pppd did some some tests for his underwater touch panel using the AT42QT1010 and a DIY panel. The panel is constructed from aluminum sheets, foam, and duct tape. He is currently sorting out calibration issues, as right now it makes a great cat-drinking-water indicator. Via the forum.
Category Archives: hacks
MCU-in-the-middle attack on Diebold voting machine
Computerized voting machine vulnerabilities are nothing new, but this video demonstrating a man-in-the-middle wireless attack on a Diebold voting machine takes a different tact than most others. A vulnerability assessment team at Argonne National Laboratories was able to compromise the security of the Diebold machine, rendering it vulnerable by using a homemade MCU board at […]
High power TV-B-Gone flashlight with mega range
megabug posted a TV B Gone with huge range: tvbgone firmware from Ian (irtoy) which works like a charm here. 10 IR LEDs from Vishay (some high power stuff afair) in parallel pulsed with up to 4.2V from the battery! I Think the only voltage drop or resistor is in the mosfet I used. ;) […]
APCO25 protocol encryption cracked
The APCO25 (P25) communications protocol is a form of digital radio communications technology growing in popularity in police and other public safety radio systems in the US and abroad. Many such systems are unencrypted and can be received on digital radio scanners. Others employ encryption in an effort to prevent civilian monitoring. Now researchers with […]
Arduino IDE hack speeds up code compile
Paul Stoffregen over at PJRC sent us a link to this video highlighting how to modify the Arduino IDE by editing the boards.txt file to allow the compiler to use precompiled files. This helps to speed up the overall compile and upload process. A cool enhancement originally developed for the Teensyduino board. Paul submitted this […]
SkyNET air drone hacks wifi on the fly
Researchers at the Stevens Institute of Technology have designed and built the prototype of a WiFi hacking air drone based on the AR.Drone quadcopter. They added a lightweight single board computer with Debian Linux installed, along with 3G mobile broadband connectivity and two WiFi cards (the second for packet injection.) A GPS receiver and sonar […]
Juki 360 pick and place rebuild at Null Space Labs
Pick and place rebuild at Null Space Labs: Gleep found us a Juki(Zevatech) Placemat 360 (that seems to have been upgraded to a 460 ) pick and place machine. It was sold as ‘working’, the sellers definition was, if I’m completely honest a stretch (outright lie)
Pip-Boy 3000 game controller proto using Arduino
If you’re into the gaming scene, then you know that Fallout is a pretty popular post nuclear simulation game. A fan of the game wanted to create a prototype of the game’s wrist mounted controller known as the Pip-Boy 3000. MyMagicPudding writes: This is the first test of my attempt to build a working Pip-Boy […]
Nifty electromechanical Vane display
Eastern Star Geek posted a complete electromechanical clock design for the Vane clock digits we covered earlier: The displays in question are of a 7 segment electromechanical design. These are not light-up displays, but rather, reflective. Each segment is a “vane” that has been painted a bright contrasting color, and mounted on a hinge, such that it can be swung into, […]
22k + 1k + 1k resistor arch
This is a fun hack on arhi’s DIY HAKKO (and SOLOMON) soldering pencil driver: 240 gain requires 24K resistors there, not really available easy … I soldered 22k + 1k + 1k (look at picture attached, it is 2×1206+0804 on top :D it works but .. ) Via the project log forum.
New Hackerspace challenge: Best build from lost parts
Charlie writes: Our hackerspaces vacuum cleaner probably has about $500 in parts inside it. We were thinking of a competition that involved making the coolest things out of whatever you could find on the floor. Via the comments.
Bootable live RFID hacking system
OpenPCD has been doing a lot of work with RFID hacking. They have a bootable Linux distro available to make exploration easier: The bootable Live RFID Hacking System contains a ready-to-use set of hacking tools for breaking and analyzing MIFARE Classic RFID cards and other well known card formats. It is built around PCSC-lite, the […]
Vane clock with mechanical segment displays
NashblackCat is working on a clock with some interesting mechanical flip-digits: I have a set of flip digit modules and I am tinkering with what would be the best way to use them in a HH:MM:SS clock setup. I am tinkering with a few ideas on how to move them. You see it has three […]
Another passive Ethernet sniffer
orcinus found another tap for monitoring Ethernet communications: The Throwing Star LAN Tap is a passive Ethernet tap, requiring no power for operation. There are active methods of tapping Ethernet connections (e.g., a mirror port on a switch), but none can beat passive taps for portability. To the target network, the Throwing Star LAN Tap […]
Passive ethernet tap spies on network connection
tempmj built a passive ethernet tap for monitoring and debugging network connections: I basically took 4 Panduit brand modular ethernet jacks and wired between two of them normally, other than the fact that the TX pairs from “Side A” looped through an extra jack and the TX pairs from “Side B” looped through the remaining […]
The Talking Breathalyzer
The Talking Breathalyzer. We were lucky enough to get a preview of this project at the Bay Area Maker Faire: A customizable Breathalyzer that talks and tells you how much you’ve had to drink. It’s also open source and can easily be modified with your own text on the LCD screen and audio MP3 files. […]
IM-ME jams APCO P25 digital comms
APCO Project 25 is a digital modulation protocol used by a growing number of public safety radio systems and to a limited extent by Amateur Radio Operators. APCO P25 radio transmissions are capable of being monitored by scanning receivers from Radio Shack, GRE and Uniden. That is, unless the agency monitored decides to encrypt their […]
MakerBot sends Colbert into space
MakerBot sends Colbert into space: After scanning Stephen Colbert‘s head in preparation for Bre’s appearance on the Colbert Report, we encouraged Thingiverse users to mashup the Colbert model with all sorts of other objects. (And got to work ourselves.) Not content to confine ourselves to mashups, we initiated the MakerBot Space Program with a mission […]
Building a classic Mac hardware clone
Build a Classic Mac clone, a plan for everything but the disk drives: The classic Mac hardware clone seems almost doable, except for the floppy drive. Without a working floppy drive (or equivalent), the Mac clone would do nothing but boot up to the screen showing a disk with a question mark (remember that one?), […]
Enough Already: an Arduino based audio-b-gone for TV
Matt Richardson over at MAKE presents this cool solution to listening to the audio portion of the garbage overload known as entertainment news. He has design this project known as Enough Already which mutes the audio portion of a TV program when certain words are mentioned. The hardware consists of an Arduino and the Video […]