This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos convened once again to give the lowdown on this week’s best hacks. First up in the news — it’s giga-sunset time for Gigaset IoT devices, which simultaneously became paperweights on March 29th. And all that Flipper Zero panic? It has spread to Australia, but still remains exactly that: panic.

Then it’s on to What’s That Sound. Kristina failed again, although she was in the right neighborhood. Can you get it? Can you figure it out? Can you guess what’s making that sound? If you can, and your number comes up, you get a special Hackaday Podcast t-shirt.

Then it’s on to the hacks, beginning with the terrifying news of an xz backdoor. From there, we marvel at a 1980s ‘butler in a box’ — a voice-activated home automation system — and at the idea of LoRa transmissions without a radio. Finally, we discuss why you don’t want to piss off Trekkies, and whether AI has any place in tech support.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Download and savor at your leisure.

Episode 265 Show Notes:

News:

• A Giga-Sunset For Gigaset IoT Devices
• Flipper Zero Panic Spreads To Oz: Cars Unaffected

What’s that Sound?

• Fill out this form with your best guess, and you might win!

Interesting Hacks of the Week:

• Security Alert: Potential SSH Backdoor Via Liblzma
  • Exploit The Stressed-out Package Maintainer, Exploit The Software Package
  • xkcd: Dependency
  • oss-security – backdoor in upstream xz/liblzma leading to ssh server compromise
• Retrogadgets: Butler In A Box
• LoRA, With No Radio
• Give Your Pi Pico Captouch Inputs For All Your Music Needs
• Electrospinning Artificial Heart Valves
• Experiencing Visual Deficits And Their Impact On Daily Life, With VR

Quick Hacks:

• Elliot’s Picks:
  • Cold Boot Attack You Can Do With A Pi
  • ESP-Drone: Building An ESP32-Based Quadcopter For Not Much Cash
  • SMD Soldering, Without The Blobs
  • Why Is My 470uF Electrolytic Cap More Like 20uF?
• Kristina’s Picks:
  • Art Exhibit Lets You Hide From Self-Driving Cars
  • Video Killed The Radio Alarm Clock
  • Lamp Becomes Rotating, Illuminated Sign For Festival Table

Can’t-Miss Articles:

• How Star Trek Breached The Defences Of A Major Broadcaster
• Tech Support… Can AI Be Worse?
  • Wrencher-2: A Bold New Direction For Hackaday