Month: February 2006

Proximity Card Spoofer: Proxmarkii

February 13, 2006 by 9 Comments

proximity card spoofer

I had seen the link for Jonathan Westhues’s original proximity card spoofer floating around recently and decided to check out the site to see if anything had changed since we originally covered the story. Well, he’s got a brand new version. This one has far more features than the original, mostly because of the extra processing power provided by an Atmel AT91. The new spoofer can handle multiple modulation schemes; which means it is capable of copying almost any 125kHz or 13.56GHz ID-only card. Although it can’t clone cryptographic cards, it does have a full feature set for communicating with them. By connecting the USB port to a computer you can see an “oscilloscope view” of the signal from the card to assist in writing demodulation code. If you are serious about doing RFID research this hardware is a must-have. You could buy a standard reader, but that would tell you nothing about the protocol. This is definitely a clever tool and certainly impressive for something smaller than a business card.

UPDATE: Jonathan Westhue’s work was mentioned in a CNN story Feb 14th. You can watch the video here. [thanks David]

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MSN TV Linux Cluster

February 12, 2006 by 23 Comments

msn cluster

I just saw this MSN TV Linux Cluster over on Engadget. The boxes have a 733mhz Celeron, 128MB RAM, 2 x USB, Ethernet, and a 64MB CF card for storage. That’s twice the RAM of an Xbox and with a node cost of $0.99 it makes a much more sensible and compact cluster. The only limit right now seems to be a 64MB capacity cap for the CF card.

You do need to build a level shifting serial cable to talk to it though. Microsoft included serial pins on the board, which is convenient. I think that a TTL to RS-232 level shifting box is becoming the second most useful device behind the bench power supply. You need to do serial level shifting whether you are talking to an NSLU, iPod, GP2X, or WRT54G. You might as well make the thing USB while you are at it. So, who wants to do the how-to?

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GP2X USB Host Mode

February 12, 2006 by 25 Comments

gp2x USB host mode

Amongst PDAs, cellphones, portable game consoles, and digital audio players USB host mode isn’t that common. The lack of host mode is why you can’t plug your iPod into your PSP. The iPod camera connector is a partial work-around for this problem. The Linux based GP2X gets more interesting with this new development. Using the GP2X’s USB host requires building a special cable for its expansion port. The port features JTAG, serial, audio, and video pins as well. USB host mode opens the doors for any number of USB peripherals to be used with the GP2X: larger storage from a hard drive/iPod, full sized keyboard for use with a command line, WiFi provided by USB adapter. There is the potential to do anything that you could do with a standard PC. If I had known this I would have bought a GP2X without a second thought… so, after two thoughts I bought one and it showed up last Friday evening. I’ll let you know how it works out.

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Flat Response Microphone And Amplifier

February 11, 2006 by 10 Comments

flat response microphone

Pete (AC7ZL) wrote in to tell us about his latest project: building a flat response microphone and channel amplifier. You may remember his previous project: building a crystal radio from modern junk. Sounds are “colored” by their surroundings; things like furniture, wall coverings, drapes and building materials all affect the way something sounds. To measure the effect that a space has on sound you need a microphone with a flat frequency response. The core element of Pete’s mic is a modified Panasonic WM61A condenser capsule. He rewired it so that it had a broader dynamic range and could handle a higher SPL at the cost of reduced gain. To boost the signal to a usable level he built a preamp with three stages of amplification. He’s got schematics and a more detailed description on the site.

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Geodesic Dome Shelter From Cardboard

February 10, 2006 by 17 Comments

geodesic dome

Here are some really thorough instructions for building geodesic domes. This particular set of plans was developed by some Burning Man attendees who wanted a comfortable structure that would stand up to the elements. The dome is made of 30 triangles cut from double layered cardboard, 5 wood triangles with vents, 5 wooden doorway triangles, and 5 cardboard doors. The majority of the triangles are bolted together to form pentagons that are then bolted to each other. With all of the triangles painted and seams sealed with duct tape the structure is water proof. All of the dimensions and assembly instructions are provided to create a dome 12’7″ in diameter and 6’3″ in the center.

[thanks l0cke]

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Power Glove Mouse

February 9, 2006 by 14 Comments

power glove

Feeling a bit nostalgic, Hack-A-Day reader Brandon has been hacking on a Nintendo Power Glove. The original Power Glove was sold by Mattel as a unique controller for the NES. It used ultrasonic sensors to determine orientation and could detect four different positions per finger. The finger’s resistance varies depending on how much it is bent, so Brandon used an LM339 comparator to determine the mouse clicks. For the actual mouse interface he used the guts of a Gyration mouse. He’s got a video of the beast in action plus links to an original Power Glove ad.

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Hack-A-Day Extra

February 9, 2006 by 18 Comments

playstation 2 linux kit

I told my friend that I would promote his radio show, but we would probably DOS the streaming server. He said, “Go for it!” If you are interested in dance/electronica, listen to You are so beautiful, beautiful robot every Thursday, 7-9PM CST. Click for the live stream.

[Sean Hillmeyer] notified us that DC480 will be handling the TCP/IP Enabled Contest at Defcon again this year. The contest rules are on their site. We saw at least one of the entries last year.

It has been nearly a month since I put one of these posts together. Which means our Team Hack-A-Day folding team has produced over 12.5 million points and are now in the top 50. Watch out team “Linux”?! Continue reading for lots of links.

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