[nmarquardt] has put up an interesting instructable that covers building RFID tags. Most of them are constructed using adhesive copper tape on cardstock. The first version just has a cap and a low power LED to prove that the antenna is receiving power. The next iteration uses tilt switches so the tag is only active in certain orientations. The conclusion shows several different variations: different antenna lengths, conductive paint, light activated and more.
[Martin Beck] and [Erik Tews] have just released a paper covering an improved attack against WEP and a brand new attack against WPA(PDF). For the WEP half, they offer a nice overview of attacks up to this point and the optimizations they made to reduce the number of packets needed to approximately 25K. The only serious threat to WPA so far has been the coWPAtty dictionary attack. This new attack lets you decrypt the last 12 bytes of a WPA packet’s plaintext and then generate arbitrary packets to send to the client. While it doesn’t recover the WPA key, the attacker is still able to send packets directly to the machine they’re attacking and could potentially read back the response via an outbound connection to the internet.
[photo: niallkennedy]
[via SANS]
[Olivier] told us about this fantastic project where he built his own RC airplane. The airplane itself is nothing special, it is the controls that are worth paying attention to. He used an Arduino Diecemilla , some XBee transceivers, and a SparkFun Wee. The main site is a general overview, but there are links to more detailed breakdowns of how to build some of the parts. There are several videos of him flying it as well.
If you’ve been holding off on a T-Mobile G1 purchase because you didn’t like the apparent user restrictions, there’s some good news. The Android powered phone comes with an easy button for getting root. Install a terminal app and you can manually start the telnetd service. All that’s left is telenetting into the device and it’ll give you root level access.
ZigBee is a low-power communication system using digital radios. It’s intended to be easier to work with than Bluetooth. Adafruit recently added an adapter board for Digi’s XBee product line and has put together a great how-to to show the devices potential. Using two XBee radios and adapters you can wirelessly program an Arduino board. This would be great if your Arduino was installed in an inaccessible area or maybe it’s over 100feet away from where you’re working. The radios do serial communication just fine. What the how-to covers is getting the reset line working so the Arduino can restart automatically after you program it. Once the radio pair is configured properly, it will pass the RTS line state directly from one device to the other.
[tnkgrl] is back with part three of her Acer Aspire One hacking. This time she’s adding in 3G. You may look at the picture the above and think, “Cake. She just plugged the card in”. No, the Acer doesn’t ship with the mini-PCIe slot or the SIM card holder. First you have to solder a right angle mini-PCIe connector to the board pads and bridge two others to provide power. The SIM holder was another problem. She wasn’t able to find a pin compatible one. The one she installed is mounted to a riser so she could change the wiring order (let her know if you can find the correct part). This mod definitely requires some good soldering skills and she warns that even she managed to destroy a SIM in the process.
The Dell Mini 9 is another netbook that doesn’t have the appropriate connectors soldered on board, but JKK has a work-around. You need a 3G modem that has the SIM card on board. You plug it into the WiFi slot after taping over a few pins and then use a USB WiFi card instead.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsk6dJr4wps]
[Quethe] implanted an RFID chip into his hand so that he can access his handgun safe without having to fumble around for keys or buttons. He’s also planning to do more with the chip, including installing readers so he can access his car without keys. [Quethe] claims that inserting the chip hurts less than drawing blood. From the video he’s apparently using livestock grade equipment for the injection. While we applaud his ingenuity, we’re not sure that the convenience of easier access to guns and cars is actually worth the trouble of putting a chip in your body.
We’ve covered quite a a few hackers that have chosen to chip themselves in the past. [Mikey Sklar] did it back in 2005 after constructing a pair of pants to block the signal. [Amal Graafstra] ended up writing RFID Toys after implanting himself. [Larry Pesce] from the PaulDotCom podcast had his chip cloned on stage by [Major Malfunction] at ShmooCon. [Annalee Newitz] had her chip cloned by [Jonathan Westhues] while covering RFID hacking for Wired. It’s interesting to see the practice of DIY RFID chipping gaining traction, and, thankfully, all of the people just listed understand that it’s not a form of security.
[via Boing Boing]
