A common way to visualize that a 3D printer’s extruder motor — which feeds the filament into the hot end — is moving is to attach a small indicator to the exposed end of the motor’s shaft. As the shaft turns, so does the attached indicator.

Small movements of the motor are therefore turned into larger movements of something else. So far, so simple. But what about visualizing very small extrusions, such as those tiny ones made during ironing?

[Jack]’s solution is a Vernier indicator for the extruder. Even the smallest movements of the extruder motor’s shaft are made clearly visible by such a device, as shown in the header image above. Vernier scales are more commonly found on measurement tools, and the concept is somewhat loosely borrowed here.

The usual way these lightweight indicators are attached is with a small magnet, and you can read all about them and see examples here.

This new design is basically the same, it simply has a background in a contrasting color added into the mix. [Jack]’s design is intended for the Bambu A1 printer, but the idea can be easily adapted. Give it a look if you find yourself yearning for a bit more visibility in your extruder movements.

If you’ve never considered roasting your own coffee at home, you may be surprised to learn that it can be done in a few minutes with a regular popcorn popper and not much else. After all, you only really need two things to roast coffee: heat, and constant agitation to distribute that heat evenly. While the popcorn popper provides both, it’s easy to end up with semi-uneven roasts, probably because the beans are mostly just spinning around and not being tossed as well as they could be. Eventually, one might want a more advanced machine, and that’s where something like [Larry Cotton]’s latest wobble disk roaster can step in.

For starters, this machine roasts more beans than the average popcorn popper in a single throw — the maximum is 350g, or just over three-quarters of a full pound, which is way more than the average popcorn machine will hold. It essentially consists of a heat gun pointed upwards at a sieve full of green coffee beans that are being constantly pushed around by a motorized wobbling disk. As the heat blows, the large metal disk does figure eights through the beans, keeping the heat nice and even. So where does the red ball come in? It’s at the bottom, keeping the flying bean skins (chaff) from entering the heat gun’s fan motor.

Toward the end of the short video after the break, you’ll see a diagram showing all the parts of this roaster. If that’s not enough for you, here’s a build guide for a previous wobble disk roaster (PDF) that should be quite helpful in building either version.

If you want to see some of Larry’s previous machines, we’ve got ’em. And then you can let Hackaday Editor-in-Chief [Elliot Williams] tell you all about roasting at home.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/YlVr_VrxuTI?feature=oembed

[Daniel] has been metalworking on a budget for a while now. Originally doing things like plasma cutting on old bricks, he used his original plasma cutter to make an appropriate plasma cutting table complete with a water bath which we presume was not only safer but better for his back. Since then he’s stepped up a little more with what might be the lowest-cost CNC plasma cutter that can reliably be put together.

The CNC machine uses a handheld plasma cutting torch as its base, which uses a blowback start mechanism making it usable in an automated CNC setup without interfering with the control electronics. This is a common issue with other types of plasma cutters not originally meant for CNC. The torch head only needs slight modifications to fit in a 3D printed housing designed for the CNC machine which involves little more than slightly changing the angle of the incoming copper tubing and wire and changing the location of the trigger.

With those modifications done, the tool head is ready to be mounted to the CNC machine. [Daniel] has put together a bill of materials for building the entire project for less than $400, which includes the sub-$200 plasma cutter. It’s an impressive bit of sleuthing to get the price down this low, but if you’re still using your plasma cutter by hand on bricks in the yard like [Daniel] used to do make sure to check out that DIY plasma cutting table he built a few years ago too.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/YBHTWheZ8XY?feature=oembed

La Cellula Coscioni di Vicenza-Padova organizza un evento informativo sulle DAT a Creazzo (VI).

L’appuntamento è per lunedì 6 maggio alle ore 18.30 in Via Torino 7, a Creazzo (VI).

Interverranno tra gli altri Diego Silvestri, Domenico Farano e Francesco Iposi della Cellula Coscioni Vicenza-Padova.

L'articolo In provincia di Vicenza un evento informativo sulle DAT proviene da Associazione Luca Coscioni.

If I could name one thing which has been the most transformative for our community over the last couple of decades, it would have to be the proliferation of hackerspaces. Ostensibly a place which provides access to tools and machinery, these organisations have become so much more. They bring together like-minded people, and from such a meeting of minds have come a plethora of high quality projects, events, and other good things.

Just What Is A Hackerspace?

A Hacky Racer takes shape in the MK Makerspace workshop
Hackerspaces loosely come in many forms, from co-working spaces or libraries who have invested in a 3D printer and imagine themselves to be a hackerspace, through to anarchist collectives in abandoned warehouses who support their city’s alternative communities with technology. For me, hackerspaces must be community organisations rather than for-profit ones, so for the purposes of this article I’m not referring to closely-allied commercial spaces such as FabLabs.

So a good hackerspace for me is a group of tech enthusiasts who’ve come together, probably formed a non-profit association, and rented a dilapidated basement or industrial unit somewhere. The tools and machines inside aren’t shiny and new but they mostly work, and round that fridge stocked with Club-Mate you’ll find a community of friends, people who don’t think it’s odd to always want to know how things work. In a good hackerspace you’ll have found your place, and you can be much more than you would have been alone.

I visit plenty of hackerspaces across Europe as I wander the continent on an Interrail pass. I’m a member of three of them at the moment, though my main home in the UK is at Milton Keynes Makerspace. I’ve sat on recycled sofas drinking caffeinated beverages in more cities than I can count, and along the way I’ve seen close-up the many different ways a hackerspace can be run. I’ve seen spaces falling apart at the seams, I’ve seen ones a little too regimented for my taste, and others with too much of an emphasis on radical ideology, but mostly I’ve seen spaces that get it about right and I feel at home in. So perhaps it’s time to sit down and talk about what I think makes a good hackerspace. What is my space?

It’s More Than Just The Space

The bright lights of Hackerspace Gent, during NewLine 2021.
Unsurprisingly, the space itself is secondary to how good a hackerspace is, though there are some that are lucky enough to have amazing premises. In Milton Keynes we share for the moment a large industrial unit with an organisation which provides a social and workshop space for old guys, and while that means we have a huge workshop, it’s not that which makes the space a good one to be a member of, instead that’s the community. But even the community is a fragile entity in a hackerspace, as what works for one section may not work for another. At this point what makes a really good hackerspace differentiates itself from the rest, and it’s worth going into why.

The flavour of a hackerspace starts from its very beginning when a group of geeks have that first meeting in a pub somewhere, though at that point they probably don’t realise it. They face a choice as to how the space is run, whether for example it follows the consensus model, the laid-back board model, or a more direct management model. Quite a few of the first wave of European hackerspaces followed the consensus model, while more recent ones have taken a board-based approach in which the general membership get their say in choosing the board but not in how the space is run. In my experience of being a member of a consensus-based space the drama level was simply too high for my tastes, and I think that had a detrimental effect on both the community and the continuity of the space. By comparison the board-based spaces seem to be much more stable, and being a member is more enjoyable.

It’s possible then for a group of people to start a hackerspace with good governance and an active community. But they’re not finished yet, and in describing why I think that I may be about to descend into a zone which will be controversial for some. Perhaps I should start with a remark I made a few months ago to a friend in the hackerspace community; that I knew of at least four women who had been put off by their space. To be clear, the space in question is great, it’s a favourite of mine that has done all the right things to make a sustainable community that’s a joy to spend time in. It’s not even fair to point the finger at this space alone, I’m certain I could find many other great spaces with exactly the same issue. Putting it simply, the hackerspace community so often isn’t providing the environment needed to attract the people it should, and if my saying that offends you then It’s a fair guess you don’t manage your hackerspace’s membership. No space can afford to turn away members, yet that’s what many are doing. It’s the how and the why that we should be doing better as a community.

Sometimes We Don’t See Ourselves As Others Do

This was OxHack’s textile room circa 2017, temporary office for your scribe.
The question of broadening the appeal of a hackerspace has been a concern of mine ever since I walked into my first hackerspace over a decade ago. Hackerspaces can be intimidating places if you’re not one of the in crowd, and it only takes one thing to turn someone away for good. It’s easy to unwittingly form an impenetrable clique, or to have members place themselves as barriers to entry without realising it, by gatekeeping access to tools or equipment. Add to that another of the things which bind us, that many of us including me are not neurotypical, and even a well-run hackerspace can feel insensitive, alien, and downright hostile. We can definitely do better than this, and if we do so then our spaces can only become stronger.

How to tackle this probably depends to a great extent on circumstances. In some cases the equipment on offer can affect the type of people attracted. As an example BioCurious Labs, a makerspace for biotech in Silicon Valley, attracts a different crowd – more artists, scientists, and other bright, curious people from a wider array of backgrounds than the more usual technology-focused hackerspace. The best approach to this problem I’ve seen for myself came from an unexpected angle, in starting a textile operation. This wasn’t through some old-fashioned notion that women sew, but to attract members who would normally never consider a hackerspace, namely those mostly older women who do knit or sew. The aim of their presence was to subtly change the atmosphere to the extent that prospective members such as those women who found themselves put off would find it more welcoming. My first hackerspace in Oxford did this with some success, and I am very pleased to have seen it spontaneously happening in MK, too.

So given the above, what is my space? It’s one where the running of the space doesn’t get in the way of being a member, and the atmosphere doesn’t put me off being a member in the first place. My space where I’m from in the UK is Milton Keynes Makerspace, and when I’m not on my travels around Europe, it’s home. I’ll put the kettle on.

Secondo l’analisi di Kaspersky Digital Footprint Intelligence, nel 2023, il malware RedLine è stato responsabile di infettare il 55% dei dispositivi mondiali colpiti da attacchi stealer.

Gli stealer sono un tipo di programma in grado di rubare i dati personali degli utenti, inclusi accessi, password e dati della carta bancaria. Ad esempio, dal 2020 RedLine viene utilizzata attivamente dagli aggressori e, da quest’anno, è stata coinvolta nel 51% di tali incidenti.
Distribuzione del numero di infezioni dei dispositivi per tipologia di stealer nel 2020-2023
Negli ultimi 4 anni sono state identificate più di 100 varietà di infosteeler. Insieme a RedLine, Vidar (17%) e Raccoon (circa il 12%) rappresentano una quota significativa di incidenti. La crescita del numero di nuove famiglie di ladri di informazioni è stata notevole a partire dal 2021, passando dal 4% al 28% entro il 2023.

Lumma, un altro stealer relativamente nuovo, è emerso nel 2022, e nel 2023 è già implicato in oltre il 6% delle infezioni. Il programma è diventato disponibile secondo il modello “malware-as-a-service” (RaaS), che consente agli utenti anche senza competenze tecniche particolari di sferrare attacchi a pagamento. Lumma, come altri infostelaer, si diffonde tramite e-mail, YouTube e campagne di spam su Discord.

I dati rubati tramite gli infostelaer spesso finiscono nel dark web, rappresentando una minaccia alla sicurezza informatica sia per i consumatori che per le aziende.

L'articolo Lode a RedLine, il RE degli Infostealer! Infetta un dispositivo su due attaccato da uno stealer proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

This week, it was Kristina’s turn in the hot seat with Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams. First up in the news — the results are in for the 2024 Home Sweet Home Automation contest! First and second place went to some really gnarly, well-documented hacks, and third went to the cutest pill-dispensing robot you’ll probably see before you hit the retirement home. Which was your favorite? Let us know in the comments.
Kristina’s lil’ wallet of extender probes, courtesy of Radio Shack.
Then it’s on to What’s That Sound. Kristina failed once again, but you will probably fare differently. Can you get it? Can you figure it out? Can you guess what’s making that sound? If you can, and your number comes up, you get a special Hackaday Podcast t-shirt.

Then it’s on to the hacks, beginning with a DIY cell phone sniffer and a pen that changed the world. Then we talk bullet time on a budget, the beautiful marriage of 3D printing and LEGO, and, oh yes, flexure whegs. Finally, we get the lowdown on extender probes, and posit why it’s hard to set up time zones on the Moon, relatively speaking.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

https://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/31102483/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/

Download and savor at your leisure.

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Episode 269 Show Notes:

News:

• 2024 Home Sweet Home Automation: The Winners Are In

What’s that Sound?

• Fill out this form with your best guess, and you might win!

Interesting Hacks of the Week:

• Turn Your Qualcomm Phone Or Modem Into Cellular Sniffer
• This Is How A Pen Changed The World
• Possibly The Cheapest Way To Film In Bullet Time
  
  • Bullet Time On A Budget With The Raspberry Pi
  • In A Way, 3D Scanning Is Over A Century Old

  
  

• 3D-Printed Macro Pad Plate Is LEGO-Compatible
• 3D Printed Wheels Passively Transform To Climb Obstacles
  
  • PaTS-Wheel by Khoopr – Thingiverse
  • Build An Amphibious Robot Using Pool Noodles For Wheels

  
  

• 2024 Home Sweet Home Automation: Spray Bottle Turret Silences Barking

Quick Hacks:

• Elliot’s Picks:
  
  • Singleboard: Alpha Is A Very Stylish Computer On A Single PCB
  • Tiny Arduino Drone Even Has An FPV Camera
  • Simplest Speaker Oscillator, Now Even Simpler
  • Tiny Prisms Let You See What Lies Beneath A BGA Chip

  
  

• Kristina’s Picks:
  
  • T3rminal Cyberdeck Has Looks To Die For
  • Building A Mechanical Keyboard As A Learning Project
  • Hack In Style With This Fallout Cyberdeck

  
  

Can’t-Miss Articles:

• Upgrade Your Test Probes
• NASA Is Now Tasked With Developing A Lunar Time Standard, Relativity Or Not
  
  • How Does Time Work On The Moon?

  
  

La Cellula Coscioni di Milano organizza un incontro con Sonia Ambroset, autrice del libro dal titolo “Tu lo faresti? La relazione d’aiuto tra cure palliative e morte volontaria assistita”, Armando editore, per inserimento nel sito e invio all’indirizzario milanese, quando puoi.

L’appuntamento è per mercoledì 8 maggio, alle ore 18:30 presso Gilda Contemporary Art, Via San Maurilio 14, Milano.

L’evento – a partire dalla presentazione del libro con domande all’autrice – affronterà il tema dell’accompagnamento nel fine vita in una prospettiva concreta, che evidenzia le similarità e le differenze tra la scelta delle cure palliative e
quella della morte volontaria assistita.


A presentare l’autrice Sonia Ambroset, sarà la giornalista Alessandra Pellegrini De Luca. Presenti Cristina Gilda Artese, direttrice artistica della galleria e Cristiana Zerosi, membro di giunta ALC e coordinatrice della cellula di Milano di ALC e Alice Spaccini, organizzatrice dell’incontro e membro della Cellula.

L'articolo A Milano la presentazione del libro “Tu lo faresti?” sulla relazione tra cure palliative e morte volontaria assistita proviene da Associazione Luca Coscioni.

La Cellula Coscioni di Pordenone e Auser Budoia e Polcenigo, con il patrocinio del Comune di Budoia organizzano l’iniziativa Testamento biologico – Che cos’è? Come si fa? Perché è importante?

L’appuntamento è per giovedì 9 maggio 2024, alle ore 18:00 a Budoia, presso la Sala Consiliare (Casa del Comune).

Sarà relatrice Francesca Bonemazzi, della Cellula Coscioni Pordenone
L’incontro è aperto a tutti e gratuito, si parlerà della legge 219/2017, con particolare attenzione alle Disposizioni Anticipate di Trattamento (conosciute come Testamento Biologico).

L'articolo In provincia di Pordenone l’evento “Testamento biologico – Che cos’è? Come si fa? Perché è importante?” proviene da Associazione Luca Coscioni.

Never underestimate how far some flight simulator aficionados will go with their builds. No detail is too small, and every aspect of the look and feel has to accurately reflect the real cockpit. As a case in point, check out these very realistic Korry buttons that [Santi Luib III] built for an Airbus A320 simulator.

Now, you might never have heard of a “Korry button” before, but chances are you’ve seen them, at least in photos of commercial or military aircraft cockpits. Korry is a manufacturer of switches and annunciators for the avionics industry, and the name has become shorthand for similar switches. They’ve got a very particular look and feel and are built to extremely high standards, as one hopes that anything going into a plane would be. That makes the real switches very expensive, far more so than even the most dedicated homebrew sim builder would be comfortable with.

That’s where [Santi] comes in. His replica Korry buttons are built from off-the-shelf parts like LEDs and switches mounted to custom PCBs. The PCB was designed for either momentary or latching switches, and can support multiple LEDs in different colors. The assembled PCBs snap into 3D printed enclosures with dividers to keep light from bleeding through from one legend to the other.

The lenses are laser-cut translucent acrylic painted with urethane paint before the legends are engraved with a laser. The attention to detail on the labels is impressive. [Santi]’s process, which includes multiple coats of sealers, gets them looking just right. Even the LEDs are carefully selected: blue LEDs are too bright and aren’t quite the proper shade, so [Santi] uses white LEDs that are dimmed down with a bigger resistor and a light blue photographic gel to get the tint just right.

These buttons are just beautiful, and seeing a panel full of them with the proper back-lighting must be pretty thrilling. If civil aviation isn’t your thing, check out this A-10 “Warthog” cockpit sim, and the cool switches needed to make it just right.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/J1uW6S0aaJ4?feature=oembed

Thanks to [mip] for the tip.

Sono 13 anni e sette mesi di carcere negli Stati Uniti che sono stati dati all’Ucraino Yaroslav Vasinskyi, associato al gruppo REvil, colpevole dell’attacco ransomware distribuito di Kaseya.

Qualche cenno di storia sull’attacco a Kaseya

L’attacco suscitò scalpore, in quanto permise ai criminali informatici di distribuire negli aggiornamenti software del sistema di monitoraggio Kaseya il ransomware REvil. Per poter inoculare negli aggiornamenti il malware, i criminali informatici avevano utilizzato degli specifici 0day nel backend dell’infrastruttura.

L’attacco colpì 1500 organizzazioni in tutto il mondo e la cyber gang, produsse quello che chiamò “universal decrypt“, un software capace di decifrare i dati di tutte le aziende colèite per il valore di 70 milioni di dollari. L’attacco suscitò così tanto scalpore ed interesse mediatico, tanto che portò il presidente statunitense Biden ad indagare sulla questione.

Il caso Vasinskyi

Yaroslav Vasinskyi, 24 anni, è stato arrestato in Polonia nell’ottobre 2021, circa quattro mesi dopo l’attacco di REvil, noto anche come Sodinokibi, al software di gestione IT Kaseya, che ha colpito oltre 1.500 organizzazioni. Vasinskyi è stato accusato di essere coinvolto nell’attacco di Kaseya.

Nel marzo 2022, Vasinskyi è stato estradato negli Stati Uniti , dove era stato accusato di associazione a delinquere finalizzata a commettere frode, danneggiamento di computer protetti e associazione a delinquere finalizzata al riciclaggio di denaro. Vasiinskyi si è dichiarato colpevole di 11 capi d’accusa.

Secondo i documenti del tribunale, Vasiinskyi, noto anche come Rabotnik, ha lanciato oltre 2.500 attacchi utilizzando il ransomware REvil, crittografando i dati sui computer delle vittime, chiedendo alle vittime un riscatto in cambio di una chiave di decrittazione e riciclando i proventi utilizzando scambi di criptovalute e servizi di mixaggio.

These are the last publicly posted images of Yaroslav Vasinskyi.

He was approx. 19 years old in these pictures.

He was arrested at approx. 22 years old.

He was sentenced at approx. age 25 years old.

He will be released from prison when he is approx. 38 years old.

He made… pic.twitter.com/qtFvFzX5PH
— vx-underground (@vxunderground) May 1, 2024

Anche gli affiliati di Sodinokibi/REvil hanno rubato i dati delle vittime e li hanno utilizzati per estorsioni, minacciando di pubblicarli online a meno che non fosse stato pagato un riscatto. Vasinskyi e i suoi cospiratori avrebbero chiesto oltre 700 milioni di dollari in riscatto alle organizzazioni delle vittime.

L’anno scorso il Dipartimento di Giustizia degli Stati Uniti “ha ottenuto la confisca definitiva di milioni di dollari in pagamenti di riscatto”, inclusi 39 Bitcoin e 6,1 milioni di dollari in fondi ricevuti da altri membri della cospirazione.

La Federazione Russa colpisce gli hacker criminali di REvil

Nel gennaio 2022, la Russia ha annunciato di aver represso il gruppo di hacker REvil, che i membri della rete erano stati accusati e che l’infrastruttura del gruppo era stata eliminata, il tutto su richiesta degli Stati Uniti.

Nuovi impianti REvil continuarono ad essere visti nei mesi successivi, con alcuni ricercatori di sicurezza che suggerivano che l’operazione sarebbe probabilmente tornata, ma ciò non è accduto, almeno non con il nome REvil.

L'articolo il 24enne Yaroslav Vasinskyi del gruppo REvil, è stato condannato a 13 anni di reclusione proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

The UK has the answer to all our IoT problems: banning bad default passwords. Additionally, the new UK law requires device makers to provide contact info for vulnerability disclosures, as well as a requirement to advertise vulnerability fix schedules. Is this going to help the security of routers, cameras, and other devices? Maybe a bit.

I would argue that default passwords are in themselves the problem, and complexity requirements only nominally help security. Why? Because a good default password becomes worthless once the password, or algorithm leaks. Let’s lay out some scenarios here. First is the static default password. Manufacturer X makes device Y, and sets the devices to username/password admin/new_Complex_P@ssword1!. Those credentials make it onto a default password list, and any extra security is lost.

What about those devices that have a different, random-looking password for each device? Those use an algorithm to derive that password from the MAC address and/or serial number. That may help the situation, but the algorithm can be retrieved from the firmware, and most serial numbers are predictable in one way or another. This approach is better, but not a silver bullet.

So what would a real solution to the password problem look like? How about no default password at all, but no device functionality until the new password passes a cracklib complexity and uniqueness check. I have seen a few devices that do exactly this. The requirement for a disclosure address is a great idea, which we’ve talked about before regarding the similar EU legislation.

Lock Vulnerabilities

Vulnerabilities and bypasses aren’t unique to software. They are, however, much harder to patch in hardware. Take for instance, the Mul-T-Lock SBNE12 padlock. This lock really looks like it was carefully made to be secure. If you’re not familiar with [LockPickingLawyer]’s videos, the two minutes it takes him to pick this lock is a ringing endorsement. However, the lock does have a weakness, and LPL challenges us to figure it out. I’ll give you a hint, that the problem can be seen during the lock teardown at 2:25. See below the video for the explanation.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/-byTH966RUo?feature=oembed

The problem here is demonstrated by [Trevor], AKA @McNallyOfficial. It’s the springs. The retainer pin is also the lock pin, and that pin is held in place by a pair of springs. The lock is probably designed such that you can lock the shackle without the key, and that means that there is enough play in those springs to slip the pin over the locking lip. Just a good smack in the right place uses the inertia of the locking pin to compress the springs and slip the shackle. It’s a bit disconcerting how many locks can be opened this way.

Fuzzing!

First up we have a walk-through to setting up a function fuzzing run with American Fuzzy Loop (AFL). First let’s cover *why* you might want to do this. We’re looking for vulnerabilities, and the scenario [Craig Young] lays out is one where we have a binary listening for HTTP calls on port 8080, and using some internal code to parse the request bodies. We want to throw a bunch of weird data at that parser to see how it breaks, and using real HTTP requests is way too slow when compared to direct function calls.

AFL is quite clever about its approach, particularly when you run it with “instrumentation”, or injected code that tracks what target code is being run in response to the AFL input. This allows AFL to track what fuzzing input resulted in exercising new target code paths. (It did something new, make a note!) That only works when re-compiling a program from source. The approach to use with a pre-compiled binary is to run it under QEMU so AFL can spy on execution. And in this case, that executable into a shared library to get to the target function directly.

To make that bit of magic work, the Library to Instrument Executable Files (LIEF) is used. When given the function address, this spits out a cooked shared object .so file. The actual harness is a bit of trivial code to call into that function and capture the output. And with that, you can start throwing interesting fuzz data at compiled code.

Fuzzing the Kernel

The Linux kernel has support for NVMe-oF, or Non-Volatile Memory express over Fabric, a high speed data storage link that can run over fiber, Ethernet, or simple TCP. That TCP support is interesting, as it means the kernel itself is opening INET sockets directly, which is why [Alon Zahavi] found it a juicy target for finding vulnerabilities. Because we’re talking the kernel, we can’t just trivially connect AFL like above. Thankfully there’s a fuzzer that’s written specifically for kernel fuzzing: syzkaller.

This one is a bit more complicated, and code has to be added for each subsystem that is supported. But NVME-oF is a supported module. The kernel also has the KCOV subsystem, for collecting coverage data during a run. It took quite a bit of work to add all the necessary bits, but [Alon] but the time in, and came up with 5 nice bug finds in the targeted code. Nice!

Water Hacking

We’ve looked at reported hacks against water treatment plants in the past, and so far there has been lots of splash, and very little substance. That hasn’t kept government agencies from beating the proverbial wardrum about attacks. That said, there is a lot of room for improvement in how these critical systems are secured. Apparently there was one actual breach that caused a tank to overflow, and a second attempt, where 37,000 credential were stuffed into a public-facing firewall over a span of about four days. If our critical systems actually have Internet-facing login pages, then something has truly gone wrong in a fundamental way.

Windows Registry Continued

The ongoing dive into the Windows registry continues over at Google Project Zero. This time with a blast from the past: The registry as it was in Windows 3.1. Way back then it was strictly for file type handling and OLE and COM object handling. Then Windows NT came along with NT 3.1, and started stuffing more and more setting data into the registry. Today, we’re at a crazy 100,000 lines of registry code in the Windows kernel. It’s no wonder this struck Project Zero as a good place to look for Windows vulnerabilities.

Mastodown

We got a bit of a chuckle out of this one, as the folks at It’s FOSS are asking readers not to share links to itsfoss.com stories on Mastodon. Why? Because apparently posting a link to Mastodon triggers a micro-DDOS, as each of the federated Mastodon instances pull a copy of the linked site, to generate a preview. The Mastodon code currently uses a random delay of up to 60 seconds to mitigate the issue. But for some sites that’s just not enough, and the traffic spike from multiple servers pulling a preview copy can be enough to take the site temporarily offline.

A bit of research was done back in 2022, which found that a moderately well-connected Mastodon server would generate just shy of 400 page loads per minute, when a link was shared. It’s likely those numbers are higher now, but still unlikely to be the sort of volume that a post going viral on a link aggregator would generate. Put another way, this seems to be a smaller problem than the classic “Slashdot Effect”.

So on one hand, it would be nice if the Mastodon project could puzzle out a way to keep every federated server from having to pull an independent copy of the site just to generate a preview. But on the other hand, a site that is actively trying to attract attention and visitors needs to be big enough to handle this level of traffic. But for now, at least for “It’s FOSS”, if you want to post a link to Mastodon, please Mastodon’t.

[Editor’s note: Hackaday has a pretty robust CDN. Toot away!]

Bits and Bytes

Hopefully you’re aware that there are malicious images on Docker Hub. Some images mine cryptocurrency in the background, while others try to steal credentials. Researchers at Jfrog have found a class of repositories that plant malicious links in their descriptions. From phishing, to malware, to straight up spam, these repositories are a real pain, and make up nearly 20% of the Docker Hub library. That apparently doesn’t even include the cryptocurrency miners. Oof. It’s probably a good idea to stick to the “Trusted Content” section of Docker Hub.

Nettitude Labs got their hands on a Cisco C195 email security appliance, and went through the steps to make it fully their own. That includes BIOS modification to run arbitrary code, finding a command injection attack in the Cisco firmware, building a full exploit, and finally running Doom on the box. It’s an epic hack and a great write-up.

And finally, HPE Aruba has published fixes for four critical vulnerabilities that allow unauthorized attackers to execute arbitrary code on affected devices. In a refreshing turn of events, these aren’t being used in-the-wild, and there hasn’t been any public Proof-of-concept code published yet. The HPE advisory has a few more details. As always, expect these to eventually get exploited in the wild.