Even when the boss is away, the show must go on, so Dan slid back behind the guest mic and teamed up with Tom to hunt down the freshest of this week’s hacks. It was a bit of a chore, with a couple of computer crashes and some side-quests down a few weird rabbit holes, but we managed to get things together in the end.
Tune in and you’ll hear us bemoan HOAs and celebrate one ham’s endless battle to outwit them, no matter what the golf cart people say about his antennas. Are you ready to say goodbye to the magnetic stripe on your credit card? We sure are, but we’re not holding our breath yet. Would you 3D print a 55-gallon drum? Probably not, but you almost can with a unique Cartesian-polar hybrid printer. And, if you think running MS-DOS on a modern laptop is hard, guess again — or, maybe you just have to get really lucky.
We also took a look at a digital watch with a beautiful display, a hacked multimeter, modern wardriving tools, switchable magnets, and debate the eternal question of v-slot wheels versus linear bearings. And finally, you won’t want to miss our look at what’s new with 3D scanning, and the first installment of Kristina’s new “Boss Byproducts” series, which delves into the beauty of Fordite.
Some of the neatest products are made from the byproducts of other industries. Take petroleum jelly, for example. Its inventor, Robert Chesebrough, a chemist from New York, came upon his idea while visiting the oil fields of Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859. It took him ten years to perfect his formula, but the product has been a household staple ever since. Chesebrough so believed in Vaseline that he ingested a spoonful of it every day, and attributed his 96-year longevity to doing so.
Well, some byproducts can simply be beautiful, or at least interesting. On that note, welcome to a new series called Boss Byproducts. We recently ran an article about a laser-engraved painting technique that is similar to the production of Fordite. I had never heard of Fordite, but as soon as I found out what it was, I had to have some. So, here we go!
This week we got news of a security incident at 1Password, and we’re certain we aren’t the only ones hoping it’s not a repeat of what happened at LastPass. 1Password has released a PDF report on the incident, and while there are a few potentially worrying details, put into context it doesn’t look too bad.
The first sign that something might be amiss was an email from Okta on September 29th — a report of the current list of account administrators. Okta provides authentication and Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities, and 1Password uses those services to manage user accounts and authentication. The fact that this report was generated without anyone from 1Password requesting it was a sign of potential problems.
And here’s the point where a 1Password employee was paying attention and saved the day, by alerting the security team to the unrequested report. That employee had been working with Okta support, and sent a browser session snapshot for Okta to troubleshoot. That data includes session cookies, and it was determined that someone unauthorized managed to access the snapshot and hijack the session, Firesheep style.
Okta logs seemed to indicate that the snapshot hadn’t been accessed, and there weren’t any records of other Okta customers being breached in this way. This pointed at the employee laptop. The report states that it has been taken offline, which is good. Any time you suspect malicious action on a company machine, the right answer is power it off right away, and start the investigation.
And here’s the one part of the story that gives some pause. Someone from 1Password responded to the possible incident by scanning the laptop with the free edition of Malwarebytes. Now don’t get us wrong, Malwarebytes is a great product for finding and cleaning the sort of garden-variety malware we tend to find on family members’ computers. The on-demand scanning of Malwarebytes free just isn’t designed for detecting bespoke malicious tools like a password management company should expect to be faced with.
But that turns out to be a bit of a moot point, as the real root cause was a compromised account in the Okta customer support system, as revealed on the 20th. The Okta report talks about stolen credentials, which raises a real question about why Okta support accounts aren’t all using two-factor authentication.
Last week, we announced just half of our fantastic slate of talks for Supercon. This week, we’re opening up the workshops. The workshops are small, hands-on opportunities to build something or learn something, lead by an expert in the field. Workshops sell out fast, so register now if you’re interested.
And stay tuned for the next round of talk reveals next week! And maybe even the badge reveal?
Andy Geppert Weave Your Own Core Memory – Core16!
This workshop provides you with the opportunity to weave your own core memory! Using 16 authentic ferrite core bits and 16 RGB LEDs, you can play tic-tac-toe, paint with a magnetic stylus, and create your own interactive experiences. Andy Geppert will guide you through the assembly of Core16. The Core16 kit is the little brother of the Core64 kit. The smaller Core16 kit reduces assembly time/cost, enabling more people to experience the challenge and satisfaction of creating their own core memory.
Travis Foss Presented by DigiKey: Introduction and expansion of the XRP Robotics Platform
In this workshop you will be able to get your hands on the new XRP (Experiential Robotics Platform) and take the basics a step further with a few additional parts. Along with the base kit, participants will have the opportunity to install a RGB twist encoder, a LCD screen, and a buzzer to create a setup that will allow the user to choose a program onboard without being tethered to a computer.
Becky Button How to Make a Custom Guitar Pedal
Musical effects are for everybody! Join this workshop and get hands-on experience assembling and programming your musical effects pedals. Walk away from this workshop with the capability of integrating multiple musical effects into 1 device and reprogramming the pedal with any effects you want!
Daniel Lindmark From Zero to Git: 1 Hour Hardware Git Bootcamp
In this workshop, you will learn all about basic git operations, including how to download and install the client, setting up a repo, synching changes, and much more. Learn how to navigate common issues and take advantage of a live FAQ during the workshop.
Jazmin Hernandez Solder and Learn How to Use Your Own Anti-Skimmer (HunterCat)
Have you ever been vulnerable to data theft? Do you fear using your bank card in ATMs or even in a restaurant? Protect your information from potential skimmers in this workshop while you learn to solder some components of your anti-skimmer/magnetic stripe clone detectors. By the end of the workshop, you’ll have a device to insert before using your bank card to check for potential issues.
Matt Venn Tiny Tapeout – Demystifying Microchip Design and Manufacture
In this workshop, you can design and manufacture your own chip on an ASIC. You will learn the basics of digital logic, how semiconductors are made, the skills needed to use an online digital design tool for simulation, and how to create the GDS file for manufacturing. Participants will also have the option to submit their designs to be manufactured as part of the Tiny Tapeout project.
You can’t attend the workshops without attending Supercon, so get your tickets! (As we write, there are only ten more…)
Of all the high-tech medical gadgets we read about often, the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine is possibly the most mysterious of all. The ability to peer inside a living body, in a minimally invasive manner whilst differentiating tissue types, in near real-time was the stuff of science fiction not too many years ago. Now it’s commonplace. But how does the machine actually work? Real Engineering on YouTube presents the Insane Engineering of MRI Machines to help us along this learning curve, at least in a little way.
Both types of gradient coil are stacked around the subject inside the main field coil
The basic principle of operation is to align the spin ‘axis’ of all the subject’s hydrogen nuclei using an enormous magnetic field produced by a liquid-helium-cooled superconducting electromagnet. The spins are then perturbed with a carefully tuned radio frequency pulse delivered via a large drive coil.
After a short time, the spins revert back to align with the magnetic field, remitting a radio pulse at the same frequency. Every single hydrogen nucleus (just a proton!) responds at roughly the same time, with the combined signal being detected by the receive coil (often the same physical coil as the driver.)
Time taken for the perturbed spin to return to magnetic alignment
There are two main issues to solve. Obviously, the whole body section is ‘transmitting’ this radio signal all in one big pulse, so how do you identify the different areas of 3D space (i.e. the different body structures) and how do you differentiate (referred to as contrast) different tissue types, such as determine if something is bone or fat?
By looking at the decay envelope of the return pulse, two separate measures with different periods can be determined; T1, the spin relaxation period, and T2, the total spin relaxation period. The first one is a measure of how long it takes the spin to realign, and the second measures the total period needed for all the individual interactions between different atoms in the subject to settle down. The values of T1 and T2 are programmed into the machine to adjust the pulse rate and observation time to favor the detection of one or the other effect, effectively selecting the type of tissue to be resolved.
Time taken for the relative phasing inside a tissue locality to settle down to the same average spin alignment
The second issue is more complex. Spatial resolution is achieved by first selecting a plane to virtually slice the body into a 2D image. Because the frequency of the RF pulse needed to knock the proton spin out of alignment is dependent upon the magnetic field strength, overlaying a second magnetic field via a gradient coil allows the local magnetic field to be tuned along the axis of the machine and with a corresponding tweak to the RF frequency an entire body slice can be selected.
All RF emissions from the subject emanate from just the selected slice reducing the 3D resolution problem to a 2D problem. Finally, a similar trick is applied orthogonally, with another set of gradient coils that adjust the relative phase of the spins of stripes of atoms through the slice. This enables the use of a 2D inverse Fourier transform of multiple phase and frequency combinations to image the slice from every angle, and a 2D image of the subject can then be reconstructed and sent to the display computer for the operator to observe.
If you were anywhere near Hackaday over the weekend, you certainly noticed that we launched the tenth annual Hackaday Prize! In celebration of the milestone, we picked from our favorite challenges of years past and came up with four of our favorite, and even one new one just to keep you on your toes. But the first challenge round is running right now, so get your hacking motors turning.
Re-engineering Education
The first challenge this year showcases educational projects, but broadly construed. Hackers tend to learn best by doing. In the Re-engineering Education challenge, we want you to help give others a chance to learn new skills. Whether you’re building a DIY radio kit, a breadboard-it-yourself computer, or even a demonstrator robot arm, if it helps pass on your hard-earned skills, we want you to enter it here.
It’s fresh on my mind because we were just playing with one this weekend, but [deshipu]’s Fluffbug robot project is a great inspiration for non-traditional education. What better way to discover the intricacies of four-legged walking machine gaits than to have one to play with on your desktop? It’s not going to take over the world, but if you can make it walk, you’ve learned something.
More obviously educational is [Joan Horvath]’s Hacker Calculus, an entry in last year’s Prize. The connections between a function’s height, and the area or volume that it integrates up to can be awfully abstract. Printing out 3D models of the resulting shapes can really help to bring the point home. Or maybe you could really drive home the speed of a comet in its orbit with a physical model? They’ve got you covered, but also ideas for generating your own plastic math toys.
When we think educational computer builds, the amazing reproduction of the WDC-1 “Working Digital Computer” by [Michael Gardi] springs instantly to mind, but perhaps it goes too far down the rabbit hole. Just another rung up on the complexity ladder gets you the Blinking Computer by [Tony Robinson]. Or if you want to figure out how an almost-commercial Z80 computer works from the ground up, consider the Baffa 2.
So what skills do you have that you want to teach other hackers? Can you embody that in a project?
All the Challenges
If you don’t have education in your sights, have a look at the rest of the 2023 Hackaday Prize Challenge rounds. We’re sure you’ll find something you like.
To enter, simply set up a project on Hackaday.io. When the challenge is running, you’ll be able to enter. Full rules over at the 2023 Hackaday Prize landing page.
Challenge
Date
The Details
Re-engineering Education
March 25 – April 25
Educational projects of all stripes welcome. If the goal is to teach, enter it here.
Assistive Tech
April 25 – May 30
The Assistive Tech challenge calls for projects that help people with disabilities to learn, work, move around, and simply live their lives to the fullest.
Green Hacks
May 30 – July 4
Help reduce our impact on the planet. Do more with less, or help clean up the mess.
Gearing Up
July 4 – August 8
Hackers build their own tools. What have you made that makes your making easier? Share it with us.
Wildcard
August 8 – September 12
This is where anything goes. The wildcard challenge lets your projects speak for themselves.
USB-C cables and connectors: these are controversial topics, and rightfully so – I don’t want to pull any punches. I will also show you that things don’t have to be that bad for you, as long as you’re willing to apply a few tricks and adjust your expectations.
Wild West of Wiring
You might have a bunch of USB-C cables, and they all might look exactly the same, but you’ve likely experienced that they’re not the same internally, and often there’s not a label in sight. Yes, it’s pretty bad, and one could argue it’s getting worse.
I’d like to clarify that I’m only talking about USB C male – USB C male cables here. While cables like USB-A to USB-C are popular, they are quite simple; you get USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 data and 2 A of current at most, and the USB-C plug is usually hardwired as “host, will supply five volts”, which is defined by a pullup resistor. Also, while cables like “Type-C to DisplayPort” might look like cables at a glance, they are adapters with a meaningful amount of active circuitry in them.
Purely following the specification, there used to be six types of USB-C to USB-C cables out there. Then, it became eight. Now, I’m afraid, there’s twelve of them, purely following the spec, and there’s way more when counting all the out-of-spec cables. Good news is – for most of the time, majority of these cables will be suitable for simple tasks like charging and data transfer, and situations where you need a very specific cable are going to be rare enough. Still, let’s go through it, and you’ll see that they’re easier to tell apart than it might look. Continue reading “All About USB-C: Cable Types”→
