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eBay won’t let you buy or sell a Flipper Zero, but they are more than happy sell you a range of equally nefarious products – NotebookCheck.net News
The Flipper Zero is 5 years old this month, but despite failing to cause nuclear armageddon, Ebay still refuses to let you sell one. A policy that totally contradicts itself when they are more than happy to sell you these equally nefarious hacking tools.
The Flipper Zero has an undeserved reputation as a criminal’s best friend. Being linked to everything from car theft to crashing iPhones. The reality however is somewhat different. Since vehicle key fobs switched to rolling codes in 1990, in practice, stealing a modern car with a Flipper isn’t quite as easy as we are led to believe.
Despite its reputation, the Flipper has proved to be little more than a minor irritant, used for turning off public displays in the local burger joint, opening Tesla charge ports, and cloning garage door key fobs.
Flippers are perfectly legal in most countries, and can be purchased directly from Flipper or a range of resellers. You can even buy one on Amazon in many markets. eBay however, doesn’t agree, and when trying to list my own Flipper for sale, the listing was promptly taken down. eBay’s policy in these cases seems highly contradictory, especially when they are more than happy to sell these equally nefarious products:
The Lillygo C1101 aims to replicate many of the features of a Flipper Zero, and comes equipped with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, RFID, Sub GHz and IR. While the development community supporting these devices isn’t as wide as the Flipper, many of the features and supposed risks remain the same. Yet these can be purchased on eBay from a variety of resellers.
The Pwnagotchi is a Wi-Fi penetration testing tool, capable of automating authentication attacks on WPA secured networks. Cracking a wireless network potentially gives a bad actor access to the target Wi-Fi network, which can then facilitate man-in-the-middle attacks. The wireless capabilities of this device far exceed that of the Flipper Zero, yet they are readily available for purchase on eBay.
The Proxmark 3 Easy has been discontinued in favour of the Proxmark Evo, but they are still readily available from a range of resellers on eBay. The Proxmark 3 enables reading, writing, cloning and emulation of embedded RFID tags, which can be used to gain access to restricted areas through credential cloning and RFID jamming.
eBay’s refusal to allow Flipper Zero’s to be sold is a win for Flipper, as the only real option is to buy a new one. However, the availability of these hacking products on eBay, plus BadUSB’s, BashBunny’s, and Wi-Fi adapters (that can turn any laptop or Raspberry Pi into a hacking tool), eBay’s attitude to the Flipper is a direct contradiction that isn’t based on any sort of ethical consideration.
Perhaps eBay should ban people from selling USB cables, because they can be used to steal a Kia.
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David Devey – Magazine Writer – 84 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2023
Ever since being introduced to Manic Miner on the ZX spectrum I have been an avid gamer and technology fan. Sucked in by UMPC’s and the promise of big power in small packages, I have wasted too much time and energy jailbreaking, flashing and overclocking anything that has an electrical pulse. A staunch advocate for the right to repair, I resent any company that dictates how I can use something I paid for.
David Devey, 2025-06-27 (Update: 2025-06-27)
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