Month: April 2011

Geohot Case Settlement

April 12, 2011 by 49 Comments

It looks like Sony and [George Hotz] have reached an out-of-court settlement in the case brought against the hacker who is more well-known as [Geohot].

This is the end (we think) of an ongoing saga that originally drew our ire when Sony removed OtherOS support as a sledge-hammer-type fix for holes that [Geohot] found in the security system used by PlayStation 3 hardware. Our beef with that move is that it punished people who bought a PS3 knowing that it could run Linux natively, only to have that rug retroactively pulled out from under them. [Geohot] then went on to publish details that allow those with the proper skills to leave a smoldering pile of slag where Sony’s hardware security used to reside.

They slapped him with a lawsuit for publishing those details. This settlement doesn’t have him admitting any wrongdoing. We’re not going to editorialize on the morals or ethics of [George’s] actions, but we do still think that Sony greatly overreacted at several points along this unfortunate string of events.

[Thanks Buggs187]

Do Your Projects Violate International Traffic In Arms Regulations?

April 12, 2011 by 57 Comments

From time to time we consider the ramifications of hacking prowess being used for evil purposes. Knowledge is a powerful thing, but alone it is not a dangerous thing. Malicious intent is what takes a clever project and turns it to a tragic end. Conscientious hackers realize this, and [George Hadley] is one of them. While working on a new project he wondered if there were guidelines as to what knowledge should and should not be shared. It turns out that the United States has a set of International Traffic in Arms Regulations that mention concepts we’ve seen in many projects. He wrote up an article which covers the major points of the ITAR.

The gist of it is that sharing certain knowledge, by posting it on the Internet or otherwise, can be considered arms trafficking. It’ll get you a not-so-friendly visit from government officials and quite possibly a sponsored stay in a secure facility. Information about DIY radar, communications jamming, spying devices, UAVs, and a few other concepts are prohibited from being shared. The one qualifying part of that restriction is that it only applies if the information is not publicly known.

Booby Box – It’s A Trap!

April 12, 2011 by 15 Comments

Here’s a puzzle oddity that challenges you to open the box without falling into one of the booby-traps. It was built as a side-distraction from the more serious events happening at Insomni’hack 2011. [Sergio] and a colleague built the box to resemble a ticking bomb like in the blockbuster action movies we know you look forward to seeing each summer. A display on top of the device counts down for ninety seconds with an audible beep to mark the passage of time and boost your tension level. See it ticking away in the clip after the break.

Two wires meet at the edges of the box halves, completing a circuit that will set off an alarm when the contact is broken. There’s also a photocell on the bottom of the box which triggers the alarm if you lift it and expose this sensor to light. The combination necessary to open the box was provided to each competitor; it was not a numerical code, but a color code. Three potentiometers control the red, green, and blue anodes of an RGB LED, while being monitored by an Arduino at the same time. If you can dial in the appropriate color, the lid trap is disabled and the box can be opened. What does the winner get? Why an Arduino, of course!

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Dynamic DNS Updating – No PC Required

April 12, 2011 by 30 Comments

arduino_ddns

[Boris] from Open Electronics recently wrote us to share their latest creation. Like many of us, he uses DynDNS to keep his home network a FQDN’s reach away. While DynDNS is quite a convenient service, many people don’t like the idea of leaving their computer on all the time to keep the IP updated. That’s where the Arduino DDNS module comes into play.

Built using a standard ATMega328 with the Arduino bootloader installed, the module periodically checks to see if the user’s IP has changed, updating the DynDNS entry as needed. The Arduino talks to the network via a WIZnet Ethernet breakout board, contacting DynDNS’ servers to check and update the user’s IP over a series of standard HTTP requests.

We are aware that several router firmware packages such as DD-WRT have this functionality built-in, but this project makes for a nice alternative when those resources are not available.

As always, a bill of materials, PCB layouts, and Arduino Sketch code are all available for download over at the Open Electronics site.

Temperature Sensing Mug Means Never Burning Your Mouth Again

April 12, 2011 by 14 Comments

temp_sensing_mug

Some people tend to get awfully attached to their favorite mug. Like an old friend, the mug holds a special place in their hearts, and there’s a weird sadness when it finally gives up the ghost. Through the winter months [Ben’s] girlfriend is never without hers, and when it broke, he decided to give her a new one with some added functionality.

He built her a temperature sensing mug that uses a rather novel way of determining how hot or cold the contents are. Instead of using a thermistor to determine the drink’s temperature, he opted to use a simple diode since it is well known that a diode’s forward voltage varies with temperature. After determining the diode’s voltage range using hot and cold beverages, he hooked it up to the ADC of a PIC12F615 micro controller. The temperature is displayed via 10 LEDs, which are driven through a pair of 8-bit shift registers and buffers since his PIC did not have enough pins to control them on its own.

He had some PCBs made, and after a handful of setbacks got everything put together. He says the mug works pretty well, though the display changes a bit more slowly than he would like. He also mentions that if he builds a second version, he will be sure to select a different PIC that has enough I/O pins to do the job, as well as use a thermistor instead of a simple diode for sensing the temperature.

Continue reading to see a brief demo video [Ben] put together.

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Play Unreleased Retro Games On The Real Thing

April 12, 2011 by 17 Comments

Star Fox, one of the greatest 3D space shooters ever developed, has a pretty decent fan base even after eighteen or so years. It had a sequel that was 99% complete, but it came very late in the Super Nintendo’s life and it was held off so that the next great Star Fox would be on the newest Nintendo console, the N64.

You could get the Japanese version, which aside from a couple debug routines, is complete, and you could play it on an emulator. While emulators are fine for most of us, anyone who has played a game on the real metal can quickly and easily pick out minor nuances.

Since playing Star Fox 2 on the real hardware is not a simple trip to the flea market, [Doug] went about ripping apart an old SNES cart and placing a eprom inside with the data from the game. Through that 8 page forum post you can see the project start, progress through different constructions, and result in 3 fully working carts, complete with custom labels.

Join us after the break for a quick video.

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Controlling Weapons With Kinect

April 11, 2011 by 6 Comments

kinect_rocket_launcher

It was only a matter of time before someone would figure out how to weaponize their Kinect. Hacker [Jonas Wagner] was fiddling with his Kinect one day and thought that it would be cool to launch missiles simply by gesturing. Not having any real missiles on hand, he settled for controlling a USB-powered foam missile launcher instead.

He mounted a webcam to the top of his rocket launcher to record video of his victims, and with a bit of Python along with the libfreenect ilbrary he was well on his way to world cubicle dominance.  The Kinect waits for him to pull his hand out of its holster in dramatic fashion, monitoring his movements for tracking purposes. Once the launcher has been armed, the Kinect watches for [Jonas] to pull his hands out of frame before firing the rocket.

We doubt you’ll see this thing controlling weapons for DARPA any time soon, but it’s cool nonetheless. The launcher seems to move a touch slowly, but we’re guessing that with an uprated servo, things could be a bit snappier.

Continue reading for a quick video of the Kinect-powered rocket launcher in action.

[via KinectHacks]

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