The NSW Department of Education is using asset-tracking software, RFID tags, and BIOS-embedded filtering smarts to roll out 240,000 netbook computers into what CIO Stephen Wilson calls “the most hostile environment you can roll computers into” – the local high school. The rollout of Lenovo netbooks, funded under the Federal Government’s Digital Education Revolution initiative, is a massive logistical and IT security challenge, and the solution Wilson and his team has put together to fix these issues could well be applicable to any corporate IT department. Over four years, some 240,000 Lenovo netbooks will be offered to students in year nine. The netbooks can be kept until year 12, or permanently...
Photographic key duplication via hackaday [Ben] and his associates over at the University of California at San Diego came up with a way to duplicate keys using a picture of them. They developed an algorithm that uses measurements from known key blanks to extrapolate the bitting code. Because the software is measuring multiple points it can correct the perspective of the photo when the key is not photographed on a flat surface, but from an angle. They went so far as to test with cell phone cameras and using a telephoto lens from 195 feet away. In most cases, correct keys were produced within four guesses. Don’t miss their wonderful writeup (PDF) detailing how key bitting works, traditional covert duplication methods,...
Universal credit card in the palm of your hand via Hackaday Do you remember the magnetic card spoofer in Terminator 2? It was a bit farfetched because apparently the device could be swiped through a reader and magically come up with working account numbers and pin numbers. We’re getting close to that kind of magic with [Jaroslaw's] card spoofer that is button-programmable. Building off of a project that allows spoofing via an iPod and electromagnet, [Jaroslaw] wanted something that doesn’t require a computer to put together the card code. He accomplished this by interfacing a 16-button keyboard and a character LCD with an AVR ATmega168 microcontroller. Card codes can be entered with the buttons and verified on...
Steal the administrator password from an EEPROM via Hackaday Did you forget your hardware-based password and now you’re locked out? If it’s an IBM ThinkPad you may be in luck but it involves a bit more than just removing the backup battery. SoDoItYourself has an article detailing the retrieval of password data from an EEPROM. The process is a fun one. Disassemble your laptop. Build a serial interface and solder it to the EEPROM chip where the password is stored. Connect this interface to a second computer and use it to dump the data into a file. Download a special program to decipher the dump file and dig through the hex code looking for something that resembles the password. Reassemble your laptop and hope that...
Federal prosecutors dropped a Felony Hacking charge Thursday against a Defense Department intelligence analyst who was accused of poking around in a system being used for a ‘national terrorism investigation’. He instead plead guilty to a misdemeanor, thus making prison time highly unlikely. Montgomery held a top secret clearance while working on a covert program at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency — the spy agency in charge of satellite and aerial image collection. On April 9, while stationed at an NGA facility on Fort Belvoir in northern Virginia, the 10-year agency veteran saw a message that “provided significant detail about a classified operation” that was unrelated to his job, according...
Today in Sweden we saw an amazing movie-like heist. Early this morning a white helicopter landed on the roof of a money depot, three men walked out and into the building, the helicopter lifted again and hovered above the building, explosions went off, the robbers came back out with several large bags after the helicopter landed again and they took off. They have not yet been found but the helicopter has been found by a small lake. Many witnesses who live nearby saw the whole thing and gave detailed descriptions of the modus operandi. http://www.thelocal.se/22234/20090923/ Update: Seems CNN has got the story too: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/09/23/stockholm.helicopter.heist/index.html
I got some stuff I don’t use anymore if anyone is interested. Adafruit Arduino Motorshield, completely assembled and working – $10 3v Sparkfun FTDI – $10 3 xbee breakout boards (two have headers I soldered on) – $5 for all three Tankbot from budgetrobotics.com, with the third deck – $45 pictures at: http://planaheist.com/sale/
