vote in governments who are interested in rooting out fraud as well as other crimes, rather than those seeking political careers who would rather freeze wheels take a blind eye to things.
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1gl4SESu2o
> With A.I./ML and high def aerial and street video + other electronic signals you don’t need stop and frisk.
Imagine believing that this stuff is effective.
Imagine believing that stop-and-frisk was.
Is digital stop in frisk run by a shadowy corporation better or worse than physical stop and frisk run by the police? Maybe it's better, but I'm not sure we should be ready to cheer it on either.
Well, a corporation can't arrest you on bullshit charges, much less so for the bullshit reason of resisting arrest.
I didn't imply that it was, BigTTYGothGF.
Stop and frisk reduced crime rates. It should be brought back.
Imprisoning all men between the ages of 15-30 would reduce crime rates. It'd also be a monstrous policy. Civil rights are important.
Crime rates reduced during the time stop and frisk was implemented. But when it was removed, crime rates remained low:
https://www.brennancenter.org/media/5670/download
Strongly suggests correlation but not causation.
Or… criminals were caught and remained incarcerated leaving rates low. A large part of crime is committed by repeat offenders. Catch and imprison them and crime drops. This is well supported by data.
As you said, a large part of crime is committed by repeat offenders. Enough time has passed that those people are back on the street. If crime rates have remained low after the end of S&F, then it can't be that.
S&f operated at a time when we didn’t Willy-nilly release criminals.
Yes, crime decreases tend to stick.
Chicago started with similar conditions as NYC (30 murders per 100000 in 1991), but they didn't have no-nonsense mayors like Bloomberg and Rudy. So its murder rate now is still 5 times that of NYC.
Broken window policing and stop-and-frisk absolutely worked. Stop-and-frisk was found to be unconstitutional, but it also was highly effective.
CPD generally does whatever NYPD does. The difference is that New York isn't Chicago. Different geography, different forces at work. Peter Moskos wrote a whole book about how NYPD turned things around in the 1990s, and "stop and frisk" and "broken windows", whatever Malcolm Gladwell wants you to believe, don't feature prominently in it.
Chicago had tried Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) in 90-s it was so famous that even I heard about it during my lessons on urban planning. In Russia.
And it was not entirely unsuccessful, but definitely much less effective than policing in NYC.
I read multiple articles from both conservative and progressive sources about the drop of crime in NYC. The evidence is decidedly mixed. "Broken windows" policies probably helped a lot during the 90-s but lost their efficacy by the early 2000-s. Stop-and-frisk probably reduced the rate of serious crimes, mostly through incidental arrests but undermined some of the community trust. It also was unconstitutional.
Again, I think, read the Moskos book. It's good, it's new, and it's about exactly this topic.
Well, I bought it. It's a jumbled mess.
I obviously haven't read it completely yet, but I read the parts that mention "Broken Windows". So far they seem to basically affirm everything I said:
> Now Bratton had some success in Transit, and well-publicized success, because he decided to stop people from jumping over the turnstiles. It was rampant. They wound up locking up some guy who had like $10,000 and a gun and couldn't be bothered to pay the dollar subway fare. The idea was, if I keep these guys out of the system, crime will go down. And crime went down in Transit, which is why Bratton got Boston and why he got back here. It was like, "This guy might be on to something."
> Operation Alternative
> But you can use the Broken Windows theory. Stopping a guy for drinking beer gave you a chance to run him for a warrant. Is he wanted for a violent crime? Stopping a guy for pissing in the street gave you a chance to issue a summons. Which meant if he couldn't produce ID you could bring him into the station, run his prints, and then find out he was wanted for one of last week's shootings.
Chicago was run by Richard Daly 2 for 20 years during the Guliani era. I’m not sure what a no-nonsense mayor is but Daly resolved a dispute over an airport by having the runway jack hammered over night in the middle of negotiations.
During the 80s CPD ran a torture warehouse. They are currently operating under court direction for their mass use of pre textual traffic stops.
I’m not buying your “just so” story about mayors or hard nosed policing being the difference.
According to Mayor Bloomberg; a politician is always going to say their policy worked.
Ok let’s start with you, up against the wall
An unmarked car pulls alongside you, all men are masked inside and the windows tinted. You're ready to fight back or run, but then it turns out it's the police attempting to harass and bully you. Wonderful.
Look up Sean Bell - not a stop a frisk, just an open fire.
Once, my wife and I were stopped, but not frisked, and cited for riding bikes, on a sidewalk at 2AM on a stretch of Atlantic Ave that would kill you to ride on. It made no sense, until I found out that my neighbor and his friend had been murdered at a street party. There was a drag net out trying to find the killer and they stopped anyone for anything.
A tough city.
Where’s the evidence?
Public executions too
What's also hacker-unfriendly is giving all your hacker-friendly article's traffic to Cloudflare, and then letting Cloudflare block Tor exit nodes from reading your article.
I'm using Firefox on a Linux workstation (without Tor) and I still got the CAPTCHA. The statement "blog.adafruit.com needs to review the security of your connection before proceeding" is misleading at best. Shame on Cloudflare, this kind of dishonesty makes me not want to trust your RCA marketing pieces.
I received the same prompt from a Windows 11 machine at work. This probably has nothing to do with Tor or Linux, but their Cloudflare settings.
In addition to Cloudflare's usual nonsense (e.g., give us all the cleartext because reasons, and also unblock our bad-UX code that doubles as an additional tracker), it looks like Cloudflare here might also be blocking Tor exit nodes (either proactively, or in response to detected abuses from those addresses).
Probably because the HN hug of death looks like a DDOS attack.
Probably because they're using the cloudflare defaults which are terrible like everyone else.
Same with Firefox Focus on Android.
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.
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.
> 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
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.
Same for Android phones and laptops.
Are any of the options you found banned?
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"?
I have a $5 ESP32 board that does the same, my phone is just the UI!
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? ;-)
So can a rooted Android phone.
> 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.
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.
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.
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 :)
"no no officer this is an orange pi! an orange pi!"
The language is unfortunately imprecise (or rather too precise) but I’d imagine this is simply allowing security staff discretion to refuse suspicious circuit board looking devices. They’re not going to be checking for brand names.
They would not allow suspicious looking PCB's in regardless. If that's what you wanted to communicate, you would just add something like "suspicious electronic device" to the list. It's still a legitimate question as to why these two brand names were specifically added to the list.
Yeah, exposed circuit boards are things most people only see in three settings: (1) when one of their devices are broken, (2) bomb in a movie, or (3) it's the 00s.
I think they're more concerned with preventing a panic over any of the concerns about what someone can do with a Raspberry Pi.
Yeah, I'm not really sure how this became news. It's not weird at all for event security to have a discretionary rule for if you don't know what it is and its purpose isn't obvious then feel free to not allow it.
This just seems to be that but phrased weirdly.
The reeks of someone new being in charge (at whatever level approves this list), and feeling compelled to "prove" themselves via a show of power - in this case, adding items to a prohibited list. As such behaviors go, this one is petty.
Adafruit's point on the banning of specific devices stands out as being particularly foolish. I doubt security would react well to any obvious cyberpunk cyberdeck build, regardless of the hardware inside.
Lots of products come with integrated rPis since they're so easy to work with and have good vendor support. I guess all those products are banned too lol.
No, they won’t be. They’ll just stop anyone carrying a Raspberry Pi sized circuit board computer type thing.
ah yeah that popular youth past time of carrying around PCBs.
Presumably alongside the popular youth past time of attending mayoral inaugurations
"pastime"
"Circuit boards and wires = Terrorism! Eeeek!"
I carried an RPi running a Meshtastic BBS around Def Con this year. I can kinda see why these combinations would make authorities nervous ("you have a computer-controlled radio what now?"), but the idea of getting arrested for toting around a souped up walkie talkie amuses me.
It doesn't say you'd be arrested, just the items aren't allowed.
True, but exactly how unallowed an item is can greatly affect how their presence is handled. If you get caught with one, is this closer to having an air horn at a baseball game or a pistol in an airport? Neither are allowed, but one of those would make your day an awful lot worse than the other.
I am always worried when I bring development boards on airplanes. I assume most people are reasonable, but I worry for a few that might not be.
I brought a 5G Peplink modem (which has 4 external antennas) in my checked luggage and got "randomly searched" by TSA on both legs of a trip once, which I thought was pretty hilarious.
I used to travel with a case full of parts for work and just started leaving extra zipties inside because the TSA agents that would search it wouldn't always ziptie it back closed after they were done.
I've brought mini clusters of bare Pis many times before (and other strange contraptions with jumper wires all around), and the only time I was ever stopped for a deeper search was when I left my x-ray shielding bag for film in the same case with the mini cluster.
How are they going to enforce this? "No officer see this is an orange pi"
They’ll say “that’s banned too”.
Their language here is imprecise and that’s crappy but the intent is clearly to ban little microboard computers, they’re just using “Raspberry Pi” to describe it.
This will be interesting because Adafruit is based in NYC and they have pretty much every variety of microboard computer you can imagine
I doubt That would make any different unless Adafruit is opening a pop up stall inside the Inauguration party.
These “bans” are actually just a list of prohibited items at a very specific event. Umbrellas are also on the list.
The brand won’t matter. A PCB-like thing will be considered equivalent.
Difficulty of enforcement has never stopped such things.
Call it a donut-pi and watch their minds explode.
You could also try American pie, apple pie (Hi mom) or perhaps freedom pi. A decent stars and stripes heat sink should be pretty easy to fiddle up, and probably exists already.
I feel like programmers model the law as a programming language, while it only works like that in very limited contexts.
They said Raspberry PI, but the spirit of the rule is "electronic looking thing that we can't immediately determine the function of". You could probably show up with an unpopulated PCB and get turned away because it's green.
> They said Raspberry PI, but the spirit of the rule is "electronic looking thing that we can't immediately determine the function of".
If this expands beyond a single event, I look forward to the inevitable lawsuit, and wish those seeking to oppose such suppression the best of luck.
It’s not a law, it’s just banned from a specific event. Chairs are also on the list.
NY and 2nd Circuit Courts have upheld far more egregious rules and laws than this, there will be no lawsuit.
Arrest first understand later enforcement
This makes me want to buy a flipper
This is going to make a lotote people aware of flippers.
I mean, probably not. Nobody really thinks about mayoral inaugurations.
Very few mayors have as many constituents as NYC, though. So of all mayoral inaugurations, this one has among the most potential people thinking about it, even disregarding how on-the-national-stage the election played out.
You should. I've had lots of fun with mine.
They're very overpriced for what they do.
True, they are expensive, but that build quality and the availability of firmwares to do what you are looking for with just a quick flash makes them handy AF for keeping in a pocket to play with.
I have found several uses for mine which weren't in mind when I made my decision to purchase.
True, nothing else equivalent all in one package but i still feel like an idiot for spending on one.
Somebody obviously raised the question in a meeting somewhere, and there's no incentive to be the guy who says, "Nah, that's perfectly safe" - and every incentive to CYA.
I noticed that they didn't ban "walkie talkies" or "radio transceivers", and I wonder...
Some of the more niche/hobby transceivers could be used by a group of bad actors at an event, for comms that are less-monitorable than smartphones and mainstream COTS handheld transceivers.
And such hobby transceivers/transmitters might not operate on the list of RF bands that would be jammed by authorities when there's a suspected terrorist situation.
Many of these devices have exposed PCBs (either general-purpose SBCs, or specialized). So, saying "no Raspberry Pi" could be an attempt to ban all exposed PCB devices. And "no Flipper Zero" is the non-exposed-PCB problematic device that everyone has also heard of.
Kudos to the people keeping the event safe, especially given all the recently emboldened bad actors right now, who might be attracted to the event.
For hobbyists, there are numerous opportunities to advocate for your right to, e.g., carry electronics hobbyist gadgets, or to wear an artistic blinking LED jewelry piece strapped to your chest. Some of those opportunities need help, while some other opportunities could be counterproductive to your cause.
Or pagers
I understand the weirdness of picking out a couple of examples, but I'd expect they'll confiscate and destroy any DIY SOC/microprocessor encased in a bundle of wires or aerials. An exhaustive list is tedious, a class would undoubtedly catch random consumer electronics.
They don't mention cookware or DIY either but try entering with a pressure cooker and a bag of nails. They won't pause to look for explosives.
For the sake of one day in one place, it's not worth getting angry about.
They ban drones and remote-controlled aerial devices, but nothing about RC ground-based devices or robots.
I feel like this isn’t the kind of thing that just shows up on normal people’s radars out of nowhere. There must be some precedent, maybe a bunch of kids recently showed up to a similar event with these items
lots of things. Remember the Cartoon Network PR stunt where they placed DIY LED "signs" of characters from a show around Boston not long after the bombing there? What about the kid in Texas that was accused of bringing a bomb to show his teacher his DIY electronics Arduino project? What about the Mr Robot episode using a RPi?
Also, people putting these regulations in place are not normal people but people that think about how people might cause mayhem. None of the things I mentioned were real threats, but they very easily could have been is the point.
Boston's reaction to the mooninite signs, especially in comparison to how all the other cities reacted to them, was ridiculous, and rightfully ridiculed.
The alarm clock wasn't an arduino project, the student took an alarm clock apart and put the insides into case, specifically so that it would look like a bomb, then brought it to school, and rather than receive detention and that be the end of it, the news went wild with it as a discrimination case.
These were cases of overreaction in the moment.
Maybe that's the real lesson here; these rules for the inaugural block party are not to secure the block from electronic interference, but as part of a system to manage the reactions of panicky, irrational people.
Why not ban pens, after all, they are said to be mightier than swords?
> Today it’s Raspberry Pi and Flipper Zero. Tomorrow it’s ... a TI-83 held sideways
Laughed so hard. That sarcasm is so sharp it might show up on next year's banned list.
Dang, I'm going to have to leave my Korg OpSix synth at home.
I guess they don't want anyone to jam the GPIO headers into someone's eye.
Will they ban cell phones?
Or pagers...
isn't "weapon" already general enough by definition? also why not disallow laptop then?
NYC (and other jurisdictions) have a long history of categorizing things as "not a weapon" so they can more strongly restrict them without 2A challenges.
Who cares about the Pi Zero? There's no umbrellas and no strollers/pushchairs/prams/etc. - and to add insult to injury you're not allowed booze as well.
It seems like an Android phone could easily be modified for nefarious activities. Plus, it has the added benefit of having cellular connectivity.
It's going to be more interesting, I think, to see what the campaign says if asked about this, than the actual policy itself.
For those who suggest the police came up with this list, why do you think so?
Asking because I believe the Block Party organizers likely just handed a list to the NYPD instead of asking them for input.
Also, what is the expected training to NYPD street cops what is a RasPi or Flipper? Both come in all kinds of shapes, colors, and general appearance.
Far stretch, but this could be a subtle ploy to do get technologist (i.e., here) talk about this make it go viral.
TIL about Flipper Zero and I'm definitely buying one
I assume that police compile such lists, right? If so, this once again says a lot about their competence.
Ohnoes, circuit boards are so scary. Please protect us from the evil hackers mister Mamdani.
Not seeing why this is a strange.
Also, not seeing why someone would care - why are you bringing your Raspberry Pi to an inauguration? Or worse, your blatantly suspicious "Flipper Zero", which, quote:
> The Flipper Zero is a portable multi-functional Security device developed for interaction with access control systems. The device is able to read, copy, and emulate RFID and NFC tags, radio remotes, iButtons, and digital access keys. It also has a GPIO interface.
So can a rooted Android with custom software. Even some older PSPs can simulate some IR signals.
People should bring raspberry pies in protest, see what happens.
Not being allowed to bring a raspberry pi to a mayoral inauguration is an incredibly weird thing to protest
Haha fair. But you would be protesting a weird thing in a weird way, so at least you'd be consistent.
Can anyone explain logic for beach balls and blankets?
beach balls just cause havoc bouncing around and potentially knocking things over. they're a nuisance.
blankets tend to want to be laid out on the floor for people to sit on which takes up a lot of space causing havoc for foot traffic when people are not expecting to have to step over someone. also, they can be used to start fires. these are the same reasons they are no longer allowed at outdoor concert venues for specific types of shows.
People toss beach balls around and it's distracting.
People use blankets to claim more space than they need and sit when they should be standing.
Both of these are perfectly normal rules for big gatherings.
Oh also, to the writer of this "news" article, maybe mask your emotion a little when writing...the news...
Though I don't read Adafruit, so maybe this is a normal way of writing for them.
i am the writer. which specific emotions are you asking me to mask? confusion? concern? expertise?
the blog is written by people who use these tools — raspberry pi, flipper zero — in classrooms, accessibility projects. occasionally puppet shows. when a policy names devices, brand names specifically, instead of the actual threat, i wrote about it. at least you cannot complain i am ai... oh way, a i adafruit industries ! PAID POST FOR BIG AI
if this is where you get your news, welcome. the weather is still up next.
Adafruit sells raspberry pis. This is a blog post not a news article.
This seems very amateur hour and likely to have the opposite of the intended effect, i.e. I expect there will be tons of Flipper Zeros that people bring as "jokes".
Do you think a lot of techies are attending the inauguration? I don't think this will get a lot of attention outside of nerd circles really.
Honestly that’s a relief. For a moment I was worried they would ban my ESP32-powered animated LED Mooninite.
Oh good. My OrangePi is safe.
That's a "travelling in a car isn't driving" level of legal argument.
why not just list "exposed circuit boards" in the ban?
Implanted ESP32 powered by some body mod with connects to some innocuous looking piercing?
(I agree this is all ridiculous from all sides. Might as well join the circus with a cheap comment.)
Inspired by: https://youtu.be/3EFKJ9KaWGY
You’ve really made it to big time when you are causelessly banned by the gov. Congrats to flipper and Pi!
They’re not banned by the government. They’re just not allowed at the NYC Mayors inauguration party.
Not allowed = “banned”
By Government security apparatus = “by government”
Except you can freely use them anywhere else in NYC.
People aren’t complaining that umbrellas and beach balls are also on that list. They’re just reacting to the headline without reading the article.
Which is why I make the distinction between “not allowed at an event” and “banned by the government”.
banned at one event.
what about a smart lamp?
they banned flipper zero? what about the thousands of rf mcu devboards still available!! think of the children!!
what idiots
More than likely, this isn't the mayor's doing but his NYPD protection detail.
Actions will reveal if this mayor is honest or merely says a few populist things that sound "socialist"; whether he abolishes NYPD's civil-rights-violating SRG or not.
To whom it may concern;
Congratulations on your hiring for head of digital security for the inauguration of the mayor of New York City.
The mayor elect has drawn scrutiny from right wing agitators and there are creditable threats that some of the "angry twenty something tech bros" are going to attempt to disrupt the event or otherwise prank it.
As this event makes significant use of projectors and large digital displays, please advise the security (regular law enforcement officers that may not be familiar with the latest digital devices) for any objects that may be things that are likely inconspicuous but could be used to disrupt the event. Items that would be conspicuous in their use or have other legitimate use that the general public or credentialed reporters would be using should not be considered (e.g. laptops, cellphones).
These items will be added to the standard list of items prohibited at political events.
----
This is a bit of creative writing, but you could imagine it being fairly close to what the person who is hired to preform this role is faced with.
All of the comments so far have been about
> le heckin' security theater targeting tinkerbros
and none addressing the elephant in the room of why Mamdani needs all of this security, or frankly, any security at all? Just a few years prior, he tweeted out #DefundThePolice, and of the NYPD specifically, suggested "Defund it. Dismantle it. End the cycle of violence." And even though he's walked some of that back, he still supports dismantling the NYPD's Strategic Response Group (whose duties including counter terrorism response). You can be sure however free of a rein the city's population of crazy transients are given to assault, slash, or push others in front of oncoming subway trains, he and his family will remain safe.
I agree with #DefundThePolice, buts that’s not his current position and he’s kept the police chief from the prior administration.
I don't know why mamdani would need security. maybe the hysteria around him hits a boiling point and a Christian nationalist bombs the place like they're prone to doing so or fantasizing about on hacker news.
they always exempt themselves
A glaring example, the previous soft-on-crime mayor, Bill de Blasio, had a security detail with him, even when traveling: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/nyregion/deblasio-settlem...
I bet if you bring this up directly with Mamdani he would take the raspberry pi off the list. This is the result of several layers of abstraction.
Raspberry Pi clones are not on the list. Orange Pi anyone?
It’s quite amusing. Hopefully, you all can do without your Pi or Flipper for a day. You can leave home without it.
Interesting. Adafruit is now on the list of sites I will no longer visit, given their locking down and harvesting visitor data, and explicitly preventing archive sites.