The Null Device

14-year-old "electronics genius" in Lódz, Poland, built a remote control for the city's tram system (apparently out of a TV remote control, though presumably they mean that he housed it in a TV remote control case ) and used it to change points, forcing trams onto the wrong tracks, until he was arrested.

"He had converted the television control into a device capable of controlling all the junctions on the line and wrote in the pages of a school exercise book where the best junctions were to move trams around and what signals to change.

Problems with the signalling system on Lodz's tram network became apparent on Tuesday when a driver attempting to steer his vehicle to the right was involuntarily taken to the left. As a result the rear wagon of the train jumped the rails and collided with another passing tram. Transport staff immediately suspected outside interference.

¶ hacks poland pranks risks security trams [no comments]

One useful feature which Facebook, the social network site of the moment, lacks is the ability to compartmentalise information. Whereas on LiveJournal you can define filters and make posts visible to only some of them, on Facebook, every piece of information you published is visible to all your contacts. (Except for those who can only see a limited profile, who are forever stuck in a purgatory of sort-of being "friends" with you whilst being left out of all the fun.)

Being able to compartmentalise your information is useful; there are undoubtedly things you want to tell some of your friends whilst not letting the rest know, other things you're happy sharing with a different (though possibly overlapping) subset, and others you're happy letting anyone know. Think, for example, of talking about work without pissing off coworkers, or confiding about your lovelife, or discussing health issues without overwhelming others with "too much information". As social software becomes an integral part of the social support networks of today's compulsively multitasking, digitally connected population, such controls become more a necessity than a luxury.

Fortunately, Facebook's users have come up with a workaround: creatign members-only groups in lieu of privileged posts. So next time you see a group with an otherwise uncompelling name like "Emma has a new phone number", you'll know what's going on.

(via confused in calcutta) ¶ facebook gibson's law hacks privacy social software [no comments]

Some enterprising hackers have reverse-engineered the firmware on a range of Canon digital cameras (based on the DiGIC II chip) and written their own firmware enhancement. Named CHDK, it offers features including RAW images (disabled in non-professional models), live histograms, depth-of-field calculations and a scripting language (based on BASIC, though we can't have everything) that can be used for automating your camera. There are some sample scripts here, which do things from setting bracketing to specialised modes for unusual photographic conditions to automating HDR photography.

What's more, the replacement isn't a new firmware per se, but rather a patch which boots from the memory card and runs from the camera's RAM (apparently making use of the original firmware's functions), so you won't brick your camera.

I wonder, though, what the performance tradeoffs of using it is; I don't imagine that compact cameras would have large amounts of RAM to spare that can be loaded up with third-party software that they were never intended to run in production.

(via Boing Boing Gadgets, Engadget) ¶ cameras canon chdk digic ii hacks [no comments]

This guy attached a digital camera (a specially modified keychain camera) to his cat's collar and recorded the sequences of images as the cat (named Mr. Lee) went about his daily journeys. The images vary in quality (as one might expect), and include a lot of obscure nooks and crannies of the sorts cats frequent, and quite a few meetings with other neighbourhood cats.

The author of the page, J. Perthold, also sells cat-mountable digital cameras of his design for people who want to photograph what their cats are seeing. The next step, I imagine, would be to integrate wireless networking capabilities of some sort into the unit and set up a catlog.

(via alecm) ¶ cats hacks nifty photography [1 comment]

Security researchers have found that it is trivially easy to transmit false traffic reports to in-car navigation units. The units look for messages transmitted as digital data piggybacked onto FM radio signals using a protocol known as RDS, and it seems not to have occurred to whoever designed the RDS system that anyone might tamper with these messages; as such, they are transmitted in the clear, and without any sort of authentication. The units also scan the entire FM spectrum, looking for anything that looks like a radio station with a RDS channel containing traffic information. The rest is left as an exercise to the reader:

Through trial and error, they discovered that transmitting certain code numbers translates into certain warnings that are displayed on the satellite navigation system. Some were amusing. One code number alerts users that there's a bull fight in progress. Another one indicates delays due to a parade. But some weren't so funny. One tells users that there has been a terrorist incident. Another indicates a bomb alert and another an air crash.

(via /.) ¶ hacks navigation oops rds security [no comments]

A web site on hacking the AppleTV, Apple's new TV set-top box, which appears to be a low-power Intel-based machine running a customised distribution of otherwise standard OSX. Unlike the iPhone, it seems that it doesn't require executable code to be cryptographically signed. So far, there are instructions on enabling SSH for logging into the AppleTV, installing DivX decoders and the VLC media player and copying things like Apache from an Intel Mac to the AppleTV.

(via /.) ¶ apple appletv hacks osx tech [no comments]

Cognitive neuroscience researcher Ogi Ogas describes how he used techniques from neuroscience to win a quiz show, getting questions he did not consciously know the answer to:

Cognitive models developed by my advisor Gail Carpenter suggest that a more effective way to evaluate an intuition is to consider its mnemonic associations. If you can mentally trace some of the cognitive links of an intuition (through a process similar to priming), these links may suggest whether the intuition is meaningfully connected to the correct answer or whether the link is trivial, incidental, or wrong. For example, given the question "Bucharest is the capital of what European country?", you might have an intuition that the answer is Hungary, because the actual capital of Hungary--Budapest--sounds like "Bucharest" and is thus unconsciously linked. In this case, naively following your unexamined intuition would lead you away from the correct response: Romania.

My $250,000 question presented me with a case of pure intuition. "The department store Sears got its start by selling what specific product in its first catalog?" Since pop culture esoterica and business origins are outside my domains of interest, I did not know the answer. But for some reason, even before the four possible answers appeared, I thought of watches. When "watches" turned up as one of the choices, I reflected on it further. I did not feel any certainty. But why did my brain come up with "watches?" ... As I concentrated on my watch intuition, I began to think about railroads. My brain's memory pattern of watches was somehow linked to a memory pattern of railroads, and my railroad memory also evoked a memory of Sears. Though I still could not work out the explicit connection between watches and Sears, I satisfied myself that "watches" had some deep mnemonic relationship to both railroads and Sears--perhaps at some point in my life I had read that Sears originally delivered their watch catalogs by railroad?

Later, in the tranquility of my apartment, I discovered that 23-year old railroad station agent Richard Sears sold watches to other station agents along the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway for a full year before meeting up with Alvah C. Roebuck. I never did discover how this obscure factoid had left its faint trace upon my brain.

(via mindhacks) ¶ cogsci hacks mind neuroscience psychology [no comments]

Rock, Paper, Scissors may sound to the casual observer like a perfect game of chance; however, with the human mind being what it is, there are many ways to play it to win:

In RPS circles a common mantra is "Rock is for Rookies" because males have a tendency to lead with Rock on their opening throw. It has a lot to do with idea that Rock is perceived as "strong" and forceful", so guys tend to fall back on it. Use this knowledge to take an easy first win by playing Paper. This tactic is best done in pedestrian matches against someone who doesn't play that much and generally won't work in tournament play.

When playing with someone who is not experienced at the RPS, look out for double runs or in other words, the same throw twice. When this happens you can safely eliminate that throw and guarantee yourself at worst a stalemate in the next game. So, when you see a two-Scissor run, you know their next move will be Rock or Paper, so Paper is your best move. Why does this work? People hate being predictable and the perceived hallmark of predictability is to come out with the same throw three times in row.

When playing against someone who asks you to remind them about the rules, take the opportunity to subtly "suggest a throw" as you explain to them by physically showing them the throw you want them to play. ie "Paper beats Rock, Rock beats scissors (show scissors), Scissors (show scissors again) beats paper." Believe it or not, when people are not paying attention their subconscious mind will often accept your "suggestion". A very similar technique is used by magicians to get someone to take a specific card from the deck.

(via Make) ¶ hacks psychology [no comments]

Today's novel use of technology: using the vibration detectors in PC hard disks around the world to detect earthquakes and predict tsunamis:

As part of their operation, hard disks measure vibrations in order to keep the read-write head of the disk on track. These measurements can be read from some hard disks. The Tsunami Harddisk Detector captures this vibration data and shares it with computers in other locations connected via a peer-to-peer network to determine whether an earth tremor is occurring.

(via /.) ¶ environment hacks tech [no comments]

Apparently it's possible to modify a digital camera to take infrared photographs, by removing the infrared filter and replacing it with one that blocks out everything but infrared (made from material obtainable from photographic retailers). It's not recommended that you do this to any camera you'd mind destroying if the procedure fails, but if you are successful, you get something that takes photos like these:

(via Make) ¶ art hacks howto infrared photography [1 comment]

An enterprising hacker, noticing that his Nokia 6230i mobile phone has both an imaging sensor and Bluetooth, much like a wireless mouse, has written a Java applet that uses the phone as a mouse. It's not perfect (the imaging sensor is not designed for focussing so closely, so it needs a high-contrast surface), and currently requires a special custom driver on the computer, though he is working on making it behave like a standard Bluetooth mouse.

The hacker, going by the name of "Pyrofer", also has a number of other projects up, including a 1541-emulating memory card reader for the C64 DTV.

(via /.) ¶ bluetooth commodore 64 hacks nokia [no comments]

Cambodians are making the most of their country's dilapidated, partly disused railways by building and running their own trains. The "bamboo trains", comprised of little more than bamboo platforms on wheels, have been running up and down the decaying tracks, helping locals get around.

A tiny electric generator engine provides the power, and the passenger accommodation is a bamboo platform that rests on top of two sets of wheels. A dried-grass mat to sit on counts as a luxury. It would be a white-knuckle ride - if there were actually anything to hold on to.

Low fares add to the appeal, but the service is not without its quirks. There is only one track - so if two trains meet, the one with the lightest load has to be taken off the rails so the other can pass.

I wonder whether the model could be adapted to other countries; what if happened if someone in a rural community in, say, Britain or Australia, campaigning for the reopening of passenger rail lines, took the law into their own hands and run guerilla very-light-rail services over the rusting tracks. They'd probably get shut down by the police in short order, though it could make an amusing story.

(via Boing Boing) ¶ cambodia hacks railway [no comments]

According to this article, there are two ways to compromise computer security by plugging an untrusted USB/FireWire device into a computer.

The first one's the obvious one: somehow convince a user to plug a USB flash drive or similar into their Windows PC, without disabling autostarting. The PC will automatically run whatever program the AUTORUN.INF file on the flash drive tells it to, and this can then do whatever it likes to the PC. Of course, this won't work if the user holds down SHIFT, disables auto-starting or uses a machine with a less-brain-damaged operating system.

The second method is more intriguing. To allow fast data transfers along USB and FireWire buses, such buses implement direct memory access (DMA). What this means is that anything plugged into them can access (or modify) anything mapped into the machine's memory space at the hardware level, bypassing the operating system altogether. Of course, it requires more work (the device has to be an actual programmable computer, and not just a flash drive), but once that hurdle is crossed, the possibilities, as they say, are endless:

Recently a number of computer security researchers realized the tremendous potential of using DMA over FireWire or USB as an attack vector. At the CanSec West '05 conference, Michael Becher, Maximillian Dornseif and Christian N. Klein demonstrated an exploit that used DMA read arbitrary memory locations of a FireWire-enabled system. The exploit was based on an iPod running Linux. For example, they could plug their customized iPod into a victim computer and grab a copy of that computer's screen--not just without the computer's permission, but even without its knowledge!

Aside: I wonder whether it'd be possible to use such an approach on, say, a PlayStation 2 (which has two USB ports on the front, sitting rather uselessly), or indeed any other notionally tamperproof computer-based device with USB/FireWire ports. If one could access arbitrary memory inside such a device, one could get up to all sorts of mischief.

(via Schneier) ¶ hacks security tech usb [3 comments]

If you want a hovercraft, you could always do what this person did and cobble one together for about US$200, using a lawnmower engine and a fan from an air conditioner.

(via Make) ¶ diy hacks hovercraft [no comments]

This is fairly nifty; a piece of software that divides a library of music videos into segments, listens for incoming sound, and plays the segments matching the sound the most closely. It's implemented using C++, Python and Pd, and will be released soon. Until then, you can watch the video, which explains it and demonstrates, playing back beatboxing as disjointed fragments from a MC Hammer video.

(via Music Thing) ¶ audio digital art hacks multimedia video [no comments]

This person is attempting to build a homemade digital Lomo camera, by grafting a Lomo lens onto a camera (an Epson Digital Rangefinder, which sounds a bit too expensive to be something to casually hack). It'd be interesting to see whether he succeeds, and whether the resulting Frankensteinian hybrid really does combine the grungy, ultra-hip Lomo look with the convenience of digital.

If there was a market for a digital camera that takes pictures that look Lomo-like, wouldn't the obvious way to do it be by adding a mode in the onboard firmware which vignettes the edges of the image and fiddles the colours? I wonder whether anyone has written a Photoshop/Gimp plug-in which "Lomo-fies" images.

(via Make) ¶ hacks lofi lomo photography [3 comments]

Some hackers have has wired up an Atari 2600 emulator to Max/MSP/Jitter, ending up with a virtual Atari 2600 whose circuitry can be manipulated in lots of ways, creating weird and nifty visual effects:

The pixels rendered by the Atari 2600 emulator can now be treated as matrix data by Jitter. So, the game screen can be moved about in 3D space, stretched, and mapped to various types of surfaces (a sphere, for example).

Embedded within the Max/MSP programming environment, these manipulation parameters can be changed in relation to a signal, directly tied to music played through MSP.

It also means that a nearly unlimited number of manipulations can be done at the emulation level. Memory accesses can be visualized (including both RAM and ROM), colors manipulated, and synchronization signals tweaked.

(via Make) ¶ art atari 2600 circuit-bending digital art hacks max/msp [no comments]

First there was Jeri Ellsworth's 21st-century Commodore 64 and the highly hackable TV game it spawned; and now, a Dutch hacker is building an Amiga in a FPGA chip. Dubbed "MiniMig", Dennis van Weeren's project implements the Amiga's custom chips on the FPGA connected to a 68000 and RAM, and uses disk and ROM images stored in a standard FAT file system on a MMC card. At the time of writing, it is close to completion.

(via Make) ¶ amiga diy fpga hacks retrocomputing [no comments]

More wacky goings on on Melbourne's trains, as an unidentified woman broke into train public-address systems, and proceeded to describe her sexual fantasies about the drivers in explicit detail; this happened during peak hour, with hundreds of commuters hearing it, though no witnesses seem to have seen her. Police are at a loss to how she did it, though it is believed she actually got into a vacant train cabin. (I wonder whether this sort of thing is now covered under anti-terrorism legislation.)

(via bOING bOING) ¶ hacks melbourne pranks sex [no comments]

A hardware hacker with a very steady hand builds a head-up computer display into a pair of slim-line sunglasses. His ultimate goal is to fit sunglasses, a video camera and a microphone, covertly, into what looks like an ordinary pair of sunglasses, effectively making a Snow Crash-style gargoyle rig (just add a wearable computer).

(via gimbo) ¶ gadgets gargoyle hacks snow crash tech [no comments]

A user of the social-network site MySpace has found a novel way of making lots of friends: by inserting a piece of JavaScript code into his page which caused all viewers to friend him:

The next step was to simply instruct the Web browser to load a MySpace URL that would automatically invite Samy as a friend, and later add him as a "hero" to the visitor's own profile page. To do this without a user's knowledge, the code utilized XMLHTTPRequest - a JavaScript object used in AJAX, or Web 2.0, applications such as Google Maps.

Taking the hack even further, Samy realized that he could simply insert the entire script into the visiting user's profile, creating a replicating worm. "So if 5 people viewed my profile, that's 5 new friends. If 5 people viewed each of their profiles, that's 25 more new friends," Samy explained.

(via /.) ¶ hacks making friends myspace risks security social software worms [1 comment]

Impressive hack of the day: turning a Nintendo DS into a GPS-enabled map viewer, using a GPS unit wired to its serial port and a CompactFlash card full of map tile images purloined from Google Maps.

The use of downloaded Google Maps tiles is interesting; I wonder how long until someone writes a map viewer for PalmOS which uses these, effectively cutting into the market share of programs like Tube (which have limited coverage, and often annoying qualities such as being unable to scroll between map tiles; a pain when you're looking for somewhere just off the map, or in the intersection between two tiles). Then again, Google may be able and/or obliged to use the DMCA against any software which attempts to use its map tiles in this fashion (though I am not a lawyer).

(via Make) ¶ geodata google maps gps hacks maps nintendo ds [2 comments]

Paul Slocum converts dot-matrix printers into musical instruments, by reprogramming the EPROMs; the resulting instruments use the print head, paper feeder motors and internal beepers to play music, of which MP3s are provided (this one is probably the best). And then there's the Mellotron-like contraption made of a printer, a Walkman and a length of cassette tape.

(via alecm) ¶ art diy hacks music [no comments]

Not that long ago, a joystick-shaped device named the C64 DTV, containing a Commodore 64-compatible computer (developed by Jeri Ellsworth, who also created the C-One super-C64) and 30 games, appeared on the market. Hackers who bought these are now opening them up and adding things to them; for one, it is possible solder on a PS2 keyboard (unlike the original C64, this one speaks the PS2 keyboard protocol) and, indeed, a standard Commodore serial bus connector for plugging in a drive (photos here); alternatively, one can embed a DTV inside a working Commodore floppy drive. With a keyboard and storage, the diminutive box (costing US$20, or about 3 times as much in the UK) becomes a fully usable Commodore 64, except for a few additional augmentations, such as a video chip capable of 256 colours. And there is more information on undocumented features of the DTV here.

(via Make) ¶ c64 dtv commodore 64 hacks jeri ellsworth retrocomputing [no comments]

Got an empty room, some free time and the urge to amuse and confuse visitors? Why not make a sideways room?

(via bOING bOING)

¶ cool hacks sideways [no comments]

Hack of the day: how to make a common USB webcam see in infrared. Executive summary: it involves pulling it apart and replacing the infrared-blocking filter with a piece of exposed photographic film (which blocks visible light though lets IR through).

¶ hacks infrared webcam [no comments]

Apple's new PowerBooks now contain a motion sensor, allowing them to detect if they're falling and brace for impact. The sensor in question detects not only acceleration but also the machine's tilt. Über-hacker Amit Singh has figured out how to query this sensor and written programs which use it, including a demo which rotates windows on the desktop to compensate for the laptop's orientation.

¶ amit singh apple hacks powerbook [no comments]

Limor Fried, the designer of the home-made Altoids-tin MP3 player and television-sensitive sunglasses, has done it again, with a honest-to-goodness DIY analogue TB-303 clone. The x0xb0x, as she calls it, is apparently as close to a real 303 as one can get; Fried and her collaborators actually took apart a 303 and analysed the characteristics of all the components. Where it differs from a 303 is that it has USB and MIDI (and can be, literally, computer controlled), can control external synths, and has extra modes in the firmware. The unit will be available in kit form for around US$300 (about £160 or A$400); additionally, the designs will be released as open-source, which means that if you can source the exotic transistors used in it (and a list is given), you can make your own.

Also from MusicThing, Led Zeppelin drum outtakes, studio-clean and (apparently) free for the sampling; now you too can sound like the early Beastie Boys. And Casio keyboard boomboxes.

¶ casiotone hacks led zeppelin limor fried mp3 music samples tb-303 tech x0xb0x [no comments]

Interesting technical factoid of the day, from this page: (via /.)

Did you know your 10D and 300D run DOS? That's right. Embedded in the camera is DataLight's ROM-DOS. In fact, if you use the right tool such as s10sh you can see that inside the camera is an A: and B: drive. On the A: drive reside command.com and autoexec.bat, and most interestingly, camera.exe.

¶ camera canon dos dslr hacks howto [1 comment]

Several German cities have a phone-based bicycle rental service, in which electronically-locked bicycles are left in the street and may be ridden for 6 Euro cents a minute. This was not good enough for some h4x0r d00dz, so they opened one up and changed the firmware, giving them free rides. (via Slashdot)

Meanwhile, apparently there are secret cheat codes for Coca-Cola vending machines; pressing a certain sequence of buttons puts the machine into a debug menu. From there, one can apparently do fascinating things like, um, seeing how much money the machine has taken and how many cans it has sold. (via bOING bOING)

¶ bicycles coca-cola germany hacks [1 comment]