The Flipper Zero is a tool that's been in the news a lot recently, particularly in Canada where the current government proposed to ban it. It's essentially a swiss army knife of penetration testing and hacking, but much of what it can do was already possible through other tools. The Flipper Zero just puts it all in one device, where computers, Android phones, and Raspberry Pi devices could be used instead.

Flipper has since responded to the Canadian government, saying the following.

We believe that proposals like this are harmful to security and slow down technological progress. They are usually made by those who do not really understand how security works and will do nothing to solve the car theft problem.

What you can do with the Flipper Zero

GPIO

The Flipper Zero supports GPIO pins at the top, allowing for physical hardware expansions that give it additional functionality. These can be basically anything, and the company sells official expansions that you can attach to it as well. One that I picked up is the Wi-Fi dev board, which adds Wi-Fi functionality to the Flipper Zero.

NFC

The Flipper Zero has an NFC reader built-in, meaning you can clone existing NFC tags if you want. You can read them to its storage with a microSD card in place, and then reproduce them on a new tag. You can also emulate NFC tags on the Flipper Zero directly, meaning that you can load up a pre-programmed NFC file on-device and scan it elsewhere.

Uses for this may include an NFC file that hosts connection details for your Wi-Fi, a business card in NFC form, or a copy of your access fob to get into an apartment complex or other location.

Bad keyboard

One of my favorite features of the Flipper Zero is its ability to emulate a keyboard when plugged into a computer. You can preload it with scripts to execute different functions, such as setting up a computer quickly, or extracting information from it within seconds. If you're a computer technician and want to quickly pull data on a machine to see what software it's running, there are scripts out there that will allow you to plug the Flipper Zero into the computer and immediately have that information sent to you on Discord. Pretty neat!

Universal remote

The Flipper Zero supports Universal Remote protocols, and you can find other remotes online and copy them to the Flipper Zero. In this way, you can control devices around your home simply through infrared, even if you don't have the original remote. It's incredibly useful, and has made it so that I can turn on my speakers remotely when I lost the remote for them years ago.

In general, the Flipper Zero is a great tool for controlling devices around you, and the Universal Remote has worked with everything I've tried with it so far.

RFID

If you use RFID for access to anything, the Flipper Zero can also read and clone those cards. This includes hotel keycards, in case you want to make a copy of your own one. Typically, RFID readers in hotel rooms cycle with individual bookings, so there is typically no security risk in doing so.

Sub-GHz wireless antenna

If you want to capture and repeat signals for wireless access control systems such as garage door systems, the Flipper Zero can capture and save those signals for later use. That includes remote keyless systems and IoT devices too, meaning that it's a great multi-functional controller for anything that's active in the 300-928 MHz range.

The Flipper Zero can read raw signals too for later analysis, and analyze devices to see what frequency they use. This is subject to local laws, and some frequencies are blacklisted as a result.

Where you can buy the Flipper Zero

Depends where you live

The Flipper Zero is available for purchase mostly worldwide, though you can't buy it from Amazon. It's available for purchase from Lab401 in Europe along with Flipper's own site, and Flipper's own site ships to the United States, too. You may need to shop around if you're looking to buy one outside of either of those regions, but it should be relatively easy enough to import.

The Flipper Zero is a tool like any other

It depends on how you use it

The Flipper Zero is a swiss army knife of hacking, and what that means is that it's something that combines a ton of features into one piece of hardware. You can use it to do a ton of things that you can do with multiple individual devices, but it's not something that is inherently dangerous to wield. Anyone who wants to do damage to anything technical can already purchase the tools required to do that, and a Flipper Zero is just a tool to have in your arsenal if you are a pen tester... or someone who just likes to learn about technology.

As for fears that the Flipper Zero can help with stealing cars, those are unsubstantiated. Car keys use what are known as "rolling codes," where the code on the key iterates with a code in the car. If you copy the code from a key to open a car, then it will desyncronize the key from the car and make it stop working. In theory you could use this to make a one-time entry into a car, but then you wouldn't be able to unlock or lock it again, as the original key would no longer work.

In other words, the Flipper Zero is a tool that is nowhere near as scary as people have made it out to be. It's a great tool to help with teaching you how signals and communication protocols work, and I highly picking one up if you're interested.