Hardware hacks

https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/encrypted-usb-drives-audit/17948/?utm_source=kasperskysocialchannel.com&utm_medium=Kaspersky+Lab+%28Employees%2C+USA%29&utm_campaign=kasperskysocialchannel.com How can you be sure the “secure” USB drive you’re using is really secure and the data you store on it can’t be extracted? That’s exactly the question Google’s security researchers Ellie Bursztein, Jean-Michel Picod, and Rémi Audebert addressed in their talk, “Attacking encrypted USB keys the hard(ware) way,” at the recent Black Hat →

https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/6sdtxr/arduino_emulating_an_8086_pc_a_work_in_progress/ This looks amazing work in progress:  code to emulate the basics of a typical 1980′s PC (video card, disk controller, input, 8253 timer chip, 8259 interrupt controller, etc), wired up 1 MB of SRAM on the breadboard, and added a 2.8″ 320×240 LCD display. I embedded a public domain XT BIOS in the PROGMEM. →

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJO4AtxKJiFMa-xhNLNpp-URxQH-7Ka6Q This YouTube playlist shows videos of interesting hardware plus software hacks. They can play computer demo multimedia with old game consoles, Arduino+LED sign, LEGOs and audio mixer… Many cool hacks I would say!  Assembly Summer 2017 event is still going on, more videos at AssemblyTV at YouTube and Assembly Summer 2017 pages. →

http://www.windytan.com/2017/07/gramophone-audio-from-photograph.html?m=1 In this article famous Finnish signal hacker Oona describes method to read gramophone record audio from photograph of record (in this case tiny record from old toy). Interesting.. The results (see video below, or mp3 here): →

This article talks about measuring 10 Mbit/s (10Base-T) and 100 Mbit/s (100Base-TX) twisted pair Ethernet signals. Those standards use two wire pairs for the communications and use differential signaling. Differential signaling is a method for electrically transmitting information using two complementary signals. The technique sends the same electrical signal as a differential pair of signals, →

http://blog.sec-consult.com/2017/07/reverse-engineering-hardware.html?m=1 Nowadays, we are living in a world dominated by embedded systems. Everyone can be spied on through various channels. Routers, IP-cameras, phones, and other embedded devices are affected by security vulnerabilities and are therefore easily hack-able.  This article covers some basic hardware reverse engineering techniques on PCB-level, which are applicable to any electronic embedded →

http://www.epanorama.net/newepa/2015/01/14/garrettcom-converter-teardown/ I did more than two years ago tear-down of this 100 Mbit/s copper to fiber Ethernet media converter (link above). Now I decided to try to fix it. It turned out that originan PSU did not put out right 3.3V voltage, but considetably less. The digital electronics worked out nicely when fed with 3.3V →

https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/02/holokit-is-like-google-cardboard-for-augmented-reality/?ncid=rss&utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook The revelation behind Google Cardboard was that if you put your phone close enough to your eyes, it’s basically a VR headset — but it’s not quite that simple for mixed reality setups like Microsoft’s HoloLens. Or is it? HoloKitis an extremely clever DIY solution for a quick and dirty augmented reality experience with →

http://interestingengineering.com/video/guy-built-entire-iphone-using-spare-parts-china/ Interesting DIY smart phone project There are fewer events more satisfying than completing a challenging build.  →

https://www.sparkfun.com/news/2363 Interesting looking project: mount the antenna and ESP8266 Thing Dev Board onto a pan/tilt bracket with some servos. The ESP8266 code was updated to connect to a WiFi access point (AP) and begin sweeping up and down (about 70°) and left to right (about 180°). At 5° increments, the ESP8266 would take an RSSI reading. Finally the antenna automatically returns →