Category Archives: RF

UPDATE: ARISSat-1 deployment delayed until July

UPDATE: According to information posted on the arissat.org website on February 13, 2011, the deployment of the ARISSAT-1 has been delayed until July, 2011. Project developers had originally announced that ARISSat-1 (f/k/a Suitsat-2), would be launched and transmitting by February 16, 2011! However, due to unforeseen problems, the actual deployment into space has been delayed […]

SCADA 101

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems (SCADA) present a means of networking industrial infrastructure monitoring and control systems. From a central reading location a SCADA system can track a number of remote sites equipped with Remote Terminal Units (RTUs) or Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs). The RTUs can measure an array of conditions and a wider […]

Shmoocon 2011: intercepting FHSS radio signals

Q, Atlas and Cutaway gave a presentation at the Shmoocon 2011 conference held recently in Washington, DC, concerning interception techniques for Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) radio signals. They demonstrate the use of low-cost, easily obtained hardware/software to conduct predictive channel hopping analysis coupled with crude spectrum analysis and ultimately identify any given hopping pattern […]

Shmoocon 2011: Exploring ZigBee Security

At the Shmoocon 2011 conference which recently concluded in Washington, DC, Ryan Speers and Ricky Melgares presented ZigBee Security: Find, Fix, Finish. ZigBee is a low-power, low-data rate wireless protocol based on IEEE 802.15.4. It connects lightweight embedded technology like HVAC, smart energy, security, and process automation systems, and is an attractive target as it […]

Shmoocon 2011: Custom Bluetooth hardware attacks

Here’s a summary by Hak5 of Bluetooth hardware attacks presented at the recent Shmoocon 2011 conference held in Washington, DC. Here the Hak5 gang interviews Michael Ossmann about project Ubertooth – a custom hardware device for sniffing and injecting Bluetooth packets. This brings monitor mode to Bluetooth, making for some interesting RF activities. The complete […]

Packet radio and the Arduino Radio Shield

Packet radio is a means of sending data wirelessly over radio channels, and is often used by Amateur Radio Operators. (One form is APRS, described in our earlier post.) In the video following the break you get some idea of how packet radio communications are conducted. The video uses a piece of hardware known as […]

APRS homebrew digital radio interface

Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) is a digital data communications system often used by amateur radio operators in the 2-Meter FM band. You may hear such data transmissions on 144.390 MHz FM and other frequencies. DK7IN has published an interesting project which promises to let you transmit APRS data when connected to a licensed amateur […]

Wireless sniffing and jamming

Recently Travis Goodspeed posted an article about using goodfet.cc to sniff radio traffic from the Chronos watch by TI and the iClicker handheld classroom remote. In addition to the sniffing capabilities, the project can also be used to jam RF signals as well using the IM-ME device illustrated above. Via Hack a Day.

ADUCRF101: precision analog microcontroller with ISM band transceiver

Analog Devices, Inc. announces the release of the ADuCRF101, a fully integrated System On Chip (SOC) solution designed for low power wireless applications. The ADuCRF101 integrates a low power Cortex-M3 core from ARM. It is a 32-bit RISC machine, offering up to 1.25 DMIPS peak performance. The Cortex-M3 MCU also has a flexible 14-channel DMA […]

Hacking toy RC cars

Project Lab provides the details on how to produce a wireless robotics platform using a cheap RC toy vehicle, Arduino, XBee and Processing. The vehicle is completely controlled by the code running on the remote computer which allows very rapid prototyping of the code to tell the vehicle what to do and how to react […]

Running your own GSM stack on a phone

Harald Welte and Steve Markgraf presented at 27C3 CCC in Berlin, Germany, on the OsmocomBB project, a Free Software implementation of the GSM protocol stack running on a mobile phone. This provides the security researcher a tool equivalent to an Ethernet card in the TCP/IP protocol world: a simple transceiver that will send arbitrary protocol […]

Wireshark analysis of wireless protocols

FreakLabs has an interesting project designed to conduct sniffing of protocols that ride on top of 802.15.4 such as Zigbee and 6LoWPAN (IPv6 over 802.15.4). The project utilizes their FreakDuino platform which contains an Arduino integrated with a wireless radio. The tutorial assumes that Wireshark is installed on your computer, the Chibi or chibiArduino release […]

Dynamic radio spectrum utilization

Here’s an interesting paper from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia detailing Dynamic Spectrum Access Management using Cognitive Radio System. The concepts highlighted in this presentation will become increasingly important as regulators in the US and throughout the world deal with competing needs for radio spectrum, with a corresponding impact on developers and users of RF devices.

SimpliciTI™ protocol

SimpliciTI™ is a low-power RF protocol aimed at simple, small RF networks. This open-source software was designed for easy implementation and deployment out-of-the-box on several TI RF platforms such as the MSP430 family of low-power MCUs and the CC1XXX/CC25XX/CC430 transceivers and SoCs. Access point and range extenders are not required but provide extra functionality such […]

Electronics behind the homebrew TSA style scanner

Here Jeri Ellsworth concludes her presentations on a homebrew TSA type body scanner by focusing on the components and coding. An FPGA is used for processing of the video signal as an alternative to a PC. The use of a “virtual ground” is an interesting aspect of the signal amp circuit.

Peer to peer control network uses TV spectrum white space

New patent application #20100309806 describes a peer to peer radio system designed to utilize the “white space” between TV channels. The system receives data from RF and geolocation sensors and processes them along with information from the FCC’s white space database to assign operating frequencies on a dynamic basis.