Web systems are designed to be simple and reliable. Designing for the everyday person is the goal, but if you don’t consider the odd man out, they may encounter some problems. This is the everyday life for some people with names that often have unconsidered features, such as apostrophes or spaces. This is the life of [Luke O’Sullivan], who even had to fly under a different name than his legal one.

[O’Sullivan] is far from a rare surname, but presents an interesting challenge for many computer systems. Systems from the era of penny pinching every bit relied on ASCII. ASCII only included 128 characters, which included a very small set of special characters. Some systems didn’t even include some of these characters to reduce loading times. Throw on the security features put in place to prevent injection attacks, and you have a very unfriendly field for many uncommon names.

Unicode is a newer standard with over 150,000 characters, allowing for nearly any character. However, many older systems are far from easy or cheap to convert to the new standard. This leaves many people to have to adapt to the software rather than the software adapting to the user. While this is simply poor design in general, [O’Sullivan] makes sure to point out how demeaning this can be for many people. Imagine being told that your name isn’t important enough to be included, or told that it’s “invalid”.

One excuse that gets thrown about is the aforementioned injection prompts that can be used to affect these systems. This can cause systems to crash or even change settings; however, it’s not just these older systems that get affected. For modern-day injection prompts, check out how AI models can get affected!

youtube.com/embed/0f3RMYTCvMU?…

Thanks to Ken Fallon for the tip!

hackaday.com/2025/08/05/why-na…

Entries keep ticking in for the One Hertz Challenge, some more practical than others. [Pierre-Loup M.]’s One Hertz Sculpture has no pretensions of being anything but pretty, but we can absolutely respect the artistic impulse behind it.

The sculpture is a free-form circuit inside of a picture frame. There are 9 LEDs in a ring with a few other components to produce a reverse-chase effect (one going dark at a time) taking about 1 second to circle the sculpture. As far as free-form circuit art goes, it’s handsomely done, but as this is Hackaday it’s probably the electronics, rather that the aesthetics that are of interest.

The circuit is an example of a ring oscillator: a cascading chain of NOT gates, endlessly feeding into and inverting one
Without timing it, it looks like 1 Hz, even if we know it’s not.
another. The NOT gates are implemented in resistor-transistor logic with 2N3904 NPN transistors, nine in total. Of course the inverter delay of this sort of handmade logic gate is far too fast for an aesthetically pleasing (or visible) chase, so some extra circuitry is needed to slow down the oscillations to something less than the 5 MHz it would naturally do. This is affected by pairing every transistor with an RC oscillator. Ideally the RC oscillator would have a 0.111..s period (1/9th of a second), but a few things got in the way of that. The RC oscillator isn’t oscillating in a vacuum, and interactions with the rest of the circuit have it running just a little bit fast. That’s really of no matter; a simple oscillator circuit like this wasn’t going to be a shoe in for the accuracy-based Time Lords category of this contest. As a sculpture and not a clock, you’re not going to notice it isn’t running at exactly 1Hz. (Though a ring-oscillator based clock would be a sight indeed.)

We’ve seen ring oscillators before, including inside the venerable 8087 coprocessor and this delightfully romantic beating-heart gift, but this is the first one that seems to have entered the One Hertz Challenge.

If you have a hankering for hertz, the contest is still open, but you’d better get ticking! The contest closes August 19th.

hackaday.com/2025/08/05/2025-o…

Ho scoperto questo manga di recente e me ne sono innamorato. Affronta tematiche importanti senza banali superficialità, offrendo uno spaccato "chiaramente un po' romanzato" della vita degli studenti delle superiori. Onestamente, non ne ho mai abbastanza!

🌕⭐: Non amo dare voti assoluti, ma questo per me se li merita tutti. Aspetto con impazienza i nuovi capitoli.

If you were at OpenSauce, you may have seen new Youtuber [Sahko] waltzing about with a retrofuturistic peice of jewelery that revealed itself as a very cool watch. If you weren’t, he’s his very first video on YouTube detailing the design and construction of this piece. We’ve embedded it below, and it’s worth a watch. (Pun intended, as always.)

The build was inspired by the delightful amber LED dot-matrix display modules that circle the band of the watch. They go by HCMS2901, but [Sahko] recommends using the HCMS3901 as it’s both more 3.3V-tolerant and easier to find now. A challenge in mounting so many displays was the voltage on the supply rail dropping below the logic level; presumably the newer version does not have this problem to the same degree. Either way we love the look of these little displays and are pondering projects of our own that might include them.

He’s got quite a few wrapped around his wrist, so at full brightness, all these displays draw one amp. That explains why like the LED watches of the 1970s, the default state of the displays is “OFF”. Even with a LiPo pouch salvaged from a disposable vape, the runtime would only be half an hour at full brightness without that periodicity. Luckily [Sahko] included buttons on the band of the watch to activate it and control the brightness so it isn’t always blasting at full. There are also different modes available, including a really cool waterfall effect you can see in the video.

The band is an interesting choice, too: it’s just a flex PCB. There’s nothing backing it, aside from its own stiffeners, which makes us very curious how well this watch would hold up to daily use. There’s no clasp in the traditional sense, either: the band is closed by a 4-pin connector that doubles as both charge and the USB programmer for the stm32u08 microcontroller that runs the displays. Conveniently for a watch, this version of the stm32 has an RTC, so it keeps time as well. We dig the minimalism of this design; it’s a great contrast to the maximalism of wrapping your wrist in displays.

We’ve seen very similar displays on an edge-viewed watch, but a tiny amber LED matrix never gets old. If you wrapping your wrist in all those tiny LEDs is too impractically power-hungry, try using Nixie tubes.

We’re always watching for projects– wrist mounted clocks or otherwise– so if you’ve got the time, please drop us a tip.

youtube.com/embed/dBEupkQBFis?…

hackaday.com/2025/08/05/flex-p…

🧭 Quando spiritualità, politica e tradizioni si intrecciano, nascono spazi inaspettati, capaci di superare ogni binarismo.
Slavs and Tatars, collettivo di arte e ricerca, ci ricorda che le identità non sono mai chiuse: sono fatte di passaggi, contaminazioni, transiti fra mondi come i simboli e i rituali che attraversano l’Eurasia.

Nel dialogo con Kathleen Reinhardt e Leah Feldman, il loro lavoro appare come un continuo attraversamento: dalle pratiche spirituali e conviviali (come il samovar o la condivisione del tè) a quelle linguistiche e politiche, sempre alla ricerca di ciò che sfugge alle categorie imposte.
La loro idea di postcoloniale non si rifugia nell’identità da difendere, ma apre possibilità: celebra le mescolanze, crea collettività mai precostituite, né dettate dall’alto.
Penso a certe risonanze con il lavoro di Mona Hatoum: anche lei capace di trasformare simboli domestici e geografici in strumenti di disorientamento critico.

Simboli come il Simurgh, il cetriolo sotto sale o la lingua stessa diventano strumenti per costruire mondi condivisi, lontani da logiche etno-nazionali e imperiali, offrendo “ospitalità” a chi spesso, nei musei o nei discorsi ufficiali, non trova spazio per riconoscersi.

Anche qui nel Poliverso e su Friendica possiamo fare delle nostre interazioni un laboratorio di attraversamento, ascolto e ridefinizione reciproca.

Quali confini sentiamo il bisogno di attraversare?
Come si intrecciano, nelle nostre storie, le radici spirituali e politiche che portiamo dentro?

🔗 moussemagazine.it/magazine/sla…

@Arte e Cultura @Cultura, Storia, Libri, Arte, Architettura, Scuola, Design, Fumetti e Bookwyrm @arthistory group
#arte #artecomtemporanea #SlavsAndTatars

Slavs and Tatars: Being One with Many, Being One Through Many. Leah Feldman, Kathleen Reinhardt, and Payam

Spanning languages, regions, and disciplines, the art collective Slavs and Tatars—founded by Payam Sharifi and Kasia Korczak—has, since its inception as a

^{Mousse Magazine}

Per quanto riguarda i compiti banali che i robot umanoidi potrebbero presto svolgere per noi, le possibilità sono ampie. Fare il bucato è probabilmente in cima alla lista dei desideri di molte persone. La Figure 02 mostra un assaggio di come potrebbe apparire in un video condiviso su X.

I robot umanoidi hanno visto rapidi progressi ultimamente. Video di androidi circolano online, mostrandoli mentre praticano la boxe, giocano a calcio o eseguono mosse acrobatiche di kung fu : impressionanti e divertenti, senza dubbio.

Ma finora, queste dimostrazioni offrono scarso valore pratico. È qui che si distingue il robot Modello 02 di Figure.

Una clip recentemente condivisa su X dal fondatore di Figure, Brett Adcock, mostra l’O2 mentre maneggia il bucato. Sebbene non sia ancora in grado di azionare la macchina da solo, è in grado di caricarla, offrendo un’idea di come i robot umanoidi potrebbero aiutare nelle faccende domestiche in futuro.

Certo, Figure 02 impiega un po’ di tempo a caricare la lavatrice, ma lo fa con una precisione impressionante. Il robot, ad esempio, rileva quando i panni sono stesi fuori dal cestello e si regola di conseguenza. Molti utenti nei commenti sono rimasti colpiti dalle capacità di Figure 02, in particolare dai suoi movimenti fluidi. Tuttavia, molti chiedono contenuti video più dettagliati che mostrino l’intero processo.

Mentre alcuni spettatori hanno messo in dubbio l’autenticità del video a causa dei movimenti insolitamente fluidi del robot, Adcock ha spiegato che ciò è dovuto a Helix, il modello di intelligenza artificiale interno all’azienda. Figure prevede di rendere Helix disponibile ad altri produttori di robot in futuro, il che potrebbe portare a una più ampia diffusione di robot umanoidi per lo svolgimento di lavori domestici. Tuttavia, rimane incerto se questi androidi saranno accessibili anche agli utenti privati.

Sebbene non sia stato ancora annunciato il prezzo, Figure sta posizionando l’O2 per i clienti industriali. Si prevede che il suo costo sarà significativamente superiore a quello dell’R1 di Unitree, che potrebbe attrarre gli utenti privati, sebbene più per l’intrattenimento che per l’uso pratico.

L'articolo Ti piacerebbe avere un Robot che fa la lavatrice? Il robot di Figure la fa proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Making an LED blink is usually achieved by interrupting its power supply, This can be achieved through any number of oscillator circuits, or even by means of a mechanical system and a switch. For the 2025 One Hertz Challenge though, [jeremy.geppert] has eschewed such means. Instead his LED is always on, and is made to flash by interrupting its light beam with a gap once a second.

This mechanical solution is achieved via a disk with a hole in it, rotating once a second. This is driven from a gear mounted on a 4.8 RPM geared synchronous motor, and the hack lies in getting those gears right. They’re laser cut from ply, from an SVG generated using an online gear designer. The large gear sits on the motor and the small gear on the back of the disk, which is mounted on a bearing. When powered up it spins at 60 RPM, and the LED flashes thus once a second.

We like this entry for its lateral thinking simplicity. The awesome 2025 One Hertz Challenge is still ongoing, so there is still plenty of time for you to join the fun!

youtube.com/embed/zE0s_xlJF18?…

hackaday.com/2025/08/05/2025-o…

The wait is over — once this post hits the front page, ticket sales for the 2025 Hackaday Supercon will officially be live!

As is tradition, we’ve reserved 100 tickets priced at $148 (plus fees) for what we like to call the True-Believers. Those are the folks that are willing to sign up even without knowing who will be speaking or what this year’s badge looks like. Once those are sold out, the regular admission tickets will cost $296 (plus fees). We might be slightly biased, but even at full price, we like to think Supercon is a screaming deal.

Those who join us in Pasadena, California from October 31st through November 2nd can look forward to a weekend of talks, workshops, demos, and badge hacking. But what’s more, you’ll experience the unique sense of camaraderie that’s produced when you pack hundreds of hardware hackers into an alleyway and ply them with as much caffeine as they can handle. Some treat it like a normal hacker con, others as a social experiment, but nobody thinks of it as anything less than a fantastic time.

We’re still working closely with our friends at Supplyframe, DigiKey, and Framework to put together a full itinerary for Supercon 2025, so stay tuned over the coming weeks as things are finalized. But in the meantime, we’ve got a couple new additions this year that we’re pretty excited about.

Friday Halloween Party

Last year it worked out that the night before Supercon happened to align with Halloween, so we put together a little pre-con costume party. It was a big hit, and since this year the first day of Supercon will actually fall on All Hallows’ Eve, we decided to really lean into it.

So on Friday night from 5:00 to 10:00 PM, we’ll be hosting a sci-fi themed costume party at the Supplyframe HQ. There will be prizes for the best dressed, and we’ll obviously be on the lookout for costumes that incorporate futuristic, retro-futuristic, or sci-fi techie details. And being a Hackaday event, there’s no such thing as too many LEDs.

Those who’ve joined us in the past may notice that the time and location of the party puts it during what could best be described as the “general hacking” period of Friday evening. Fear not. Participation is completely optional, and attendees who wish to keep their head down and continue working on their badge will of course be free to do so. It’s what Mr. Spock would do.

Call for Retro Communications Tech!

We love Retro Tech at Hackaday, and we know you do to. That’s why this year we’re curating a crowd-sourced exhibit of retro communication electronics from 1940 to 2000: radios, pagers, walkie-talkies, early cell phones, ham rigs, weird prototypes, you name it. Any thematic connection between this project and the Supercon 2025 badge may or may not be completely coincidental.

If you’ve got gear that talked, beeped, buzzed, or connected us before the age of the smartphone, we want to see it. So get it out of the attic, dust it off, tell us its story, and help bring this exhibit to life. As with last year’s popular Display Tech exhibit, all of the hardware will be considered on loan, and it will be returned to its owner after the event. Shipping shouldn’t be too much of an issue for handheld devices, but for the larger pieces of hardware, we’d ideally be looking for stuff that’s already in the Southern California area. That said, if you’ve got something really unique that you’d like to show off, don’t be afraid to contact us — we’ll probably be able to work something out.

The deadline for submissions is September 1st, and the hardware itself will need to be in Pasadena by September 30th to be included in the exhibit. If you’re interested, just fill out this form and we’ll be in touch.

All We Need Now is You!

We’ll be scrambling behind the scenes up until the very last minute (and maybe a bit over) to put together another unforgettable Supercon, but the truth is, the most important part of the equation is the attendees. An event is only as good as the folks who show up, and for the last several years, we’ve been fortunate enough to have an incredible cast of hackers and makers join us for an event that we truly believe is unlike anything else out there.

Whether you’re a veteran of several Supercons, or thinking of making 2025 your first year, we can’t wait to see you in November.

hackaday.com/2025/08/05/get-yo…

Domenica scorsa, Red Hot Cyber ha pubblicato un approfondimento sull’aumento delle attività malevole da parte del ransomware AKIRA, che sembrerebbe sfruttare una vulnerabilità 0-day non documentata nei dispositivi SonicWall con SSLVPN attiva. L’articolo ha evidenziato una possibile correlazione tra l’incremento degli attacchi e un punto debole non ancora riconosciuto pubblicamente nei firewall Gen 7 dell’azienda statunitense. In risposta a queste segnalazioni e ad altri rilevamenti paralleli, SonicWall ha rilasciato un comunicato ufficiale.

Nel comunicato, pubblicato il 4 agosto 2025, SonicWall conferma che nelle ultime 72 ore si è registrato un aumento significativo di incidenti informatici sia interni che esterni, riguardanti i firewall Gen 7 con SSLVPN abilitato. L’azienda cita anche il contributo di team di ricerca esterni come Arctic Wolf, Google Mandiant e Huntress, che hanno evidenziato la stessa attività sospetta. Questo conferma quanto emerso nel nostro articolo e rafforza l’ipotesi che il ransomware AKIRA stia sfruttando un exploit avanzato.

SonicWall dichiara che è in corso un’indagine approfondita per determinare se questi attacchi siano collegati a una vulnerabilità precedentemente divulgata oppure se si tratti di una falla nuova. Al momento, l’azienda non esclude l’ipotesi di una vulnerabilità non ancora documentata, allineandosi così con le preoccupazioni espresse dalla nostra redazione nel precedente articolo.

Nel frattempo, SonicWall ha fornito una serie di raccomandazioni ai propri clienti e partner per mitigare il rischio. In particolare, consiglia di disabilitare il servizio SSLVPN dove possibile, oppure di limitarne l’accesso solo a indirizzi IP di origine fidati. L’azienda raccomanda inoltre di attivare i servizi di sicurezza come il Botnet Protection e il Geo-IP Filtering, nonché di abilitare l’autenticazione a più fattori (MFA) per tutti gli accessi remoti, pur riconoscendo che ciò potrebbe non essere sufficiente in questo scenario specifico.

Tra le altre misure di sicurezza consigliate vi sono l’eliminazione degli account locali inutilizzati, soprattutto quelli abilitati all’accesso SSLVPN, e la promozione di una corretta gestione delle credenziali, con aggiornamenti periodici delle password. SonicWall sottolinea che questi accorgimenti sono essenziali per contenere l’impatto degli attacchi in corso, mentre l’azienda lavora al rilascio di un eventuale aggiornamento firmware correttivo.

In conclusione, il comunicato ufficiale di SonicWall conferma la gravità del momento e l’urgenza di adottare misure restrittive in attesa di una patch. La rapida risposta dell’azienda, successiva anche alla nostra pubblicazione, dimostra quanto sia cruciale il monitoraggio continuo delle minacce e l’interazione tra i media di settore, i team di threat intelligence e i fornitori di soluzioni di sicurezza. Red Hot Cyber continuerà a seguire l’evoluzione della vicenda, aggiornando tempestivamente i lettori su eventuali sviluppi tecnici o nuove contromisure.

L'articolo SonicWall nel mirino: possibile vulnerabilità 0day, utenti a rischio proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Admit it. You’d get through boring classes in school by daydreaming of cool things you’d like to build. If you were like us, some of them were practical, but some of them were flights of fancy. Did you ever think of an airplane that could dive under the water? We did. So did some students at Aalborg University. The difference is they built theirs. Watch it do its thing in the video below.

As far as we can tell, the drone utilizes variable-pitch props to generate lift in the air and downward thrust in water. In addition to the direction of the thrust, water operations require a lower pitch to minimize drag. We’d be interested in seeing how it is all waterproofed, and we’re unsure how deep the device can go. No word on battery life either. From the video, we aren’t sure how maneuverable it is while submerged, but it does seem to have some control. It wouldn’t be hard to add a lateral thruster to improve underwater operations.

This isn’t the first vehicle of its kind (discounting fictional versions). Researchers at Rutgers created something similar in 2015, and we’ve seen other demonstrations, but this is still very well done, especially for a student project.

We did see a submersible drone built using parts from a flying drone. Cool, but not quite the same.

youtube.com/embed/g7vmPFZrYAk?…

hackaday.com/2025/08/05/studen…