The Headache of Fake 74LS Logic Chips
When you go on your favorite cheap online shopping platform and order a batch of 74LS logic ICs, what do you get? Most likely relabeled 74HC ICs, if the results of an AliExpress order by [More Fun Fixing It] on YouTube are anything to judge by. Despite the claims made by the somewhat suspect markings on the ICs, even the cheap component tester used immediately identified them as 74HC parts.
Why is this a problem, you might ask? Simply put, 74LS are Low-power Schottky chips using TTL logic levels, whereas 74HC are High-Speed CMOS, using CMOS logic levels. If these faked chips had used 74HCT, they would have been compatible with TTL logic levels, but with the TTL vs CMOS levels mismatch of 74HC, you are asking for trouble.
CMOS typically requires that high levels are at least 70% of Vcc, and low to be at most 30% of Vcc, whereas TTL high level is somewhere above 2.0V. 74HC also cannot drive its outputs as strongly as 74LC, which opens another can of potential issues. Meanwhile HCT can be substituted for LS, but with the same lower drive current, which may or may not be an issue.
Interestingly, when the AliExpress seller was contacted with these findings, a refund was issued practically immediately. This makes one wonder why exactly faked 74LS ICs are even being sold, when they’d most likely be stuffed into old home computers by presumably hardware enthusiasts with a modicum of skill and knowledge.
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Pirate Candidate Announcement: Hunter Rand for Sparks City Council 2nd Ward
The United States Pirate Party, during our November 2nd meeting, voting to endorse Hunter Rand, who is running for 2nd Ward of the Sparks, Nevada city council!
The Pirate National Committee voted unanimously to endorse Hunter Rand.
This is not Hunter’s first time being involved with the party. Previously, Hunter was a guest speaker during our 2022 Pirate National Conference.
“He is a Pirate” is the sentiment echoed during last night’s meeting.
Hunter, pitching his campaign, went through our platform and discussed how “potholes don’t care who you vote for.”
“I don’t want to be a career politician and everything I do reflects that. My website isn’t ‘Hunter Rand for Office’ or ‘Hunter Rand for Ward 2′”.
In fact, his website is SparksTogether.com
Check out Hunter’s campaign, including the Notes section of his website which features what is essentially his platform page.
If you’re in Sparks, Nevada in their 2nd Ward, know you have a Pirate who wants to represent you.
Hunter Rand, Victory is Arrrs
A Paintball Turret Controlled Via Xbox Controller
Video games, movies, and modern militaries are all full of robotic gun turrets that allow for remotely-controlled carnage. [Paul Junkin] decided to build his own, albeit in a less-destructive paint-hurling fashion.
The turret sits upon a lazy susan bearing mounted atop a aluminium extrusion frame. A large gear is mounted to the bearing allowing the turret to pan when driven by a stepper motor. A pair of pillow block bearings hold a horizontal shaft which mounts the two paint markers, which again is controlled by another stepper motor to move in the tilt axis. An ESP32 microcontroller is responsible for running the show, panning and tilting the platform by commanding the large stepper motors. Firing the paintball markers is achieved with solenoids mounted to the triggers, which cycle fast enough to make the semi-auto markers fire in a way that almost feels like full-auto. Commanding the turret is via an Xbox One controller; communicating with the ESP32 over Bluetooth using the BluePad32 library.
It’s worth noting you shouldn’t shoot paintballs at unsuspecting individuals, since they can do extreme amounts of damage to those not wearing the proper protection. We’ve featured a great many other sentry guns over the years, too, like this impressive Portal-themed build. Video after the break.
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Print in Place Pump Pushes Limits of Printing
3D printing has taken off into the hands of almost anyone with a knack for wanting something quick and easy. No more messing around with machining or complex assembly. However, with the general hands-off nature of most 3D prints, what could be possible with a little more intervention during the printing process? [Ben] from Designed to Make represents this perfectly with an entire centrifugal pump printed as one.
This project may not entirely fit into the most strict sense of “print in place”; however, the entire pump is printed as one print file. The catch is the steps taken during printing, where a bearing is placed and a couple of filament changes are made to allow dissolvable supports to be printed. Once these supports are dissolved away, the body is coated with epoxy to prevent any leakage.
Testing done by [Ben] showed more than impressive numbers from the experimental device. Compared to previous designs made to test impeller features, the all in one pump could stand its own against in most categories.
If you want to check out the project yourself, check out the Hackaday project here. One of the greatest parts of the open source 3D printing world is the absolute freedom and ingenuity that comes out of it, and this project is no exception. For more innovations, check out this DIY full color 3D printing!
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Droni sull’aeroporto di Bruxelles e sulle basi militari. La sicurezza è a rischio
Martedì sera, a causa della presenza di un drone nello spazio aereo, il controllore del traffico aereo Skeyes ha disposto la sospensione temporanea dei voli in partenza e in arrivo all’aeroporto di Bruxelles, dalle 20:00 alle 21:30.
Successivamente, intorno alle 22:00, sono state ricevute le prime segnalazioni secondo le quali lo spazio aereo è stato nuovamente chiuso.
Diversi aerei stono stati dirottati verso altri aeroporti, come Maastricht e persino l’aeroporto di Schiphol (Amsterdam). È la prima volta che il traffico aereo all’aeroporto di Bruxelles viene interrotto a causa di un drone, ma incidenti simili si sono verificati anche in parti in Europa.
Infatti i droni hanno costretto gli aeroporti di Copenaghen, Oslo e Aalborg a chiudere temporaneamente a settembre, mentre l’aeroporto di Monaco ha dovuto sospendere le operazioni due volte in 24 ore a ottobre.
Gli aerei che non sono riusciti ad atterrare all’aeroporto di Bruxelles sono stati inizialmente dirottati verso l’aeroporto di Liegi, ma anche lì sono stati segnalati droni. I voli diretti a entrambi gli aeroporti sono stati successivamente dirottati verso gli aeroporti di Maastricht e Colonia, secondo l’emittente francese RTBF. “Non ci sono ancora prove di un collegamento tra le segnalazioni di Bruxelles e Liegi”, ha affermato Skeyes.
Dopo una breve riapertura intorno alle 21.30, anche lo spazio aereo sopra l’aeroporto di Liegi è stato nuovamente chiuso in seguito ai nuovi avvistamenti di droni, riporta l’agenzia di stampa Belga. Anche l’organizzazione europea per il controllo del traffico aereo Eurocontrol ha segnalato interruzioni del traffico aereo negli aeroporti regionali di Anversa, Ostenda, Liegi e Charleroi.
I cittadini hanno chiamato la polizia locale, che si è immediatamente recata sul posto ed è riuscita a confermare visivamente la presenza di due droni, ha confermato martedì sera il sindaco Steven Matheï (CD&V) all’agenzia di stampa Belga. I tentativi di intercettare o bloccare i droni sarebbero falliti.
“Non è ancora tutto chiaro, perché il Ministero della Difesa non è stato in grado di rilevare alcun drone. L’elicottero della polizia federale è stato chiamato per rintracciare il velivolo, se necessario”, ha detto Matheï. Non sarebbe stato rilevato nulla nella base aerea stessa.
Lo scorso fine settimana, i droni sono stati avvistati tre volte sopra la base aerea di Kleine-Brogel e di recente sono stati effettuati altri avvistamenti anche sopra altri siti militari.
Lunedì, all’esercito belga è stato ordinato di abbattere i droni che sorvolavano il territorio militare, a condizione che ciò potesse essere fatto in sicurezza: senza danni collaterali, ma questo non è scontato. Inoltre, dato che questi droni sono oggetti piccoli, veloci e molto manovrabili, non c’è alcuna certezza che possano essere colpiti.
Chi o cosa si nasconda dietro i numerosi droni avvistati di recente rimane per il momento poco chiaro. Il Ministro della Difesa Theo Francken (N-VA) ha ipotizzato che la Russia potrebbe essere il colpevole, ma finora non sono state trovate prove a conferma di tale affermazione.
L'articolo Droni sull’aeroporto di Bruxelles e sulle basi militari. La sicurezza è a rischio proviene da Red Hot Cyber.
Il nuovo video di Pasta Grannies: youtube.com/shorts/KhD_v4G-cC8
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2025 Component Abuse Challenge: Weigh With A TL074
The late and lamented [Bob Pease] was one of a select band of engineers, each of whose authority in the field of analogue integrated circuit design was at the peak of the art. So when he remarks on something in his books, it’s worth taking notice. It was just such an observation that caught the eye of [Trashtronic]; that the pressure on a precision op-amp from curing resin could be enough to change the device’s offset voltage. Could this property be used for something? The op-amp as a load cell was born!
The result is something of an op-amp torture device, resembling a small weighing machine with a couple of DIP-8 packages bearing the load. Surprisingly modest weights will change the offset voltage, though it was found that the value will drift over time.
This is clearly an experimental project and not a practical load cell, but it captures the essence of the 2025 Component Abuse Challenge of which it forms a part. Finding completely unexpected properties of components doesn’t always have to lead to useful results, and we’re glad someone had done this one just to find out whether or not it works. You still just about have time for an entry yourself if you fancy giving it a go.
Leone XIV: “preoccupati per il lavoro”, “unire le forze per trovare soluzioni, non solo per commentare problemi” - AgenSIR
“La voce della Chiesa è che sui diritti e sulla necessità del lavoro bisogna veramente lavorare tutti insieme”.M.Michela Nicolais (AgenSIR)
The app, called Mobile Identify and available on the Google Play Store, is specifically for local and regional law enforcement agencies working with ICE on immigration enforcement.#CBP #ICE #FacialRecognition #News
DHS Gives Local Cops a Facial Recognition App To Find Immigrants
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has publicly released an app that Sheriff Offices, police departments, and other local or regional law enforcement can use to scan someone’s face as part of immigration enforcement, 404 Media has learned.The news follows Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) use of another internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) app called Mobile Fortify that uses facial recognition to nearly instantly bring up someone’s name, date of birth, alien number, and whether they’ve been given an order of deportation. The new local law enforcement-focused app, called Mobile Identify, crystallizes one of the exact criticisms of DHS’s facial recognition app from privacy and surveillance experts: that this sort of powerful technology would trickle down to local enforcement, some of which have a history of making anti-immigrant comments or supporting inhumane treatment of detainees.
Handing “this powerful tech to police is like asking a 16-year old who just failed their drivers exams to pick a dozen classmates to hand car keys to,” Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology's Security and Surveillance Project, told 404 Media. “These careless and cavalier uses of facial recognition are going to lead to U.S. citizens and lawful residents being grabbed off the street and placed in ICE detention.”
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Do you know anything else about this app or others that CBP and ICE are using? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.Mobile Identify is designed “to identify and process individuals who may be in the country unlawfully,” according to its respective page on the Google Play Store. The app was published on Monday.
A source with knowledge of the app told 404 Media the app doesn’t return names after a face search. Instead it tells users to contact ICE and provides a reference number, or to not detain the person depending on the result. 404 Media granted the person anonymity because they weren’t permitted to speak to the press.
404 Media downloaded a copy of the app and decompiled its code, a common practice among security researchers and technology journalists. Although the Play Store page does not mention facial recognition, multiple parts of the app’s code make clear references to scanning faces. One package is called “facescanner.” Other parts mention “FacePresence” and “No facial image found.”
A screenshot from the app's Google Play Store page.
Screenshots of the app on the Play Store page show the app requires users to login with their Login.gov account, and that the app “requires camera access to take photos of subjects.” At the time of writing the app has “1+” downloads, according to the Play Store page.The Play Store page does not say exactly how the app processes scanned faces, such as what images it compares them to, or what data the app returns upon a hit. In statements to 404 Media, DHS and CBP did not provide any specifics.
The app is for agencies that are part of the 287(g) program, the Play Store page says. This program lets ICE delegate certain immigration-related authorities and powers to local and state agencies. Members of the 287(g) Task Force Model (TFM), for instance, are allowed to enforce certain immigration authorities during their police duties, ICE’s website explains. At the time of writing, 555 agencies in 34 states are part of the TFM program, according to data published by ICE.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has criticized the 287(g) program because a large number of participating sheriffs have made anti-immigrant statements, supported inhumane immigration and border enforcement policies, and have a pattern of racial profiling and other civil rights violations.
Cooper Quintin, senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told 404 Media “Face surveillance in general, and this tool specifically, was already a dangerous infringement of civil liberties when in the hands of ICE agents. Putting a powerful surveillance tool like this in the hands of state and local law enforcement officials around the country will only further erode peoples’ Fourth Amendment rights, for citizens and non-citizens alike. This will further erode due process, and subject even more Americans to omnipresent surveillance and unjust detainment.”
Screenshots from the app's Google Play Store page.
Mobile Fortify—the facial recognition app used by ICE which 404 Media first revealed in June—uses the CBP Traveler Verification Service (TVS) ordinarily designed for when people enter the U.S. The app took those systems and an unprecedented collection of U.S. government databases and turned them inwards, letting officers in the field reveal a person’s identity and immigration status. The app also uses data from the State Department, FBI, and state databases, and uses a bank of 200 million images.
404 Media reported in October that multiple social media videos show Border Patrol and ICE officers scanning peoples’ faces on the street.
“I’m an American citizen so leave me alone,” a person stopped by ICE says in one video.
“Alright, we just got to verify that,” one of the officers replies.
404 Media also obtained an internal DHS document which says ICE does not let people decline or consent to being scanned by the app. The document, called a Privacy Threshold Analysis, said photos taken by the app will be stored for 15 years, including those of U.S. citizens.
Ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee Bennie G. Thompson previously told 404 Media in a statement that ICE will prioritize the results of the Mobile Fortify app over birth certificates. “ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a ‘definitive’ determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien,” he said. “ICE using a mobile biometrics app in ways its developers at CBP never intended or tested is a frightening, repugnant, and unconstitutional attack on Americans’ rights and freedoms.”
In response to questions about the new app for Sheriff Offices and other local law enforcement, a DHS spokesperson told 404 Media in an email “While the Department does not discuss specific vendors or operational tools, any technology used by DHS Components must comply with the requirements and oversight framework.”
CBP responded with a statement primarily discussing Mobile Fortify. “Biometric data used to identify individuals through TVS are collected by government authorities consistent with the law, including issuing documents or processing illegal aliens. The Mobile Fortify Application provides a mobile capability that uses facial comparison as well as fingerprint matching to verify the identity of individuals against specific immigration related holdings,” the statement said. CBP added it built the Mobile Fortify application to support ICE, and confirmed ICE has used the app in its operations around the U.S.
Google did not respond to a request for comment.
Inside ICE’s Supercharged Facial Recognition App of 200 Million Images
404 Media has seen user manuals for Mobile Fortify, ICE’s new facial recognition app which allows officers to instantly look up DHS, State Department, and state law enforcement databases by just pointing a phone at someone’s face.Joseph Cox (404 Media)
