New York’s incoming mayor bans Raspberry Pi at his inauguration party

Zohran Mamdani appears not to understand that smartphones can be used for evil

New York’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has invited the city’s residents to join him at a block party to celebrate his inauguration but told attendees not to bring a Raspberry Pi to the event.

The Pi appears on the prohibited items list, along with explosives, weapons, drones, laser pointers, and the Flipper Zero (Maker community Adafruit first reported the list).

The Register has previously described perceptions of the Flipper Zero as swinging between “a fun little tool to help you learn about all the radio signals surrounding you, or a potential weapon for hoodie-wearing criminals seeking to take over your electronic life.”

The battery-powered device includes multiple radios and allows users to develop apps that put them to work. Flipper Zero also includes an RFID module that the device’s makers suggest could come in handy for cloning access cards, and an NFC module capable of emulating electronic tags.

There’s obvious potential for miscreants to use a Flipper Zero to make mischief at large events, perhaps by cloning ID cards to gain access to secure areas, or by messing with wireless communications.

A Raspberry Pi could do all that and more, but the single-board devices aren’t as neatly packaged as the Flipper Zero and would therefore be more conspicuous.

Adafruit laments that listing the Raspberry Pi as a forbidden item besmirches a brand beloved by educators and artists, and also points out that banning the single-board machine is futile given that miscreants could program a smartphone to perform evil deeds at the inauguration. ®