DEF CON

82 Articles

Hacking Coin Collection

August 20, 2013 by 36 Comments

Coin Acceptor

Devices that collect coins for payment typically use standardized coin acceptors like the one shown here. These devices use a protocol called ccTalk to let the system know what coins were inserted. [Balda] has built tools for implementing the ccTalk protocol to let you play around with the devices. He also gave a talk at DEF CON (PDF) about the protocol.

[Balda] got started with ccTalk because he wanted to add a coin acceptor to a MAME cabinet, and had a coin acceptor. His latest project converts ccTalk to standard keyboard keystrokes using a Teensy. The MAME cabinet can then interpret these and add to the player’s credits.

There’s two interesting sides to this project. By providing tools to work with ccTalk, it’s much easier to take a used coin acceptor off eBay and integrate it into your own projects. On the other hand, these acceptors are used everywhere, and the tools could allow you to spoof coins, or even change settings on the acceptor.

London’s 44Con Is Looking For A Few Good Hackers

July 27, 2011 by 5 Comments

44con_banner

While we see plenty of security-related conferences here in the US, our friends across the pond were apparently anxious to hold a large-scale security conference of their own. At the helm of the first ever 44Con are DEF CON Goon [Adrian] and Penetration Tester [Steve Lord]. The pair are quite involved in London’s security community and are looking to bring like-minded individuals together over four days of security talks and workshops.

While 44Con’s list of speakers has been wrapped up, they are still looking for people to help run workshops on the 1st and 2nd of September. They are requesting that any hackers in the area drop them a line if interested.

Taking a look at their site, you can see that they have a nice selection of talks lined up catering to those on the business side of Information Security as well as deep technical discussions about threats and vulnerabilities. If you plan on hitting up the conference, be sure to let us know in the comments section.