Banana Bomb Is Likely To Get You In Trouble

June 22, 2019 by 21 Comments

If there’s one thing Hollywood loves, it’s a ticking clock to create drama. Nuclear weapons, terrorist bombs, and all manner of other devices have been seen featuring foreboding numbers counting down on a series of 7-segment displays. In this vein, [deshipu] developed a rather ridiculous take on the classic trope.

The project is built around a ticking four-digit display. The blue LEDs give it a modern touch, and it’s attached on top of an Arduino Pro Mini 3.3V. This enables the whole module to be powered by a coin cell, for an incredibly compact and tidy timer that is barely bigger than the display itself. There’s also a buzzer attached, which chirps each second, somewhat heightening the stress level in the immediate vicinity.

With a functioning timer, [deshipu] then went for comedy points, by hooking it up to a trio of bananas. This is widely considered more courteous than attaching it to a detonator circuit and actual dynamite, and is key to staying off government watchlists.

It’s a piece that would be amusing at a Halloween party or similar, and is easily completed by any beginner learning Arduino. It goes without saying that, while this is amusing, it’s a build that should very much not be bandied about in public or used for a prank. In this day and age, even touting a custom clock can draw unwelcome attention, so it’s important to be careful.  Video after the break.

Continue reading “Banana Bomb Is Likely To Get You In Trouble” →

This Week In Security: SACK Of Death, Rambleed, HIBP For Sale, And Oracle Weblogic — Again!

June 21, 2019 by 13 Comments

Netflix isn’t the first name to come to mind when considering security research firms, but they make heavy use of FreeBSD in their content delivery system and do security research as a result. Their first security bulletin of the year, not surprisingly, covers a FreeBSD vulnerability that happens to also affect Linux kernels from the last 10 years. This vulnerability uses SACKs and odd MSS values to crash a server kernel.

To understand Selective ACKs, we need to step back and look at how TCP connections work. TCP connections provide guaranteed delivery, implemented in the from of ACKnowledgement (ACK) packets. We think of a TCP connection as having a dedicated ACK packet for every data packet. In reality, the Operating System makes great effort to avoid sending “naked” ACK packets, and combines multiple ACKs in a single packet. An ACK is simply a flag in a packet header combined with a running total of bytes received, and can be included in a normal data packet. As much as is possible, the ACK for data received is sent along with data packets flowing in the opposite direction. Continue reading “This Week In Security: SACK Of Death, Rambleed, HIBP For Sale, And Oracle Weblogic — Again!” →

A Baby Named DJ

June 19, 2019 by 8 Comments

Some of us are guilty of picking up questionable hardware from garage sales, fleamarkets, and well-meaning relatives. There is a balance between turning down a good investment and hoarding, and if we figure out how to tell the difference you will be the first to know. [Clem Mayer] may start on the side of unwise acquisition, but he pushes a broken fetal detector into the realm of awesome by converting it to an analog synthesizer, born to headline at an Eastern European dance party.

He starts with a basic teardown, and we get to see how old hardware was serviceable with only two standard screws. It is a good thing too, because the nickel-cadmium batteries are older than some of you and they are in need of replacement. New nickel-metal hydride batteries got it up and running but [Clem] does not have a baby bump so its functionality turned to Pink Floyd era synthesizer circuit bending. Circuit bending involves modifying a circuit for sound it was not intended to make.

Continue reading “A Baby Named DJ” →

Hams Gone Wild: Amateur Radio Field Day 2019

June 19, 2019 by 31 Comments

Of all the images that amateur radio conjures up, the great outdoors doesn’t usually figure heavily. People seem to think hams sit in a dark room at a desk heavy with radio gear, banging out Morse code into late into the night and heedless of the world outside the window. All of which sort of sounds like hard-core gaming, really.

And while that image certainly applies in a lot of cases, hams do like to get out and about at least once a year. That day is upon us with the 2019 Amateur Radio Field Day. Hams across North America reserve the fourth full weekend of each June to tear themselves out of their shacks and get into the world to set up operations in some kind of public venue, generally a park or other green space. Part cookout, part community outreach, and part slumber party – it lasts all weekend and goes around the clock – hams use field day as a chance to show the general public where amateur radio really shines: real-time worldwide communications under austere conditions.

It’s also a chance to get folks excited about getting their license, with many Field Day locations hosting “Get on the Air” stations so that unlicensed folks can try making a contact under the supervision of a licensed operator. Licensed but underequipped hams also get the chance to spin the knobs on someone else’s gear, and maybe line up that first rig purchase. And there are plenty of opportunities to learn about new modes as well, such as FT8 and WSPR. As an example your scribe is looking for some guidance on getting started with APRS, the automated packet reporting system that’s used for things like high-altitude balloon tracking.

If you have any interest at all in learning how to properly operate radio equipment, you owe it to yourself to track down the nearest Field Day location and stop by. The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) has a ton of Field Day information, from a map to locate the 1500 Field Day sites to rules for the contests that will be run that weekend to guides for setting up and operating an effective Field Day setup. There will be 40,000 hams out there this year, and they’d all be thrilled if you drop by and ask a few questions.

Continue reading “Hams Gone Wild: Amateur Radio Field Day 2019” →

Morse Code Catches Google Swiping Lyrics

June 18, 2019 by 60 Comments

We think of Morse code in terms of dots and dashes, but really it’s a kind of binary code. Those symbols might as well be 0s and 1s or any other pair of characters. That attribute is exactly what led to a sting operation a music lyric site called Genius.com pulled on Google. At issue was a case of song lyrics that had allegedly been stolen by the search giant.

Song lyric sites — just like Google — depend on page views to make revenue. The problem is that in a Google search the lyrics appear on the search page, so there is no longer much incentive to continue to the song lyric site. That’s free enterprise for you, right? It is, but there was a problem. It appears that Google — or, according to Google, one of their partners — was simply copying Genius.com’s lyrics. How does Genius know the song lyrics were copied? According to news reports in the Wall Street Journal and other sources, they used Morse code.

Continue reading “Morse Code Catches Google Swiping Lyrics” →

Let A Spooky Owl Tell You The Weather

June 18, 2019 by 2 Comments

There can be few readers who were young in the 1970s who did not want to share in the adventures of the fearless animated ghost-hunting young crime-fighters of Scooby-Doo. What do you remember from the series though? The Mystery Machine van? Scooby snacks? Or perhaps the improbably haunted theme parks whose owners would have got away with it if it hadn’t been for those pesky kids? For [Alex Shakespeare] it seems to have been the trope of haunted pictures whose subject’s eyes would follow the protagonists around the room, because when he made a wall-mounted weather indicator he gave it an owl with eyes doing just that.

The weather part of the device is straightforward enough, an ESP8266 board drives a set of servos that move dial indicators according to data from the Dark Sky API. The owl’s moving googly eyes are the party piece though, for them the ESP takes input from an Adafruit AMG8833 thermal sensor array and drives a servo and lever arrangement to do the moving. Finally, the thermal camera’s output is available to see on the ESP’s web server. All the details of the project can be found via a GitHub repository.

The result is shown in the video below the break, and as you might expect in the spirit of its inspiration it’s more comedic than haunting. But maybe there’s the root of the popularity of artworks that follow the viewer, of which this is merely the latest in a long line.

Continue reading “Let A Spooky Owl Tell You The Weather” →

A Laser Cut Gingerbread Cathedral

June 16, 2019 by 8 Comments

One of the more disappointing news stories of 2019 was the fire at the Notre Dame cathedral. Widely considered a building of great historical importance and architectural merit, it was heavily damaged and will take significant time and resources to repair. Fundamentally though, if you’re reading this, that’s probably someone else’s job. Instead, why not just build your own Notre Dame out of gingerbread at home? [Scott Hasse] did just that.

The stained glass windows are the real party piece of the build.

The project began by using an existing papercraft model. This had to be heavily modified to account for the thickness of gingerbread and the fact that it can’t easily be folded around corners. The modified geometry was then lasercut at the Sector 67 hackerspace, as they’re experienced with the material.

With parts cut out, royal frosting was used as a mortar to help stick parts together during assembly. Significant development time was also spent in perfecting the stained glass windows, made from colored sugar. After much experimentation, a process involving melting the sugar on silicone sheets proved to be most successful. To complete the look, a series of RGB LEDs were also installed during the construction process.

The final results are nothing short of stunning. The build is instantly recognisable as the famous French cathedral, and the back-lit stained glass is absolutely breathtaking. We wouldn’t want to be going up against [Scott]’s family at the county fair baking contest, that’s for sure!

Continue reading “A Laser Cut Gingerbread Cathedral” →