Hack-A-Day Extra

xbox

Yes, I was able to get an Xbox 360 on launch day. No, it wasn’t actually hard for me to get one either so I’ll spare you my story. I’ll probably sell it for a Playstation 3 when that is released, but I felt it was necessary to buy one on the first day since I’ve been missing out on all of the PSP homebrew fun. I’ll be doing a separate Xbox 360 post (with crash pictures), but if you’ve got specific questions you’d like me to answer put them in the comments.

The Folding@HOME team is still plowing ahead. They recently completed 4 million points and will become a top 100 team in less than a week. Find out more at the team forum. If you are going to be back at your parents’ house for Thanksgiving, don’t forget to start their machine folding.

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Thermal Keypad Combo Snooping

thermal image

This is interesting demo of how residual heat in a safe keypad could expose the key sequence. Using a hand-held thermal imaging device (not cheap) you can read which buttons on a keypad were pressed 5 to 10 minutes after the event from up to 10 meters away. Even though each key press is momentary there is enough heat transfer to distinguish the button in a thermal image. The sequence can be determined since the first button pressed has the least heat. This method break s when buttons are reused in the sequence, but being able to see the unused keys cuts down the number of possible permutations.

[thanks Mr. Mistoffolees]

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