New York Metropolis’s 2026 mayoral inauguration of Zohran Mamdani has revealed a listing of banned gadgets for the occasion, particularly prohibiting the Flipper Zero and Raspberry Pi units.
As first reported by Adafruit, the ban listing seems within the inauguration occasion’s official FAQ, which lists gadgets that will or will not be dropped at the occasion.
The listing of prohibited gadgets additionally consists of massive baggage, backpacks and duffle baggage, weapons, fireworks or explosives, drones and different remote-controlled aerial units, strollers, coolers, chairs, blankets, umbrellas, bicycles or scooters, alcoholic drinks, unlawful substances, pets apart from service animals, laser pens, and bats or batons.
The Flipper Zero is a handheld gadget for studying and testing wi-fi communication protocols, together with RFID, NFC, infrared, Bluetooth, and radio alerts. It’s generally utilized by safety researchers, builders, and hobbyists for protocol evaluation and penetration testing.
A Raspberry Pi is a low-cost, general-purpose single-board pc able to working customary Linux distributions and a variety of software program. Out there in a number of configurations, the units may be expanded utilizing add-on modules and peripherals, enabling them to carry out lots of the similar duties as a desktop or laptop computer pc.
In contrast to most different gadgets on the prohibited listing, that are grouped into common classes, each units are particularly named, moderately than being restricted beneath a common computing or wi-fi gadget class.
Units such because the Flipper Zero have beforehand drawn scrutiny from governments, which have raised issues about their potential use in automotive theft, community breaches, and different types of cybercrime. In some circumstances, this has led to proposals to limit or ban the units, as nicely as seizures, although deliberate prohibitions have been rolled again.
On-line retailers have additionally banned the gadget previously, with Amazon prohibiting Flipper Zero listings out of issues it might be used for card skimming.
Nonetheless, the ban of those units from the occasion has precipitated confusion, as laptops and cellphones are usually not listed among the many prohibited gadgets, regardless of having equal or better technical performance.
“On the listing of prohibited gadgets revealed upfront, along with traditional sources of hazard similar to firearms, drones, and glass bottles, two units from the IT world are explicitly named: the Raspberry Pi and the Flipper Zero,” safety skilled Stefan Klatt posted on X.
“How do you say that you haven’t any concept with out saying it?”
Fashionable laptops can run penetration-testing Linux distributions similar to Kali Linux, and smartphones can run superior safety toolsets like Kali NetHunter.
Occasion organizers haven’t supplied any particulars explaining why the Flipper Zero and Raspberry Pi had been singled out.
BleepingComputer has contacted the Mamdani marketing campaign’s press workplace for remark and can replace the story if a response is acquired.
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