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115 Articles

PSP L2/R2 Button Mod

June 14, 2008 by 1 Comment


This is quickly becoming an unintentional “game controller Saturday”. We haven’t been covering the PSP much lately, so this is a treat. AcidMods forum member [Electro] put together a quick guide for adding two missing shoulder buttons to the PSP. The L2 and R2 buttons are used while playing Playstation 1 games and are usually mapped to directions on the joystick. This mod jumps the joystick’s contacts an relocates the buttons to the shoulders. The switches used in the post seem kind of bulky, but you’re free to use anything that fits.

[via Engadget]

Twittering From The Command Line

May 22, 2008 by 9 Comments
Twitter users often have trouble explaining just exactly what the service is for. The site specifically asks “What are you doing right now?” A simple interface and multiple ways to update means people have started hooking it to different real world objects… objects that aren’t reporting what they had for lunch. After the break, we’ll cover a couple devices that have interfaced Twitter to the real world and how you can update from your command line.

Continue reading “Twittering From The Command Line” →

Erase An IPhone Properly

May 20, 2008 by 14 Comments


A fundamental problem with flash memory has just gone mainstream. A detective successfully recovered data from a refurbished iPhone purchased from Apple. Flash memory controllers write to blocks randomly so using standard secure erase techniques are no guarantee that all of the storage space will be written.

[Rich Mogull] has posted a method that should wipe out almost all remnants of your personal data. You start by restoring the iPhone in iTunes and turning off all the syncing options. Next you create 3 playlists large enough to consume all of the phone’s storage space. Sync each playlist in turn and your residual personal data should be obliterated. All that’s left to do is sit back and wonder when the first article about the MacBook Air SSD being impossible to securely erase will be published…

Cold Boot Encryption Attack Video

May 13, 2008 by 18 Comments

We haven’t made a regular habit of watching BoingBoing TV, but lately they’ve been covering topics we’ve been interested in… not the dolphin pr0n. In yesterday’s episode they talked to Jacob Appelbaum and members of the EFF about the cold boot encryption attack. The attack involves dumping the contents of memory to a storage device by power cycling the system. Cooling the memory chip with compressed air helps preserve the integrity of the data. The attacker can then search the data to find encryption keys protecting the contents of the hard drive. A fool proof solution to mitigate this attack hasn’t been developed yet. You can read more about cold boot attacks at the Center for Information Technology Policy. The BoingBoing TV episode, bizarre editing and all, can be downloaded directly here.

Free Your IPhone

August 26, 2007 by 25 Comments


I wasn’t going to post this – it’s a freakin phone after all. But I’ve gotten quite a few tips on it, and I’d like them to end. [George] made a concerted effort to hack the iPhone – and it paid off. After his crazy ebay auction that topped out at 99,999,999.99 last time I checked, he ended up trading his first phone for a Nissan 350z and a few more iPhones.
He documented his process, step by step – if you’ve got the skills, you can probably do it yourself. The soldering work is damn fine work – probably the hardest thing there is. The write up is a little hard to follow, so plan on taking some time to comprehend everything. (Blogging software isn’t the best way to organize how-tos, trust me on this.) My hats off to [George], he did some great work. – So, why didn’t I want to post it? All this work yielded one thing: carrier choice for the iPhone.

Punch Your Alarm Clock

August 24, 2007 by 14 Comments


This is probably the most entertaining “application note” I’ve ever seen. These things are usually a bit dry, ok, they make your eyes turn to a previously unknown state of matter. This one involves making your alarm clock snooze when you beat it. The trick? Wire an accelerometer to the snooze button. It takes a bit of supporting circuitry, but looks do-able for anyone worth of their soldering iron. Thanks to [Andy] for sending it in.

Hey, we have a tips line. Send in your hacks!