The FUNcube Dongle is a SDR receiver on a USB dongle which currently sells for $125 GPB. It uses the same E4000 tuner found in the $20 RTL-SDR dongle we’ve posted about previously. The developer is Howard Long, G6VLB, who chronicled the FUNCube’s development in the above video from the 2011 Digital Communications Conference hosted […]
Category Archives: talks
USB LCD Backpack: Running a 4×20 character LCD
Owel was unsure if the USB LCD Backpack would work with his 4×20 LCD. We worked with him in the forum to get it going. If you have any doubts or questions about your project, fast help is just a post away in the forum.
Free O’Reilly webcast: Developing Webbots and Spiders
O’Reilly is offering a free webcast on March 13, 2012, at 10:00 AM PT on the subject of Developing Webbots and Spiders: Using virtual robots to automate your work. Among the topics to be covered by this one hour presentation by author and DEFCON presenter Michael Schrenk include the basics of building a webbot, considering […]
2011 DCC: Bluetooth for microcontrollers
This talk from the 2011 DCC conference held in Baltimore, MD, last September, covers the basics of using Bluetooth in microcontroller circuits. The presenter is John A. Hansen, amateur radio licensee W2FS, and is the developer of commercial amateur radio digital products with his TNC-X company. If nothing else, you’ll find out how Bluetooth got […]
2011 DCC – Practical Software Radio
This talk is from the 2011 Digital Communications Conference (DCC) held last September in Baltimore, MD. The speaker is Matt Ettus who heads up Ettus Research, manufacturers of the USRP family of SDRs. His talk is an in depth technical explanation of “Why Things Don’t Always Match the Textbooks” in SDR. Matt is affiliated with […]
28C3: The Atari 2600 video computer system ultimate talk
Here’s something for retro video game enthusiasts. This talk by Sven Oliver (‘SvOlli’) Moll from the recent 28C3 conference in Berlin covers the history, the hardware and how to write programs for the Atari 2600 gaming console. The Atari 2600 Video Computer System (VCS for short) was one of the first popular gaming consoles back […]
28C3: Hack the planet with Code Hero and Makerhoods
In this rapid fire lightning talk from the 28C3 Chaos Communication Congress held recently in Berlin, Alex Peake highlights the learning initiative known as Code Hero. “Code Hero, a game that teaches you how to make games so you can make games that teach everything else to make all knowledge playable.” (Well, that clears everything […]
28C3: SCADA and PLC vulnerabilities in correctional facilities
In this full length presentation from the recent 28C3 conference in Berlin, Tiffany Rad, Teague Newman and John Strauchs describe the opportunities and challenges presented by SCADA systems used in prisons and jails. These systems are often used in conjunction with PLCs to open and close doors. Using original and publicly available exploits along with […]
28c3: the FreedomBox
This lightning talk from the recent 28C3 conference in Berlin is a general introduction and status update on the development of the FreedomBox project. The FreedomBox is a personal server running a free software operating system and free applications, designed to preserve personal privacy by providing a secure platform upon which federated social networks can […]
28C3: Cellular protocol stacks for internet — demystified
Harald Welte presented this talk at the 28C3 Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin. While we use packet oriented transmissions daily over cellular networks, unlike TCP/IP and Ethernet many even in the hacker community are not familiar with the actual protocol stacks for those cellular packet networks. The purpose of this talk is to give an […]
28C3: Reverse engineering USB devices
In this talk from the recent 28C3 conference in Berlin, Drew Fisher discusses the process of reverse engineering the Kinect audio protocol. He shows how the USB standard can help a reverse engineer out and proceeds to analyze a set of USB logs, finding patterns, building understanding, developing hypotheses of message structure, and eventually implementing […]
28C3: Soundcard based radio direction finding
In this lightning talk presentation from the 28C3 conference, the zunkworks crew outlines their work using simple RF hardware and a Linux laptop with soundcard to experiment with Radio Direction Finding (RDF). RDF has long been used in commercial and public safety activites, and the approach employed here attempts to bring RDF development down to […]
28C3: Dead drops
In this lightning talk from the recently concluded 28C3 Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin, Aram Bartholl presents updated information on the topic of dead drops. Dead drops are a means of anonymously conveying data using USB drives physically embedded in public spaces. (See this post from 2010.) This talk also highlights the existence of WiFi […]
28C3: Driving high power LEDs
Here’s a brief video from the recently concluded 28C3 hacker conference hosted by Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin, Germany. Jonathan Foote of rotormind.com covers some ways to drive high power LEDs without burning them up, including the latest technology current source circuits and ICs. This was one of the “lightning talks” which are are part […]
28C3: Reverse engineering a Qualcomm baseband
At the recently concluded Chaos Communication Congress 28C3 “behind enemy lines” conference in Berlin, Germany, Guillaume Delugré presented this talk on reverse-engineering a Qualcomm baseband. Despite their wide presence in our lives, baseband chips are still nowadays poorly known and understood from a system point of view. Some presentations have highlighted vulnerabilities in GSM stacks […]
Defcon 19: Vulnerabilities of Wireless Water Meter Networks
Security researcher John McNabb presented this talk at the Defcon 19 (2011) conference highlighting vulnerabilities of wireless water meter systems. John managed a small water system for 13 years and draws on his experiences in this presentation covering water security systems and more importantly the hardware, software, topology, and vulnerabilities of wireless water meter networks […]
Ruxcon 2011: Hacking the wireless world with SDR
Software engineer and perpetural hacker Balint Seeber presented this talk at the Ruxcon 2011 conference held November 19-20, 2011 in Melbourne, AU. Balint presents those unfamiliar with SDR with the basics of the hardware and software you’ll need and highlights what’s out there in the lesser known areas of the RF spectrum. He explains some […]
Defcon 19: Network Monitoring with Arduino
Steve Ocepek, Director of Security Research, Trustwave SpiderLabs presented this talk at Defcon 19 (2011). He harkens back to the days of blinking modem lights, and demonstrates how to create a modern day “blinking light” network monitoring device using the Arduino Uno along with itead Studio’s Color Shield. Dubbed the cerealbox, this design interfaces with […]
Free O’Reilly webcast: Intro to embedded systems programming
O’Reilly is presenting a free one hour webcast this Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 10:00 AM PT entitled “A Gentle Introduction to Embedded Systems Programming.” Elecia White will be the presenter. Want to do some embedded software? Or worse, did you get handed a project and just want to know what is going on? There […]
Defcon 19: build your own radar system
At the Defcon 19 (2011) conference Michael Scarito demonstrated how to construct your own radar system. The project is based on a design by Dr. Greg Charvat from MIT and uses synthetic aperture techniques to generate a two- or three-dimensional image. (You can read Dr. Charvat’s research paper here.) The hardware operates in the 2.4 […]