Tag Archives: hacks

It’s funny how the Simpsons seem to pop up everywhere. Especially Homer. From USB-powered lights to wall clocks to iPods, you just can’t seem to escape the charm of America’s favorite yellow family. Even across the world, in Aviles, Spain, Homer is turning up in odd places. A shopkeeper found him on the back of a one Euro coin instead ...

First, it was digitally altering the fireworks. Now those commie bastards are at it again! According to The Telegraph, the little 9-year-old girl in the red dress than sung “Hymn to the Motherland” during the opening ceremony, Lin Miaoke, is nothing more than a puppet. Turns out a small girl with “buck teeth” called Yang Peiyi was hitting all the ...

Alex Weber is firefly crazy. He’s so fascinated by the synchronization of fireflies that he programmed these Amtel ATtiny chips to simulate the harmony of blinking light that fireflies are known for. At first, the microcontrollers blink in no particular rhythm but as time goes on, they are able detect the flashes of their neighboring LEDs and sync themselves in ...

Looks like Defcon 16 is one of the best yet. The “Defcon 16 Mystery Challenge” is a competition for attendees to have at. Solve a series of puzzles and mysteries and you could win special black Defcon badges that give you free admittance for life. One of the puzzles includes this delightful yellow ball with a combination lock on the ...

This past weekend, during the Defcon hacker convention in Las Vegas, several MIT students who were prepared to give a talk regarding the security of Boston’s public transit system were stopped. A judge ruled to ban the presentation after the city realized a gaping vulnerability was about to become exposed. For now, the talks have been stopped, but now everyone ...

As the Beijing games kick into high gear, Internet watchdogs are warning against a rise in Olympic spam. SANS Storm Center, an organization dedicated to monitoring and analyzing spam attacks and computer virus threats, says computer users can expect to receive spam emails with Olympics-themed subject lines and text encouraging readers to click external links where they can be asked ...

I recently bought a new pair of sunglasses and didn’t need these cheap $6 Walgreens sunglasses I bought in Florida a year ago. With some time on my hands, I quickly modded them to resemble the pair Arnie wore in the classic action flick, The Terminator. This mod can most likely be done without solder, but we’re going to make ...

I just listened to an older episode of Off The Hook and host Emmanuel Goldstein just explained that The Last HOPE conference is not literally the last HOPE conference ever to occur. It’s more for in conversation. Example: “Did you attend the Last HOPE conference?” “Yup!” With that cleared up, the next HOPE will be called, oddly enough, the Next ...

We’re not actively covering the Black Hat 2008 security conference currently going on in Las Vegas but there is some crazy stuff happening. Similar to when I attended Defcon years ago with Hack a Day, there was a Wall of Sheep. The WoS displays people who got hacked and insecure connections to prove a point and expose weaknesses in wireless ...

Digi-Key has unleashed its power house single-board computer called the Beagle Board. This developer dream board is perfect for DIY projects and ground level design work. Don’t judge it by its size either, its processor: the ARM Cortex A8, runs up to 600MHz while delivering over 1,200 MIPS (million instructions per second). It packs quite a punch for a 3″ ...