Colin O’Flynn Zaps Chips (And They Talk)

February 3, 2022 by Jenny List 5 Comments

One of the many fascinating fields that’s covered by Hackaday’s remit lies in the world of hardware security, working with physical electronic hardware to reveal inner secrets concealed in its firmware. Colin O’Flynn is the originator of the ChipWhisperer open-source analysis and fault injection board, and he is a master of the art of glitching chips. We were lucky enough to be able to welcome him to speak at last year’s Remoticon on-line conference, and now you can watch the video of his talk below the break. If you need to learn how to break RSA encryption with something like a disposable camera flash, this is the talk for you.

This talk is an introduction to signal sniffing and fault injection techniques. It’s well-presented and not presented as some unattainable wizardry, and as his power analysis demo shows a clearly different trace on the correct first letter of a password attack the viewer is left with an understanding of what’s going on rather than hoping for inspiration in a stream of the incomprehensible. The learning potential of being in full control of both instrument and target is evident, and continues as the talk moves onto fault injection with an introduction to power supply glitching as a technique to influence code execution.

Schematic of an EM injector built from a camera flash.

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As apples travel down the conveyor belt, they are scanned using InGaAs and CMOS cameras. The InGaAs camera will show defects beginning to form under the skin that a human eye cannot see; the CMOS camera will show visible defects. (Credit: Hamamatsu)

Shining A Different Light On Reality With Short-Wave Infrared Radiation

February 3, 2022 by Maya Posch 23 Comments

As great as cameras that operate in the visual light spectrum are, they omit a lot of the information that can be gleaned from other wavelengths. There is also the minor issue that visibility is often impacted, such as when it’s raining, or foggy. When this happens, applications such as self-driving cars which rely on this, have a major issue. Through the use of sensors that are sensitive to other wavelengths, we can however avoid many of these issues.

Short-wave infrared radiation (SWIR) is roughly the part of the electromagnetic spectrum between 1.4 μm – 3 μm, or 100 THz – 214 THz. This places it between visible light and microwaves, and above long-wave IR at 20 THz – 37 THz. LWIR is what thermal cameras use, with LWIR also emitted by warm objects, such as the human body.

SWIR is largely unaffected by water in the atmosphere, while also passing through materials that are opaque to visible light. This allowing SWIR to be used for the analysis and inspection of everything from PCBs and fruit to works of art to capture details that are otherwise invisible or very hard to see.

Unfortunately, much like thermal camera sensors, SWIR sensors are rather expensive. Or they were, until quite recently, with the emergence of quantum-dot-based sensors that significantly decrease the costs of these sensors.

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Hacked DSP5005 unit showing amp-hours screen

Another DPS5005 Alternative Firmware

January 22, 2022 by Dave Rowntree 9 Comments

These cheap Chinese-built programmable power supplies are nothing new, we’ve been using them for years. They’re not particularly good power supplies, since current feedback is in software, but for some tasks they’re a great fit and you can’t argue with the price. Alternative firmware projects have also been a thing for a while too, but none we’ve seen have been quite as capable and polished as this latest DPS firmware project by [Profi-max.] We’ve not come across the source code yet, but at least the binary image is freely downloadable.

The firmware has some interesting features, such as programmable pre-sets intended for battery charging applications. In fact, there is a dedicated battery charge mode screen. We want to warn, however, that charging lithium ion batteries with this might not be at all wise, not in the least because of a lack of protection hardware in place. It would be very easy to destroy the unit or overheat a battery this way! However, if you must do this, there are a few features to help you out, such as a handy ‘counters’ screen showing approximate charge delivered.

Remote programmability is, as usual, via the easily hacked in serial port, with firmware support for Bluetooth serial modules if wired USB serial doesn’t suit. For those who like to mount things differently, the screen can be rotated by holding a key on power-up, or if you hook up a MPU6050 accelerometer/gyro module it will even do it automatically!

To update a stock DPS unit, the only requirements are access to an ST-Link compatible programmer dongle, to target the STM32 SWD programming interface, and the STM32CubeProgrammer utility. Open source alternatives to that are also available, stlink comes to mind as a good option. Once you have the module PCB popped out of its plastic casing, only three wires need tacking onto a handy set of pads to complete the connection to the programmer dongle. Pretty simple stuff.

If you’re looking for a similar project, with source immediately available, then checkout the OpenDPS project we covered a few years ago, and if you’re thinking of going crazy, building a DIY open source electronics lab, we got you covered.

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Old Firewall Reborn As Retro PC

January 17, 2022 by Chris Lott 16 Comments

We like projects where old gear is given a new life. [Splashdust] has a twenty-year old business firewall that’s build like a tank. He cracks it open and finds a complete x86 embedded motherboard inside, and sets off to restore it and turn it into a retro gaming computer (see the video from his Odd & Obsolete YouTube channel below the break).

This business firewall and router box is from a small Swedish firm Clavister, part of their S-Series from the early 2000s. The motherboard appears to be a generic one used in other equipment, and is powered by a VIA Eden ESP 4000 running at 400 MHz. The Eden line of x86 processors were low-power chips targeting embedded applications. The graphics chip is a Twister T by S3 Graphics which was purchased by VIA in 2000. After replacing the electrolytic capacitors, and making a few cables, [Splashdust] pops in a PCI sound card and boots up into Windows 98 from a CF card (we like the compact PCB vise he uses).

In two follow-up videos (here and here), he builds an enclosure (instructions on Thingiverse) and tries out several other operating systems. He was able to get the Tiny Core Linux distribution running with the NetSurf browser, but failed to get Windows 2000 or XP to work. Returning to Windows 98, he tweaks drivers and settings and eventually has a respectable retro-gaming computer for his efforts. The next time you’re cleaning out your junk bins, have a peek inside those pizza-box gadgets first — you may find a similar gem.

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Stout Peristaltic Pump Fabricated From Scratch

January 12, 2022 by Lewin Day 18 Comments

The peristaltic pump is perhaps most well known for its ability to pump fluids without the pump mechanism coming into contact with the working fluid. This is key for food-safe applications and other situations where a pump could contaminate the fluid. [Maciej Nowak] has built a great example of such a pump, crafted out of aluminium from scratch.

The build video covers the machining process in detail, showing how the aluminium body was fabricated on the lathe before installing bearings and a silicone hose. The pump shaft was then fabricated, along with a set of brass rollers to press along the tube, creating the pumping action. The rollers were also lubricated in order to reduce friction on the tubing. Powering the pump is a small DC motor, sending drive via a small toothed belt, giving the finished build quite an industrial look.

We’re used to seeing plenty of 3D-printed pumps about the place. This build, while it requires a fully-equipped machine shop, is much tougher than anything plastic, and you could easily use it to break a window in an emergency too, an obscure feature nevertheless requested by some discerning pump customers.

[Maciej] shows off the build by pumping some green liquid, noting the peristaltic design requires no priming which makes operation much easier. It’s also bidirectional, and can be run very slowly if required.

Overall, it’s a build that shows off the benefits of working in metal as well as the great features of the peristaltic pump design. Video after the break.

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A Simple EMF Detector And Electroscope You Can Make From Junk Box Parts

January 10, 2022 by Dave Rowntree 49 Comments

2N2222 devices used, but practically any junkbox NPN will do

Electromagnetic fields are everywhere, all around us. Some are generated naturally, but in vast majority of cases, it’s we humans that are generating them with artificial, electronic means. Everything from your mobile phone to the toaster will emit some sort of signal, be it intentional or not. So we think it only befits the general electronics-orientated hacker to have some way of sniffing around for these signals, so here is [Mirko Pavleski] with his take on a very simple pair of instruments to detect both static and dynamic electromagnetic fields.

CMOS clock input connected directly to the antenna. Warning! ESD damage risk!

The first unit (a simple electroscope) uses a cascade of 2N2222 NPN bipolar transistors configured to give a high current gain, so any charge near the antenna will result in increasing currents in subsequent stages, finally illuminating the LED. Simple stuff.

The second unit relies on the extremely high input impedance of the old-school CMOS 4017 decade counter, which is likely of the order of 100 MΩ or even more. Normally you would not leave such a CMOS input floating, or even connect it with too long a PCB trace — lest it pick up a stray signal —but for detecting alternating EM fields, this appears to work just fine. Configured as a simple divide-by-ten, when presenting 50 Hz AC, the LED can be seen to flash at 5 Hz.

Simple stuff, and this scribe has all those exact parts in the junk box, so will be constructing these shortly!

We’ve covered electroscopes for years, here’s a modern twist on a famous classic experiment, and some hair-raising experiments to get you started.

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Advanced PCB Graphics With KiCAD 6 And Inkscape

January 8, 2022 by Dave Rowntree 16 Comments

There are many, many video tutorials about designing the functional side of PCBs, giving you tips on schematic construction, and layout tips. What is a little harder to find are tutorials on the graphical aspects, covering the process from creating artworks and how you can drive the tools to get them looking good on a PCB, leveraging the silkscreen, solder and copper layers to maximum effect. [Stuart Patterson] presents his guide for Advanced PCB Graphics in KiCAD 6.0 and Inkscape, (Video, embedded below) to help you on your way to that cool looking PCB build.

Silkscreen layers in yellow, solder mask opening in red

The first step is to get your bitmap, whether you create it yourself, or download it, and trace it into a set of vectors using the Inkscape ‘trace bitmap’ tool. If you started with an SVG or similar vector shape, then you can skip that stage.

Next simply create a PCB outline shape by deleting all the details that aren’t part of the outline. A little scaling here and there to get the dimensions correct and you’re done with the first part. [Stuart] has an earlier video showing that process.

The usability improvements in KiCAD 6.0 are many, but one greatly demanded feature is the ability to group objects, just like you do in Inkscape and any other vector graphics tool for that matter. That means you can simply import that SVG outline into the Edge.Cuts PCB layer and all the curves will be nicely tied together. Next you select the details you want for the silkscreen layer, solder mask removal layers and any non-circuit copper. In Inkscape it would be wise to use the layers feature to assign the different material types to a uniquely named layer, so they can be hidden for exporting. This allows you to handle silk, mask and copper PNG exports from a single master file, in addition to any vector details for outline, slots and holes.

Once you have PNG bitmap exports for the silk, mask etc. you need to create a footprint inside a board-specific library, using the KiCAD image converter tool. It was interesting to note that you can export a new image footprint from the tool and paste it straight into the footprint editor, and tweak all the visibility details at the same time. That will save some time and effort for sure. Anyway, we hope this little tutorial from [Stuart] helps, and we will be sure to bring you plenty more in the coming months.

Need some more help with KiCAD? Checkout this tutorial, and if you want a bit more power from the tool, you need some action plugins!

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