Here’s another IR hack released at Toorcon.  SurveySays (from Midnight Research Labs) is software that will intercept signals from remotes or “clickers” that universities use for test and quiz taking in class. According to the site, there are over a million of these remotes out there at hundreds of schools (UC Berkeley and SFSU to name a couple around [sith]’s area). SurveySays will display the most commonly given answer by the classroom on the screen and will also issue a trigger after every round. You can send in this answer automatically, for you or for a group of friends =). Have fun!

[thanks sith]

Continue reading ““Clicker” Hacking” →

[Irongeek] has assembled a good starting point for hacking network printers. It starts with a discussion of stock passwords and how to administrate printers using telnet. Next is finding printers using NMAP. You can actually use the JetDirect boxes as idle scan zombies to scan other systems without exposing yourself. Other topics include setting up direct IP printing, changing the display, and using Hijetter from the Phenoelit crew. The ability to capture and replay print jobs really demonstrates how insecure network printing is.

[Irongeek] is also a great source for making the most of your Zaurus and has video demos of other hacking topics.

Continue reading “Hacking Network Printers” →

The Scribbler Bot was inspired by a flash toy called scribbler. Scribbler lets you make a simple line drawing and then generates a more complex drawing by applying a set of algorithms. The Scribbler Bot moves the drawing into the physical world. It is a simple two axis plotter using two stepper motors and a control board. The plotter wasn’t intended to be very accurate since the shuddering adds a new level of complexity to the drawing. The plotter control is through a Dreamweaver plugin, but it should be able to take any binary feed. Thanks to Douglas McDonald for the cool project and for scribbling out our logo in ball-point pen.

Continue reading “Scribbler Bot” →

There aren’t many people that want to spend money on a printer whose sole purpose is to print directly on a CD. I’m sure there are quite a few out there that have an extra inkjet printer laying around looking for something to do. Why not chop it up into a dedicated label printer? This tutorial shows how to modify an Epson 640 printer, but it should work on any printer with the same style feed. So, if you’ve got one, try and decipher the heavily watermarked images and have a go.

[thanks com]

Continue reading “CD Printer” →

Here is a full conversion of a typewriter into a computer keyboard. There’s actually something more nefarious at work here. Since you can still use the typewriter normally after the mod, Erik has essentially made a typewriter keystroke logger.  Okay, so that isn’t really a threat, but this is a nice project that tries to overcome the stress inducing on/off nature of modern keyboards. All it needs now is a buffer and some nixie tubes and we’d have the coolest word processor yet.

[thanks ron]

Continue reading “Typewriter Keyboard” →

We’ve mentioned Christoffer’s Skype phone before; Jeroen decided to make a device that could work with any standard phone. Seeing the Chat-Cord he decided that one could be built really easily. The main component is a transformer to demux the the mic and line signals. I’m guessing you could grab the appropriate one off of an old modem. To translate the DTFM tones for dialing he downloaded the Chat-Cord software. The only problem left is how to ring the phone using Skype and Jeroen has enough tips to put you on track. I know at least one reader requested this after seeing the Chat-Cord so I hope you guys enjoy.

[thanks usergentoo]

Continue reading “VOIP Chat Cord” →

Kentaro Fukuchi originally built this simple controller for an art installation. He needed an easy way for visitors to switch effects on an EffecTV system. To avoid writing device drivers he canabilized a cheap game pad. There were 16 available buttons but only 12 were needed. Once the rotary switch was wired to all of the buttons he could use simple scripting to grab the button press events. You could use this to control a variety of things and Kentaro gives a couple possible ideas on his site.

[thanks Jaime Wong]

Continue reading “USB Rotary Channel Changer” →