Here’s a slice of history that will make any retro-tech fan grin: before TikTok and iMovie, there was a beast called the Videonics DirectED Plus. This early attempt at democratizing video editing saved enthusiasts from six-figure pro setups—but only barely. Popular Science recently brought this retro marvel back to life in a video made using the very system that inspired it. Picture it: 1987, VHS at its peak, where editing your kid’s jazz recital video required not just love but the patience of a saint, eight VCRs, three Videonics units, two camcorders, and enough remotes to operate a space shuttle.

The Videonics DirectED Plus held promise with a twist. It offered a way to bypass monstrous editing rigs, yet mastering its panel of buttons felt like deciphering hieroglyphs. The ‘Getting Started’ tape was the analog era’s lifeline, often missing and leaving owners hunting through second-hand stores, forgotten basements, and enthusiast forums. Fast forward to today, and recreating this rig isn’t just retro fever—it’s a scavenger hunt.

Once assembled, the system resembled a spaghetti junction of cables and clunky commands. One wrong button press could erase precious minutes of hard-won footage. Still, the determination of DIY pioneers drove the machine’s success, setting the stage for the plug-and-play ease we now take for granted.

These adventures into retro tech remind us of the grit behind today’s seamless content creation. Curious for more? Watch the full journey by Popular Science here.

youtube.com/embed/4MVEqA6jz1s?…

hackaday.com/2024/11/11/videon…

[Ziddy Makes] describes this cute little guy as a biblically-accurate keyboard. For the unfamiliar, that’s a reference to biblically-accurate angels, which have wings (and sometimes eyes) all over the place. They’re usually pretty scary to behold. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Image by [Ziddy Makes] via GitHubBut this? This is the opposite of scary. Sure, there are keys everywhere. But it’s just so darn adorable. You know what? It’s those keycaps.

This 16-key macro cube uses a Pro Micro and a system of PH2 5p ribbon cables to connect the four four-key sisterboards to the main board. A 3D-printed base holds all the boards in place. Out of all the switches in the world, [Ziddy] chose Otemu Blues. Clack!

Although it may take some getting used to, this seems like it would be a fun way to input macros. I can see the case for putting some rubber feet on the bottom, otherwise it might scoot around on the desk. That might be cute, but only the first couple of times, you know?

Lexicon Has A Handy Words Layer

[Ewen] wrote in to tell me about Lexicon, a keyboard he designed while reading Marcin Wichary’s most excellent Shift Happens. One idea spawned by the book was a keyboard aimed at writing prose faster and more easily. The result is an input device that marries a stenography-light concept with the BASIC shortcut-having ZX Spectrum.

The key is in those three Space bars. They each produce Space when pressed briefly, but when long-pressed bring up a different layer — Symbols, Function, and Words. “Symbols” refers to the various awesome Unicode symbols that come out of that layer, including neat typographical marks. “Function” comprises the Function keys plus extras.

Image by [Ewen] via GitHubThanks to the special Words layer, the user can quickly input common words such as ‘and’, ‘said’, and ‘she’. So how in the world would the user remember how to do all of that? Well, it’s actually pretty easy. There is one word per key, and they are married up alphabetically. So ‘a’ is for ‘and’, ‘s’ is for ‘said’ and ‘x’ is for ‘she’. Each number key gets you that word spelled out — 1 delivers ‘one’ and 2 gives you ‘two’, and so on.

But [Ewen] didn’t stop there. There’s a whole subset of words that are accessible by combining the Words key with two alpha keys, such as ‘SM’ for ‘some’. Users can easily combine shortcuts to produce longer words, like ‘SM1’ for ‘someone’.

Under the hood of this 65% keyboard, you’ll find an RP2040 running the QMK firmware. Although the Lexicon is not open-source, there’s nothing stopping you from taking this idea and running with it in another language. If you want to get a hold of one, check out [Ewen]’s Etsy for kits and completed boards.

The Centerfold: Keep On Truckin’

Image by [FarmersOnlyJim] via redditMan, this setup is fire! Don’t recognize the color scheme? It’s those hues from the Toyota Racing Development (TRD) days of the 1980s. The keyboard is a Keychron K8 Pro, and [FarmersOnlyJim] custom-dyed those MOA-profile keycaps. The neat part is that [Jim] offers their dye process right there in the comments. Come for the color scheme, and stay for the bunny tax in the gallery.

Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad? Send me a picture along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!

Historical Clackers: Espionage Via IBM Selectric II

So your girl caught this video by [Retro Tech or Die] and then picked up a Selectric II a few days later for about $5 with the coupon savings. It’s all gummed up inside, and I’ll have to address that on my own as my local shop no longer deals with Selectrics.
Image via YouTube
Anyway, back to the video. We’ve covered this topic before, but it’s been a long time, and this is a nice refresher. The Selectric was a revolutionary typing machine, and the correcting Selectric II a little bit more so. Because of this, government and other offices purchased them in large quantities.

At the height of US-Russian tensions, the Soviets saw an opportunity for espionage in these electromechanical marvels and planted bugs in the Selectric IIs inside the United States embassy in Moscow. It’s surprisingly easy to get inside a Selectric II, and it only took the spies about 30 minutes to open and bug each machine.

Selectric IIs were in use at the embassy from 1982 until 1984 when the bugs were discovered. For more than a year, the Soviets were able to read documents of all sensitivity levels even before officials had laid eyes on them. A tiny sensing device picked up the keystrokes and transmitted them to antennas hidden in the walls. These signals were relayed to a nearby listening station and decoded using probability tables.
Image via YouTube
These bugs were so small that they could only be detected by x-rays. Housed inside a metal bar of the typewriter, they used magnet meters to detect the disturbances as letters were typed. The transmitted signals were disguised inside television broadcast frequencies.

Because of the way the Selectric II is designed internally, the Soviets were only able to get the alphanumeric characters. They could not capture Shift, Space, Backspace, or Tab. Furthermore, they were compressing six bits of information down to four, which made probability tables pretty much the only option.

It’s a fascinating story for sure. And I’ll let you know how it works out with my Selectric II.

ICYMI: This Lovely Wooden Keyboard

Image via YouTube
It’s not often that we describe things as stunning, especially keyboards, which tend to be plastic-based rectangular life forms. But then there’s this wooden keyboard from Hacoa via [ProcessX].

Watch as the beautiful wood is routed out, and stay for the delicate and tedious process that produces each finished keycap.

I must admit that I was a little disappointed (or maybe caught off-guard) to see the lovely wooden keycaps being overlaid on plastic ones, but as one commenter pointed out, the stresses of wood grain running through an MX-style keycap stem would be pretty high.

Speaking of the keycaps, they are finished off with laser-engraved legends which will surely never wear out, but are bound to get, let’s say, seasoned over time. As much as I’d like to know how it feels to type on a wooden keyboard, this kind of project seems incredibly far out of reach. But we’ve certainly seen wooden keyboards before. Yes we have. Even macro pads.

Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards? Help me out by sending in a link or two. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to email me directly.

hackaday.com/2024/11/11/keebin…

Il CERT-AGID ha recentemente rilasciato una nuova versione del tool hashr (v.2.0.1) come software libero e a codice aperto sotto licenza EUPL. Questo strumento, scaricabile gratuitamente dall’apposita pagina, è progettato per la ricerca di file malevoli all’interno di un filesystem confrontando i valori hash dei file riscontrati con una lista di impronte hash già note.

Hashr può essere utilizzato con proprie liste di ricerca oppure, per le Pubbliche Amministrazione accreditate al feed IoC del CERT-AGID, con gli hash derivati dalle campagne malevole registrate che hanno un impatto sul territorio italiano.

Tutte le Pubbliche Amministrazioni possono accreditarsi al feed IoC del CERT-AGID per avere accesso a un flusso in tempo reale di Indicatori di Compromissione (IoC), che elenca e condivide dati su campagne malware e phishing rilevate nelle attività quotidiane di monitoraggio e prevenzione, come ad esempio gli indirizzi IP utilizzati per attività fraudolente, URL di siti malevoli, hash di file dannosi e altre informazioni. Tale servizio, offerto gratuitamente, è rivolto esclusivamente alle Pubbliche Amministrazioni.

In sinergia con il Feed IoC, hashr consente di ricercare file con hash correlati a campagne malevole note o APT analizzati dal CERT-AGID, permettendo di identificare rapidamente i file compromessi. L’uso di hashr risulta particolarmente utile per indagini di sicurezza informatica, analisi forense e verifica dell’integrità dei file su filesystem di grandi dimensioni.

L’utilizzo combinato di hashr e del feed IoC aumenta significativamente la capacità di prevenire ed individuare minacce informatiche, incrementando la sicurezza complessiva delle infrastrutture digitali.

Questi due strumenti forniti da AGID costituiscono un’opportunità per le amministrazioni per migliorare la sicurezza dei propri sistemi IT, per adeguarsi, al contempo, alle indicazioni del Piano Triennale per l’Informatica 2024-2026 e per rafforzare la resilienza digitale complessiva della Pubblica Amministrazione.

Link utili:

• hashr (download e guida)
• Strumenti
• Accreditamento feed IoC

L'articolo Rilasciato Hashr 2.0.1: Il Tool Gratuito del CERT-AGID per Proteggere i Sistemi della PA proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Secondo un nuovo rapporto dell’Institute for Information Security (CIISec) 2023-24, i professionisti della sicurezza informatica nel Regno Unito guadagnano stipendi significativamente più alti rispetto alla media nazionale ma devono affrontare seri problemi di burnout.

Sulla base di un sondaggio condotto su 311 professionisti, lo stipendio medio nel settore della sicurezza informatica ha raggiunto 87.204 sterline, più del doppio dello stipendio medio del Regno Unito di 34.900 sterline (44.000 dollari). Dalla pubblicazione del primo rapporto CIISec nel 2016-2017, gli stipendi sono aumentati del 29%, da £ 62.144 ($ 78.400) ai livelli attuali. Tenendo conto dell’inflazione, la crescita reale è stata del 7%.

Dinamiche positive si registrano in tutti i segmenti industriali, con circa il 18% dei professionisti che ora guadagna più di £ 150.000 ($ 189.000) all’anno, rispetto ad appena il 7% nel 2016.

Tuttavia, gli alti salari sono accompagnati da gravi rischi professionali. Secondo il sondaggio, il 55% degli intervistati soffre di insonnia a causa dello stress lavorativo e il 39% teme un infarto. Uno specialista su cinque (21%) è considerato oberato di lavoro.

La situazione è aggravata dalla mancanza di personale qualificato. La maggior parte degli intervistati (72%) ha indicato il personale come la principale sfida operativa, mentre i processi e la tecnologia rappresentano una preoccupazione rispettivamente solo per il 17% e l’11%.

La mancanza di diversità nel settore aggrava la carenza di talenti: solo il 19% degli specialisti entra nella professione senza un’istruzione superiore e la percentuale di donne è solo del 10%. In particolare, solo il 41% dei dipendenti prevede di rimanere nella posizione attuale nei prossimi due anni.

Amanda Finch, CEO di CIISec, sottolinea che molte delle sfide del settore, incluso il panorama delle minacce in continua evoluzione, vanno oltre il controllo delle aziende. Tuttavia, le questioni legate al reclutamento e al mantenimento del personale possono essere risolte a livello del datore di lavoro.

Il rapporto presta particolare attenzione all’intelligenza artificiale (AI). Le opinioni sono divise: l’89% ritiene che la tecnologia avvantaggerà gli aggressori e il 71% vede un impatto positivo sui difensori della rete. Quando si pianifica l’uso dell’intelligenza artificiale nel lavoro (85% degli intervistati), è stata identificata una tendenza allarmante: il 44% delle organizzazioni non è consapevole dei rischi associati e non dispone di politiche per l’uso sicuro della tecnologia.

Secondo gli esperti, il settore della sicurezza informatica ha urgentemente bisogno di aumentare la conoscenza delle minacce associate all’intelligenza artificiale, in particolare all’intelligenza artificiale generativa, mentre la tecnologia è nelle sue prime fasi di sviluppo. Particolare attenzione dovrebbe essere prestata alla formazione dei professionisti emergenti che dovranno resistere agli attacchi dell’intelligenza artificiale per i decenni a venire.

L'articolo Il 55% non dorme, il 39% si aspetta un infarto: questo è il prezzo della sicurezza informatica proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Luke is a homeless #cat in Iran. He was found dragging himself along the street, crying for help. Many people contributed to his treatment and surgery to help him get back on his feet. He’s a fighter, and he powered through. 😻
Although he’s made significant progress in his recovery, he still needs a home, as he’s too vulnerable to live on the streets. Luke has come a long way because he loves life. If you want to witness and share in that passion for life, bring him into your home.
For information: Shima +39 389 603 7889

Luke è un #gatto randagio in Iran. È stato trovato mentre si trascinava per strada, piangendo per chiedere aiuto. Tante persone hanno contribuito alle sue cure e all’intervento per aiutarlo a rimettersi in piedi. È un combattente e ha lottato con tutte le sue forze. 😻
Anche se ha fatto grandi progressi nella sua guarigione, ha ancora bisogno di una casa, poiché è troppo vulnerabile per vivere in strada. Luke ha fatto tanta strada perché ama la vita. Se vuoi condividere e ammirare questa passione per la vita, accoglilo nella tua casa.
Per informazioni: Shima +39 389 603 7889