raspberry pi

1738 Articles

Regain Some Trust In Unknown USB Drives

July 27, 2026 by 23 Comments

For how useful USB thumb drives are for quickly toting around and copying files from one computer to another, they can be a bit of a security headache. Programs can be loaded on them with all kinds of malware; they can be obscured in some ways that are difficult to detect, and they can be set up to execute certain programs when they’re plugged in. The general wisdom is to simply avoid untrusted USB devices completely, but that sort of abstinence-only policy rarely works in the real world. If, for some reason, an untrusted USB device absolutely needs to be used, many of these security issues can be mitigated with this tool.

Built by [Novamostra], the device is simple on the surface: it’s a Raspberry Pi Pico mated to a 2-in-1 USB splitter cable. But with the USB Neutralizer software they have written loaded onto the Pico, it automatically destroys the ability of any connected USB thumb drive to load files. The program works by deleting the first and last 34 Logical Block Addressing (LBA) sectors on the drive immediately when it’s plugged in, without doing anything else. This effectively corrupts the drive bad enough to prevent malicious software in the partitions from doing anything, allowing the user to (relatively) safely put the USB drive into their computer and format it for re-use. The code for this tool is also open-source and reviewable on the project’s GitHub page.

Of course, this isn’t a perfect security solution for all USB attacks. It doesn’t erase or replace the firmware on the drive itself, and although firmware-level attacks are rare they’re not out of the question for all users, all the time. It also won’t prevent a malicious physical attack like this high-voltage one, and it may also not stop hidden or obscured partitions or devices programmed for storage and some other nefarious purpose simultaneously, like a USB HID. But still, this solves a great many of the problems associated with getting new drives from semi-untrustworthy sources, like retailers or friends whose computer skills we don’t fully trust.

Neighborhood Bulletin Boards, Circa 1982

July 27, 2026 by 8 Comments

When the Internet first started gaining mainstream popularity in the late 90s, many optimists claimed that it would bring people together by reducing barriers to communication. That ideal hasn’t exactly come to pass yet, as anyone who has been on the Nextdoor neighborhood social network can likely attest to. Before social media, neighbors weren’t completely in the dark about their local communities, though. Besides word-of-mouth communication, there were also local access channels on cable TV, which had none of the downsides of modern social media. And [Hans] is bringing this style channel back.

[Hans]’s project is called CABLE 82, a bulletin board channel that matches the style of these channels from the 1980s. There’s better technology available for these types of systems now, though, so instead of relying on something like a character generator he’s using a Raspberry Pi running custom software to produce the video feed. The Pi hosts a web server so the 4:3 video feed can be reserved for the bulletin board display, but users who have older Pis with the yellow composite video output can skip using something like an HDMI to RF converter on their period-appropriate CRT displays. The software also adds sound functionality, as these channels always had some sort of elevator music playing while they were scrolling through local community news.

For those looking to recreate some of the nostalgia of 1980s community and technology, [Hans] has made this project open source, with all of the files on a GitHub page. Part of the reason [Hans] got interested in building something like this is that he had been trying to source a CRT television for retro gaming, and wanted to reproduce more of that era than just a few video games. A channel like this would be a great addition to a complete cable TV recreation build like this one, which even includes a preview channel of everything playing.

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A Train Departure Board For The Home

July 23, 2026 by 10 Comments

Trains are a great way to get around. You just have to make sure you’re across the schedule if you intend to get where you’re going in a timely manner. Train departure boards exist for that very purpose. As a train fan, [Jon] always wanted such a thing, so decided to build one for himself. 

The build started, as so many do, with a Raspberry Pi 4, with [Jon] deciding on the 1GB model. Hooked up to either an Adafruit RGB Matrix Bonnet, or an Electrodragon 3-port RGB Matrix board, it’s then possible to get the Pi running three to four HUB75E LED matrixes. Each matrix consists of 128 x 64 pixels, so stacking up a bunch of them can make a nicely-sized departure board that’s easily readable. [Jon] was sure to hook up a nice, juicy 5-amp 5-volt power supply to ensure there wouldn’t be any surprise brownouts under normal usage conditions. From there, it’s simply a matter of having the Pi query the Rail Data Marketplace in order to get the relevant schedule data to display on the board.

If you want to get information on your local rail services at a glance, or just want to impress your fellow foamers at your next railfan gathering, a build like this is a great way to go. We’ve seen similar builds before, too. Video after the break.

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Neural Net Reads The Gas Meter

July 21, 2026 by 25 Comments

In an ideal world, the role of technology would be to make all of our lives easier. And although all the ads suddenly appearing in our smart TVs and gaming systems might make it seem otherwise, some technology can still improve our lives if we work hard at it. For [Cian], that meant training a neural network to read his gas meter so he wouldn’t have to do it himself.

The root issue here is twofold, first that [Cian]’s gas company hasn’t upgraded their own technology to modern, remote-readable meters, and second that the meter can’t be read by a gas employee because it’s hidden in the depths of [Cian]’s basement. This latter fact requires him to delve into Moria-like depths to get to the meter, so the solution here was to place a Raspberry Pi in this location instead. With a camera pointed at the meter, it’s not quite capable of discerning digits on its own so a neural network was trained in order to get accurate readings of the dial. And, finally, since the machine is networked already [Cian] set it up to automatically notify the gas company of its reading so he is now completely out of the loop.

For automating tedious tasks like these, the Raspberry Pi with something like OpenCV as a computer vision tool is a fairly mature platform for light machine learning duties like these. We’ve seen license plate readers as well as neighborhood traffic surveys built on these platforms to help automate human labor away, making our lives easier one single-board computer at a time.

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Raspberry Pi Locator Website To Shut Down In July

June 24, 2026 by 40 Comments

As announced by [André] on Bluesky, next month the much loved Rpilocator.com website will cease displaying the stock status and pricing of Raspberry Pi computers from various online retailers.

One of the main reasons is that the indexing bot used by the site has been blocked by most shopping sites. It’s not clear whether this blocking is on purpose or just another consequence of website owners protecting themselves from the onslaught of obnoxious ‘AI’ scraping bots. But in any event, the effort of finding workarounds that may only work for a few days or weeks was becoming too much.

According to [André] there are still about 11,000 users of the site each month, which even when accounting for the human-bot ratio is still a sizable number of visitors who’ll now have to get their fix somewhere else. He also indicates that he receives numerous emails from presumably real people about the site to point out small issues they have noticed.

Although the site may still be back in the future, it’s also important to recognize how much the single-board computer landscape and raison d’être for this tracking site have shifted since the 2020s Chip Crisis days. Currently it’s less about finding where these boards are in stock, and more about taking the hits to one’s wallet as memory prices continue to spiral out of control. Making what were once fun, cheap little hobby boards into luxury items that cut into your rent-food-and-gas budget.

A General Purpose Pi Zero Device For IoT

June 20, 2026 by 17 Comments

By now we’re all used to single board computers such as the Raspberry Pi Zero, but it’s likely we’ve all been frustrated at times by the number of support components required to use one. This becomes ever more annoying out in the field away from a handy HDMI, USB desktop, and power supply.

The Edgeberry Zero is an attempt to tackle this by mating a Raspberry Pi Zero with a PCB holding a robust power supply and interface connector, all together in a case. better still it comes with Edgeberry Hub, a software management interface.

It appears to be a commercially available product, but it’s Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA) certified and everything is available in a GitHub repository. Looking at it from a Hackaday perspective it’s hardly the first power supply support board we’ve seen for a Pi, but its approach of making its own expansion module format is an interesting choice. To us they are reminiscent of Game Boy cartridges in the way they slide into a slot in the case.

We like the general idea behind the Edgeberry Zero, but whether it offers enough differentiation from packaging up a Zero with cables and duct tape is up to you.

Security Camera Gets Several Defensive Upgrades

June 16, 2026 by 21 Comments

Ever since the early web, people have been streaming video with inexpensive webcams, and since the advent of the Raspberry Pi and its dedicated camera slot we’ve really seen how easy it can be to build security cameras or any other webcam and get it online quickly. But these cameras notably lack defensive capabilities if anyone tries to break into an area they shouldn’t be, and [John] added some features to this webcam to help defend his garage.

The webcam itself is a custom build, mounted on a custom-built tilt-and-pan mount that lets it freely rotate to view any location in the garage. Some custom software running on a Raspberry Pi lets it operate in autonomous mode or be controlled manually from an Android tablet. But for the defensive capabilities, it also carries a Nerf machine gun with a laser sight and spotlights which can all be controlled autonomously by the Raspberry Pi, including a computer vision system that lets it track various objects. While this is mostly a fun novelty for his security camera, the noise it makes might be enough to startle any would-be burglar.

[John] added a few other features to this build as well, including a speaker, which allows the system to be voice-controlled and to communicate back to the user. This lets him activate and deactivate the system using a verbal password. These types of Nerf guns are fairly popular for turrets as well, and some have practical uses as well like keeping cats from walking on the kitchen counters.

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