Hackaday links: February 21, 2011

PCB Stand

Part PCB, part old IC, and held together with hot glue. It doesn’t take much to make this electronics stand, but it’ll certainly add to the geek level of your desk.

Decorate with light


This busy living room is actually decorated all in white. The patterns that give it life are on lend from a projector and what we’d imagine is some fantastic software. [Thanks MDV]

Flashing butt on your bike

[Eli] sewed lights and flex sensor into her jeans. Now her butt flashes in heart-shaped patterns as she rides. She actually robbed one of the flex sensors from this project to complete that explosive high-five project.


Mini-rake’s progress


A lathe and some sand that needs tending is all that [Spatula Tzar] needed to get this zen garden rake under way. We like how she used a vacuum bag to infuse the wood

Paper and electron



This collection of musical projects forsakes common substrates and builds the mess of circuit boards on pieces of paper. Not much information but the strangeness is worth a look.

DIY emergency lighting system

When the power goes out at home, what do you do? Most of us probably scramble around the house looking for a flashlight. [Gigawatts] wanted a better solution, so he built an emergency lighting system based off a standard household UPS. A while back he had constructed a relay-switched outlet box to help periodically restart his cable modem which would get hung up a little too often for his liking. Since changing Internet providers, he no longer needed the switched outlet box, and was looking for a way to reuse it.

He hooked up the outlet box into the “battery powered” side of the UPS, and inserted a light bub into the normally closed half of the switch box. A 5v power supply was hooked into the “surge protection only” side of the UPS and is used to keep the relay switched. This causes the half of the switch box that is normally closed to remain open, and the light switched off. When power is lost, the 5v supply no longer switches the relay, and the light is turned on – powered by the UPS battery.

This is quite a useful hack if you happen to have a spare UPS sitting around – it sure beats scrambling around searching for a flashlight in the dark!

NES game pad wireless light commander

Annoyed that the new lights he bought for his apartment lacked power switches, Instructables user [p.arry.drew] decided to install a pair of wireless light switches. Not content to use the remotes separately, he decided to see if he could cram them both into an old NES controller, making for a nice all-in-one wireless light commander.

He disassembled the light switch remotes, cutting off a bit of the battery contacts to ensure they fit in the game pad. He then pulled apart his NES controller, removing the cord and adding some foam padding to ensure that the buttons fully contacted the wireless switches when pressed. A few bits of wooden dowel were added to keep everything in place, then the controller was reassembled.

His creation makes for a very convenient method of controlling several light switches from once source, plus the packaging is pretty handsome as well. These remote light switching solutions seem to be all the rage lately, so keep them coming!

Read on for a quick video of his remote light switches in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0SifRm_Ju8E

Ultrasmall Arduino

[Fabio Varesano's] new Arduino compatible board packs a full power punch in a ultra compact layout, measuring at 20.7×15.2 mm, the Femtoduino is probably the smallest 328 based Arduino compatible board around. Most of the staples are present, an QFN atmega328, an MIC5205 low dropout regulator good for a couple hundred milli amps, 16MHz ceramic resonator, reset, power indicator and pin 13 LEDs, but you will need to provide your own serial connection (FTDI, MAX232 etc) and another AVR programmer to get the Arduino boot loader onto the chip.

Since the board is small (smaller than a pro mini) it is not directly breadboard friendly. Even though the hole spacing is 0.05 inch, the size is large enough for “normal” wire to fit into fine, if you wish to use 0.1 inch spacing there is a handy break out board you can make where the Femtoduino just snaps in.

Everything needed to make one of your own is provided on the website, schematics, kicad files, bill of materials, Gerbers for both the board and the breakout board, though we would like to see this as a pre-made board soon, join us after the break for a video and see why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=w-TVLYRprAI

Farmbot

Prospero is the working prototype of an Autonomous Micro Planter, which is intended to be unleashed as a swarm. Using a Parallax propeller mounted on a Lynxmotion AH3-R hexapod body, though we have a ton of different ideas on hexapods if you find the price of the body to be out of budget.

Inputs to the machine are pretty standard robot fare like infrared, and ultrasound. Outputs on the other hand are more interesting, for example spray paint, retractable drill, seed dispenser, and of course a stack of servos.

Arming a robot with a drill and a can of spray paint sounds like a recipe for hours of fun, but it does have a job to do. Walking around, the bot stops and checks the ground below it, and if the ground is ok to seed, a small auger drill flips down from the robot’s belly. After drilling a hole, a seed is dropped, then covered over with a scoop on the back of the drill. Finally the seeded the spot is marked with white paint and the robot moves on.

Though its a prototype and not fully formed yet, its an interesting thing to see, so join us after the break for a video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ACtihXjq2B0

Interfacing an Arduino with a TFT LCD

Seven-segment displays and monochrome LCDs are fine for most projects, but some things simply look better in color. [John] over at the Little Bird Electronics blog recently wrote up a tutorial demonstrating the use of a TFT LCD panel with an Arduino. The specific panel he chose was a 4D Systems 1.44” TFT LCD that happened to feature a dedicated graphics processor, which should allow for some fantastic visuals when used to its fullest potential.

The LCD takes its commands over a serial interface, making it a simple five-wire display solution for your projects. The display can be programmed manually by sending hex commands over the serial interface, but there are also some user-developed libraries available that will allow you to use the majority of the most popular functions without the learning curve. One thing to note is that the LCD must be flashed with a particular flavor of firmware before it can communicate over the serial interface, a process for which [John] provides a walk through.

The LCD panel can be used with any Arduino-compatible board, so it can be useful in a whole host of projects.

Stick around to see a simple demo of the board in use.


Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BKy-GuKWGZ8

Amazing backyard rocket ship tree house

If you thought you had a cool tree house as a kid, think again. Tasked with landscaping his back yard and building a tree house for his son, [Jon] decided to go all out and build him a rocket ship instead.

Rising 15 feet into the Seattle skyline, the tree house known as the Ravenna Ultra-Low-Altitude Vehicle (RULAV), is sure to be the envy of every kid in the neighborhood. [Jon] and a friend worked for well over a year on their creation, welding, grinding, painting, and riveting their way along. After the structure was built, they fabricated some custom PCBs, using them to build the ship’s 14 control panels. The entire operation is controlled by a custom OS built to run on the three ATmega MCUs that manage operations.

Not content with just a handful of knobs and switches, the ship contains over 800 LEDs among its laundry list of electronics goodies. Compressed air is used to shoot water from positioning “thrusters”, while a paint mixer spins under the ship to simulate the rough and bumpy nature of space travel. The simulated launches are capped off with plenty of authentic NASA-style audio and a sub woofer that gives everything a deep, resonating rumble.

The project is truly amazing, and a ton of work went into every little detail in order to make this the most spectacular tree house ever seen. [Jon] definitely takes the award for “Coolest Dad Ever” for this build, even we’re jealous!

The pictures certainly don’t do it justice, so be sure to check out the video below for a quick introduction and demo of this awesome project.

Thanks to [Jeremy Elson] for the tip.

Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8izMrzulMHI

Over-engineered clock finds purpose as RSS reader

[Bob Alexander] admits that he over-engineered his clock, giving it eight control buttons, eight twelve-segment alpha-numeric display digits, a GPS module as a time source, and a beefy microcontroller to boot. But he’s found a way to get more for his money out of the device by adding RSS and weather features to it.

Since he’s using the PIC 18F4550 it’s a snap to add USB connectivity. From there he wrote a fantastic PC-side application for communicating with the display. Now he has the option of displaying time, RSS feeds, or weather by scrolling through the options with one of the buttons. Perhaps the best feature is the option to launch a browser on the PC and view the current story just by pressing a button on the display. Check out the two demos after the break; one shows the clock features and the other demonstrates the C# software.

Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PrWVMo_Bmfs

DIY pick and place seems easy to build

We’re not saying it’s a simple project, but the build methods that [Alan Sawula] used for this DIY pick and place are probably the easiest we’ve seen yet. As this is just a CNC machine, the methods he used would also work quite well for mills or other machines. Instead of using precision rods for the X and Y axes, he used square tubing. The tubing is oriented more like a diamond, with the ninety degree corners providing the travel surface. Two bearings with a shim between them provide a groove that rides along the corner, and since this is square and not just ‘L’ bracket, the sleds are secured both above and below the tube. Stepper motors provide the movement along X and Y, with a servo motor for Z and another one to rotate the medical grade needle that serves as the vacuum tip. Starting four minutes into the video you can see that this not only works, but it’s lightning fast!
Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BoCJFJsCXPQ

Plug-in module lies about news at coffee shops. Real or Fake?

[Mike] sent in a tip about Newstweek, and we’re turning to our readers to tell us if this is real or if we’re being trolled. The link he sent us points to a well-written news-ish article about a device that plugs into the wall near an open WiFi hotspot and performs something of a man-in-the-middle attack on devices connected to the access point. The article describes the device above as it observes, then spoofs the ARP table of the wireless network in order to inject fake news stories in pages you are reading. Apparently once it boots, the small box phones home for commands from its maker over a TOR connection.

The box reminds us of the Sheevaplug so it’s not the hardware that makes us question the possibility of the device. But look at the Linux terminal screen readout. It shows a prompt with the word ‘newstweek’ in it. That’s the address of the site the article is hosted on, giving us a strong sense of being trolled.

What do you think, real or fake? Let us know (and why you think that) in the comments.

RF control from just about any device

[Mirko] is working on a library that will allow you to add RF control to just about any device. The only requirement is that the device be capable of running a Linux kernel, and that it have a few GPIO pins available. One example is fairly straight forward, a Netgear router. Many, if not most routers run a Linux kernel natively and most have solder points on the board for unused IO pins so patching into the hardware is very straight forward. Less obvious and much more impressive is the hack seen in the image above. [Mirko] built an SD card adapter cable and uses the contacts in the card reader

'Supply of Ethical Hackers in India Short of Demand' Future of Ethical Hackers

This has very much to do with the nation’s security, but not one that the political leadership is being pulled up for. As hackers from across the border in Pakistan mount a cyber attack against the country’s websites, Indian hackers seem to be falling considerably short in firepower.

"In the ongoing cyber warfare between the two countries, roughly 40-50 Indian sites are being hacked on a daily basis by Pakistani hackers while bout 10 Pakistani sites are being hit by their Indian counterparts”, says Ankit Fadia, Mumbai-based ethical hacker and an expert on cyber crime.

Mr Fadia is clear that breaking into foreign country’s websites does not fall within the realm of ethical hacking, but mentions how Pakistanis outdo Indians in hacking to underline India’s reactive, rather than proactive, approach to hacking issues.

He says the attitude of the corporate sector towards cyber security is almost as laid back as that of the government agencies, with the result that ethical hacking is still at a low key across the spectrum. Ethical hackers, who also go by names such as white hackers, white knights or sneakers, are computer security experts who specialise in penetration testing and related testing methodologies to check the vulnerability of a company’s information systems.

Nasscom surveys have pointed out that information security threats have created an "unprecedented demand for qualified and experienced information security professionals”, but Mr Fadia reckons that the supply of ethical hackers in the country is far short of the demand of corporates and government agencies.

"Ethical hacking does come with a cost, but it is not prohibitively expensive, either. But often, corporates appreciate the need only after a security breach happens”, Mr Fadia told ET.

According to him, social networking sites have become hackers’ favourite hunting grounds these days, marking a clear break from the e-mail route to passing on a virus.

Ethical hacking communities are operating in the country but Mr Fadia says a strong and serious community operation of ethical hackers is virtually absent in the country.

Researchers spy on BitTorrent users in real-time {User Uploads and Downloads Revealed}

Researchers have devised a way to monitor BitTorrent users over long stretches of time, a feat that allows them to map the internet addresses of individuals and track the content they are sending and receiving.

In a paper presented earlier this week at the Usenix Workshop on Large-Scale Exploits and Emergent Threats, the researchers demonstrated how they used the technique to continuously spy on BitTorrent users for 103 days. They collected 148 million IP addresses and identified 2 billion copies of downloads, many of them copyrighted.


The researchers, from the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control, also identified the IP addresses where much of the content originated. They discovered the the vast majority of the material on BitTorrent started with a relatively small number of individuals.

"We do not claim that it is easy to stop those content providers from injecting content into BitTorrent," they wrote. "However, it is striking that such a small number of content providers triggers billions of downloads. Therefore, it is surprising that the anti-piracy groups try to stop millions of downloaders instead of a handful of content providers."



The researchers said the information leak is built in to the very core of most BitTorrent systems, including those used by ThePirateBay and IsoHunt. They support commands such as "scrape-all" and "announce started/stopped," which when used repeatedly can be used to identify the IP addresses where content originates or is being distributed once it has proliferated.

By collecting more than 1.4 million unique .torrent files, they were able to identify specific pieces of content being distributed by particular IP addresses. The results are about 70 percent accurate.

"At any moment in time for 103 days, we were spying on the distribution of between 500 and 750K contents," they wrote. "In total, we collected 148M IP addresses distributing 1.2M contents, which represents 2 billion copies of content."

The insecurities baked into BitTorrent allowed the researchers to discover IP addresses even when they were hidden behind the Tor anonymity service. It should be pointed out that this isn't the fault of Tor, which has long urged people to refrain from using BitTorrent over the virtual privacy tunnels. In light of the new research, project managers renewed that admonition on Thursday.

"The BitTorrent protocol is vulnerable to tampering by malicious parties," Jacob Appelbaum, a full-time developer for Tor volunteer wrote in an email to El Reg. "This is not so different than when you're using Tor or on any other internet connection. If someone wants to tamper, there's nothing in the protocol to stop the tampering."

A PDF of the paper is here. ®

Source:-www.theregister.com

Cyber Crime: Man held for e-mailing threats to hotel

A 40-year-old man who had sent e-mail threats to a city hotel in his wife’s name, in order to create trouble for her, was arrested by the cyber cell of the Pune police on Thursday.

Sunil Suresh Nayak alias Suresh Dholkya (40) was nabbed in Bangalore by a police team led by deputy commissioner of police (cyber cell) Rajendra Dahale.

Speaking to reporters, Dahale said that Nayak had sent two e-mails to the hotel on June 1 and in them he had threatened to blow up the hotel on June 2. He also told the hotel to pay Rs 2.5 crore through a bank demand draft and gave his wife’s address so that the payment could be made. "We received a complaint on June 1 from the hotel authorities,” Dahale said.

The police contacted the networking website to find out where the e-mail had come from. "The company gave us the address, which turned out to be a cyber cafe in Bangalore,” said Dahale.

"Our team went to Bangalore and checked the hard discs of the computers at the cyber cafe,” added Dahale. "We confirmed that the e-mails had indeed been sent from one of the computers. The cafe owner told us that one particular person used that computer every day.”

The police led a trap near the cafe and arrested Nayak on Thursday. "After the arrest he immediately admitted to sending the e-mails to the Pune hotel,” said Dahale. "He also admitted to sending insulting e-mails to the cyber cell of the Mumbai police.”

During interrogation Nayak said that he had sent the e-mails to create trouble for his wife. According to him, he and his wife were doing HR consultancy in Singapore. "On the pretext of selling some property in Bangalore, my wife brought me in India. She registered a complaint of harassment against me and I was put in prison for 20 days,” Nayak said.

He said that his wife had also thrown him out of the house. "I was depressed and wanted to teach her lesson. So I created a fake e-mail address, randomly selected a hotel in Pune and sent e-mails to the hotel,” Nayak said.

Dahale said that Nayak has been arrested under section 66 (a) and 66 (c) of Information and Technology Act.

Garage Monitor Has an Extra Arduino

[Jody] wanted to know when his garage door was open. He details his setup which uses a temperature sensor read by an Arduino to send over XBee radio to a computer running a Windows Service. We have seen this twice before, and is noteworthy as a lesson. The XBee radios have the ability to read analog data, relay digital signals, and a lot more. This means the Arduino is completely unnecessary. For example, the Tweet-a-Watt uses two of an XBee’s ADCs to measure voltage and current in a Kill-a-Watt power meter. Programming an XBee is really simple, with the help of tutorials from SparkFun and Adafruit. A bit of programming and soldering should get [Jody] back his Arduino. We hope this note will help you find more creative uses of XBees without microcontrollers.

Bringing the Shark to the Bee

Wireshark, a tool recognized universally as being one of the best network analyzers available, has long been used by legitimate network professionals as well as a shadier crowd (and everywhere in between). While useful for analyzing both wired and Wi-Fi traffic, monitoring 802.15.4 protocols (such as Zigbee) have not been a common use in the past. [Akiba] of FreakLabs has brought us a solution which works around the normal limitations of Wireshark’s libpcap base, which does not accept simple serial input from most homebrew setups that use FTDI or Arduinos to connect to Zigbee devices. Using named pipes and a few custom scripts, [Akiba] has been able to coax Wireshark into accepting input from one of FreakLabs Freakduino boards.

While there are certainly professional wireless analyzing tools out there that connect directly into Wireshark, we at Hackaday love showing off anyone who takes the difficult, cheap, out of the way method of doing things over the neat, expensive, commercial method any day.

Nokia internet key external antenna

[Maurizio] was having some reception issues with his wireless internet and set out to add an external antenna to the USB dongle (translated). He had previously poked around inside of the Nokia internet key to find that the internal antenna was a flexible circuit substrate wrapped around a plastic box that made contact with main circuit board via a spring connector. This plastic frame is just right for mounting an SMA connector in just the right place for it to stick out the end of the case as seen in the picture above. It gives him better range, but since speed depends on how much traffic the wireless node is under, it’s not a guarantee that you’ll get a snappier connection after this hack.

Wireless Sniffing and Jamming of Chronos and iclicker

The ubiquitous presence of wireless devices combined with easy access to powerful RF development platforms makes the everyday world around us a wireless hacker’s playground. Yesterday [Travis Goodspeed] posted an article showing how goodfet.cc can be used to sniff wireless traffic and also to jam a given frequency. We’ve previously covered the work of [Travis] in pulling raw data from the IM-ME spectrum analyzer, which also uses goodfet.cc.

The Texas Instruments Chronos watch dev platform contains a C1110 chip, which among other things can provide accelerometer data from the watch to an interested sniffer. The i>clicker classroom response device (which houses a XE1203F chip) is also wide open to this, yielding juicy info about your classmates’ voting behaviour. There is still some work to be done to improve goodfet.cc, and [Travis] pays in beer–not in advance, mind you.

With products like the Chronos representing a move towards personal-area wireless networks, this sort of security hole might eventually have implications to individual privacy of, for example, biometric data–although how that might be exploited is another topic. Related to this idea is that of sniffable RFID card data. How does the increasing adoption of short-range wireless technologies affects us, both for good and bad? We invite you to share your ideas in the comments.

The pirate box

One of the most fun aspects of a LAN party was exploring the shared files of all the other users on the network. There were people that would show up, solely for the file swapping. That is exactly what this project is about. From the projects wiki, the Pirate box is a mobile p2p sharing and collaboration platform. Basically it is a wireless hotspot with a slick interface and a shared folder. It doesn’t connect to the internet, and it doesn’t log any connections. You can have a file swapping session simply by flipping it on and sharing its space with other people. They’ve included a step by step guide to setting up your own, but if you’re going to do some subversive file swapping we might suggest putting it in a less conspicuous enclosure. Imagine this as a portable verion of dead drops.

Wireless electricity enables next generation of annoying packaging

Yep, these cereal boxes light up. They’re using a new branded-technology called eCoupling that provides electricity via induction, which means the shelves have a coil with AC power running through it. The “printed coils” on the boxes allow inventory control and data exchange presumably thanks to a low-power microcontroller. But in the video after the break you can see that the printed lighting on the boxes lets them flash parts of the box art as a way to attract customers’ attention. We’d bet that they’re using electroluminescent materials but we weren’t able to get find specifics on how this is done. We just hope advertisers don’t start rolling noise-makers into their packaging.
Read This Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7oMIM6Vjtg&feature=player_embedded

Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) Website Hacked by Pakistani Hackers

The cyber crime cell here is investigating hacking of the website of the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB), police said here Sunday.

The website was hacked Saturday and its homepage was replaced with www.pakhaxors.com. It displayed a Pakistan national flag and objectionable language for the Chandigarh administration. CHB Sunday closed down its website and put it under maintenance.

'This is a serious issue and we have lodged a complaint with the authorities concerned. However, all our data is safe. We had a backup option,' Chandigarh housing-cum-finance secretary Sanjay Kumar told IANS Sunday.

'We will make sure that nobody is harassed due to this. We will again activate the website with all the information and links at the earliest,' he pointed out.

Crucial details regarding the ongoing projects, tenders and future plans of CHB were removed from the website. A few weeks back, CHB started accepting tenders online.

Last month, CHB also started digitising the property records in Chandigarh.

'Right now it is difficult to comment on who the culprit is. A website can be hacked by anybody, sitting in any part of the world. We are using all our expertise in the investigation and hopefully very soon we will catch the main accused behind this,' said a cyber crime cell official.

Snail mail notification system

[Mime] lives on one of the upper levels of an apartment complex. The mailboxes, being located at the ground floor can be somewhat inconvenient to check regularly. [Mime] decided to rig up a device to let him know when his mailbox had been accessed. He started with a wireless doorbell, thinking he could use the door side button inside his mailbox as a trigger with only some slight modification. On the receiver side, he wanted an LED to flash, letting him know that it was time to check his mail. One simple circuit and a self blinking LED later and the whole setup was finished. Great job [Mime]

Model rocket radio telemetry

Don’t just build a UAV, use it to blow things up. In this case a tri-copter seeks out colored balloons and pops them using low-grade fireworks. We’ve seen this type of flying armament before, but not in a ‘copter form factor. It looks like the targeting and firing is done by an operator, and is not an automated system despite what the text overlays on the video after the break says. The lack of autonomous firing capability makes this delightful, rather than scary. Don’t miss the build log for the tri-copter itself. How do you think this one stacks up to the last 3-bladed build

Read This Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozHoP_YThRI&feature=player_embedded

"Google Me" Upcoming Social Networking Site From GOOGLE

"Google me" sounds like a lame pickup line delivered near closing time, but it might also be Google's latest attempt at becoming relevant in social media.

Kevin Rose, of Digg fame, got the speculation rolling Sunday with a tweet that Google was working on a social service called Google Me that would compete with Facebook, perhaps Google's biggest rival for attention on the Internet. On Tuesday, former Facebook executive and Quora founder Adam D'Angelo took things a little further by declaring on Quora that "this is not a rumor. This is a real project. There are a large number of people working on it. I am completely confident about this."

So what might Google Me actually be? No one seems to really know. But it does appear to be somehow related toone's Google Profile, a service that got a shot in the arm with the debut of Google Buzz earlier this year. Google Buzz lets users share links, pictures, and thoughts with friends who find them through their Google Profile, but Buzz hasn't exactly put a dent in Facebook's growth.

That could mean something that mimicked Facebook's news feed within a Google Profile, with status updates, new pictures, and ultimately a fair amount of requests for pitchforks or other digital farming equipment could be in the works at Google. A company representative did not immediately return a call seeking further comment.
Social media has been one of Google's most elusive goals.

The company just hasn't produced anything that has moved the needle on social media: Orkut is probably having a good month with the Brazilians in the World Cup quarterfinals, but it doesn't resonate anywhere else. Google Buzz caused a huge privacy flap upon its debut and does not appear to have caught on with the general public once Google fixed those issues. Google Latitude has a decent user base but has been eclipsed by a location start-up--Foursquare--that it actually had the blueprints for in-house after acquiring Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley's earlier start-up, Dodgeball.

But Google has attempted to hit reset on its social strategy in 2010, and Google Me could be the first project designed entirely by that new group. If Google Me does come to pass, expect Google to do its homework on the privacy front (finally) and pitch the service as the anti-Facebook, with clear privacy controls and easily exported data.

Radio-controlled LED light show

[Alan] was commissioned to make some wearable, radio-controlled LED strips for the Travelling Light Circus. It has taken some time, but he has recently finished some prototypes, and thought it was a good time to do a writeup on the project. The system is managed by a single controller unit, which communicates with any number of LED driver units, each controlling 4 HL1606 LED strips. The light displays are synchronized across all of the LED driver units via a 2.4 GHz radio, with each driver falling into synch almost immediately after being powered on. While some might be turned off to the fact that he uses Arduino Pro Minis to control the LEDs, this is far from a simple project.

[Alan’s] blog contains several posts about this project, with everything documented in detail. He spends quite a bit of time talking about the project’s software, as well as hardware issues he ran into along the way.

His blog is a must read, but even more so, it is a must see. The lighting effects are mesmerizing, as there are a ton of different light patterns these units can generate, so be sure to check out the following video of the lights in action.

Read thise Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXAnan8zkC0&feature=player_embedded

Free Recharge 100% Working

My be you are impressed by the heading "free recharge", usually very popular in orkut forums these days and other social networking websites. But friends this is a trap, what is going on here is that http://sn.imis a yrl shrinker website helps you to make your url shorter, so the link http://sn.im/free-recharge-cell after clicking redirects you to the script page that can end in BLOCKING YOUR ORKUT ACCOUNT Temporary or may be permanently in some cases,so do not try this ok because recharging is only done through the Telecoms server algorithms which generate logical numbers i.e 16 digit of your recharge coupons. So its not possible to generate such kind of recharge digits by individuals.

So here is the below social eng. techniques to penitrate users to click on the links.Which will force the user to click on the link.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you Know About Free Recharge
Changed By Orkut here is the new link... ENJOY FREE RECHARGE RS 500 DAILY .


GOTO: [ <- GO HERE TO RECHARGE YOUR MOBILE FREE

ORwww. sn. im/free-recharge-cell

Copy n Paste link where www , orkut, com / Main *#Home is written i.e orkut home page


.
Finally which works orkut Got Working Script !!


NUMBER of Orkutians got recharge:50452

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

So be attentive and don't be a fool.Because there is a say that "There are two things in this world which have no ends, ist os the UNIVERSE and Second is "Human's Stupidity".

SQL Injection Prevention Tips from Rahul Tyagi (Must For Webdevolpers)

SQL Injection still used by script kiddies , gery and even by black hat hackers, its the easiest way to hack into some one's website. So today in this article i will give you some tips to, how to prevent SQL injection on your own or may be company's website.

1. Don't allow special characters As we all know the SQL strings are often having special symbol strings, making a combination on OR and =. So try to have stroke procedures instead of SELECT * FROM table name where Username="..." and Password="...", This is the global code and vulnerable. So try to validate your code and try to avoid acceptance of special symbols.

2. Use Email Instead of User ID
The best way to prevent SQL injection is to have use of Suer name as Email address. So what is happening here the code written will validate in such a way that it will not accept anything else instead of EMAIL address. Thus SQL injection strings are non acceptable hence SQL injection can be prevented.

3. Try to Hide Your Admin Login Page

Well there is no security in this universe there is only opportunity, and if you are showing your ADMINLOGIN page link on your website then that means you are giving the opportunity to the HACKER. Its an obvious thing that SQL injection can only be done through on your admin login panel (Some times through URL) and User login panel. So don't show ur adminlogin link direct on your website.

4. Don’t use default AdminLogin page

Other way is to protect your website from SQL injection is to name ur AdminLogin according to you. Try to hvae login page links like "powerlogin.asp","herologin.asp" means something different which cannot be found eaisly on the Google hacks. So when a hacker try to search your admin login page he/she(for Female hackers he he), he will search for adminlogin.asp,admin/login.asp something like this. and as result will be frustrated and hence will leave your website.

5. Social Engineering

Don't disclose your website vulnerabilities to anyone. try to get help from GOD istself GOD here i call (GOOGLE). Instead of discussing your website vulnerabilities to a single person try to search for the solutions on google.And last but not least have an WARNING message on your login pages something scary like" We are using transparent proxy do not try to and HACK, otherwise an legal action would be taken.". That code really works he he, at least before trying to hack into you website, he will think twice. So hope this unique article will help the website developers to prevent SQL injection attacks. This is the first ever article by anyone having these techniques. So please don't copy hope soon i will take copyright on this. Happy Hacking :)

There are number of things you can do... I will show you a few more herefor PHP Devolpers ...



Alternative one
Lets say thins is your code:

Code:

$result = mysql_query('SELECT text FROM pages WHERE id=' . $_GET['id']);
echo($result);

?>


This means that you are selecting the page content witch is 'text' from 'pages' in the SQL database, and you are sorting out the right page content with $_GET['id'] and $_GET['id'] is the thing in the url... Example; http://google.com/index.php?id=123

This code is easely injecteble... But if you do this:
Code:

$result = mysql_query('SELECT text FROM pages WHERE id=' . mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['id']));
echo($result);

?>

You are 100% secure


Alternative two
This one is not as good as the first one... But still works

Again we say this is your php code:
Code:

$result = mysql_query('SELECT text FROM pages WHERE id=' . $_GET['id']);
echo($result);

?>


Again this is verry simple to inject... But if you check $_GET['id'] for "iligal" characters! Like this:
Code:

$pos = strrpos(strtolower($_GET['id']), "union");
if ($pos === false){}else
{
die;
}

$pos = strrpos(strtolower($_GET['id']), "select");
if ($pos === false){}else
{
die;
}

$pos = strrpos(strtolower($_GET['id']), "information_");
if ($pos === false){}else
{
die;
}

$result = mysql_query('SELECT text FROM pages WHERE id=' . $_GET['id']);
echo($result);

?>

Batman inspired hidden light switch

[Chris] over at the New Hobbyist sent in his latest creation, a wireless light switch hidden within a statue bust. While shopping around for another project, he came across a wireless relay that can can be used to switch a standard 120v AC load. He bought the part without a project in mind, but inspiration quickly struck. Some of you young’uns might not remember the original Batman television series, but [Chris] certainly does. To access the Bat Cave, Bruce Wayne had to flip a secret switch located inside a bust of William Shakespeare that adorned his desk. While he doesn’t have a secret door to activate, [Chris] couldn’t think of any better way to switch on the lights in his man cave. He found a similar-looking bust of Beethoven and got to chopping his head off.

He fabricated a small mount for a push button, hiding the battery powered remote underneath, and an old 12v wall wart was repurposed to drive the wireless receiver. While not overly complicated, this is definitely a fun project and could make for a neat light switch in a kid’s room. Interested in some more Batman inspired hacks? Be sure to check out this Bat Cave-style entrance switch from a few years back.

Keep reading to see a video of his hidden light switch in action.

Releted Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BFTzlHkIDGQ

Model rocket radio telemetry

[Ken] sent us his Instructable in which he used radio telemetry to monitor the status of his air-powered model rocket through a series of launches. His setup is centered around an Arduino IDE-compatible board that looks to be about the size of a Boarduino, but has the benefit of an embedded 915 MHz radio module. The vendor he used also sells a good handful of add-on modules which he used for his in-flight recording, including a barometric pressure monitor and a 3-axis accelerometer. During flight, the rocket constantly sends data to a base station, provided it stays within radio operating range.

For is initial tests, [Ken] launched his rocket four times, getting usable data on half of them. He found out some interesting things about his model rocket, including the fact that it creates a maximum launch force of 60 Gs. He has plans to revise his setup in the future, such as lightening the battery load as well as adding a high-G analog sensor for recording the forces at take off. This kit, or a more reasonably priced clone, would make for a great addition to any rocket buff’s inventory.

Hiren's BootCD 10.6

Hello Friends, most people mailing me to give an article on a new advance bootable operating systemSo here is your new powerfull OS named Hiren's BootCD ,(HBCD) is a completely free bootable CD that contains a load of useful tools you can make use of in a variety of situations like analyzing, recovering and fixing your computer even if the primary operating system can not be booted.

It is a great resource for anyone with computer problems who is having trouble accessing the internet to download programs in an attempt to fix it. It has a multitude of tools divided into a number of categories like partitioning tools, backup, recovery and BIOS/CMOS tools to name a few.

With some simple knowledge about what is contained on the CD, you can use it to repair many problems computer like hard drive failure, virus infections, partitioning, password recovery and data recovery.
We may call it as an emergency cd which every computer technician or home user must have.
We thank and appreciate Hiren for his great BootCD. This site is just a download place for Hiren's BootCD and is not related with Hiren. For developer's homepage please visit Hiren's Homepage under the links.
Partition Tools.

If you need to make changes to the partitions on your computer, there are several applications that provides various levels of functionality for accomplishing this goal. You can both create and delete partitions from your computer, even while there are other partitions on the hard drive you are modifying. You can also resize partitions if needed, to change how much space is allocated to them.

Backup and Recovery
There are several backup and recovery tools on Hiren's BootCD. Backup tools like GetDataBack, HDD Scan, Partition Find and Mount, PhotoRec, Recuva, Undelete... let you copy data off of your hard drive and schedule automatic backups to ensure your data is saved to another location. You can also recover deleted data, whether that data was deleted intentionally or accidentally. There are also a few tools that will help you recover data from damaged or corrupted portions of your hard drive if you are unable to recover them through other methods.
Testing Tools
Hiren's BootCD provides a variety of tools for testing different aspects of your computer. If you suspect that your RAM is corrupted or that a piece of hardware on your machine is not functioning properly, there are several applications you can run to determine the problems. You can also perform hard drive tests to see whether your hard drive is physically damaged, and get a report on how much longer your hard drive is expected to work.
Password Tools
Password recovery and modification tools are also provided on Hiren's BootCD. You can change the administrator password on Windows machines, and there are utilities for saving passwords for your online accounts in an encrypted format. You can also encrypt your entire hard drive with Hiren's BootCD so that a password is required to read or write any data from or to your hard drive.

Changes from Hiren's BootCD 10.5 to 10.6

Update Checker 1.037, + Speccy 1.02.156, + BootICE 0.78, + MyUninstaller 1.65, + SearchMyFiles 1.47, + Glary Registry Repair 3.3.0.852, + HDHacker 1.4, + Delete Doctor 2.2, + Write Protect USB Devices, + Protect a Drive from Autorun Virus, + SumatraPDF 1.1, + RegShot 1.8.2, + KeyTweak 2.3.0, + Bart's Stuff Test 5.1.4 - Partition Magic, - Drive Image 2002, - Easy Recovery Opera Web Browser 9.27, SuperAntispyware 4.39.1002 (2606), SpywareBlaster 4.3 (2606), Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.46 (2606), Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.6.2 (2606), DriveImageXML 2.14, 7-Zip 9.15b, Total Commander 7.55, CCleaner 2.33.1184, MBRWizard 3.0.48, CurrPorts 1.81, Network Password Recovery 1.24, Defraggler 1.20.201, Bulk Rename Utility 2.7.1.2, RIPLinux 9.8, GParted Partition Editor 0.6.0b2, ProduKey 1.41, Process Explorer 12.04, DiskCryptor 0.9, Autoruns 10.01, PCI 32 Sniffer 1.4 (2606), SIW 2010.0428, UnknownDevices 1.4.20 (2606), Astra 5.46, HWiNFO 5.5.0, PCI and AGP info Tool (2606), ComboFix (2606), Dr.Web CureIt! Antivirus (2606)

Download

http://hotfile.com/dl/53375744/8e3594b/HBCD.10.6__9Down.COM.rar.html

SNES controller dock for Dell Streak

The Dell Streak is an Android tablet. [Collin Meyer] wanted to use an original SNES controller to play emulated games on the device. What he came up with is a controller that is a dock for he handheld.

Several things have to come together to make this happen. The Streak uses a standard PDMI dock that connects to a computer via a USB connection. [Collin] repurposed a sync cable by connecting a couple of pins on the dock connector which forces the device to use USB host mode. From there he used a Teensy microcontroller to convert the SNES controller into a USB device (very similar to this hack). The Teensy and shortened sync cable find a new home inside the SNES controller body and, in the video after the break, it looks like he used something like sugru to add a bit of support for the Streak.

Releted This Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FbFpMTAxuMs

Android on iPhone: New treats

It seems that the iPhone 2g and 3g are the newest phones to get Android 2.2, codenamed Froyo. The process for installing Froyo if you have a jailbroken device seems to get even easier every time, with this revision being as simple as adding a repository, downloading Froyo, and pressing go. Follow the link for a wonderful step by step guide, complete with screenshots to take out all of the guess work. Android on iPhone sure has come a long way since the first time we covered it.

Android Talks Pulsewave

Serial communications are a mainstay of digital computing. They don’t require much physical infrastructure and they exist in variations to fit almost any application. The behaviour of serial communications lines, varying from high to low voltage in a timed pattern, is analogous to a 1-bit DAC. Using a whole DAC for serial communication would be a waste in most cases, but the [RobotsEverywhere] team found an exception which you may have encountered already.

Since the audio output of the Android is accessible and addressable, [RobotsEverywhere] wrote source code to use the left and right channels as separate serial communication lines. This circumvents the need to bust into the device and muck about with the hardware which is great if you want a no-risk hack that allows communications to an RS232 port. Any hardware on which you can write to the DAC (and control the sampling rate) is a potential target.

There are some external electronics required to convert the audio signal to TTL, but it’s not very complicated–a couple of comparators and change. You can see it in action after the break.

As a bonus, when you’re done for the day you can plug in your headphones and listen to the soothing poetry of pulse waves all night long.

Releted This Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfSSPTtacnk&feature=player_embedded#at=167

Permanent Root exploit found for g2

The g2 has finally been rooted. Even though a temporary root exploit was found shortly after the phones release, a NAND lock prevented modifying the non-volatile RAM for a permanent root. Some controversy surrounded the g2 when it was erroneously thought to have a rootkit protecting the OS. Supposedly the rootkit would watch for changes to the file system and then reset the phone to default settings when any unauthorized changes were made. On the other hand a NAND lock functions by fooling the operating system into thinking there isn’t any memory available, essentially “locking” the memory in key areas. Once it was discovered to have the NAND lock it was only a matter of time before the g2 was permanently rooted. NAND locks have become a popular (and unsuccessful) deterrent employed by device makers to stop the jailbreaking comunity. While this exploit is nothing groundbreaking it is another notch in the belt for the jailbreaking community and a welcome benefit to g2 users.

Hope I can Hack this also (India unveils prototype of $48 tablet computer )

It looks like an iPad, only it's a fraction of the cost: India has unveiled the prototype of a US$35 ($48) basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production by 2011.
If the Government can find a manufacturer, the Linux operating system-based computer would be the latestin a string of "world's cheapest" innovations to hit the market out of India, which is home to the US$2127 compact Nano car, the US$16 water purifier and US$2000 open-heart surgery.
The tablet can be used for functions such as word processing, web browsing and video-conferencing.It has a solar power option too - important for India's energy-starved hinterlands - though that add-on costs extra.
"This is our answer to MIT's US$100 computer," said Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal.

In 2005, Nicholas Negroponte - co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab - unveiled a prototype of a US$100 laptop for children in the developing world.
India rejected that as too expensive and embarked on an effort to develop a cheaper option of its own.Negroponte's laptop ended up costing about US$200, but his nonprofit association, One Laptop Per Child, plans to launch a basic tablet computer for US$99.

Sibal turned to students and professors at India's elite technical universities to develop the US$35 tablet after receiving a "lukewarm" response from the private sector. He hopes to get the cost down to US$10 eventually.Mamta Varma, a ministry spokeswoman, said falling hardware costs and intelligent design would make the price tag plausible.

The tablet does not have a hard disk, but instead uses a memory card, much like a mobile phone. The tablet design cuts hardware costs, and the use of open-source software also adds to savings.
Varma said several global manufacturers, including at least one from Taiwan, had shown interest in making the low-cost device.
The project is part of an ambitious education technology initiative by the Indian Government, which also aims to bring broadband connectivity to the nation's 25,000 colleges and 504 universities and make study materials available online.
The ministry says nearly 8500 colleges have been connected and 500 web and video-based courses uploaded on YouTube and other portals.

Nook color rooted: Hands on

Nookdevs have released information on how to root your nook color. So naturally, I had to run out and get one. Who doesn’t want a multitouch android tablet for $250? The instructions for rooting are extremely simple. You really only need microSD card and a Linux/Windows/Mac computer to connect to. After rooting, your nook will work exactly as it did before, but you can now install android applications on it. Many applications are built for a phone that has more physical buttons, so I have run into some issues, but over all, the applications that work tend to work well.

Releted Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyHTgBbBKPo&feature=player_embedded

The specs are decent, with a 1024×600 screen, 8GB internal storage with microSD expansion slot, wifi, and an 800MHz ARM A8 processor. As you can see in the last picture, the viewing angle on the screen is fantastic. The battery probably won’t last the advertised 8 hours playing games, but I haven’t had to charge it yet and it has been playing music, browsing the web, and amusing children for about 24 hours now.

Installing software is a bit of a pain. You can’t install things directly from android stores online through the device yet. Instead, you have to search the web for the .apk file to download then install it via the command line on your computer. This can be a pain because the .apk files are rarely labelled with which release they are, so I’ve gotten a few older versions of software that simply wouldn’t work even though I’ve seen them working in other youtube videos. So far I’ve gotten decent use out of the Dolphin browser, Google Maps, Pandora, and Angry birds. I wouldn’t be surprised to see torrents popping up with bunches of tested applications for nook. hint. hint.

Removing applications can be a pain too. The theory is easy, you open the console and view what files are installed, then issue a simple command to remove the one you want. However, they don’t necessarily install with an obvious file name. For example, I installed google voice search. Realizing I don’t have a microphone, I went to remove it. However, there are several files labelled google and none have the word voice. How do I know which one it is? A quick google search would probably find me the answer, but I can’t wait till I can just drag the icon to the trash can.




Over all, I can’t wait to see how much better this gets. If I could install software from the android stores I find online, have flash, and remove applications easier, I’d be very happy.

Amarino makes Android controlled robots a snap

[Lucas Fragomeni] is controlling this robot using the accelerometer on his Android phone (translated). He could have gone through our Android tutorials and developed a custom application but he took the shorter route and used Amarino, an ‘Android meets Arduino’ toolkit, to do it for him. [Lucas] combined an Arduino, a BlueSMiRF Bluetooth modem, and two servo motors to build his robot. Amarino lets him connect to that Bluetooth modem and send sensor data over the connection. In this case it’s only the accelerometer that he chose to use, but he could have gone with the touchscreen, or any other sensor the handheld has to offer. Using this code package got him up and running quickly, only requiring that he writes his own code to turn the received signals into servo motor control routines. See it in action after the break.

READ INFO Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAGCgGwvLPM&feature=player_embedded

Download First Ethical Hacking Book By Rahul Tyagi (Hacking Crux By Rahul Tyagi) For Free

Feel Free To Contact Us For Ethical Hacking Queries and For Seminars and Workshops in your college,school,university. We also provide corporate trainings on Network Security,WIFI security,Web Vulnerabilities Issues etc.
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5 Reasons Why NOT Black Berry

Black Berry,one of the leading enterprise phone available on earth. But with its groundbreaking advantages it also have many disadvantages ( ya you heared right, i said MANY ), but yup here are some of them... Lovely professional university,Rahul Tyagi, LPU
1. No Wi-Fi – With the iPhone 3G, you can surf at home, countless free hotspots (McDonalds anyone?), or take advantage of an O2 tariff with all-you-can-eat Wi-Fi. Sadly there’s no such option on the Storm.

2. Networks in control of apps – The good news is that the new BlackBerry Apps Centre is more consumer-focussed than ever. The bad news? While Apple keeps a tight grip on the reins of its store, RIM has handed over control to network operators. Operators can boycott applications that use too much bandwidth.

3. It’s a chunky beast – While the Storm’s 112.5mm height and 62.2mm width are from practically the same cookie cutter as the iPhone 3G, it’s 13.95mm depth is tad more than the Apple’s 12.3mm. Just enough to make it feel like a bit of a chunky monkey. And at 155g, compared with the iPhone’s 133g, it weighs 15% more.


4. Touch screen typing – Yes it’s a very natty, iPhone-trumping touch screen that clicks when you press it down. But it’s still a touch screen. Other BlackBerrys are the best in the business for speedy two-thumb emailing. We’ll grab our Bold and give you and your Storm an email-banging-out race any time.


5. Sluggish 3G – The Storm supports 7.2mbps HSDPA… but Vodafone’s only rolled that out in a handful of cities so far. So if you live outside a major town, it’ll suck.


Recently the security issues nearly, break the backbone of black berry.According to me some one is responsible for handling the administartion of the black berry enterprise server, and that administartor can set controls allowing users to download certain files that may have a distructive payload, receiving a email that may hve a trojen horse that downloaded into the PDA,and wehn it launched it allow that hacker to moniter and access the email that recipiant is receiving, and yes its very dangerous in corporate communication at i am concerned server level. So better where i am concerned better to leave BERRY and TRy MANGO he he

Plug and Prey: Malicious USB devices

This very informative talk given at Shmoocon 2011 has been posted over at IronGeek. Covering all kinds of angles that a person could attack someones computer through the USB port, this should be read by anyone who is security minded at all. No matter which side of the port you tend to be on, this article has great information. They cover some common attack methods such as keyloggers and fake keyboards as well as some common methods of securing your system against them. We’ve actually seen this in the news a bit lately as people have been using the keyboard emulation method in conjunction with android phones to hack into systems.

Nook Color gets honeycomb

[Deeper-blue] has released all the files necessary to get Android honeycomb working on your nook color. We had a chance to play with the nook color for a bit, but ours was only on Android version 2.1. It seems like they’ve come a long way with the capabilities of this simple e-reader since then. While he’s built out the majority of the features, it is still lacking some fundamentals, like sound. As you can see in the video after the break, the scrolling is a tiny bit choppy but the applications themselves see to be fairly snappy. We can’t wait to see how this works after a little improvement.

Read More INFO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X2kJaVnXhPQ

Bypass Juniper Firewall,Nebero,Cyberom by using proxy with firefox

I guess students from LovelY Professional University and from other universities are helpless in terms for opening orkut and facebook. So here is the tute to bypass any firewall without any third party software

Here is a complete Graphical tutorial for using Free Proxy with Firefox. By using a Proxy, you can browse internet anonymously. Also a proxy can be used for browsing blocked sites like Orkut and MySpace.

Step 1.

Find a list of free proxy. You can Google it out. One such list is here.

Step 2.
Now choose an IP address and port from this list. In this tutorial I have chosen IP: 195.175.37.6 and port: 8080. You can choose whatever you like.



Step 3.
Open Firefox and in the menu choose Tools and then Options.


This will open the Firefox Options window. Click on Advance Options.




Step 4.
Click on Network tab and the click Settings button under Connection.



Step 5.
In Connection Settings window, click Manual proxy configuration. Now enter the IP address in HTTP Proxy and Port address in Port. ( In this example HTTP Proxy address is 195.175.37.6 and Port is 8080).
Also check the box 'Use this proxy server for all protocols'.





Click ok and your IP is set to desired Proxy.