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Longform articles, the best of what the Hackaday writing crew has to offer.

Top 10 Best Hacking Scenes In Movies

April 11, 2013 by 89 Comments

Geeking out and complaining about inaccuracies is fun. But it is like junk food. Too much is bad for your health. We’ve done the Top 10 worst portrayals of hacking in movies/TV as well as a Part 2 due to high demand. Now it is time for the good stuff. Take it in and feel those healthy positive portrayals revitalizing your brain.

Here are the Top 10 best portrayals of hacking, based off your comments and feedback. Be sure to let us know what we missed, because there are probably some good ones that got left out.

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Top 10 Hacking Failures In Movies

March 28, 2013 by 211 Comments

It had been requested that we make a short video covering the top worst hacks in movies. Being the community that we are, it seemed like an interesting request. We asked for your input, and you were happy to deliver! However, the proposition of creating a “top 10” list turned out to be quite difficult. There were just SO MANY horrible scenes that I started thinking about how to even categorize them. We could probably to a “top 10” in any of the following categories without even having to dig too deeply:

  • hacker lingo
  • mocked up interfaces
  • fake input devices
  • virus screen-takeover moments
  • access denied messages
  • hardware taped together

Honestly, after breaking it down in such a manner, making the top 10 movie hacking failures, felt painfully general. It is like making a list of “top 10 animals that ever existed”. The state of technology portrayal in movies is frankly abysmal. It is obvious that the only people who know less about tech than “hollywood” are the people making laws about it.

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Bullet Time With A Single GoPro

March 20, 2013 by 38 Comments

Earlier this week I saw a video that was showing how some guys made some really cool bullet time effects with 15 tiny rugged awesome cameras called “GoPros”(that wasn’t a paid endorsement, they’re awesome).  For those unfamiliar, the bullet time effect gained popularity from the first matrix movie. The footage slowed down to slow motion while [Neo] dodged some bullets, but the camera was still able to move around. To do this, they built a massive circular rig and mounted tons of cameras all around. Using these multiple angles, they were able to stitch together the scene in slow motion and “move” the camera.

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Quick Wallet Hack Adds Pickpocket Alarm

March 8, 2013 by 60 Comments

Recently there were a bunch of videos going around the net about some of the greatest pickpockets in the world. Simply put, if they wanted something you had, they were going to take it and you probably wouldn’t notice. I’ve always kept my wallet in my front pocket, and usually with my hand on it, but they even showed them getting around that in the video (you can’t always be vigilant).

I had the idea to make some kind of alarm that would go off if anyone but me removed the wallet from my pocket. A quick google search revealed tons of wallet alarms, but I noticed that they all had a credit card form factor(that’s good) and would make noise when exposed to light(that’s bad). This represents a problem since the pickpockets in the videos tended not to open the wallets till later at another location. I needed something that would make noise as it was removed from my pocket. Most importantly, I needed the alarm to be located inside the wallet. This immediately makes the wallet undesirable and will hopefully make someone drop it like hot coals.

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Hacking A Radio Controlled Spy Device For Overly Attached Girlfriend.

February 27, 2013 by 47 Comments

This is the first in our series of videos meant to spread the hacking goodness far and wide on the net. As you can see, it is a pretty silly video, hopefully you enjoyed the humor.  This wouldn’t be hackaday without an appropriate writeup though!

Initially the idea was to make this as a device that my boss could deploy from his Tesla Model S. Ultimately, we missed the release of SkyFall, so the whole 007 theme seemed a little flat. However, we did just happen to have a wonderful woman in the office that agreed to be an “overly attached girlfriend”. Here’s a link to the meme for those who are unfamiliar. Even though we made her look like a crazy person, she was a great sport about it (Thanks [Stephanie]!).

The Goal was to have a radio controlled device that would send live video and audio to someone and had the ability to plant a small GPS tracker on the undercarriage of a car.

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Help Hackaday Build A Custom Gaming Controller For A Good Cause

February 12, 2013 by 46 Comments

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We are going to make a custom gaming controller for a child with Muscular Dystrophy. His name is Thomas and he loves minecraft. This is a project that I have been wanting to do for years.  I’m just beginning now, and you can join in on the project and offer your thoughts in our forums.  We’re starting with Thomas, but ultimately, we’d like to develop a collection of fairly simple to construct open source game controllers.

For people who have a physical disability, gaming can have a profound psychological impact. Sometimes it is the only place where they can go and be on a level playing ground with their peers.  Often custom gaming controllers are quite expensive, especially when you start to leave the standard xbox/playstation form factor.

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