Whoever thought a keyboard could look so sinister? Well, [rain2] aka [AffectionateWin7178], that’s who. Vengeance is the sixth keyboard they’ve designed, and let’s just say we wouldn’t mind seeing the other five.
This is a takeoff of Zazu, a custom case printed for the monoblock split designed by [AlSaMoMo]. A friend of [rain2] made a ZMK PCB for the Zazu about a month ago, and they dreamed up the case design together. Among our first questions were of course, how do you type without those bat wings digging into your palms? But evidently, they are designed not to get in the way at all during use.
We particularly like the gold skirt around the edge which joins the two printed halves. It goes nicely with the bank vault elements like the dial around the trackball and the five-way switch that resembles a handle. And yeah, we wish the Batmobile was a mouse, too. While it seems that [rain2] hasn’t released the STLs for the case, you can find the ZMK Zazu repo on GitHub. Happy designing! As always, let us know what you come up with.
[Etienne Sellan] got one of these lovely $5 logic analyzers. As with any shiny new tool, he started looking for things to investigate with it, and his gaze fell on a Sentry Safe (produced by Master Lock). On the surface level, this keypad-equipped safe is designed decently when it comes to privilege separation. You can take the keypad board off and access its backside, but the keypad doesn’t make any decisions, it merely sends the digits to a different board embedded behind the safe’s door. The solenoid-connected board receives the PIN, verifies it, and then controls the solenoid that unlocks the safe.
[Etienne] hooked up a logic analyzer to the communication wire, which turned out to be a UART channel, and logged the keypad communication packets — both for password entry and for password change. Then, he wrote some Arduino code to send the same packets manually, which worked wonders. Bruteforcing wasn’t viable, however, due to rate limitation in the solenoid controller. Something drew his attention from there – if you want to change the password, the keypad requires you enter the factory code, unique to each safe and supplied in the instruction manual. That code entry is a separate kind of packet from the “change password” one.
A proper gun safe should be difficult to open, but critically, allow instant access by the authorized party.[Dr. Gerg] got a SnapSafe and discovered that, while it was quite easy to use, it would also lock the owner out easily whenever the batteries would run out. Meant to be used with four AAA batteries and no way to recharge them externally, this could leave you royally screwed in the exact kind of situation where you need the gun safe to open. This, of course, meant that the AAA batteries had to go.
Having torn a few laptop batteries apart previously, [Dr. Gerg] had a small collection of Li-ion cells on hand – cylindrical and pouch cells alike. Swapping the AAA battery holder for one of these was no problem voltage-wise, and testing showed it working without a hitch! However, replacing one non-chargeable battery with another one wasn’t a viable way forward, so he also added charging using an Adafruit LiPo charger board. One 3D printed OpenSCAD-designed bracket later, he fit the board inside the safe’s frame – and then pulled out a USB cable for charging, turning the battery into a backup option and essentially creating an UPS for this safe. Nowadays, the safe sits constantly plugged into a wall socket, and [Dr. Gerg] estimates it should last for a few weeks even in case of USB power loss.
While conventional safes can be a good place to put valuables, sometimes it’s even better to hide your things where nobody will even look in the first place. [Wesley Treat] has a build that will allow you to do just that, which secrets away papers, money, or small items within the body of a bolt.
There’s a surprising amount of room inside.
The build starts in a proper hacker fashion, using a power drill to turn an aluminium blank against a power sander creating an ersatz lathing setup. The outside of the blank is then threaded with the aid of a socket wrench and die, to great success. A cavity is created inside and threaded internally, and a separate head is then machined to screw on top. It’s all achieved without the use of a real lathe, with [Wesley]’s power drill doing most of the heavy lifting instead. It’s great stuff.
The end result has the appearance of a socket-head cap screw, while being lighter than a typical example due to the aluminium construction. Inside, there’s room for money, matches, and more, and [Wesley] even put in a small hole so the bolt can be used as an attractive keychain.
It’s a neat build, and one that we’d love to have as part of our own everyday carry. Video after the break.
Another day, another video that seriously makes us doubt whether eschewing the purchase of a lathe in favor of feeding the family is a value proposition. This time, [Maker B] shows us what the queen of machine tools can do by turning a couple of bolts into a miniature safe.
We’ll state right up front that this build doesn’t source all its material from a single bolt. It’s more like two bolts and a few odd pieces of brass, but that doesn’t detract from the final product one bit. [Maker B] relieves the two chunky stainless steel bolts of their hex heads and their threads on the lathe, forming two nesting cylinders with a satisfyingly tight fit. A brass bar is machined into a key that fits between slots cut in the nesting cylinders, while discs of brass form the combination dials. Each disc is stamped around its circumference with the 26 letters of the alphabet; we thought the jig used for stamping was exceptionally clever, and resulted in neat impressions. The combination, which is set by placing a pin next to a letter in each disc, protects the admittedly limited contents of the tiny safe, but functionality is hardly the point. This is all about craftsmanship and machining skills, and we love it.
When it comes to safes, mechanical design and physical layout are just as important as the electronic bits. If care isn’t taken, one element can undermine the other. That appears to be the case with this Amazon Basics branded biometric pistol safe. Because of the mechanical design, the fingerprint sensor can be overridden with nothing more than a thin piece of metal — no melted gummi bears and fingerprint impressions involved.
Small button used to register a new fingerprint. It can be reached by inserting a thin shim in the gap between the door and the frame while the safe is closed and locked.
[LockPickingLawyer] has a reputation for exposing the lunacy of poorly-designed locks of all kinds and begins this short video (embedded below) by stating that when attempting to bypass the security of a device like this, he would normally focus on the mechanical lock. But in this case, it’s far more straightforward to simply subvert the fingerprint registration.
This is how it works: the back of the front panel (which is inside the safe) has a small button. When this button is pressed, the device will be instructed to register a new fingerprint. The security of that system depends on this button being inaccessible while the safe is closed. Unfortunately it’s placed poorly and all it takes is a thin piece of metal slid through the thin opening between the door and the rest of the safe. One press, and the (closed) safe is instructed to register and trust a new fingerprint. After that, the safe can be opened in the usual way.
It’s possible that a pistol being present in the safe might get in the way of inserting a metal shim to hit the button, but it doesn’t look like it. A metal lip in the frame, or recessing the reset button could prevent this attack. The sensor could also be instructed to reject reprogramming while the door is closed. In any case, this is a great demonstration of how design elements can affect one another, and have a security impact in the process.
[truebassB]’s dispenser operates around a 555 timer, adjusted by a potentiometer. Push a button and a cup pours in a few seconds, or hold the other button to dispense as much as you want.
The dispenser is made from MDF and particle board glued together, with some LEDs and paper prints to spruce it up. Just don’t forget a small spill sink for any miscalculated pours. You needn’t fret over the internals either, as the parts are easily acquired: a pair of momentary switches, a 12V micro air pump, a brass nozzle, food-safe pvc tube, a custom 555 timing circuit — otherwise readily available online — a toggle switch, a power supply plug plus adapter and a 12V battery.
