Spy Tech: Nonlinear Junction Detectors

If you ever watch a spy movie, you’ve doubtlessly seen some nameless tech character sweep a room for bugs using some kind of detector and either declare it clean or find the hidden microphone in the lamp. Of course, as a hacker, you have to start thinking about how that would work. If you had a bug that transmits all the time, that’s easy. The lamp probably shouldn’t be emitting RF energy all the time, so that’s easy to detect and a dead give away. But what if the bug were more sophisticated? Maybe it wakes up every hour and …read more

Huge Names Confirm Their Supercon Appearances

We’re excited to announce the next batch of speakers for the 2017 Hackaday Superconference.

We are especially pleased to welcome Michael Ossmann as a speaker. He presented an RF design workshop at the 2014 Superconference which was sold out, standing room only, and still turned away dozens of people before becoming a hit on the Internet. This year he takes the stage with colleague Dominic Spill as they focus on infrared communications and the uses and abuses of such.

Dr. Christal Gordon threw down an incredible talk on biologically inspired sensors last year and we suspect she will outdo herself …read more

The Narrowing Gap Between Amateur and Professional Fabrication

The other day I saw a plastic part that was so beautiful that I had to look twice to realize it hadn’t been cast — and no, it didn’t come out of a Stratysys or anything, just a 3D printer that probably cost $1,500. It struck me that someone who had paid an artisan to make a mold and cast that part might end up spending the same amount as that 3D printer. It also struck me that the little guys are starting to catch up with the big guys.

Haz Bridgeport, Will Mill

Sometimes it’s just a matter of …read more

There Is No Such Thing As An Invalid Unit

The Mars Climate Orbiter was a spacecraft launched in the closing years of the 1990s, whose job was to have been to study the Martian atmosphere and serve as a communications relay point for a series of other surface missions. It is famous not for its mission achieving these goals, but for the manner of its premature destruction as its orbital insertion brought it too close to the planet’s atmosphere and destroyed it.

The cause of the spacecraft entering the atmosphere rather than orbiting the planet was found in a subsequent investigation to be a very simple one. Simplifying matters …read more

In-Band Signaling: Quindar Tones

So far in this brief series on in-band signaling, we looked at two of the common methods of providing control signals along with the main content of a transmission: DTMF for Touch-Tone dialing, and coded-squelch systems for two-way radio. For this installment, we’ll look at something that far fewer people have ever used, but almost everyone has heard: Quindar tones. …read more

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FPGA Clocks for Software Developers (or Anyone)
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By Al Williams | September 21, 2017

It used to be that designing hardware required schematics and designing software required code. Sure, a lot of people could jump back and forth, but it was clearly a different discipline. Today, a lot of substantial digital design occurs using a hardware description language (HDL) like Verilog or VHDL. These look like software, but as we’ve pointed out many times, it isn’t really the same. [Zipcpu] has a really clear blog post that explains how it is different and why.

[Zipcpu] notes something we’ve seen all too often on the web. Some neophytes will write sequential code using Verilog or …read more
The Longest Tech Support Call: Apollo 14 Computer Hack
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By Al Williams | September 21, 2017

Deep-voiced and aptly named [Scott Manley] posted a video about the computer hack that saved Apollo 14. Unlike some articles about the incident, [Scott] gets into the technical details in an entertaining way. If you don’t remember, Apollo 14 had an issue where the abort command button would occasionally signal when it shouldn’t.

The common story is that a NASA engineer found a way to reprogram the Apollo guidance computer. However, [Scott] points out that the rope memory in the computer wasn’t reprogrammable and there was no remote way to send commands to the computer anyway. …read more
Spray Paint Goes DIY Virtual with a Vive Tracker
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By Donald Papp | September 21, 2017

Here is a virtual spray painting project with a new and DIY twist to it. [Adam Amaral]’s project is an experiment in using the Vive Tracker, which was released earlier this year. [Adam] demonstrates how to interface some simple hardware and 3D printed parts to the Tracker’s GPIO pins, using it as a custom peripheral that is fully tracked and interactive in the Vive’s VR environment. He details not only the custom spray can controller, but also how to handle the device on the software side in the Unreal engine. The 3D printed “spray can controller” even rattles when shaken! …read more
Another Day, Another Air Gap Breached
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By Dan Maloney | September 21, 2017

What high-tech, ultra-secure data center would be complete without dozens of video cameras directed both inward and outward? After all, the best informatic security means nothing without physical security. But those eyes in the sky can actually serve as a vector for attack, if this air-gap bridging exploit using networked security cameras is any indication.

It seems like the Cyber Security Lab at Ben-Gurion University is the place where air gaps go to die. They’ve knocked off an impressive array of air gap bridging hacks, like modulating power supply fans and hard drive activity indicators. The current work centers on …read more
Hackaday Prize Entry: Post Stroke Spasticity Rehab Helper
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By Anool Mahidharia | September 21, 2017

A stroke is caused when poor blood flow to the brain causes cell damage, causing that part of the brain to stop functioning. Common causes are either blood vessel blockage or internal bleeding, and effects depend on the part of the brain that is affected. In most cases, spasticity (muscle contraction), poor motor control and the inability to move and feel are common after effects. Recovery is often a long, slow process and involves re-learning the affected lost skills. This is where physical therapy using assistive technologies becomes important. Rehabilitation must start as early as possible since the first few …read more
Linux Fu: X Command
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By Al Williams | September 21, 2017

Text-based Linux and Unix systems are easy to manipulate. The way the Unix I/O system works you can always fake keyboard input to another program and intercept its output. The whole system is made to work that way. Graphical X11 programs are another matter, though. Is there a way to control X11 programs like you control text programs? The answer to that question depends on exactly what you want to do, but the general answer is yes.

As usual for Linux and Unix, though, there are many ways to get to that answer. If you really want fine-grained control over …read more
Load Cells Tell You to Lay Off the Donuts
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By Al Williams | September 21, 2017

Our old algebra teacher used to say, “You have to take what you know and use it to get what you don’t know.” That saying always reminds of us sensors that convert physical quantities into things our microcontrollers can measure. Sometimes the key to a project is knowing what kind of sensor will read the physical properties of the system you are interested in. If that physical property is weight, you can use what is known as a load cell. [DegrawSt] uses four 50 kg load cells to create a bathroom scale using an Arduino.

Load cells typically contain strain …read more

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