NSA@home (DIY shared FPGA cracker)


[Skylark] converted a pair of defective HDTV processing boards into his very own FPGA SHA-1 hash cracker. After two months of evening work, he ended up with 15 Virtex-II Pro FPGAs and 5 Spartan-II FPGAs to do his bidding. (FPGA’s aren’t cheap, so this rocks) Eventually he’s going to give it a web interface to allow cracking submissions on request. … Read the rest

UClinux based embedded asterix PBX


In my quest for a new VOIP setup (I’m hunting for a new sip provider – got suggestions?) I ran across an excellent project that’s been put together by [David]. It’s a four port open source asterix PBX that runs under UClinux. He derived the design from a BlackfinOne (A dedicated UClinux board). He covers building the IPO4 in … Read the rest

Digital dashboard gauges


[Justin N] sent in one of his projects. It’s a digital dashboard gauge for his Subaru. It’s built around an arduino board with a text LCD and standard automotive senders. He’s using it to monitor oil temp, turbo pressure, temperature, acceleration and provide a lap timing. The details are buried in this forum thread, but its worth a look … Read the rest

GSM Alarm


Fresh from the tips line, [Pedro] sent in his GSM alarm. He combined a GSM phone, a motion sensor and BasicX24 controller board. If the detector trips during a set time period, the alarm sends SMS messages to the terminator, er whoever you want. He was kind enough to release the code, but I’d like to see this … Read the rest

ATLAS powered rope ascender gen 3


This last weekend we got a chance to check out ATLAS Devices‘ latest version of their powered rope ascender. You probably saw their first generation device in the news earlier in the year. It was originally built for a design competition, but they’re now on generation 3. The earliest version used a capstan style winder, but newer versions have … Read the rest

Free your iPhone


I wasn’t going to post this – it’s a freakin phone after all. But I’ve gotten quite a few tips on it, and I’d like them to end. [George] made a concerted effort to hack the iPhone – and it paid off. After his crazy ebay auction that topped out at 99,999,999.99 last time I checked, he ended up trading … Read the rest

New XBox 360 Downgrade hack


[Paul] let me know about a new way to get a hacked kernel on a XBox 360. A new timing attack will soon allow you to install an older kernel with without having the CPU key which was the catch 22 situation before. The proof of concept ressurected a bricked XBox by doing some interesting things to one of the … Read the rest