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RF Remote Cloning with URH

BSidesKC 2021

Receiving, decoding, and replaying RF remotes with a HackRF and Universal Radio Hacker.


Cheap fixed-code RF remotes are everywhere, fans, lights, gates, toys, and most of them broadcast their secrets to anyone listening. Using a HackRF SDR and Universal Radio Hacker (URH), this talk walked the full workflow end to end: capturing a signal, identifying its modulation, recovering the symbol stream, decoding the protocol, and retransmitting it at will.

Key takeaways

  • The capture → demodulate → decode → replay workflow in URH, step by step
  • Recognizing common OOK/ASK remote protocols by eye
  • Why fixed-code devices remain trivially cloneable, and what rolling codes change