Gun control advocates love them some “smart guns”: firearms that won’t fire unless and until some electronic doohickey recognizes a pre-authorized user. Think of the children! The People of the Gun are about as excited at the prospect of “smart guns” as Star Wars fans are at a Jar Jar Binks spin-off. And that’s because . . .

Any gun that has some form of electronic control can be jammed or disabled remotely. Suffice it to say, EMP. It would take a knowledgeable engineer about thirty minutes to create a backpack-size device strong enough to disable any unshielded electronic device (and that’s not a tiny shield).

Before the Wikileaks info on CIA programs to use Samsung TVs as undetected listening devices, gun control advocates would have labeled any such worry as tin foil hat right wing paranoia.

Actually, they still will. But now opponents of mandatory “smart guns” (as per the New Jersey law) can point to the CIA hack and say, yeah right. Hey, it’s something.

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45 COMMENTS

  3. If firearms ever get to the point where computers are we’ll be told when, where, why and how we can use them. Think .01% permission rate.

  5. This cautionary tale regarding web-enabled firearms equally applies to other very important capabilities: vehicles, radios, alarm systems, environmental controls, and especially fembots.

  6. I’m not at all surprised by wikileaks. I hope this puts the kibosh on “smartguns” (no chance I know). Get all the firepower you can and take no prisoners. I believe we will have only a short lull before the hammer is dropped…

    • I sincerely hope this does NOT put the kibosh on “smart” guns, only on misguided attempts to mandate that all guns be smart guns.

      I am 100% in favor of stupid people buying and owning smart guns, especially if there are ways to disable them remotely.

        • Not you or I, that’s for sure. And judging by the CIAs track record, which I’ve been watching since the “Bay of Pigs” debacle, the likely scenario is; the stupider and more conditioned the user, the better their ‘smart’ gun would work. For others, not so much.

        • The person who buys the gun decides, obviously.

          If you buy a smart gun, voluntarily, you’re STUPID.

  7. Keep things simple whenever possible. Certain simple devices should just stay mechanical.

    As a principle, introducing complexity to something where it’s not necessary is just asking for trouble.

    • Understand, it is all necessary when you don’t have head inserted in ass, and understand the big picture, which is, they demand to be able to shut everything down that we have at the flip of a few switches, and leave their stuff up. The time foe being ignorant of whats at foot in this World has come and gone, that ship has sailed, and you better not be on it. Wake up Shepple.

  8. The ability for someone to hack and disable a “smartgun” is a feature, not a bug.

  9. I saw the remake of Robocop last night, “Robocop” Alex Murphy is programed and “prohibited” from shooting certain individuals, so-called “friendlies”, known as “Red Team” (?) members who wear special bracelets.

    Just how long will it be before “the government” (read: CIA)/Tech firms develop the technology to “block” and prevent and/or block “Smart Gun” (LOL) owners from firing upon someone whether a supposed “good guy” or one with bad intentions who has somehow acquired the technology?

    “Smart Guns” my ass, the only “Smart” gun is one that can both sniff and snuff out criminals and evildoers.

    • Nikola Tesla was demonstrating remote control around 1898 or so. Any system, especially one with exploitable back doors, is readily compromised. I’ve been telling everyone (just like all your friends who actually know how computers work) that if it’s connected to the web, someone can hack it. Or if accepts RF, it can be hacked. Or, if it can be RFI confused, it can be hacked.

      Unless you pull the battery from your phone, “whomever” can switch it on and tap the mic. Been that way for 10 years+. “They” can drive your WIFI-enabled car with throttle-by-wire, brakes-by-wire, and electric steering straight into a frakkin’ tree at 100 MPH. There will be no evidence, save for the computer showing you decided to drive your car, full throttle, into the tree. I’m not even close to good at all, and even I am aware of several ‘sploits that will allow you to drive every annoying Tesla driver you’ve ever seen over a cliff.

      • The car doesn’t have to be WIFI capable.

        The ability to hack into major systems can be accomplished via BlueTooth if your phone is in the car with you.

        • And of course, if those systems actually tie into the engine computer. My understanding is there is (supposed to be) an air gap from those systems in the good ones, but obviously Dodge, for instance, spared that particular expense (which is why I could ‘protect’ my car from having these controls hacked by sticking a boot-drive USB stick into the radio system USB drive; the same system integrated with the wireless comms systems)

          At some point, the smart play is to begin wrapping tin foil not around your head, but your antennas. At least in this brave new world where electronics are all unknowable black boxes whose function we have to take on faith. Kind of hard to hack or deactivate things remotely that way (or track them)

      • “They” can drive your WIFI-enabled car with throttle-by-wire, brakes-by-wire, and electric steering straight into a frakkin’ tree at 100 MPH.”

        Never heard of a frakkin tree – where do they grow? But I digress.

        I have seen this in movies and TV programs that attempt to make everyone paranoid about the so called super-hackers. Can someone please list for me the makes and models of commonly available motor vehicles that use “electric steering” that can be controlled remotely by hacking into the car’s computer? I’ve driven a lot of cars, and a significant number of trucks, in my time. I’ve logged over 1.5 million miles. I like to think I’m well read and somewhat up-to-date on technology. But I can’t recall ever seeing or hearing of an actual production car that uses an electric interface between the steering wheel input and the actual mechanical connections that steer the vehicle. That makes about as much sense as adding an electronic disconnect between a trigger and a BANG.

        • With drive by wire it’s possible but I don’t know of a system where that’s connected to WIFI or BT.

          That said, throttle and airbag control can both be monitored via BT on a lot of newer cars. If it can be monitored then there’s a connection and it can be exploited. Turn off the bags and accelerate the car to max velocity and you’ll probably kill everyone in the car. Of course to really do this you’d need to have eyes on, but for a major intelligence agency that’s pricey but not hard.

          Really, I think the truth is overblown because other methods are cheaper and guaranteed effective.

    • Yup, they will maintain the seeds to rebuild after the forests are cleared to make toilet paper during the Hundred Year Squirts (sorry, thread above has me thinking of Futurama…)

  11. Here’s a contradiction I think is ironic: A lot of gun people who are against “smart guns,” (as I am) rave about electronic gun safes that open with fingerprints, electronic touch buttons and RFID devices. Those are the same technologies that are going into “smart guns!” One will keep you from firing your gun, the other will keep your from even getting to it.

    I prefer nothing electronic keep me from getting to my gun, or keep me from using it once I get it. My quick access safe has a good-old-fashioned 5-button Simplex mechanical lock.

    • Any idiot can be taught to bypass those safes. Don’t believe me? Well, methheads do it all the time and they’re methheads FFS. Worse comes to worst it’s called an “oxy torch”.

      Really, unless you’re a bank, if you’ve bought a safe that you don’t know how to bypass yourself, that’s pretty much on you for being an idiot.

      • The gun safe isn’t for keeping out methheads. It’s to keep small children & liberal progressives safe from themselves.

  12. I hope the Pres decides to use this Vault 7 reveal to talk about how the CIA is caught out, how THEY are behind these left wing Russia fantasies. IF he were to phrase this in meta terms, the American people were hacked and not just Oh!Bama’s wiretap of him, which is doubly bad and NEEDS to be investigated and prosecuted with a quickness, then he could manifest a massive swelling of support; not unlike Hillary or Rachel Maddows ankles.

    Conversely, this can also be put in a larger context of liberals desperately trying to silence our 2nd Amendment rights through Oh!Bamas smart gun reach around. Here in Cali, we got the “smot ghun” legislation all ready to go, and the lovely micro-stamping requirements.

  13. After this I’m really thinking it might be time to just home phone/ burner phone a non-smart t.v. and call it a day. If I need the Internet to look something up or buy something the library is not far at all.. .All this government intrusion is getting out of hand and instant access to the Internet is somewhat counter productive anyway.

    • The little cabin in the woods, no phone, not connection to the power grid, a la Ted Kaczynski.

  14. Really, if you keep up with tech at all you already knew the CIA had these capabilities and that they probably had the ability to use them. UMBRAGE? Really, that’s news? Who’da thunk the CIA might monitor other cyberwarfare programs and try to copy them for the purpose of making it look like it wasn’t the CIA at work? You’d have to be a pinche puto vaboso to think otherwise. I mean shit, the concept has only been around, what a few thousand years? Hacking cars, phones and any other “smart devices”? Christ, what is this 1970? If a 14 year old kid can do it you can be damn sure our intelligence agencies know how to do it.

    The real news out of all of this is that the CIA managed to convince the government to let the CIA do whatever it wanted regardless of whether it was duplicative of NSA or other agencies and do it in a way that had basically that had exactly fuck all for oversight.

    • “babosa”. Just sayin’ with knowledge of kitchen Spanglish/Meximurican and all…

      (The rest is fine. Just had to be pedantic.)

      • I always forget the pronunciation/spelling difference with V and B these days which I guess isn’t surprising since the last time I actually had to speak (or write) Spanish was like 2003.

        It’s still an -o ending though because I’m not saying someone is a slug. I’m saying they’re “slobbering”, or in this case the English would be closer to “drooling idiot”.

  16. A smart TV can be used as a dumb TV pretty easily, just gotta make sure it doesn’t have an internet connection of any kind.

    As for smart guns… Like it or not, there IS a market for them. Granted it’s limited and many gun owners might say that people that would want it aren’t “real” gun owners, but I’m sure there are some people that could benefit from a smart gun, and perhaps some collectors that would like to simply have one in their collection.

    • If it were just demand, no problem. I might even consider one. But even without a tinfoil hat, it is obvious that governments will try to mandate this technology as soon as it becomes even marginally viable. The next step will be to make non-smart guns illegal. Finally, governments will want to be able to track and hack the technology.

      All this in a vain attempt to solve problems that would be better solved by personal accountability. Also criminals will learn to defeat this technology. So once again, this would be a tiny gain in public safety in exchange for a massive infringement of rights.

  17. Any connected technology is going to have vulnerabilities or weaknesses that is the nature of the game, Build a better mouse trap and the surviving mice get smarter about getting the cheese. The more tempting the cheese the harder the mice will work to get it.

    I for one would actually like to see what we can do with smart gun technology but not at the cost of it being mandated for use and until that is taken off the table for everyone, I don’t even want to touch it. Technology should be used to enhance our lives not try to control it.

  19. I do not understand why everyone thinks that smart gun technology is going to be a fancy electronic lock for your gun
    If you want to lock your gun, buy a gun lock!
    Smart gun technology is going to be a tracking point on every rifle and pistol
    With this kind of smart gun every shot will be a first round hit even on moving targets

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