SecurityTube – A YouTube For Hacks

September 15, 2009 by Brett Haddock 19 Comments

securitytube

SecurityTube is a site which has recently caught our attention. The site has quite a variety of videos from various sources related to security and hacking. Videos range from DEFCON talks, to documentaries, step by step how tos, and even proof of concept vulnerability videos. It’s certainly a great resource for anyone looking for something a bit more involved then a plain text writeup, and offers a way for you to catch those hacker conference talks you missed. Many of the videos come with a bit of a background information as well, so it’s far more informative then your regular YouTube videos. This site is certainly going to become a very valuable resource for many people, and is certainly a great way to kill an afternoon while still learning something.

PhoneTag Helps You Read Your Voicemail

September 15, 2009 by Chris Gilmer 14 Comments

Have you ever been too busy to check in with your voicemail service? PhoneTag might have the solution for you.

Some of us might have done it before, let voicemails pile up if we know nothing urgent or important is coming down the pipes. Wouldn’t it be much simpler and more convenient if those voicemails played by our rules? PhoneTag is a speech to text service that converts a voicemail into text and sends it via email or SMS which you can read through and reference at will. The accuracy on this type of service is usually pretty good, but some translation is required as spoken words can sometimes be misinterpreted depending on the clarity of the call. On the security side of things, we tend to be a little hesitant of personal and business voicemails running through an extra service. PhoneTag does state that they use some kind of “special algorithm” that will guarantee voicemails are secure and private.

While there is a free trial period, this service is going to cost you. You can sign up for anything from a per message price of $.35 to an unlimited plan of $29.95/month. You are going to have to do your own calculations here to see if this is the best way to go, but this will save you from using your monthly minutes for checking the voicemails in your mailbox. As alternatives, Google Voice offers the same service for free and SpinVox charges a fee per use.

Nixie Plasma Ball

September 15, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 15 Comments

plasma_ball_pic5

This one came out over a year ago and we missed it. [Daqq] has made a plasma ball out of a nixie tube. All that was required was the transformer from a cold cathode meant for computers and a nixie tube. He did have to do a tiny bit of modification to the power supply, which you can see on the project page. This isn’t the most useful project, since you can’t really see much of the plasma, but it is really cool nonetheless. We think this would make a really neat button. You can see a video of it in action after the break.

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BBox MIDI Drum Sequencer

September 14, 2009 by Zach Banks 10 Comments

bbox

We’ve covered sequencers before, but reader [Johan] sent in his latest project that is much more minimalistic approach. Dubbed the BBox, he based his drum generator on an Arduino and an LCD display. Rather than synthesizing sound, the Arduino just outputs MIDI which is then interpreted by his Roland Juno-D. In building the device he used a favorite trick of ours to keep the interface clean. He then found an awesome banana box to use as a case. Although, the project may not be as functional as some of the others out there, it certainly has flair. Video of it in action after the break.

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Dual Voltage Power Supply

September 14, 2009 by Mike Szczys 29 Comments

dual_regualted_power

[Melanie] had some time this weekend so she whipped up a dual voltage power supply from parts on hand. This design plugs right into a breadboard and, unlike the last breadboard power supply we saw, provides two voltages at one time. 5v is delivered to one power bus while 3.3v goes to the other. Her design uses two linear low voltage drop regulators from the LF00 family (PDF datasheet) to accomplish this. Nice work!

Android App “tests” Windows Vulnerability

September 14, 2009 by Mike Szczys 48 Comments

android_windows_vulnerability_checker

An Android App for “testing” the Windows SMB2 vulnerability we covered last week has been released. For testing? Yeah right! The availability of this kind of software makes it ridiculously easy for anybody to go out and cause some havoc. Go right now and double check that your machines that run Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 are protected (see the “workarounds” section.)

[Thanks Tom101]

Head Bangers Beware: Motion Sensing Headphones

September 14, 2009 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

tiltphones

The iPhone doesn’t have the market cornered on the use of accelerometers. The tiltphone project incorporates a three axis accelerometer into a set of headphones transforming them into a remote control for an iPod. A PIC16F690 reads in data from the analog sensor, translates specific movements into commands, and like the Arduino iPod Remote from last week, relays them to an iPod via the Apple Accessory Protocol. A quick nod left or right skips tracks, holding a sideways nod controls the volume, and setting the headphones down pauses.

This project is a bit older but we’re glad [anon] tipped us off as we hadn’t seen it before. There doesn’t seem to be any code or schematics available but because the Apple Accessory Protocol is known, it’s only a matter of working out how to interpret the sensor data. There is video after the break and if you pull off this hack yourself be sure to send in details for a followup.

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