Banning hacking devices won't prevent car thefts, security experts say

The Trudeau government's proposal to ban over-the-counter hacking devices will not prevent car thefts, experts and police sources consulted by Radio-Canada say.

Those experts argue the government is improvising in its fight to bring down the number of vehicle thefts in Canada.

«It came out of nowhere,» said Francis Coats, a security engineering expert who teaches at the École de technologie supérieur de Montréal (ETS).

On the sidelines of its summit on car theft in early February, the federal government announced its intention to ban the sale and use of over-the-counter-hacking devices such as Flipper Zero — devices it says can be used to steal vehicles.

The government fears these devices (known as software-defined radios, or SDRs) could copy and reproduce the signals used to unlock and start vehicles.

Exaggerated risk?

But security experts and police sources told Radio-Canada they believe the risk posed by such devices is exaggerated. Banning them in Canada, they say, will not stop the real criminals.

«It won't change much in the street,» said a police source, who asked that they not be named in order to be able to speak freely.

«There are many devices of this type that are already banned in Canada and are still used by car thieves,» the source said in French. «Banning two more models isn't going to make much difference.»

And the commercially available devices, such as Flipper Zero, are rather rudimentary, according to many security experts.

«You cannot use a Flipper Zero to unlock or start a newer car,» said Guillaume Ross, security manager at Jupiter One, a software development firm.

Modern keys never use the same unlock code twice in a row. Instead, they use a series of rolling codes. So even if the signal is captured by a