Stealing WiFi From LED Lightbulbs

July 6, 2014 by 13 Comments

LIFX Wireless LED PCB

Back in 2012, the LIFX light bulb launched on Kickstarter, and was quite successful. This wireless LED lightbulb uses a combination of WiFi and 6LoWPAN to create a network of lightbulbs within your house. Context Information Security took a look into these devices, and found some security issues.

The LIFX system has a master bulb. This is the only bulb which connects to WiFi, and it sends all commands out to the remaining bulbs over 6LoWPAN. To keep the network up, any bulb can become a master if required. This means the WiFi credentials need to be shared between all the bulbs.

Looking into the protocol, an encrypted binary blob containing WiFi credentials was found. This binary could easily be recovered using an AVR Raven evaluation kit, but was not readable since it was encrypted.

After cracking a bulb apart, they found JTAG headers on the main board. A BusBlaster and OpenOCD were used to communicate with the chip. This allowed the firmware to be dumped.

Using IDA Pro, they determined that AES was being used to encrypt the WiFi credentials. With a bit more work, the key and initialization vector was extracted. With this information, WiFi credentials sent over the air could be decrypted.

The good news is that LIFX fixed this issue. Now they generate an encryption key based on WiFi credentials, preventing a globally unique key from being used.

[via reddit]

C64 Emulator For The Arduino Due

July 6, 2014 by 17 Comments

c64

Almost a year ago, [miker00lz] started a thread on the Arduino forums telling everyone about a 6502 emulator and BASIC interpreter he wrote for an Arduino Uno. The chip inside the Uno isn’t a powerhouse by any means, and with only 2KB of RAM it’s far less capable than just about any computer from the 70s. Arduino works on a lot of different chips, though, and after a few months, [Jan] turned an Arduino Due into a Commodore 64 emulator.

[Jan]’s code isn’t limited to the DUE, and can be used with any chip with enough memory. If you’re feeling fancy, you can connect a TFT display for all the vintage goodness of PETSCII graphics, all while running a faster BASIC than the very stripped down EHBASIC.

Because the emulator is using software to talk to the outside world, it should be possible to use this project to interface with the cooler chips found in Commodore machines – SIDs for one, but also the cartridge port for some vintage Ethernet goodness. It’s not even limited to Commodore machines, either: the POKEY chips found in Atari 8-bit micros are seriously underutilized in the chiptune and demoscene, and having modern hardware to play with these chips couldn’t hurt in the slightest.

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Overwriting A Protected AVR Bootloader

July 5, 2014 by 9 Comments

Logo for the FIgnition 8 bit computer project

A bootloader is typically used to update application code on a microcontroller. It receives the new program from a host, writes it to flash, verifies the program is valid, and resets the microcontroller. Perhaps the most ubiquitous example is the Arduino bootloader which allows you to load code without an AVR programmer.

The bootloader resides in a special part of memory, which is protected. On the AVR, it isn’t possible to write to the bootloader memory from the application code. This is to prevent you from accidentally breaking the bootloader and bricking the device.

However, it can be useful to write to the bootloader memory. The best example would be when you need to update the bootloader itself. To accomplish this, [Julz] found a workaround that defeats the AVR bootloader protection.

The challenge was to find a way to execute the Store Program Memory (spm) instruction, which can only be executed by the bootloader. [Julz] managed to make use of the spm instruction in the existing bootloader by counting cycles and modifying registers at the right time.

Using this technique, which [Julz] calls BootJacker, the Fignition 8 bit computer could have its bootloader updated. However, this technique would likely allow you to modify most bootloaders on AVR devices.

Gatling Gun Styled Water Pistol Made Out Of… Sugru?

July 5, 2014 by 31 Comments

sugru water pistol

We admit it – we’re suckers for clever advertising of a product. The company behind Sugru, everyone’s favorite self-setting-rubber-fix-it material commissioned this awesome gatling gun styled water pistol, and it’s actually quite impressive.

Designed by [Alex Bygrave], he was instructed to build the gun out of as many standard hardware store parts as possible — and as much Sugru as he could. It’s been used to make all the seals, connections, and even the pistons, and while we can’t tell if it leaks anywhere, it’s still pretty impressive.

Unlike a normal water pistol, this one is powered by compressed CO2 canisters like the ones used for welding — meaning the pressures are much higher than a typical super soaker as well!

19Stick around after the break to see it in action – tested on the staff of Sugru themselves!

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The Disintegrated Op Amp

July 5, 2014 by 31 Comments

741By now we’ve all seen the ‘Three Fives’ kit from Evil Mad Scientist, a very large clone of the 555 timer built from individual transistors and resistors. You can do a lot more in the analog world with discrete parts, and [Shane]’s SevenFortyFun is no exception: it’s a kit with a board, transistors, and resistors making a very large clone of the classic 741 op-amp, with all the parts laid bard instead of encapsulated in a brick of plastic.

[Shane] was inspired by the analog greats – [Bob Pease], [Jim Williams], and of course [Bob Widlar], and short of mowing his lawn with goats, the easiest way to get a feel for analog design was to build some analog circuits out of individual components.

[Shane] has a few more kits in mind: a linear dropout and switching regulators are on the top of the list, as is something like the Three Fives kit, likely to be used to blink giant LEDs.

Hackaday Reader [David] Wins A Camera From Make And Nikon

July 5, 2014 by 11 Comments

 

Make the shot fixed[David Schwarz] whipped up this moving time-lapse camera rig and won himself a sweet Nikon setup. You might remember our post about the Nikon Make:The Shot Challenge. [David] saw our post, and started thinking about what he wanted to enter. Like a true engineer, he finally came up with his idea with just 3 days left in the contest.

[David] wanted to build a moving time-lapse rig, but he didn’t have the aluminum extrusion rails typically used to build one. He did have some strong rope though, as well as a beefy DC motor with a built-in encoder. [David] mounted a very wide gear on the shaft of the motor, then looped the rope around the gear and two idler pulleys to ensure the gear would have a good bite on the rope. The motor is controlled by an Arduino, which also monitors the encoder to make sure the carriage doesn’t move too far between shots.

[6__pulley_systemDavid] built and tested his rig over a weekend. On Monday morning, he gave the rig its first run. The video came out pretty good, but he knew he could get a better shot. That’s when Murphy struck. The motor and controller on his rig decided to give up the ghost. With the contest deadline less than 24 hours away, [David] burned the midnight oil and replaced his motor and controller.

Tuesday morning, [David] pulled out his trump card – a trip to Tally Lake in Montana, USA. The equipment worked perfectly, and nature was cooperating too. The trees, lake, and the shadows on the mountains in the background made for an incredible shot. Once the time-lapse photos were in the can, [David] rushed home, stitched and stabilized the resulting video. He submitted his winning entry with just 2 hours to spare.

Click past the break for more on [David’s] time-lapse rig, and to see his final video.

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Electric Solder Paste Dispenser Speeds Up Reflow Prep

July 5, 2014 by 34 Comments

solder paste dispenser

[Geir Andersen] of Let’s Make Robots has been venturing deeper and deeper into the wonderful world of surface mounted devices, which as you know, can be tricky to solder! Not wanting to shell out a few hundred for a professional solder paste dispenser (and air compressor), [Geir] decided to build his own.

It allows him to use a standard syringe for solder paste, which can easily be refilled using this technique. The professional dispensers use air pressure to control the flow of the paste, but [Geir] decided to go the all-electric route instead. He’s hooked up a small stepper motor to a threaded shaft which can push the plunger up and down the syringe.

Couple that with a few 3D printed parts for the housing, a nicely designed PCB, and bam you have yourself a super handy solder paste dispenser! He’s even included a small potentiometer on the board to change the speed of the motor.  It might not be quite as accurate as a professional one, but as you can see in the video after the break it seems to work great for [Geir’s] purposes.

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