Regain Some Trust In Unknown USB Drives

July 27, 2026 by 2 Comments

For how useful USB thumb drives are for quickly toting around and copying files from one computer to another, they can be a bit of a security headache. Programs can be loaded on them with all kinds of malware; they can be obscured in some ways that are difficult to detect, and they can be set up to execute certain programs when they’re plugged in. The general wisdom is to simply avoid untrusted USB devices completely, but that sort of abstinence-only policy rarely works in the real world. If, for some reason, an untrusted USB device absolutely needs to be used, many of these security issues can be mitigated with this tool.

Built by [Novamostra], the device is simple on the surface: it’s a Raspberry Pi Pico mated to a 2-in-1 USB splitter cable. But with the USB Neutralizer software they have written loaded onto the Pico, it automatically destroys the ability of any connected USB thumb drive to load files. The program works by deleting the first and last 34 Logical Block Addressing (LBA) sectors on the drive immediately when it’s plugged in, without doing anything else. This effectively corrupts the drive bad enough to prevent malicious software in the partitions from doing anything, allowing the user to (relatively) safely put the USB drive into their computer and format it for re-use. The code for this tool is also open-source and reviewable on the project’s GitHub page.

Of course, this isn’t a perfect security solution for all USB attacks. It doesn’t erase or replace the firmware on the drive itself, and although firmware-level attacks are rare they’re not out of the question for all users, all the time. It also won’t prevent a malicious physical attack like this high-voltage one, and it may also not stop hidden or obscured partitions or devices programmed for storage and some other nefarious purpose simultaneously, like a USB HID. But still, this solves a great many of the problems associated with getting new drives from semi-untrustworthy sources, like retailers or friends whose computer skills we don’t fully trust.

Flexible PCBs: Not Only For The Few

July 27, 2026 by 2 Comments

Flexible printed circuit boards are a fascinating technique for making electronics venture beyond the two-dimensional, but surprisingly they’re not something many of us have worked with. [Jessica Stanley] gave a talk at the recent Electromagnetic Field event in the UK, exploring the different ways to make your electronics bend.

She starts with an overview of flexible electronics, detailing the techniques used with conventional polyimide substrates and etched copper.  We’re particularly enamoured of a stretchable PCB made by coiling a flexible circuit round a piece of elastic. Since she’s looking for techniques accessible to everyone that don’t either cost a fortune or require dangerous chemicals we look at conductive paint and electrolysis, before arriving at using a vinyl cutter to create adhesive traces.

We’ve no doubt all noticed that flexible PCBs can be ordered from the usual fabrication houses at a price, but the value in this talk lies in reminding the viewer that this is not the only path. She demonstrates well that simple flexible PCBs can be within the reach of almost anyone, which is perhaps the encouragement needed for people to try this medium. The full talk is below the break.

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M.A.S.K.-Inspired Cyberdeck For All Your Portable Computing Needs

July 27, 2026 by 3 Comments

There are infinite varieties of cyberdeck you could make, each with their own inspirations. Today, [RadioactiveArtist] shows us a M.A.S.K. lunchbox cyberdeck faithful to the 80s show.

To know why putting a cyberdeck in a lunchbox is exactly the kind of thing you would see in the show, [RadioactiveArtist] briefly explains what both are (but we’ll skip the former): M.A.S.K. is a cartoon running from ’85 to ’86 where ordinary objects transform to reveal a hidden purpose–and this cyberdeck does just that by hiding in M.A.S.K. merchandise: the lunch box.

Like any cyberdeck build, it starts as a pile of components on a desk. It’s made from a Raspberry Pi 5, a cute little 75% keyboard, stereo speakers, a card reader with some USB 3 ports and of course a battery made with four 18650 cells. After testing the electronics on the bench, [RadioactiveArtist] test-fits them in the lunch box before revealing the plan: keyboard and speakers on the bottom, thinner half, the rest on top, and the screen on a second hinge so it can flip up when opened.
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Hackaday Europe 2026: High Performance SDR On The Cheap

July 27, 2026 by 5 Comments

Radios were once big complicated appliances, full of warm valves and paper-wrapped capacitors, all humming and glowing to capture signals from the aether and spit them out of a speaker. Every component was chosen to build the radio to suit a particular purpose.

These days, we have altogether fancier technology that lets us build radios that can be reconfigured on the fly; software-defined radios, if you will. [Anders Nielsen] has been exploring how to build a high-performance SDR recently, and came to Hackaday Europe 2026 to tell us all about it.

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Neighborhood Bulletin Boards, Circa 1982

July 27, 2026 by 3 Comments

When the Internet first started gaining mainstream popularity in the late 90s, many optimists claimed that it would bring people together by reducing barriers to communication. That ideal hasn’t exactly come to pass yet, as anyone who has been on the Nextdoor neighborhood social network can likely attest to. Before social media, neighbors weren’t completely in the dark about their local communities, though. Besides word-of-mouth communication, there were also local access channels on cable TV, which had none of the downsides of modern social media. And [Hans] is bringing this style channel back.

[Hans]’s project is called CABLE 82, a bulletin board channel that matches the style of these channels from the 1980s. There’s better technology available for these types of systems now, though, so instead of relying on something like a character generator he’s using a Raspberry Pi running custom software to produce the video feed. The Pi hosts a web server so the 4:3 video feed can be reserved for the bulletin board display, but users who have older Pis with the yellow composite video output can skip using something like an HDMI to RF converter on their period-appropriate CRT displays. The software also adds sound functionality, as these channels always had some sort of elevator music playing while they were scrolling through local community news.

For those looking to recreate some of the nostalgia of 1980s community and technology, [Hans] has made this project open source, with all of the files on a GitHub page. Part of the reason [Hans] got interested in building something like this is that he had been trying to source a CRT television for retro gaming, and wanted to reproduce more of that era than just a few video games. A channel like this would be a great addition to a complete cable TV recreation build like this one, which even includes a preview channel of everything playing.

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A Music Box With A Very Modern Heart

July 27, 2026 by 1 Comment

A ballerina music box is a charming ornament, but it remains one that is limited by its mechanism to a very short performance. [ShielaDixon] has one, and decided to make so much more with it.

The music box mechanism is a simple clockwork motor with a comb that’s picked by a drum to make the notes. Her box retains the mechanism to give the ballerina her performance, but replaces the comb with a microcontroller and audio channel. This is no mere MP3 player though, instead it’s a music box in itself. Each note of the comb was sampled, and the board plays them just as the music box would, under instruction from a text file containing the music. The repertoire can now go on for far longer, and contain many more compositions.

We like this hack, for its effectiveness, and for its recreation of the music box rather than simply playing a recording. Meanwhile if you recognise [ShieldDixon] from these pages, we’ve in the past featured another musical project of hers, a MIDI recorder.

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Scanwheel

Scanwheel: A Pocket-Sized POV TV

July 26, 2026 by 13 Comments

When you hear the word TV, you probably think of a big LED screen, maybe even the old CRT TVs, but in either case it’s something large and fairly complicated. However, thanks to the persistence of vision, it doesn’t have to be. In this handheld-sized project from [Ancient], the Scanwheel is born, a miniature mechanical TV that uses a spinning disk and some LEDs to produce an image.

The electronics of the Scanwheel are pretty straightforward. The smarts come from a Raspberry Pi Pico, an A4988 motor driver, a couple of LEDs, and a small 21-02485 stepper motor. The Raspberry Pi Pico is used to command the motor speed as well as coordinate the LEDs to turn on at the right time. The case is 3D printed; the base includes space for the various support electronics as well as some small light baffles to ensure the LEDs don’t bleed over outside their intended area. The top of the case is a disk that includes 20 small holes spaced evenly around the perimeter at varying heights, allowing light to only leave the disk when one of these holes is in front of the LEDs.

When you put all these pieces together, spin the motor up to roughly 900 RPM, and turn the LEDs on in a precise order, you end up with a really cool result: a miniature TV. And due to the five different LEDs in this build, you actually have a color 20×20 pixel display in the center and, on either side of that, two more 20×20 black-and-white displays capable of showing different images. Thanks [Ancient] for sharing this awesome build that takes advantage of the persistence of vision effect to create a unique display. Be sure to check out the video below as well as the instructions on how to build your own. And if you enjoy this sort of thing, check out some of our other persistence-of-vision projects as well.

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