DEF CON Uber Badge So Hot It’s Radioactive

August 7, 2015 by 21 Comments

I went to the Opening Ceremonies of DEF CON 23 this morning to get more information on the badge challenge and I was not disappointed. The talk covered the Uber badge, which is hot in a literally radioactive sense. This badge, which is also known as the black badge, is reserved for people who are first to solve one of the official DEF CON challenges. It grants lifetime free admission and opens just about any door when listed on your resume.

DEF CON 23 Uber Badge (front)
(back)

Lichtenberg Figures

The triangle of acrylic itself is adorned with Lichtenberg Figures. This is a bolt of lightning on the badge. By building up extremely high voltages, the discharge leaves a unique pattern. In this case it was a 5 million volt, 150 kW particle accelerator that made the figures.

There is a medallion affixed to this triangular base-plate which is obviously part of the puzzle everyone is trying to solve this weekend. What is less clear is how the radioactive isotopes of this badge play into this challenge.

Whoa, oh, oh, oh, I’m Radioactive, Radioactive

Trinitie Photo by Shaddack - CC BY 3.0
Trinitie Photo by Shaddack – CC BY 3.0

[LoST] took inspiration from [Richard Feynman] to a new level with this badge. [Feynman] was involved with “The Gadget” experiment which I know better as Trinity, the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. This badge contains isotopes from that detonation.

Trinitite (get it, from the Trinity explosion?) is a green glassy substance generated from a Plutonium-based bomb explosion. [LoST] made a point of explaining that the samples of Trinitite in this badge create a unique radioactive signature that not only traces back to this explosion, but actually indicates a precise distance form the epicenter of the explosion.

Also embedded in the badge are glass spheres doped with 3% Uranium 238. Tritium, used in exit signs, is a third source of radioactivity on the badge. This is joined by another marker that is a combination of Uraninite, Pitchblende, Carnotite, Gummit, and Yellowcake.

Interesting story, Tritium is highly regulated in this country but it is hypothetically possible to import it from Europe by a seller who ships it sealed inside packets of coffee. Hypothetically.

The opening ceremonies talk concluded with some inspirational remarks from [Dark Tangent]. Pictures of that as well as a few of [L0ST’s] slides are found below. If you’re working on the badge challenge, join in on the collaborative Badge deciphering we’ve started on Hackaday.io. If you’re at DEF CON, make sure to show up for breakfast with us on Sunday.

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Hacker Reads Magnetic Stripe Card With Flatbed Scanner

August 7, 2015 by 29 Comments

[anfractuosus] has been reading magnetic stripe card… optically!

While hackers routinely read and write stripe cards, this is the first time we’ve reported on optically imaging and decoding data from the magnetic stripe. [anfratuosus] used a magnetic developer which is designed to allow visual inspection of the magnetic stripe. The developer uses micron sized iron particles in a suspension which are dropped onto the stripe. To the particles, the magnetic stripe looks like a series of magnets lined up. Long magnets striperepresent 0s and short magnets 1s. With each bit the orientation of the magnet changes, something like the diagram to the right. The magnetic field is strongest where the poles meet. So the iron particles are attracted to these flux reversal points on the stripe creating a visible pattern . There’s an awesome video of the process in action below.

While magnetic developer was designed for debugging faulty recording systems [anfratuosus] went a step further scanning the “developed” card, and writing a tool to decode the images and extract the card data. [anfratuosus] doesn’t mention any particular application, we love this circuitous hack anyway!

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Nolan Bushnell And Hackaday On The Latest Episode Of The Tomorrow Show

August 7, 2015 by 6 Comments

Back in June when Hackaday attended LA Tech Day I met [Gray Bright]. He’s been a big fan of Hackaday for years and recently started producing and hosting The Tomorrow Show, a Late Night Talk Show focused on Science and Technology. [Gray] invited me on the show to talk about Hackaday and the 2015 Hackaday Prize.

[Gray’s] approach is to view scientists and engineers as the new rock stars. In each episode he invites some of the biggest names from the worlds of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM) and conducts a thought-provoking and entertaining interview. There’s a healthy dose of comedy from future correspondent [Ant Simpson] and [SupernoVanGirl], live musical performances, and it’s all filmed in front of a live studio audience.

Tomorrow Show -Nolan Bushnell StandUp

Filming the show in the Hollywood studio on a Friday night in July was a hoot. I was honored that our segment was on the same episode as the legendary engineer and entrepreneur [Nolan Bushnell], founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese’s‎. [Nolan] even did an impromptu standup set when there was a short technical delay.

You can watch the full episode (below the fold) to see antics from The Tomorrow Show team, [Nolan’s] anecdotes about the early days of Atari and being [Steve Jobs’] boss, as well as my first TV appearance spreading the word about the Hackaday Prize. It’s also hilarious to see [Nolan] hooked up via electrodes controlling [Gray] to play Brain Pong just like when we toured Backyard Brains last year.

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Logic Noise: 4046 Voltage-Controlled Oscillator, Part One

August 7, 2015 by 23 Comments

In this session of Logic Noise, we’ll be playing around with the voltage-controlled oscillator from a 4046 phase-locked loop chip, and using it to make “musical” pitches. It’s a lot of bang for the buck, and sets us on the path toward much more interesting circuits in the future. So watch the intro video right after the break, and we’ll dig straight in.

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Fisher Price Bluetooth Speaker Hack

August 7, 2015 by 14 Comments

A good hacker hates to throw away electronics. We think [Matt Gruskin] must be a good hacker because where a regular guy would see a junky old 1980’s vintage Fisher Price cassette player, [Matt] saw a retro stylish Bluetooth speaker. His hack took equal parts of electronics and mechanics. It even required some custom 3D printing.

You might think converting a piece of old tech to Bluetooth would be a major technical challenge, but thanks to the availability of highly integrated modules, the electronics worked out to be fairly straightforward. [Matt] selected an off the shelf Bluetooth module and another ready-to-go audio amplifier board. He built a custom board to convert the stereo output to mono and hold the rotary encoder he used for the volume control. An Arduino (what else?) reads the encoder and also provides 3.3V to some of the other electronics.

The really interesting part of the hack is the mechanics. [Matt] managed to modify the existing mechanical buttons to drive the electronics using wire and hot glue. He also added a hidden power switch that doesn’t change the device’s vintage look. Speaking of mechanics, there’s also a custom 3D printed PCB holder allowing for the new board to fit in the original holder. This allows [Matt] to keep the volume control in its original location

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Laser Cut Your Own Vinyl Records

August 7, 2015 by 45 Comments

[Amanda Ghassaei] has created an awesome hack for making your own vinyl records using a laser cutter from an MP3 file. Her excellent hack uses a Processing sketch that converts a digital audio file into a vector graphics file, which is then burned onto vinyl using a laser cutter. We saw a demo of this at the FabLab11 conference, and it’s an impressive hack.

One of the best parts of her write up are the details of how she arrived at the appropriate processing settings to get the record sounding as good as possible, but still be cuttable. It’s an object lesson in how you iterate on a project, trying different approaches and settings until you find the one that works. She also decided to take it a few steps further, cutting records on paper and wood for the ultimate eco-friendly record collection.

Audiophiles should avoid this technique though. Due to limitations in the resolution of the laser cutter, [Amanda] ended up having to reduce the bandwidth of the audio signal to 4.5Khz and use a 5-bit sampling depth. That translates to a rather tinny-sounding record. Vinyl record snobs can breathe easy: this isn’t going to replace their beloved white-hot stampers. For the rest of us, there are always records etched into tortillas.

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Hackaday Prize Entry: PICs And Arduinos, Cats And Dogs Living Together

August 6, 2015 by 11 Comments

Half of our little corner of the Internet complains about the Arduino, how the pin headers of the Arduino standard don’t make any sense, how the Arduino IDE is rubbish, gives well-reasoned arguments why the Arduino language is hindering the next generation of embedded programmers, and laments the fact that everything is commoditized into Arduino-compatible packages. The other half of our little corner of the Internet uses Microchip PICs.

[Jarrett] is stubborn, and he wants to use a PIC with the distinctive Arduino pin layout. Thus was born PIC-On-The-Go. It’s a PIC18F4520 in the familiar goofy-pin package, made specifically for everyone who just wants to buckle down and get some work done.

This isn’t the only PIC-become-Arduino board out there; the Fubarino is a great board that speaks Arduino, but that doesn’t take advantage of our favorite Arduino shields. Either way, we’re surprised something like [Jarrett]’s project doesn’t exist yet, making it a great entry for The Hackaday Prize.

The 2015 Hackaday Prize is sponsored by: