Starlink Ground Stations Successfully Hacked

August 14, 2022 by Elliot Williams 18 Comments

Belgian security researcher [Lennert Wouters] has gotten his own code running on the Starlink “Dishy McFlatface” satellite terminals, and you can too! The hack in question is a “modchip” with an RP2040 and a MOSFET that crowbars the power rails, browning out the main CPU exactly when it’s verifying the firmware’s validity and bypassing that protection entirely. [Lennert] had previously figured out how to dump the Starlink firmware straight from the eMMC, and with the ability to upload it back, the circle of pwnership is closed. This was a talk at DEFCON, and you can check out the slides here. (PDF)

The mod chip itself was a sweet piece of work, being tailored to fit into the Starlink’s motherboard just so, and taking good advantage of the RP2040’s PIOs, which are probably the microcontroller’s superpower.

[Lennert] says he submitted his glitch attack to Starlink and they took some precautions to make the glitching harder. In particular, [Lennert] was triggering his timing off of the USART port coming up on the Starlink unit, so Starlink just shut that down. But it’s not like he couldn’t trigger on some other timing-relevant digital signal, so he chose the eMMC’s D0 data line: they’re not going to be able to boot up without it, so this hack is probably final. No shade against Starlink here. It’s almost impossible to shield a device against an attacker who has it on their bench, and [Lennert] concludes that he found no low-hanging fruit and was impressed that he had to work so hard to get root.

What can you do with this? Not much, yet. But in principle, it could be used to explore the security of the rest of the Starlink network. As reported in Wired, Starlink says that they’ve got a defence-in-depth system and that just getting into the network doesn’t really get you very far. We’ll see!

Thanks [jef] for the tip!

TVout Library Brings Cardboard Arcade To Life

August 12, 2022 by Orlando Hoilett 12 Comments

Recycling old CRTs is a true Hackaday tradition, and [Rob’s] mini arcade is sure to grab your attention.

First of all, you’ll probably appreciate [Rob] circumventing the supply shortage by getting all his components from recycled material. That’s probably the only way to get anything these days. He salvaged a small CRT from an old-school video intercom system and snagged the buttons, speakers, and switches from other unused devices laying around. Not all is lost, however, as [Rob] was able to purchase an Arduino Nano and a few resistors online. So maybe things are turning around in that category, who knows?

You’ll probably also appreciate how remarkably simple this hack is. No need for a Raspberry Pi as your standard 8-bit microcontroller will do the trick. And, fortunately, [Rob] found a nice library to help him generate the composite video signal, doing most of the work for him. All that was left to do was to build the arcade cabinet. Recreating the classic design was a pretty easy step, but you might opt for something a little nicer than cardboard though. But, hey, if it does the trick, then why not?

Cool project, [Rob]! We’re definitely happy to add this project to our retro collection here at Hackaday.

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Hackaday Prize 2022: Saving The World, One Brew At A Time

August 5, 2022 by Elliot Williams 10 Comments

OK, so maybe [satanistik] is overreaching with his project title “Save the Coffee, Save the World” but keeping an otherwise working coffee machine out of the landfill by hacking around its broken display is nonetheless a worthy pursuit. The juice must flow!

The busted display used a SSD1303 controller OLED module, for which the SSD1305Z is an almost-compatible module. Almost. The one glitch is that the screen is filled in the opposite direction by default. Digging through the manuals, there is a screen-direction bit to set, and tracing out the communication with a logic analyzer, it’s set the wrong way with every screen refresh. If only he could flip that one bit while it’s in transit. Time to man-in-the-middle!

While we certainly would have put a microcontroller in the game, [satanistik] goes old-school. A two-IC logic solution can do exactly the same thing, trading wires for code. The final iteration of the converter board is correspondingly spartan, but it does its one job.

So if you’ve got a Nivona coffee machine with a bum display, or perhaps an Agilent U1273A multimeter, or any other piece of equipment that needs a hard-to-find SSD1303 controller, now you have a ready-made solution. But if not, and you find yourself looking for a display that you can’t find, let this serve as an example to you – with a little (fun) effort, you can hack it back.

Combat Gets A Computer Controlled Opponent

August 1, 2022 by Tom Nardi 11 Comments

If you ever spent some time playing on the Atari 2600, there’s an excellent chance you went through a few rounds of Combat. The two-player warfare game not only came with the console but was actually one of the more technically impressive titles for the system, offering nearly 30 variations of the core head-to-head gameplay formula.

But unfortunately, none of those modes included single player. That is, until [Nick Bild] got on the case. While some concessions had to be made, he has succeeded where the original developers failed, and added a computer-controlled enemy to Combat. What’s more, the game still runs on the stock 2600 hardware — no emulator tricks required. The true aficionados can marvel at the snippets of source code he’s provided, but the rest of us can just watch the video below the break and marvel at the accomplishment.

If you’ve never worked on such a constrained system, this might not seem like a big deal. But [Nick] does a great job of explaining not just what he did, but why it was so hard to pull off in the first place. For example, the console has no video buffer, so everything needs to be done during the VBLANK period where the game doesn’t need to be drawing to the screen. Unfortunately that didn’t give him enough free cycles, so he had to split his code up to run across three frames instead of just one. That mean’s the original game logic is now only running 27 frames out of the 30 per second, but he says you can’t really tell in practice.

That said, some cuts had to be made. He needed to remove the surprisingly complex engine sounds to free up some resources, and had to bump the 2 KB cartridge up to 4 KB to hold the new code and data. Turns out the 2600 could handle far larger cartridges via bank switching though, so this wasn’t actually a problem.

Given its age and limited capabilities compared to more modern consoles, you might think the Atari 2600 would be little more than a footnote in gaming history. But there’s a devoted group of folks who enjoy squeezing everything they can out of the system’s 45-year-old hardware which leads to labors of love like this one.

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Building A Tube-Based Stereo Amp, In Classic Style

July 31, 2022 by Donald Papp 34 Comments

It’s not every day we see the results of someone putting their own spin on a vintage tube amp, but that’s exactly what [lens42] did in creating the McIntosh 217, created as a “mini” version of the McIntosh MC275, a classic piece of audio equipment. Both are pictured next to each other, above.

When it comes to vintage hi-fi stereo amplifiers, two units had particular meaning for [lens42]: the McIntosh MC275 Power Amp, and the Dynaco ST35. The Dynaco was a more budget-friendly amplifier, but looked like a plain box. The McIntosh, however, proudly showed off its tubes and transformers in all their glory. The “McIntosh 217” is design-wise basically a smaller McIntosh MC275, with the innards of a Dynaco ST35.

With so much needing to be designed from the ground up, CAD was invaluable. Component layout, enclosure design, and even wiring and labeling all had to be nailed down as much as possible before so much as heating up the soldering iron. Even so, there were a few hiccups; a vendor had incorrect measurements for a tube socket which meant that the part would not fit. A workaround involved modifying the holes and as luck would have it, the change wasn’t an eyesore. Still, [lens42] reminds us all that whenever you can, have the required parts in-hand for confirmation of dimensions before sending CAD files off for cutting or fabrication.

Many of us can relate to the fact that the whole project was a labor of love and made no real financial sense, but the end result is fantastic, and creating such a thing is something all of us — not just chasers of that elusive “tube sound” — can appreciate.

Foam Cutter Moves Like A Hot Knife Through Butter

July 28, 2022 by Kristina Panos 13 Comments

Make enough attempts to cut foam using whatever you’ve got — utility knife, hacksaw, serrated plastic knife — and you’ll wish hard for something that cuts cleaner, faster, and better. While there are all sorts of ways to build a hot wire foam cutter, this design from [jasonwinfieldnz] is both interesting and imitable.

If you don’t already know it, nichrome wire is nifty stuff that’s readily available in thrift store hair dryers and toasters. It stretches as it heats up, and shrinks as it cools back down.

The interesting part of this build is that instead of using a spring to keep tension on the nichrome wire, [jasonwinfieldnz] designed and 3D-printed a bow out of PLA that does the job elegantly. While [jason] was initially concerned that the bow might possibly melt, he found in practice that although the bow does get warm to the touch, it’s nowhere near hot enough to even warp.

One nice touch is the simple fence that rides along two slots and secures with wingnuts. We also like that [jason] made this foam cutter largely from scrap material, and rather than buy a spool of nichrome, he opted for a skinny heating element and pillaging the wire.

If you’re a nichrome noob, know that it doesn’t take much juice to do the job. Even though a computer power supply is what [jason] had lying around, it’s complete overkill, so you would definitely want to limit the current. Check out the build video after the break.

Still not portable enough for you? All you really need is a 18650, some nichrome, and a few bits and bobs to hold it all together.

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Hackaday Prize 2022: Digital Dice Towers Built In Beautiful Retro Cases

July 26, 2022 by Lewin Day 5 Comments

Retro hardware often looks fantastic, but we may find we no longer need it for its original function. [John Anderson] found that to be the case with some old Heathkit gear, and set about giving them a fun overhaul.

With the help of AVR microcontrollers, the devices have been repurposed into electronic dice towers for playing Dungeons & Dragons. A seed is generated based on the chip’s uptime, and supplied to a pseudorandom number generator that emulates dice rolls. The devices can be configured to roll a variety of dice, including the usual 6, 8, 10, and 20-sided varieties. Plus, they can be set to roll multiple dice at a time — useful when you’re rolling complicated spells and attacks in combat.

[John] has converted a variety of Heathkit devices, from Morse code trainers to digital multi-meters. They provide their beautiful cases and a great retro aesthetic, and we think they’d make fitting table decoration for retro cyberpunk tabletop games, too.

Creating your own electronic dice is a great way to get familiar with programming microcontrollers. Video after the break.

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