Hackaday Links: March 31, 2024

Battlelines are being drawn in Canada over the lowly Flipper Zero, a tool seen by some as an existential risk to motorized vehicle homeowners throughout the Nice White North. The story began a month or so ago, when somebody within the authorities floated the thought of banning gadgets that might be “used to steal autos by copying the wi-fi indicators for distant keyless entry.” The Flipper Zero was singled out for instance of such a nefarious gadget, though comparatively few autos on the highway right this moment might be boosted utilizing the straightforward replay assault {that a} Flipper is able to, and those which are susceptible to this assault aren’t all that fascinating — apologies to the 1993 Camry, in fact. With that risk hanging within the air, the parents over at Flipper Units began a Change.org petition to coach individuals about the misperceptions surrounding the Flipper Zero’s capabilities, and to induce the Canadian authorities to rethink their place on gadgets supposed to discover the RF spectrum. That final bit is vital, since transmit-capable SDR gadgets just like the HackRF might fall afoul of a broad interpretation of the proposed ban; heck, even a receive-only SDR dongle may be construed as a restricted gadget. We’re typically not a lot for petitions, however this case would possibly symbolize an exception. “First they got here for the Flipper Zero, however I did nothing as a result of I don’t have a Flipper Zero…”

Don’t you simply hate it when the one option to get information from a tool in your community is by way of the seller’s cloud? We positive do, and so does Scott, a chap from Australia who went to amazing lengths to intercept data from his solar power system. It’s an extended, drawn-out saga that seems to have lasted many months earlier than he lastly discovered methods to arrange what’s primarily a man-in-the-middle assault that lets him see information from his system earlier than it will get shipped off to the seller’s website. The beauty of his write-up is that he paperwork all of the useless ends he encountered earlier than hitting on the ultimate reply. What impressed us most was the best way that many of those side-quests yielded some form of actionable info, even when it was simply to provide him a way of what the builders have been considering of after they constructed the encryption for the IoT a part of this. Spoiler alert: they weren’t excellent at it. We simply love tales about such reverse-engineering heroics; tip of the hat to Hash over at RECESSIM for that includes this story on his latest “Reverse Engineering News” segment.

Given their eye-watering budgets, you’d be forgiven the thought that each impact seen in Hollywood films is completed with some form of bespoke gadget that prices a ton of cash. However generally it’s the straightforward hacks that get a manufacturing introduced in on time and funds. A fantastic instance is this cordless drill camera shaker, which was noticed in a latest manufacturing about Method E racing. The drill, which seems to be carrying Bosch livery, has an eccentric wood disc chucked up in it. The drill rests up in opposition to the aspect of an Arri Tremendous 35 cine digicam and when the set off is pressed, the wobbling disc recreates the vibration a race automotive driver endures. Paradoxically sufficient, the digicam seems to be mounted on a Steadicam, a digicam stabilizer supposed to make clean pictures.

SMD meeting is straightforward, proper? Simply take your PCB, prepare all the additional boards right into a jig, tape down your stencil, and smear the solder paste out with no matter squeegee-like software you will discover. However what (generally) works at house doesn’t at all times scale properly, as evidenced by this “Everything you ever wanted to know about stencil printing but were afraid to ask” guide. It’s a PDF of a slide deck by Chrys Shea, who actually will get down into the weeds on stencil printing. There are a ton of fascinating technical particulars that we had no concept about, just like the diploma to which the realm ratio (the ratio of the stencil thickness to the realm of a given aperture) impacts the switch effectivity, or how a lot solder paste will get caught to the pad versus how a lot sticks to the stencil partitions. There’s additionally stuff in there about nanocoating stencil partitions, the properties of solder paste — seems it’s a non-Newtonian fluid — the consequences of board assist on gasketing, and that “squircles” are higher than squares. We’d like to have seen the presentation reside, however the slide deck remains to be actually helpful. As is “The Analog,” which is the place we discovered this gem — should you aren’t subscribed to it, you actually ought to.

And eventually, are you able to cook dinner a scorching canine utilizing an AM radio tower? For sure values of cooking, sure. If this sounds to you want shenanigans the Geerling boys could be as much as, you’re proper, with the senior Geerling, a radio engineer, doing the precise cooking, and his son Jeff serving as sous chef. The new canine was impaled on some grounded wire tines on the top of an insulated stick and held close to an working AM radio tower. That didn’t do a lot, however the present began as soon as the hapless frank was pushed into contact with the tower. The uncooked energy rapidly vaporized the meat, whereas concurrently performing as a receiver for the sign. Should you ever thought touching a reside radio tower could be a good suggestion, it’s not. Simply ask the recent canine.

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