[Quinn Dunki] got some free stuff from Element14 to evaluate, including this Mircrochip WiFi module. It’s been used as the centerpiece of an Arduino shield in the past, and she grabbed a copy of that library to see if it would play nicely with an ATtiny chip. What follows is a struggle to de-Arduino the code so that it’s portable for all AVR controllers.

This module is one of the least expensive ways to add WiFi to a project, coming in at around $23. But it’s not really an all-in-one solution as there’s still a huge software hurdle to cross. The hardware provides access to to radio functions needed to communicate with the network, but you need to supply the TCP/IP stack and everything that supports it. Hence the re-use of the Arduino library.

Battling adversity [Quinn] fought the good fight with this one. Switching from an ATtiny to the ATmega168, compiling more code, and troubleshooting the process. She used a single LED as feedback, and can get some connectivity with her hotspot. But to this point she hasn’t gotten everything up and running.

We’re hot for an AVR WiFi solution that is cheap and easy to use. But as we see here, the software is complex and perhaps best left up to beefier hardware like the ARM controllers. What do you think?

Looks like your WiFi might not be quite as secure as you thought it was. A paper recently published by [Stefan Viehböck] details a security flaw in the supposedly robust WPA/WPA2 WiFi security protocol. It’s not actually that protocol which is the culprit, but an in-built feature called Wi-Fi Protected Setup. This is an additional security protocol that allows you to easily setup network devices like printers without the need to give them the WPA passphrase. [Stephan's] proof-of-concept allows him to get the WPS pin in 4-10 hours using brute force. Once an attacker has that pin, they can immediately get the WPA passphrase with it. This works even if the passphrase is frequently changed.

Apparently, most WiFi access points not only offer WPS, but have it enabled by default. To further muck up the situation, some hardware settings dashboards offer a disable switch that doesn’t actually do anything!

It looks like [Stephan] wasn’t the only one working on this exploit. [Craig] wrote in to let us know he’s already released software to exploit the hole.

Want that 70″ LCD television in your living room to be an Android device? This little guy can make it happen. With an HDMI port on one end, and a USB plug on the other for power, just plug in FXI Technologies’ Cotton Candy dongle to create a 1080p Android television.

The price isn’t set for the device, but it’s expected to be available at less than $200. Considering what’s inside that’s pretty reasonable. There’s a dual-core 1.2 GHz ARM processor, 1 gig of RAM, 64 gigs of storage, Bluetooth, WiFi, and a microSD card slot. Wow!

So is it hackable? Absolutely. Well, kind of? The company doesn’t intend to bring Cotton Candy to the retail market. Instead, they will sell the device to developers who may do what they wish. From there, said developers have the option to license the technology for their own products. This begs the question, will the development kit come in under $200? Hard to say.

Check out the video after the break to hear an interview with the company’s CEO. It certainly sounds fascinating, and like the Chumby NeTV, we can’t wait to see what comes of this.

[Thanks Adam via RootzWiki]

[Blaise Jarrett] has been grinding away to get the WebSocket protocol to play nicely with PIC microcontrollers. Here he’s using the PIC 18F4620 along with a Roving Networks RN-XV WiFi module to get the device on the network. He had started with a smaller processor but ran into some RAM restrictions so keep that in mind when choosing your hardware.

This project was spawned after seeing the mBed feature a few days back which combined that board along with a WebSocket library and HTML5 to pull off some pretty amazing stuff. [Blaise] doesn’t have quite as much polish on the web client yet, but he has recreated the data transfer method and improved on that project by moving to the newer version 13 of WebSockets. The protocol is kind of a moving target as it is still in the process of standardization.

The backend is a server called AutoBahn which is written in python. It comes along with client-side web server examples which gave him a chance to get up and running quickly. From there he got down to work with the WebSocket communications. They’re a set of strings that look very much like HTML headers. He outlines each command and some of the hangups one might run into with implementation. After reading what it takes to get this going it seems less complicated than we thought, but it’s obvious why you’ll need a healthy chunk of RAM to pull it off.

[Shawn] was looking for a way to shake up his decorations this Halloween and decided to build a new prop for his front yard. He had a pair of old oil barrels in his garage and thought they would look great with a little bit of work.

He bolted the pair of barrels together, then slapped a fresh coat of black paint on them before adding a bright yellow radiation trefoil to each one. One barrel contains a pneumatic piston that opens the lid, revealing a light up pumpkin, a fog machine, and a set of water nozzles that spray the area. The second drum houses an air compressor, a wireless router, and an IP camera for recording the action. A web-enabled Arduino triggers the lid and sprayer, both of which can be controlled from the comfort of his house.

We think it’s a creative use of some old scrap barrels, but we’re hoping he doesn’t plan on wetting trick-or-treaters that pass through, as it seems  like a good way to get your house egged or otherwise vandalized on Halloween. If the water sprayer were perhaps swapped out with some other cool effects, [Shawn] is far less likely to be the target of some angry, wet teenagers.

Be sure to check out the video below to see the display in action.

[Drug123] made the most out of this inconspicuous gray box on the gable end of his father’s home. It serves up a 3G Internet connection that was otherwise unavailable..

The project idea was sparked by the absence of wired or fiber optic broadband in the community where his dad lives. He knew some neighbors were using 3G connections, but he couldn’t get it to work inside the house. So he set about developing an external installation that would both communicate with the cellular network, and provide a WiFi connect to it. Hardware for that is relatively expensive; a USB 3G modem and a WiFi router with a USB port.

The box itself is made of plastic, but even without the Faraday cage effect that would have been formed by using a metal housing, the 3G modem’s internal antenna just doesn’t do the job. You can see that [Drug123's] solution was an external antenna which is mounted at the peak of the roofline. Inside the box there’s an exhaust fan to cool things off when they get too hot, as well as some power resistors which provide a heat source on the coldest nights. The low-cost build certainly fits the bill, and it’s not too hard on the eyes either.

This Daft Punk helmet replica is beautiful to look at, but the deeper we delve into the build process, the more we begin to think that the entire project is a piece of artwork. [Harrison Krix] has been working on it for months, and just posted his three-part build log in September. Check out the video and the links to all three parts after the break.

Now [Harrison] isn’t new to prop replica scene. He’s the guy responsible for the other fantastic Daft Punk helmet we saw last year. He’s tapped the same fabrication skills to churn out an equally impressive chromed helmet, complete with addressable flashing LEDs. He built his own mold to create the body of the helmet, reminding us of the Storm Trooper helmet replicas we saw in July. While this was off being coated in chrome, he got down to business with the electronics.

The visor of the helmet has a red LED marquee. This, along with the multicolored visor sides and ear pucks, is controlled by an Arduino yellow jacket. The lights can be controlled by an iPhone app that connects to the helmet via WiFi, letting a user push custom messages to the display, and alter the light patterns. The build shines on the inside as well as the outside with an incredibly clean LED matrix build, and clever control placement for switching each part on or off.

Build Log Links:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

[Elliot] put together an intriguing proof-of-concept script that uses repeated deauthentication packet bursts to jam WiFi access points. From what we can tell it’s a new way to use an old tool. Aircrack-ng is a package often seen in WiFi hacking. It includes a deauthentication command which causes WiFi clients to stop using an access point and attempt to reauthenticate themselves. [Elliot's] attack involves sending repeated deauthenitcation packets which in essence never allows a client to pass any data because they will always be tied up with authentication.

After the break you can see a video demonstration of how this works. The script detects access points in the area. The attacker selects which ones to jam and the script then calls the Aircrack-ng command. If you’ve got an idea on how to protect against this type of thing, we’d love to hear about. Leave your thoughts in the comments.

[Madox] gutted an Insignia Infocast to use with this robot. Insignia is Best Buy’s house brand and they partnered with Chumby to make their Infocast line. If you can find a used or clearance model it’s a great way to get yourself and embedded Linux board for a project like this one.

The body and wheels are 3D printed, with design files available at [Madox's] Thingiverse page. The mechanum wheels work amazingly well, using seven bearings each for smooth operation. The body itself includes a holder for two groups of batteries. One of those battery packs powers the Chumby board while the other is used to power the four servo motors responsible for locomotion. To simplify the electronics [Madox] chose to use a USB servo drive which only set him back about $20.

We’re not sure what the USB dongle on top of the robot is used for. We’d guess it’s a WiFi adapter, since the machine sets up its own access point to act as a controller. But we thought Chumby boards had WiFi built-in. At any rate, check out the video after the break where you can see an Android phone driving the little bugger. There’s a flaw in the code that prevents side-to-side movement, it gets fixed after a video break at about 2:15 and everything is peachy after that.

If you had the pleasure of attending last year’s DEFCON conference, you are no doubt familiar with [Mike Tassey] and [Richard Perkins]. There, the pair showed off a work in progress DIY aerial drone named WASP. Short for Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform, WASP was impressive when we brought it to your attention last year, but the duo has spent some time completing their project, adding a few extra features in the process.

The drone still packs the same pico-ITX computer which now runs Backtrack5, and utilizes a 340 million word dictionary for cracking WiFi networks (pardon the pun) on the fly. While updated pen testing tools are well and good, the most impressive update is that the drone can now act as a standalone GSM tower. This allows the pair to trick nearby phones into routing calls through WASP before being relayed to their carrier’s network.

Once WASP is launched, the plane flies autonomously along a preset route, sniffing, hacking, cracking and gathering data until [Tassey and Perkins] summon it back to Earth. The drone is as impressive as it is scary, and we can’t wait to hear what the pair has to say about it this time around.

Continue reading to watch a video demo of WASP taking to the skies and doing its thing.

[via PopSci]

[Thanks, DainBramage1991]

[Jay Collett] likes listening to Internet radio stations and decided to build his own standalone hardware that lets him listen without being at his computer. But he wasn’t starting from square one on this project. [Jay] built on the epic instruction set that [Mighty Ohm] published when he first built his own WiFi radio.

Both of these radios used the same method of getting onto the internet; a hacked router. We kind of like this because it means you should be able to use the radio as a bridge for wired Ethernet devices. But we digress. [Jay] departs from the instructions by using an Arduino and its IDE to interface an LCD screen with a different line/column orientation than the original, and to implement a different control scheme. This makes the project a bit more approachable if you prefer not to roll your own electronics.

Take a look at the video after the break. The router takes quite a while to boot, but once it does it seems that the controls are both intuitive and responsive.

We love ballistic trajectories and the smell of black powder in the morning, so we’re really interested in the wireless rocket launch pad sent in by [Brent Strysko].

[Brent] used an ATmega with an enc28j60 ethernet shield and wireless router to launch the rocket without a physical connection with ‘the button.’ Everything on the launchpad is powered by a 12 Volt motorcycle battery, and there’s also a flashing LED for the countdown. All that’s needed to launch a rocket is to send a command from the laptop. We think this would be an awesome project when combined with the radio telemetry build we covered earlier – the computer is already there with the range safety officer.

Although amateur rocketry is extremely safe, with no high-power flight ever hitting a person (PDF warning), there’s still some risk of from black powder engines CATOing. We think [Brent] came up with a great way to make a safe hobby even safer, and managed an interesting project in the process. Check out the walkthrough of the launchpad after the break, or check out this video of the launchpad in action.

[Corrosion] sent in a tip about the Weaponised Auditing Response System he built inside a suitcase that, “has all the tools (and then some) for a wireless assault”.

The WARS is equipped with two WiFi adapters and two bluetooth adapters for all the wardriving and bluejacking anyone could ever want. [Corrosion] also included a 4 channel, 2.4GHz video scanner for warviewing. Everything runs off of a 12 inch netbook that will eventually run linux, and we’re really liking the 1970s suitcase aesthetic the WARS has – it looks like [Corrosion] is about to step into the set of a Beastie Boys video.

We were wondering about including a long range RFID sniffing antenna (PDF warning) behind the monitor of the suitcase’s monitor and asked [Corrosion] about it. He said it sounded doable, but is out of funds at the moment, so if you know how to build a cheap RFID antenna with a 50 foot range, drop [Corrosion] a line.

There’s a video demo with some stills of the build included after the break.

[Gray] over at Geek Chique had a bit of an eBay mishap and was suddenly the proud owner of 16 Vocera B1000A badges. If you are not familiar, these badges are small, lightweight communications devices similar to the famous Star Trek communicator, which allow users to talk to other individuals via VOIP. He was working on getting the remaining badges up and running by reimplementing the server software, and figured that since one of the badges he purchased was not working, he might as well take it apart.

It took him awhile to get the well-made badges apart, requiring a rotary tool and some elbow grease to get the job done. Inside, he found that the device was split into two circuit boards, one being the “WiFi” board, and the other the “CPU” board. The WiFi board uses a Prism WiFi chipset, which was incredibly common at the time of construction. The CPU board sports small SRAM and flash chips as you would expect, with a Texas Instruments 5490A DSP running the show.

While it remains to be seen if tearing the device down helps [Gray] to get things up and running again, it never hurts to take a closer look to see what you are working with.

[Shawn] emailed us some pictures and a description of his latest hack. He cracked open a Rosewill RXS-3211 IP Camera because the output of the web interface made him certain that it was running Linux and he wanted to unlock some more potential from the device. These cameras are used for security, and offer a browser-based interface via a WiFi connection. After studying the circuit board he started poking around an unpopulated set of four pads and managed to get a serial connection up and running. The device’s serial terminal operates at 115200 baud using eight data bits, one stop bit, and even parity.

He wonder where to go from here and we have a few ideas. You can see in the terminal readout above that it announces when motion is detected. We think this motion detection would be quite useful with a small rover while adding live video broadcasting at the same time. An embedded Linux system should be able to interface with the device and we think that a bit of creative coding would open up the WiFi connection for other use as well. Not bad for a module that can be had for as little as $29. We’ve included all the images [Shawn] sent us after the break and we’d love to hear your thoughts on what you’d use this for in the comments.