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Early CD Player Teardown https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-38177bc1-9f7f56b63a7be2af Early CD Player Teardown While CD players are nothing new today, they were the height of high-tech in the early 1980s. [w1ngsfly] shows us the inside of a Phase Linear 9500 player https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y520YHf3f0M from 1983. Not only does it have many components, but it is also mechanically unusual.The CD loads into a toaster-like slot and even pops out like a piece of toast. The trackin
I discuss a very early example of the state of the consumer CD player art from the beginning of the compact disc era. The machine in this video was made in 1...
While CD players are nothing new today, they were the height of high-tech in the early 1980s. [w1ngsfly] shows us the inside of a Phase Linear 9500 player from 1983. Not only does it have many components, but it is also mechanically unusual.
The CD loads into a toaster-like slot and even pops out like a piece of toast. The tracking mechanism is quite complex, and thereâs something that looks suspiciously like a dial string from an old slide rule tuner radio. Apparently, the unit was made by Kyocera and is internally similar to a Kyocera DA-01.
Thereâs a âhead positionâ indicator that is actually just an LED connected to the tracking mechanism. The front panel controls look great but also allow you to control the head position exactly. As [w1ngsfly] mentions, it is almost like moving a turntableâs tonearm where you can drop it anywhere you want.
If we recall, they were about $600 to $1,000 new. If Phase Linear doesnât ring a bell, they were well known in their day. Founded by [Bob Carver] and [Steve Johnston], the company was bought by Pioneer before the introduction and, later, by Jensen before the introduction of the 9500. [Bob] would go on to found Carver Corporation. You can find plenty of history about the company online.
Robot Senza Occhi Indiscreti: La Nuova Fotocamera che Salvaguarda la Privacy https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-1a6d0bc6-f681092c6751395a Robot Senza Occhi Indiscreti: La Nuova Fotocamera che Salvaguarda la Privacy Gli scienziati australiani hanno sviluppato un nuovo tipo di fotocamera per robot che preserva la privacy elaborando e distorcendo le informazioni visive prima che vengano digitalizzate a tal punto da rendere le immagini irriconoscibili.La ricerca è stata sviluppata
Robot Senza Occhi Indiscreti: La Nuova Fotocamera che Salvaguarda la Privacy
Gli scienziati australiani hanno sviluppato un nuovo tipo di fotocamera per robot che preserva la privacy elaborando e distorcendo le informazioni visive prima che vengano digitalizzate a tal punto da rendere le immagini irriconoscibili.
La ricerca è stata sviluppata congiuntamente dallâUniversitĂ di Sydney e dalla Queensland University of Technology, mira a migliorare la privacy in unâera in cui le case e i luoghi di lavoro sono sempre piĂš dotati di dispositivi intelligenti come robot aspirapolvere e droni per le consegne che registrano costantemente video e fotografie ambientali.
Le immagini distorte possono essere utilizzate dai robot per svolgere le loro funzioni, ma non contengono informazioni sufficienti per violare la privacy. Adam Taras, uno degli autori dello studio, sottolinea che i dispositivi intelligenti non dovrebbero diventare strumenti di sorveglianza.
La particolaritĂ dellâapproccio proposto è che lâelaborazione delle immagini avviene a livello ottico e analogico dellâelettronica della fotocamera, il che rende le immagini protette dagli attacchi degli hacker ancor prima che vengano digitalizzate.
Tali telecamere possono essere utilizzate in una varietĂ di aree in cui la privacy e la sicurezza sono importanti, inclusi magazzini, ospedali, fabbriche, scuole e aeroporti. I ricercatori intendono anche creare prototipi fisici delle telecamere per dimostrare come funziona nella pratica la tecnologia.
Il professor Nico Zunderhauf, vicedirettore della Queensland University of Technology, ha affermato che spera che il nuovo design del sensore venga adottato dallâindustria e trovi un uso diffuso.
Lo studio, pubblicato sul Journal of Responsible Technology, sottolinea lâimportanza di sviluppare tecnologie robotiche che rispondano alle legittime preoccupazioni degli utenti in materia di privacy.
DuneQuixote campaign targets Middle Eastern entities with âCR4Tâ malware https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-ad8ddbdd-d8140a152302b9f3 DuneQuixote campaign targets Middle Eastern entities with âCR4Tâ malware IntroductionIn February 2024, we discovered a new malware campaign targeting government entities in the Middle East. We dubbed it âDuneQuixoteâ; and our investigation uncovered over 30 DuneQuixote dropper samples actively employed in the campaign. These droppers, which exist in two
DuneQuixote campaign targets Middle Eastern entities with âCR4Tâ malware
Introduction
In February 2024, we discovered a new malware campaign targeting government entities in the Middle East. We dubbed it âDuneQuixoteâ; and our investigation uncovered over 30 DuneQuixote dropper samples actively employed in the campaign. These droppers, which exist in two versions â regular droppers and tampered installer files for a legitimate tool named âTotal Commanderâ, carried malicious code to download an additional payload in the form of a backdoor we call âCR4Tâ. While we identified only two CR4T implants at the time of discovery, we strongly suspect the existence of others, which may be completely different malware.
The group behind the campaign took steps to prevent collection and analysis of its implants and implemented practical and well-designed evasion methods both in network communications and in the malware code.
Initial dropper
The initial dropper is a Windows x64 executable file, although there are also DLL versions of the malware sharing the same functionality. The malware is developed in C/C++ without utilizing the Standard Template Library (STL), and certain segments are coded in pure Assembler. All samples contain digital signatures, which are, however, invalid.
Upon execution, the malware initiates a series of decoy API calls that serve no practical purpose. These calls primarily involve string comparison functions, executed without any conditional jumps based on the comparison results.
Useless function calls
The strings specified in these functions are snippets from Spanish poems. These vary from one sample to another, thereby altering the signature of each sample to evade detection using traditional detection methodologies. Following the execution of decoy functions, the malware proceeds to construct a structure for the necessary API calls. This structure is populated with offsets of Windows API functions, resolved utilizing several techniques.
Initially, the malware decrypts the names of essential Windows core DLLs using a straightforward XOR decryption algorithm. It employs multiple decryption functions to decode strings, where a single function might decrypt several strings. However, in our analysis, we observed samples where each string was decrypted using a dedicated function, each employing a slightly varied decryption algorithm.
String decryption algorithm
Once the necessary strings have been decrypted, the malware uses a standard technique for dynamically resolving API calls to obtain their memory offsets by:
retrieving the offset of the Process Environment Block (PEB);
locating the export table offset of kernel32.dll;
identifying the offset for the GetProcAddress function.
In the process of obtaining the PEB offset, the malware first decrypts the constant 0x60, which is used to locate the PEB64 structure. This approach is of particular interest because, typically, malicious samples or shellcode utilizing this technique opt for a hardcoded plain text constant value for this purpose.
Getting PEB structure offset
Next, the malware begins to populate the previously created structure with the offsets of all required functions.
The dropper then proceeds to decrypt the C2 (Command and Control) address, employing a unique technique designed to prevent the exposure of the C2 to automated malware analysis systems. This method involves first retrieving the filename under which the dropper was executed, then concatenating this filename with one of the hardcoded strings from Spanish poems. Following this, the dropper calculates the MD5 hash of the concatenated string, which is then used as a key for decrypting the C2 string.
C2 decryption algorithm
Following the decryption of the C2 string, the malware attempts to establish a connection with the C2 server using a specifically hardcoded ID as the user agent to download the payload. During our research of the C2 infrastructure, we found that the payload remains inaccessible for download unless the correct user agent is provided. Furthermore, it appears that the payload may only be downloaded once per victim or is only available for a brief period following the release of a malware sample into the wild, as we were unable to obtain most of the payload implants from active C2 servers.
Once the payload is downloaded into the processâs memory, the dropper performs a verification check for the âMâ (0x4D in hexadecimal) magic byte at the start of the memory blob. This check likely serves to confirm that the payload has an MZ file signature, thereby indicating it is a valid executable format.
Total Commander installer dropper
The Total Commander installer dropper is created to mimic a legitimate Total Commander software installer. It is, in fact, the legitimate installer file, but with an added malicious file section (.textbss) and a modified entry point. This tampering results in invalidating the official digital signature of the Total Commander installer.
The installer dropper retains the core functionality of the initial dropper but with several key differences. Unlike the original dropper, it omits the use of Spanish poem strings and the execution of decoy functions. It also implements a series of anti-analysis measures and checks that prevent a connection to C2 resources, if any of the following conditions are true:
a debugger is present in the system;
known research or monitoring tools are among running processes;
explorer.exe process has more than two instances
any of the following processes are running:
âpython.exeâ
âtaskmgr.exeâ
âprocmon.exeâ
âresmon.exeâ
âeventvwr.exeâ
âprocess_hacker.exeâ
less than 8 GB RAM available;
the position of the cursor does not change over a certain timeframe;
disk capacity is less than 40 GB.
If any of the anti-analysis checks fail, the malware returns a value of 1. This specific return value plays a role in the decryption of the C2 server address. It triggers the removal of the first âhâ from the beginning of the C2 URL (âhttpsâ), effectively changing it to âttpsâ. As a result, the altered URL prevents the establishment of a connection to the C2 server.
Memory-only CR4T implant
The âCR4Tâ implant is designed with the primary goal of granting attackers access to a console for command line execution on the victimâs machine. Additionally, it facilitates the download, upload, and modification of files. The malware carries a PDB string in its code: "C:\Users\user\Desktop\code\CR4T\x64\Release\CR4T.pdb" Thatâs why we dubbed it âCR4Tâ.
Upon execution by the dropper, the implant initiates a cmd.exe process in a hidden window and establishes two named pipes to enable inter-process communication. It then configures the user agent for communication with the C2 server, embedding the hardcoded value âTroubleShooterâ as the user agent name for requests to the C2.
User-agent string
After that, the implant retrieves the computer name of the infected host as well as the username of the current user. Then it establishes a connection to the C2 server. This session provides interactive access to the command line interface of the victimâs machine via the earlier mentioned named pipes. Commands and their outputs are encoded using Base64 before being sent and decoded after receiving.
After establishing the connection, the implant remains idle, awaiting an initial command from the C2 operator to activate the required functionality. This command is represented by a one-byte value, each one mapped to a specific action on the infected system. These single character commands would likely make more sense for an English-speaking developer/operator than a Spanish-speaking one. i.e. âDâ == Download, âUâ == Upload (where a Spanish speaker might use âCargarâ).
Command
Functionality
âC'(0x43)
Provide access to the command line interface via a named pipe.
âD'(0x44)
Download file from the C2
âU'(0x55)
Upload file to the C2
âS'(0x53)
Sleep
âRâ(0x52)
Exit process
âTâ(0x57)
Write to a file (T here possibly stands for a file-write task)
During our investigation, we discovered evidence of a PowerShell file that had been created using the âTâ command: "powershell -c \"Get-ScheduledTask | Where-Object {$_.TaskName -like 'User_Feed_Sync*' -and $_.State -eq 'Running'} | Select-Object TaskName\" The threat actor was observed attempting to retrieve the names of all scheduled tasks on the infected machine beginning with âUser_Feed_Syncâ. These scheduled tasks were probably created by the Golang version of CR4T for persistence purposes.
Memory-only Golang CR4T implant
We also discovered a Golang version of the CR4T implant, which shares similar capabilities with the C version and has a similar string related to the internal naming: "C:/Users/user/Desktop/code/Cr4tInst/main.go" This variant provides a command line console for interaction with infected machines, as well as file download and upload capabilities. It also possesses the functionality to execute commands on the victimâs machine. A notable difference of this version is its ability to create scheduled tasks using the Golang Go-ole library. This library leverages Windows Component Object Model (COM) object interfaces for interacting with the Task Scheduler service.
CR4T using go-ole library
The malware is also capable of achieving persistence by utilizing the COM objects hijacking technique. And finally, it uses the Telegram API for C2 communications, implementing the public Golang Telegram API bindings. All the interactions are similar to the C/C++ version.
Infrastructure
The infrastructure used in this campaign appears to be located in the US at two different commercial hosters.
Domain
IP
First seen
ASN
commonline[.]space
135.148.113[.]161
2023 -12-16 23:20
16276
userfeedsync[.]com
104.36.229[.]249
2024-01-10 07:27
395092
Victims
We discovered victims in the Middle East, as per our telemetry, as early as February 2023. Additionally, there were several uploads to a semi-public malware scanning service at a later stage, more specifically starting on December 12 2023, with more than 30 submissions of the droppers in the period up to the end of January 2024. The majority of these uploads also originated from the Middle East. Other sources we suspect to be VPN exit nodes geo-located in South Korea, Luxembourg, Japan, Canada, Netherlands and the US.
Conclusions
The âDuneQuixoteâ campaign targets entities in the Middle East with an interesting array of tools designed for stealth and persistence. Through the deployment of memory-only implants and droppers masquerading as legitimate software, mimicking the Total Commander installer, the attackers demonstrate above average evasion capabilities and techniques. The discovery of both C/C++ and Golang versions of the CR4T implant highlights the adaptability and resourcefulness of the threat actors behind this campaign.
Ivanti sotto attacco: hacker cinesi sfruttano falle CVE-2024-21893 nella VPN per infiltrarsi nelle reti. Scopri cosa c'è dietro il recente attacco informatico
GPT-4 diventa un hacker! Riesce a sfruttare i bug 1-day nellâ87% dei casi
Uno studio condotto allâUniversitĂ dellâIllinois (UIUC) ha svelato un nuovo potenziale di GPT-4 combinato con strumenti di automazione: lâabilitĂ di sfruttare vulnerabilitĂ di un giorno, leggendo le loro descrizioni.
Lâefficacia di questo approccio ha raggiunto un notevole 87%. In un commento rilasciato per The Register, uno dei coautori dello studio ha evidenziato che un assistente di penetrazione basato sullâIA sarebbe incredibilmente conveniente, con un costo di soli 8,8 dollari per exploit, quasi tre volte meno rispetto alla mezzâora di lavoro specializzato necessario per definirlo.
Per realizzare questa innovazione, è stato creato un agente basato su GPT-4 utilizzando il framework LangChain, integrato con il modulo di automazione ReAct. Il codice, contenente 91 righe e 1056 token per suggerimenti di incentivi, è disponibile su richiesta, con lâeccezione della richiesta di OpenAI di non divulgarlo pubblicamente. Il test è stato condotto su 15 vulnerabilitĂ comuni riguardanti siti web, contenitori e pacchetti Python, con piĂš della metĂ classificata come critiche o altamente pericolose. Tuttavia, GPT-4 ha mostrato una falla in due casi specifici: CVE-2024-25640 (XSS sulla piattaforma Iris) e CVE-2023-51653 (RCE sul sistema di monitoraggio Hertzbeat). Lâinterfaccia complessa di Iris e la presenza di descrizioni in cinese hanno ostacolato lâefficacia dellâagente.
Interessante è stato osservare che durante lâanalisi delle descrizioni delle vulnerabilitĂ , lo strumento AI ha autonomamente seguito i collegamenti per ottenere ulteriori informazioni. Anche se 11 obiettivi non sono stati forniti durante lâallenamento, lâefficacia complessiva è stata ancora notevole, raggiungendo lâ82%.
I ricercatori universitari hanno inoltre esaminato GPT-3.5 e altri modelli di linguaggio di grandi dimensioni (LLM) open source durante il processo di valutazione.
Raspberry Pi Scanner Digitizes On the Cheap https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-3a44a403-70e85df8b2026cbe Raspberry Pi Scanner Digitizes On the Cheap Itâs pretty important in 2024 to be able digitize documents quickly and easily without necessarily having to stop by the local library or buy an all-in-one printer. While there are plenty of commercial solutions out there, [Caelestis Cosplay] has created a simple document scanner that takes documents, as [Caelestis Cosplay] puts it, from
The build is probably what youâre expecting â itâs essentially a Raspberry Pi (in this case a 4B), a V2 Pi camera, and a handful of custom 3D-printed parts. [Caelestis Cosplay] says they had never designed anything for printing before, and we think it looks great. Thereâs also a buzzer to indicate that the scan is starting (one beep) or has completed (two beeps), a âreadyâ indicator, and a âworkingâ indicator.
Everything youâd need to build your own is available over on Instructables, including document scanner and controller scripts. Be sure to check it out in action after the break, and see it quickly scan in a document and put it on a thumb drive.
Ivanti sotto attacco: hacker cinesi sfruttano falle CVE-2024-21893 nella VPN per infiltrarsi nelle reti. Scopri cosa c'è dietro il recente attacco informatico
La vulnerabilitĂ di SQL Injection di Fortinet viene sfruttata da una pericolosa campagna malware
Forescout ha scoperto una nuova campagna che sfrutta una vulnerabilitĂ nei dispositivi Fortinet FortiClient EMS per diffondere malware.
La vulnerabilitĂ SQL injection CVE-2023-48788 (punteggio CVSS: 9,8) consente a un utente malintenzionato non autenticato di eseguire codice tramite query appositamente predisposte. Lâattacco non richiede lâinterazione dellâutente ed è abbastanza semplice da implementare.
Forescout sta monitorando una campagna con nome in codice Connect:fun a causa dellâutilizzo dei programmi ScreenConnect e Powerfun dopo lâhacking. Lâattacco ha preso di mira una societĂ di media anonima il cui dispositivo vulnerabile FortiClient EMS è stato esposto online.
Ricordiamo che il 21 marzo è stato pubblicato online un exploitPoC per questa vulnerabilità . Il 25 marzo è stato utilizzato un exploit per eseguire il codice PowerShell che scaricava lo script Metasploit Powerfun e avviava una connessione inversa a un indirizzo IP diverso.
Ă stato inoltre scoperto che le query SQL venivano utilizzate per scaricare ScreenConnect da un dominio remoto tramite lâutilitĂ certutil, dopodichĂŠ il programma veniva installato e stabiliva la comunicazione con il server di gestione.
Forescout osserva che gli hacker, attivi almeno dal 2022, sono specializzati in attacchi ai dispositivi Fortinet utilizzando le lingue vietnamita e tedesca nella loro infrastruttura. LâattivitĂ dei criminali informatici indica una componente manuale degli attacchi, evidenziata da numerosi tentativi falliti di scaricare e installare programmi, nonchĂŠ da lunghe pause tra i tentativi. Ciò conferma che si tratta di una campagna specializzata e non di un massiccio attacco automatizzato.
Le aziende sono incoraggiate a installare le patch rilasciate da Fortinet per mitigare le minacce, monitorare il traffico sospetto e utilizzare i firewall per bloccare richieste potenzialmente dannose.
Unraveling The Secrets of Appleâs Mysterious Fisheye Format https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-991177e8-b4b9f4c1419127e3 Unraveling The Secrets of Appleâs Mysterious Fisheye Format Apple has developed a proprietary â even mysterious â âfisheyeâ projection format used for their immersive videos, such as those played back by the Apple Vision Pro. Whatâs the mystery? The fact that they stream their immersive content in this format but have provided no elaboration, no details, and no method
Unraveling The Secrets of Appleâs Mysterious Fisheye Format
Apple has developed a proprietary â even mysterious â âfisheyeâ projection format used for their immersive videos, such as those played back by the Apple Vision Pro. Whatâs the mystery? The fact that they stream their immersive content in this format but have provided no elaboration, no details, and no method for anyone else to produce or play back this format. Itâs a completely undocumented format and Appleâs silence is deafening when it comes to requests for, well, anything to do with it whatsoever.
Probably those details are eventually forthcoming, but [Mike Swanson] isnât satisfied to wait. Heâs done his own digging into the format and while he hasnât figured it out completely, he has learned quite a bit and written it all up on a blog post. Appleâs immersive videos have a lot in common with VR180 type videos, but under the hood there is more going on. Appleâs stream is DRM-protected, but thereâs an unencrypted intro clip with logo that is streamed in the clear, and thatâs what [Mike] has been focusing on. Most âfisheyeâ formats are mapped onto square frames in a way similar to whatâs seen here, but this is not what Apple is doing. [Mike] has been able to determine that the format definitely differs from existing fisheye formats recorded by immersive cameras. First of all, the content is rotated 45 degrees. This spreads the horizon of the video across the diagonal, maximizing the number of pixels available in that direction (a trick that calls to mind the heads in home video recorders being tilted to increase the area of tape it can âseeâ beyond the physical width of the tape itself.) Doing this also spreads the center-vertical axis of the content across the other diagonal, with the same effect.
Thereâs more to it than just a 45-degree rotation, however. The rest most closely resembles radial stretching, a form of disc-to-square mapping. Itâs close, but [Mike] canât quite find a complete match for what exactly Apple is doing. Probably weâll all learn more soon, but for now Apple isnât saying much.
Videos like VR180 videos and Appleâs immersive format display stereoscopic video that allow a user to look around naturally in a scene. But to really deliver a deeper sense of presence and depth takes light fields.
MXM: Powerful, Misused, Hackable https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-5dc850c4-ce56acaa4309b10d MXM: Powerful, Misused, Hackable Today, weâll look into yet another standard in the embedded space: MXM. It stands for âMobile PCI Express Moduleâ, and is basically intended as a GPU interface for laptops with PCIe, but thereâs way more to it â it can work for any high-power high-throughput PCIe device, with a fair few DisplayPort links if you need them!You will see MXM sockets in older generation
Today, weâll look into yet another standard in the embedded space: MXM. It stands for âMobile PCI Express Moduleâ, and is basically intended as a GPU interface for laptops with PCIe, but thereâs way more to it â it can work for any high-power high-throughput PCIe device, with a fair few DisplayPort links if you need them!
You will see MXM sockets in older generations of laptops, barebones desktop PCs, servers, and even automotive computers â certain generations of Tesla cars used to ship with MXM-socketed Nvidia GPUs! Given that GPUs are in vogue today, it pays to know how you can get one in low-profile form-factor and avoid putting a giant desktop GPU inside your device.
I only had a passing knowledge of the MXM standard until a bit ago, but my friend, [WifiCable], has been playing with it for a fair bit now. On a long Discord call, she guided me through all the cool things we should know about the MXM standard, its history, compatibility woes, and hackability potential. Iâve summed all of it up into this article â letâs take a look!
This article has been written based on info that [WifiCable] has given me, and, itâs also certainly not the last one where I interview a hacker and condense their knowledge into a writeup. If you are interested, letâs chat!
Simple Wireup, Generous Payoff
Yes, an Intel A380m card in MXM format An MXM card has a whole side dedicated to its gold finger PCB edge connector. With 285 pins, there are a whole lot of interfaces you can get out of these, and all of them are within hobbyist reach! To make an MXM card work, you donât need much, either.
For an MXM card to work, first, you need to be able to provide between 60 W and 100 W of power, with the ability to impose a power consumption limit on the card. The standard says that the voltage can be anywhere from 7 V to 20 V. This is obviously intended for laptop use, where the main power rail can either be at charger voltage or battery voltage, and it results in high efficiency â you donât need a separate buck-boost regulator for, say, 12 V.
Then, you need a PCIe link of up to 16x, but because PCIe is cool like that, even a 1x link will work as long as you wonât be sad if the GPU is bottlenecked by it. You also might need to set up a few control GPIOs, like the card enable pin, and the power limit pin that tells the card whether it should run in lower-power mode or not. Plus, for some cards, you might need to give the card 5 V at an amp or two â the standard requires that, but itâs not clear why. Technically, you can even connect an MXM card to a Raspberry Pi 5 or CM4, as long as you can procure enough power from some external source â if you want a low-footprint GPU paired with a Pi, MXM makes that firmly within your reach.
In return, you get a wide array of interfaces. The coolest part is, undoubtedly, DisplayPort. You can get up to six 4-lane DP links out of an MXM card, as long as the GPU chip is okay with it. You might also be able to get VGA, LVDS, and even HDMI/DVI. MXM GPUs do support DP++, a DisplayPort mode that outputs HDMI-compatible signals, and you only need a few external components.
You also get a good few low-level interfaces, both for practical and debug purposes. Need to control a small fan? Thereâs a PWM output you might be able to use for fan control, and a tach signal input! Backlight control for an LCD panel youâve wired up? Thereâs PWM for that too. Want to poke at the GPUsâ JTAG? The MXM socket has pins defined for that. Itâs up to the cards to support or not support a lot of stuff that the MXM standard defines, so you might still benefit from a small MCU, but having those things seriously helps in embedded applications.
Speaking of JTAG and vendor freedom, of course, there are OEM pins â since anyone can produce MXM GPUs and systems, and the MXM standard has lasted for decades now, manufacturers like to put their own spin on them. You can often figure things out from MXM-equipped laptop schematics, and, sometimes itâs necessary to check a few. See, giving freedom to individual implementers is a double-edged sword, and MXM is an outstanding illustration on how modular standards can go wrong for regular users.
Compatible, Mostly
Looking at MXM, you might rejoice â thinking about upgrading and repairing your laptop well beyond the few years that the warranty period covers. However, manufacturers are not exactly interested in that. For them, the incentive structure for using MXM is usually completely different.
For a start, producing a board with five BGAs can in certain cases be easier than producing a board with fifteen, which is what you often have to do if you have to put a GPU and RAM on your board as opposed to an MXM module. And, for offering multiple GPU configurations of the same model in a way that lets the manufacturer cover multiple points on the supply-demand chart, it might just be easier to produce an array of MXM cards and then pair them to an array of GPU-less mainboards that have their own configurations. Not always â which is part of why you donât see it lately. This is not a standard-defined shape for an MXM card. So, while you might like upgradability and repairability, you might find that MXM GPUs are not often offered as replacement parts for sale. And, whatâs worse, if youâve found an MXM card available for a different laptop, thereâs no guarantee it will fit.
For instance, some cards are of the MXM 3.0 standard, while others are MXM 3.1, with slight but important differences like support for two DP ports on LVDS pins. However, most of the real-world differences are from either lack of standardization or from manufacturers straight up ignoring the standard.
The first hurdle is the most obvious, and that is the mechanical footprint. The MXM standard defines two possible card shapes, A variant or B variant, including things like heatsink and retention screw hole layout, and even component height for heatsink compatibility purposes. Many laptop manufacturers ignore these rules, producing cards of wacky shapes, or worse, shapes that almost match but are slightly incompatible in a subtle but severe way.
Then, thereâs the VBIOS and driver problems. Many MXM cards have an onboard BIOS chip, whereas other cards rely on the laptop to feed them their BIOS during boot. If your card is of the latter type, you might need to add a UEFI module or hack the code. Alternatively, some cards ship with unpopulated flash chip footprints or unflashed chips on them, so you can give a BIOS to your card with a bit of soldering and flashing, as long as you can find an image that works.
As for drivers, Nvidia stands out there. Many Windows Nvidia drivers for MXM cards run hardware checks that tie the MXM cards to hardware IDs of laptops, and refuse to install the drivers if the card is installed in a laptop it was not expected to be installed in. You used to be able to work around it, but nowadays the driver signing mechanism severely limits the things you can do, a mechanism that in Windows has no sane leeway for user-tweaked drivers and, as such, acts as an effective way of proprietary vendor lock-in. So, if you want to upgrade your Nvidia MXM card and you run Windows, you might run into a bit of a brick wall.
Some Outright Hostile
Continuing this line of reasoning, there are slots that look like MXM but arenât MXM, and Iâm not talking about SMARC, which is a fun SoM standard reusing MXM slots, just like Pi Compute Modules reuse DDR sockets. No, Iâm talking about manufacturers like Lenovo, who have added MXM socketed GPUs into some of their more recent laptops, but with completely different pinouts. They donât advertise their slots as MXM, at least, which is a bonus. Where are the power pins? Who knows! Still, these cards are easy to confuse for actual MXM, and they fit into the slot all the same. The most firey factor is the power pin layout â a mindboggling change that has been made on some laptop models that can destroy your card and laptop even if the card fits mechanically. On one side of the MXM card, thereâs an array of power pins â a matching amount of VIN and GND, often visible as a single large gold finger. For some unimaginable reason, a few manufacturers have made cards that remap the entire pinout and specifically put those power pins on the opposite side.
The pinout swapping is bad enough, but itâs the power pin swapping that really gets us, and gets every piece of tech involved to release the magic smoke, too. And then, thereâs the few outright criminal cases where manufacturers have put power pins on both sides of the pinout. You can easily notice this when you look at your card, but you have to know to look out for it.
The MXM standard canât prevent most of these problems, and whatever it tries to limit, laptop manufacturers can freely bypass. Thereâs no certification or compliance checks; fundamentally, in laptops, MXM isnât used for your convenience â itâs used for the convenience of the manufacturer. If you look at your old MXM-equipped laptop and think that you might be able to upgrade its GPU, remember that thereâs more than meets the eye.
All of these things, of course, donât mean that you canât hack on MXM otherwise. Just remember that, whatever you build, might be more specific to a certain breed of MXM slots in certain laptop lineups, than to MXM as a standard.
Still Hackable Anyway
How about a few good MXM hacks to show you what you can do? Remember, fundamentally, MXM is a high-power connection with a high-bandwidth PCIe link on it, which lets you pull some wonderful tricks!
For instance, hereâs an MXM adapter for certain kinds of iMacs, that lets you install an NVMe SSDs into the MXM slot of your trusty iMac while preserving the MXM GPU connections! It involves changing a chipset strap to enable bifurcation, so thereâs no power-hungry PCIe switch involved, and going from x16 to x8 on your MXM GPU wonât involve any notable bandwidth loss either. So, you can replace your SATA HDD or SSD with a speedy modern NVMe drive, that probably is way cheaper too!
It wouldnât be hard to make a generic MXM to NVMe adapter, in general â and, [WifiCable] has a template KiCad project for you. Just like with mPCIe and M.2 cards, an MXM card is a PCB, after all, 1.2mm thick. You might be worried about leaving your laptop GPU-less, but many laptops with MXM cards still have an iGPU that is enabled whenever the MXM card is removed, though, thatâs not a guarantee. We might see an MXM to Oculink adapter too, at some point!
There are also a few adapters to reuse MXM cards on the market, cheap and expensive alike. That kind of adapter is good for checking any MXM cards you have laying around, and on the cheap ones, you might even be able to solder the extra HDMI port on, as long as you get 5 V from somewhere. Sadly, none of them are open-source â yet.
This is an MXM tinkering adapter board from [WifiCable], exposing as much of MXM as humanly possible, with a wide range of power input options. Every single option is on either pin headers or SMD resistors, able to satisfy whichever obscure feature an MXM card might need, and tap at interfaces that manufacturers donât expect you to tap. Itâs a decently complex design, still yet to be polished, and itâs a 6-layer board big enough to go over a good few price breaks for any PCB fab â weâve both learned a ton about high-speed design as [WifiCable] went about it. However, when it comes to playing with different MXM cards, exploring manufacturer differences and tinkering with card compatibility, this is as good of a testbench board as anyone can build!
Want to build your own MXM stuff, whether cards or card-carrying PCBs? Hereâs a socket on LCSC, and with easyeda2kicad, you can easily get a footprint and 3D model for it. As for designing your own card or getting the [generic] pinout, you can find the MXM standard by looking up MXM_Specification_v31_r10.pdf.
Gone But Not Forgotten
DGFF card Sadly, with the trend of making laptops thinner, weâve been losing MXM, and the companies involved in defining the standard have not been all that interested in updating it, or even adhering to it for that matter. Nevertheless, due to industrial use of MXM, you can still find many modern cards in MXM format!
Furthermore, the spirit of MXM lives on. The proprietary DGFF standard is superseding MXM in Dell laptops â itâs thinner, and itâs fundamentally the same functionality that MXM provides. The same goes for the Framework 16 expansion bay modules â you could easily make an MXM to expansion bay card, and, [WifiCable] has made a KiCad sketch of one too!
For now, we still have laptops with MXM and almost-MXM cards around, and if you ever look into tinkering with those, you now have a better roadmap towards that. Despite the prevalence of soldered-on GPUs in laptops, the concept of GPU modules isnât about to die out, and companies still put âGPU moduleâ on the whiteboards every now and then during their product design processes.
LYFT: Standing Up for Better IKEA BEKANT Control https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-3ce0e3a1-5edf3d5e58735f99 LYFT: Standing Up for Better IKEA BEKANT Control The IKEA BEKANT sit/stand desk is kind of a lifesaver â even if you donât personally go between sit and stand much, the adjustability makes sharing the desk a breeze. Sharing was the case in [Matthias]â house during the pandemic, as he and his wife took turns using the desk. Switching between their two preferred heights quickly
The IKEA BEKANT sit/stand desk is kind of a lifesaver â even if you donât personally go between sit and stand much, the adjustability makes sharing the desk a breeze. Sharing was the case in [Matthias]â house during the pandemic, as he and his wife took turns using the desk. Switching between their two preferred heights quickly became annoying, so [Matthias] engineered LYFT, a replacement controller that stores up to four settings.
In addition, the new SAMD21-based controller allows them to raise and lower the desk without having to hold the button down. And finally, having a digital readout showing the position is just plain cool. As youâll see in the manual (PDF), LYFT is as easy to set up and use as the average flat-packed product.
Lâexploit di Command Injection su Paloalto è online. Disabilitare la telemetria non è piĂš efficace
à apparso online un exploit per la vulnerabilità critica CVE-2024-3400 (10 punti sulla scala CVSS). Tale exploit colpisce i firewall di Palo Alto Networks che eseguono PAN-OS. Il bug è già sotto sfruttamento consentendo ad aggressori non autenticati di eseguire codice arbitrario con privilegi di root.
Ricordiamo che CVE-2024-3400 è diventato noto allâinizio di questo mese. Secondo il produttore, tutti i dispositivi con versioni PAN-OS 10.2, 11.0 e 11.1 con gateway GlobalProtect e telemetria abilitati erano vulnerabili al bug. Altre versioni di PAN-OS, firewall cloud e dispositivi Prisma Access non sono interessati dal problema.
Secondo Shadowserver, ogni giorno vengono scoperti in Internet piĂš di 156.000 firewall con PAN-OS, anche se non si sa quanti siano vulnerabili. Secondo il ricercatore sulla sicurezza informatica Yutaka Sejiyama, circa 82.000 firewall sono vulnerabili agli attacchi CVE-2024-34000 e circa il 40% di essi si trova negli Stati Uniti.
Appena un giorno dopo che Palo Alto Networks ha iniziato a rilasciare gli hotfix per CVE-2024-3400, gli esperti di WatchTowr Labs hanno pubblicato unâanalisi dettagliata della vulnerabilitĂ e un exploit PoC che può essere utilizzato per eseguire comandi shell su firewall senza patch.
âIniettiamo il payload di command injection nel valore del cookie SESSID, che (supponendo che GlobalProtect e la telemetria siano abilitati sul dispositivo Palo Alto) viene quindi concatenato in una stringa e infine eseguito come comando shellâ, ha affermato WatchTowr Labs.
A peggiorare le cose, Palo Alto Networks ha aggiornato ieri le sue raccomandazioni e ha avvertito che le misure protettive precedentemente descritte erano inefficaci.
âLe versioni precedenti di questo post elencavano la disabilitazione della telemetria del dispositivo come misura di sicurezza aggiuntiva. La disabilitazione della telemetria del dispositivo non è piĂš una misura di sicurezza efficace. Non è necessario che la telemetria del dispositivo sia abilitata affinchĂŠ i firewall che eseguono PAN-OS siano vulnerabili agli attacchi relativi a questa vulnerabilitĂ â. Si legge nel messaggio aggiornato di Palo Alto Networks.
Europol fa Saltare in Aria LabHost: Una Piattaforma Mondiale di Phishing Abbattuta
Questa settimana, le forze dellâordine di 19 paesi hanno gravemente interrotto una delle piĂš grandi piattaforme di phishing-as-a-service al mondo, nota come LabHost. Questâoperazione durata un anno, coordinata a livello internazionale da Europol, ha portato alla compromissione dellâinfrastruttura di LabHost. Tra domenica 14 aprile e mercoledĂŹ 17 aprile sono stati perquisiti complessivamente 70 indirizzi in tutto il mondo, portando allâarresto di 37 sospetti. Ciò include lâarresto di 4 persone nel Regno Unito legate alla gestione del sito, compreso lo sviluppatore originale del servizio. La piattaforma LabHost, precedentemente disponibile sul clear web, ora è stata chiusa.
Questa indagine internazionale è stata condotta dalla polizia metropolitana di Londra del Regno Unito, con il supporto del Centro europeo per la criminalità informatica (EC3) di Europol e della Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (J-CAT) ospitata presso la sua sede. Durante la fase di azione, uno specialista di Europol ha supportato la polizia nazionale olandese nelle sue azioni di controllo.
Il cybercrime-as-a-service è diventato un modello di business in rapida crescita nel panorama criminale in base al quale gli autori delle minacce affittano o vendono strumenti, competenze o servizi ad altri criminali informatici per commettere i loro attacchi. Sebbene questo modello sia ben consolidato tra i gruppi di ransomware, è stato adottato anche in altri aspetti della criminalità informatica, come gli attacchi di phishing.
LabHost era diventato uno strumento importante per i criminali informatici di tutto il mondo. Per un abbonamento mensile, la piattaforma forniva kit di phishing, infrastruttura per lâhosting di pagine, funzionalitĂ interattive per interagire direttamente con le vittime e servizi di panoramica delle campagne. Lâindagine ha scoperto almeno 40.000 domini di phishing collegati a LabHost, che contavano circa 10.000 utenti in tutto il mondo.
Con una tariffa mensile media di 249 dollari, LabHost offriva una gamma di servizi illeciti personalizzabili e implementabili con pochi clic. A seconda dellâabbonamento, ai criminali veniva offerta una gamma crescente di obiettivi, tra gli altri, di istituti finanziari, servizi di recapito postale e fornitori di servizi di telecomunicazione. Labhost ha offerto un menu di oltre 170 siti Web falsi che forniscono pagine di phishing convincenti tra le auqli i suoi utenti possono scegliere.
Ciò che ha reso LabHost particolarmente distruttivo è stato il suo strumento integrato di gestione delle campagne denominato LabRat. Questa funzionalità ha consentito ai criminali informatici di monitorare e controllare gli attacchi in tempo reale. LabRat è stato progettato per acquisire codici e credenziali di autenticazione a due fattori, consentendo ai criminali di aggirare le misure di sicurezza avanzate.
Facilmente accessibile, ma pur sempre un crimine
Piattaforme come LabHost rendono il crimine informatico piĂš facilmente accessibile agli hacker inesperti, ampliando in modo significativo il pool di autori di minacce. Tuttavia, per quanto il servizio si presenti di facile utilizzo, il suo utilizzo dannoso costituisce unâattivitĂ illegale e le sanzioni possono essere severe.
Una grande quantitĂ di dati raccolti durante le indagini è ora in possesso delle forze dellâordine. Questi dati verranno utilizzati per supportare le attivitĂ operative internazionali in corso incentrate sul targeting degli utenti malintenzionati di questa piattaforma di phishing.
Allâindagine hanno preso parte le seguenti autoritĂ :
Australia: Centro congiunto di coordinamento della criminalitĂ informatica guidato dalla polizia federale australiana;
Austria: Servizio di intelligence criminale (Bundeskriminalamt);
Belgio: Polizia giudiziaria federale di Bruxelles (Police judiciaire fĂŠdĂŠrale Bruxelles/ Federale gerechtelijke politie Brussel);
Finlandia: Polizia nazionale (Poliisi);
Irlanda: An Garda Siochana;
Paesi Bassi: polizia dei Paesi Bassi centrali (Politie Midden-Nederland);
Nuova Zelanda: polizia neozelandese;
Lituania: polizia lituana;
Malta: forze di polizia di Malta (Il-Korp tal-Pulizija taâ Malta);
Polonia: Ufficio centrale per la lotta alla criminalitĂ informatica (Centralne Biuro Zwalczania CyberprzestÄpczoĹci);
Portogallo: Polizia giudiziaria (PolĂcia JudiciĂĄria);
Romania: polizia rumena (PoliČia RomânÄ);
Spagna: Polizia nazionale (PolicĂa Nacional);
Svezia: AutoritĂ di polizia svedese (Polisen);
Regno Unito: Polizia metropolitana di Londra;
Stati Uniti: Servizio segreto degli Stati Uniti (USSS) e Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI);
Repubblica ceca: Ufficio della polizia criminale e servizio investigativo;
Estonia: Consiglio della polizia e della guardia di frontiera estone;
Hacked Oscilloscope Plays Breakout, Hints at More https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-a4369873-de12095a735cd022 Hacked Oscilloscope Plays Breakout, Hints at More You know things are getting real when the Dremel is one of the first tools you turn to after unboxing your new oscilloscope. But when your goal is to hack the scope to play Breakout https://github.com/davidgiven/dso152-breakout, sometimes plastic needs to be sacrificed.Granted, the scope in question, a Fnirsi DSO152, only cost
You know things are getting real when the Dremel is one of the first tools you turn to after unboxing your new oscilloscope. But when your goal is to hack the scope to play Breakout, sometimes plastic needs to be sacrificed.
Granted, the scope in question, a Fnirsi DSO152, only cost [David Given] from Poking Technology a couple of bucks. And while the little instrument really isnât that bad inside, itâs limited to a single channel and 200 kHz of bandwidth, so itâs not exactly lab quality. The big attractions for [David] were the CH32F103 microcontroller and the prominent debug port inside, not to mention the large color LCD panel.
[David]âs attack began with the debug port and case mods to allow access, but quickly ground to a halt when he accidentally erased the original firmware. But no matter â tracing out the pins is always an option. [David] made that easier by overlaying large photos of both sides of the board, which let him figure out which buttons went to which pins, and mapping for the displayâs parallel interface. He didnât mess with any of the analog stuff except to create a quick âHello, oscilloscope!â program to output a square wave to the calibration pin. He did, however, create a display driver and port a game of breakout to the scope â video after the hop.
Weâve been seeing a lot of buzz around the CH32xx MCUs lately; seeing it start to show up in retail products is perhaps a leading indicator of where the cheap RISC chips are headed. Weâve seen a few interesting hacks with them, but weâve also heard tell they can be hard to come by. Maybe getting one of these scopes to tear apart can fix that, though.
Two New Apple and Google Platform Privacy Requirements Kicking In Now https://fpf.org/blog/two-new-apple-and-google-platform-privacy-requirements-kicking-in-now/ @privacy Appleâs important mandatory requirements affecting iOS apps are about to kick in, and Googleâs new requirements for publishers and advertisers have just gone into effect. Accurately implementing these requirements calls for close cooperation between the legal, privacy, and ad ops teams. Appleâs Privacy Manifests At
Apple's important mandatory requirements affecting iOS apps are about to kick in, and Googleâs new requirements for publishers and advertisers have just gone into effect.
In the latest #EDRigram, we draw your attention to:
đŹđˇ Record-high #GDPR fine for Greece's Migration Ministry đŞđş @europarl_en vote in favour of discriminatory #MigrationPack đ°Meta's harmful push to charge for privacy & more!
đĄ #FreeSoftware licences are helpful for many, many reasons. For example, they enable independent developers to use or reuse existing software, and implement it in their projects! đ
âźď¸ The #FSFE has developed #REUSE, both a tool and a specification to make Free Software licensing easy for humans and machines alike. đ
We make licensing easy for humans and machines alike. REUSE solves a fundamental issue that Free Software licensing has at the very source. Adopting our recommendations is as easy as one-two-three!
Source Code to the 1999 FPS Game Descent 3 Released
On April 16th of this year, [Kevin Bentley] released the source code to the Sci-Fi FPS game Descent 3. Originally released in 1999 for Windows, it was the third part in the Descent series, following right after the events of Descent 2. In the game, you control a flying ship which you have to guide through both in- and outdoor environments, while shooting at robots that have been infected with an alien virus as you try to save the solar system. It was later also ported to Mac OS and Linux, but was considered a commercial flop due to low sales.
As one of the original developers, [Kevin] explains that one of the goals of this code release is to give the game a second life, by cleaning up the C++ code and using new APIs. Original proprietary audio and video libraries from Interplay were removed, which means that some work is required before one can build a fresh copy of new Descent 3 from this code base. That said, the released code is the latest 1.5 patch level, with the Mac OS and Linux support. Even if the original Descent games werenât your cup of tea, itâs still great to see games being preserved and updated like this.
Download KB1OIQ - Andy's Ham Radio Linux for free. Xubuntu Linux remastered for Amateur Radio users. Version 21 - last version to support 32-bit
Version 25a: 05-May-2023 (xfce4) 64-bit, Xubuntu 22.04.
This week Jonathan Bennett and Dan Lynch sit down with Andy Stewart to talk about Andyâs Ham Radio Linux (AHRL)! Itâs the Linux distro designed to give hams the tools they need to work with their radios. Whatâs it like to run a niche Linux distro? How has Andy managed to keep up with this for over a decade? And whatâs the big announcement about the project breaking today?
Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show right in the Hackaday Discord? Have someone youâd like use to interview? Let us know, or contact the guest and have them contact us! Next week weâre taping the show on Tuesday, and looking for a guest!
This Go-Kart Rides on a Pallet https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-df2163d3-2022d98fd8201579 This Go-Kart Rides on a Pallet Many beginner woodworkers, looking to offset the introductory costs of starting a hobby, will source their wood from pallets. Generally theyâre easily found and can be low or no cost, but typically require a bit of work before theyâre usable in a project. [Garage Avenger] is looking to do something a little outside of the box with his pallet project, though. Heâs usi
Many beginner woodworkers, looking to offset the introductory costs of starting a hobby, will source their wood from pallets. Generally theyâre easily found and can be low or no cost, but typically require a bit of work before theyâre usable in a project. [Garage Avenger] is looking to do something a little outside of the box with his pallet project, though. Heâs using raw pallets as a chassis for a four-speed go-kart, partially for the challenge and excitement and also to one-up a Pinterest post.
Almost immediately, though, the other major downside of working with pallets arose which is that theyâre generally built out of low-grade pine which is soft and flexible. Flexibility is generally not a good thing to have in a vehicle frame so plenty of the important parts of this build were strengthened with steel tubing including the rear axle, steering mounts, and a few longitudinal supports to strengthen the overall frame. After working out some kinks with ordering a few of the wrong parts, and mounting the steering box backwards, it was time to test out the four-speed engine (and brakes) on the the go-kart, making it nearly ready for the road.
To complete the build, some tidying of wiring and fuel lines was done, along with improving some of the non-critical parts of the build like the bucket seat. Of course, adding pallet spoilers and body kit puts the finishing touches on the build and the go-kart is finally ready to tear up the local go-kart track and the less-inspiring Pinterest projects. [Garage Avenger] is no stranger to strange vehicle builds, either. Although itâs a bit out of season for most of our northern hemisphere readers now, his jet-powered street sled is still worth a view.
When a friend of [Lawrence Kesteloot] found a stack of 3.5âł floppy disks, they found that it contained Turbo Pascal code which the two of them had worked on back in the Summer of 1989. Amidst reminiscing about the High School days and watching movies on VHS, [Lawrence] sought a way to bring these graphical applications once more back to life. Not finding an easy way to compile Turbo Pascal code on Mac even back in 2013 when he started the project, he ended up writing a Turbo Pascal compiler in JavaScript, as any reasonable person would do in this situation. SPIDER.PAS in its full glory. (Credit: Lawrence Kesteloot) As noted by [Lawrence], the compiler doesnât implement the full Turbo Pascal 5.5 language, but only the subset that was required to compile and run these applications which they had found on the floppy disks. These include ROSE.PAS and SPIDER.PAS along with three others, and can also be found in the GitHub repository. As can be seen in the online version of the compiler, it captures the feel of programming Pascal in 1989 on the command line.
Naturally, the software situation has changed somewhat over the last decade. Weâve recently seen some promising multi-platform Pascal compilers, and of course you could even run Turbo Pascal in DOSBox or similar. That might make this project seem irrelevant, but being able to write and run Pascal applications in more ways and on more platforms is never a bad thing.
VCF East 2024 Was Bigger and Better Than Ever https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-1b1a21cc-fbef3d7b242b0e4f VCF East 2024 Was Bigger and Better Than Ever I knew something had changed before I even paid for my ticket to this yearâs Vintage Computer Festival East https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/ at the InfoAge Science and History Museum in Wall, New Jersey.Over the last couple of years, attendance has been growing to the point that parking in the lot directly next to
I knew something had changed before I even paid for my ticket to this yearâs Vintage Computer Festival East at the InfoAge Science and History Museum in Wall, New Jersey.
Over the last couple of years, attendance has been growing to the point that parking in the lot directly next to the main entrance has been reserved for only the earliest of risers. That hasnât described yours truly since the days when I still had what my wife refers to as a âreal jobâ, so thatâs meant parking in the overflow lot down the road and walking the half a mile or so back to the main gate. Penance for working on the Internet, letâs call it.
But this time, while walking along the fence that surrounds the sprawling InfoAge campus, I came across an open gate and a volunteer selling tickets. When commenting to her that this was a pleasant surprise compared to the march Iâd anticipated, she responded that there had been so many people trying to get into the main entrance that morning that they decided to station her out here to handle the overflow.
I was a few steps past her table and into InfoAge before the implications of this interaction really hit me. Two entrances. How many attendees does there need to be before you setup a secondary ticket booth out by the reserve parking lot just to keep things moving smoothly? Well, I canât tell you what the exact number is. But after spending the rest of the day walking between all the buildings it took to contain all of the exhibits, talks, and activities this year, I can tell you itâs however many people came to VCF East 2024.
Compared to its relatively humble beginnings, itâs incredible to see what this event has grown into. InfoAge was packed to the rafters, and despite what you might think about a festival celebrating decades old computing hardware, there were plenty of young faces in the crowd. Iâm not sure exactly whatâs changed, but the whole place was positively jumping. Perhaps itâs partially the generational nostalgia thatâs kept Netflix cranking out new seasons of the 1980âs set Stranger Things. Iâm sure attention (and attendance) from several well known YouTube personalities have played a big part as well.
Whatever the magic formula thatâs turned what was once a somewhat somber retrospective on early desktop computers into a major destination for tech lovers, Iâm all for it. Love Live the Vintage Computer Festival!
A Few of My Favorite Things
Iâve only rarely been confused with Julie Andrews, but Iâll do my best here to catalog some of my personal highlights from VCF East 2024.
This is in no way meant to be a comprehensive view of what was on hand over the weekend. I canât stress enough how absolutely impossible of a task it would be to accurately record everything that was on display â and thatâs not including the talks and classes that were happening at the same time. If youâre even remotely interested in vintage computing or rare and unusual tech, this is an event you absolutely need to see for yourself to truly appreciate.
COSMAC Elves on the Shelves
First described in a series of Popular Electronics articles in the back-half of the 1970s, the Elf was a simple homebrew computer based on the RCA 1802 Complementary Symmetry Monolithic Array Computer (COSMAC) chip. In the boilerplate configuration, it used a pair of LED hexadecimal displays for output and eight toggle switches for input. There was no ROM â programs were entered directly into memory using the toggle switches as God intended.
Different kit versions of the computer were sold over the years, and the community has produced countless spin-offs of the basic concept right up to the present day. For their exhibit RCA COSMAC 1802 Computers, Josh Bensadon and Walter Miraglia had a wide collection of these DIY machines on display, as well as a few commercial devices that used the 1802 such as the RCA Studio II.
Modern Art on Vintage Hardware
Although thereâs a canvas print of one of Joe Kimâs pieces on the wall in my office, I wouldnât say that Iâm much of an art guy. But there was something about The Plot Thickens: Pen Plotter History and Artistry that I found fascinating. Paul Rickard was demonstrating how he uses modern Python code to generate algorithmic art which he then puts on paper with vintage plotters â machines he lovingly refers to on his website as âabsurd and inefficientâ in all the right ways.
Crank-Loaded Software
As the name implies, the exhibit 80âs Luggables was intended to show off various mobile computers from the pre-laptop days, such as the Osborne Executive. But honestly, I thought the inclusion of an Altair 8800 and Macintosh SE muddied the waters a bit. Granted the Mac, with its handle and integrated display, might be on the borderline. But the Altair? If thatâs portable, then pretty much every other computer ever made must be as well.
That being said, the Altair ended up being perhaps the most interesting piece of the exhibit, as it was fitted with a modern crank-operated paper tape reader. Attendees were able to toggle in the appropriate settings for the Altairâs Multi-Boot Loader (MBL) PROM, crank the tape through the reader, and then enjoy the fruits of their labor by playing the loaded game through the Osborne Executive that was acting as a serial terminal. It was the sort of hands-on interaction with vintage hardware that you really only get to experience at an event like VCF, and many attendees walked away from their first experience loading software from paper tape with a much greater appreciation for the modern USB flash drive.
Towers of Power
TRS-80 Model II Boards Collection was a simple exhibit, but it certainly caught the eye. Pete Cetinski took 28 different expansion boards (apparently a near-complete set) for Tandyâs classic machine, mounted each one next to a typed up description of what it does, and had them out for display. There was also a Model 16 with the lid off so attendees could better visualize how these boards would have been installed.
The Internet As it Once Was
As somebody who fights works with modern web technology on a daily basis, The Serial Port by Ben Grubbs definitely hit on a personal level. This exhibit was really in two parts â one half was showing off a Cobalt RaQ web server appliance from the 1990s, but a few steps away there was a desktop running an era appropriate version of Microsoft FrontPage that let you bang out a simple web page that would be served up from the RaQ. This gave attendees a chance to experience what it was like on both sides of the fence back in the days when we thought flashing marquees were a neat idea. Another excellent interactive setup that was getting a lot of attention, especially from some of the younger folks who may not have even been alive when such simplistic sites ruled the net.
The Tip of a Vintage Iceberg
As I said before, thereâs simply no way to do an event like Vintage Computer Festival East justice with a post like this. The exhibits took up four separate rooms spread out among multiple rooms, and the consignment area was even larger and more popular than last year.
Instead, consider this post something of a barometer for VCF â and perhaps the larger vintage computing community as a whole. If you had any concerns about this particular technological niche fading away into obscurity, I can give you from my first-hand experience that not only is it alive and well, but itâs growing into something truly remarkable.
EU data protection body says Metaâs âpay or OKâ model is not OK https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-dd1cf63c-e5fa68ada7acd8d0 EU data protection body says Metaâs âpay or OKâ model is not OKThe European Data Protection Board opposed Meta's controversial "pay or okay" business model in an opinion published on Wednesday (17 April), saying this binary approach was not compliant with the EU's data privacy rules.euractiv.com/section/platformsâŚ
EU data protection body says Metaâs âpay or OKâ model is not OK
The European Data Protection Board opposed Meta's controversial "pay or okay" business model in an opinion published on Wednesday (17 April), saying this binary approach was not compliant with the EU's data privacy rules.
Lettaâs report aligns with views of major telecoms on market integration https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-2137ea19-7d4e160aafff8a6a Lettaâs report aligns with views of major telecoms on market integrationLaying out his vision of a harmonised single market in the telecommunications sector, former Italian prime minister Enrico Letta aligned with some of the talking points by the EU's largest telecom players, according to a draft report seen by Euractiv.euractiv.com/section/digital/nâŚ
Lettaâs report aligns with views of major telecoms on market integration
Laying out his vision of a harmonised single market in the telecommunications sector, former Italian prime minister Enrico Letta aligned with some of the talking points by the EU's largest telecom players, according to a draft report seen by Euractiv.
Ivanti sotto attacco: hacker cinesi sfruttano falle CVE-2024-21893 nella VPN per infiltrarsi nelle reti. Scopri cosa c'è dietro il recente attacco informatico
I Router TP-Link sono sotto il Fuoco Incrociato degli Attacchi DDoS
Fortinet riferisce che gli aggressori continuano a sfruttare una vulnerabilitĂ vecchia di un anno nei router TP-Link, aggiungendo router a varie botnet per effettuare attacchi DDoS.
La vulnerabilitĂ di command injection CVE-2023-1389 (punteggio CVSS: 8,8) è stata scoperta nel dicembre 2022 allâevento Pwn2Own a Toronto e corretta nel marzo 2023.
Il bug colpisce il popolare modello TP-Link Archer AX21, che è stato a lungo nel mirino degli operatori di botnet.
Fortinet ha assistito a numerosi attacchi che sfruttavano questa falla di sicurezza, tra cui il malware botnet Mirai e Condi. Il codice dannoso consente agli hacker di prendere il controllo dei dispositivi per sferrare attacchi DDoS. Telemetria Fortinet Nellâaprile 2023 si è saputo che i criminali informatici hanno approfittato della stessa vulnerabilitĂ per attaccare i router TP-Link situati principalmente nellâEuropa orientale e aggiungerli alla botnet Mirai.
Gli esperti chiedono agli utenti di rimanere vigili contro le botnet DDoS e di applicare patch tempestive per proteggere il proprio ambiente di rete dalle infezioni e impedire che i router diventino bot.
Today, weâll build our own input devices. And they will be easy to create and write firmware for, they will work perfectly, and they will be cross-platform. We can do that with help of the HuâŚ
In the previous two HID articles, we talked about stealing HID descriptors, learned about a number of cool tools you can use for HID hacking on Linux, and created a touchscreen device. This time, letâs talk about an underappreciated HID standard, but one that you might be using right now as youâre reading this article â I2C-HID, or HID over I2C.
HID as a protocol can be tunneled over many different channels. If youâve used a Bluetooth keyboard, for instance, youâve used tunneled HID. For about ten years now, I2C-HID has been heavily present in laptop space, it was initially used in touchpads, later in touchscreens, and now also in sensor hubs. Yes, you can expose sensor data over HID, and if you have a clamshell (foldable) laptop, thatâs how the rotation-determining accelerometer exposes its data to your OS.
This capacitive touchscreen controller is not I2C-HID, even though it is I2C. By [Raymond Spekking], CC-BY-SA 4.0Not every I2C-connected input device is I2C-HID. For instance, if youâve seen older tablets with I2C-connected touchscreens, donât get your hopes up, as they likely donât use HID â itâs just a complex-ish I2C device, with enough proprietary registers and commands to drive you crazy even if your logic analysis skills are on point. I2C-HID is nowhere near that, and itâs also way better than PS/2 we used before â an x86-only interface with limited capabilities, already almost extinct from even x86 boards, and further threatened in this increasingly RISCy world. I2C-HID is low-power, especially compared to USB, as capable as HID goes, compatible with existing HID software, and ubiquitous enough that you surely already have an I2C port available on your SBC.
In modern world of input devices, I2C-HID is spreading, and the coolest thing is that itâs standardized. The standardization means a lot of great things for us hackers. For one, unlike all of those I2C touchscreen controllers, HID-I2C devices are easier to reuse; as much as information on them might be lacking at the moment, thatâs what weâre combating right now as we speak! If you are using a recent laptop, the touchpad is most likely I2C-HID. Today, letâs take a look at converting one of those touchpads to USB HID.
A Hackable Platform
Two years ago, I developed a Framework laptop input cover controller board. Back then, I knew some things about I2C-HID, but not too much, and it kinda intimidated me. Still, I wired up the I2C pins to an I2C port on an RP2040, wired up the INT pin to a GPIO, successfully detected an I2C device on those I2C pins with a single line of MicroPython code, and left sitting on my desk out of dread over converting touchpad data into mouse events â as it turns out, it was way simpler than I thought.
Thereâs a specification from Microsoft, and it might be your first jumping point. I tried reading the specification, but I didnât understand HID at the time either, so that didnât help much. Looking back, the specification is pretty hard to read, regardless. Hereâs the deal in the real world.
If you want to get the HID descriptor from an I2C-HID device, you only need to read a block of data from its registers. Receiving reports (HID event packets) is simple, too. When the INT pin goes low, read a block of data from the device â you will receive a HID report. If thereâs an RST pin, you will want to bring it down upon bootup for a few hundred milliseconds to reset the device, and you can use it in case your I2C-HID device malfunctions, too.
Now, there are malfunctions, and there definitely will be quirks. Since HID is ubiquitous, there are myriad ways for manufacturers to abuse it. For instance, touchpads are so ubiquitous that Chrome OS has entire layers dealing with their quirks. But here we are, and I have an I2C device connected to an RP2040, previous MicroPython I2C work in hand, some LA captures between the touchpad and the original system stashed away, and Iâm ready to send it all commands it needs.
Poking And Probing
To read the descriptor, you can read a block from register 0x20, where the first four bytes define the descriptor version and the descriptor length â counting these four bytes in. When we put this descriptor into the decoder, we will get something like this:
That is a HID descriptor for a touchpad alright! Save this descriptor somewhere â while getting it dynamically is tempting, hardcoding it into your firmware also might be a viable decision, depending on which kind of firmware youâll be adding I2C-HID support into, and, youâll really want to have it handy as a reference. Put this descriptor into our favourite decoder website, and off we go! Oh, and if you canât extract the descriptor from the touchpad for whatever reason, you can get it from inside a running OS like Iâve done in the last article â thatâs what I ended up doing, because I couldnât make MicroPython fetch the descriptor properly. For some reason, Microsoft decided to distribute this spec as a .docx file, something that I immediately abused as a way of stress relief Take a look at the report IDs â they can be helpful later. All reports coming from the touchpad will have their report ID attached, and itâs good to know just which kinds of events you can actually expect. Also, hereâs a challenge â try to spot the reports used for BIOS âsimple mouseâ functionality, firmware update, touchpad calibration, and any proprietary features!
Now, all thatâs left is getting the reports. This is simple too â you donât even need to read a block from a register, just a block of data from the touchpad. First, you read a single byte, which tells you how many more bytes you need to read to get the actual packet. Then you read a byte once INT is asserted (set low). That means the touchpad has data for you. If your INT doesnât work for some reason, as it was on my board, you could continuously poll the touchpad in a loop instead, reading a single byte each time, and reading out a full packet when the first byte isnât 0x00. Then, itâs the usual deal â first byte is the report ID, and all other bytes are the actual report contents. For I2C code of the kind that our last article uses, reading a report works like this: while True: try: l = i2c.readfrom(0x2c, 1) [0] if l: d = i2c.readfrom(0x2c, l) if d[2] != 0x01: # only forward packets with a specific report ID, discard all others print("WARNING") print(l, d) print("WARNING") else: d = d[3:] print(l, len(d), d) usb_hid.report(usb_hid.MOUSE_ABS, d) except OSError: # touchpad unplugged? retry in a bit sleep(0.01)
Now, touch the touchpad, and see. Got a report? Wonderful! Havenât received anything yet? There are a few things to check. First, your touchpad might require a TP_EN pin to be asserted low or high. Also, if your touchpad has a TP_RST pin, you might need to pull it low on startup for a couple hundred milliseconds. Other than that, if your touchpad is from a reasonably popular laptop, see if thereâs any references for its quirks in the Linux kernel, or any of the open firmwares out there.
Further Integration
Theoretically, you could write a pretty universal I2C-HID to USB-HID converter seriously easily â that would allow things like USB-connected touchpads on the cheap, just like some people have been doing with PS/2 in the good old days. For me, thereâs an interesting question â how do you actually integrate this into a keyboard firmware? There are a few options. For instance, you could write a QMK module for dealing with any sort of I2C-HID device, thatâd pass through reports from the touchpad and generate its own reports for keyboard reports. That is a viable option for most of you; for me, C++ is not my friend as much as Iâd like it to be.
Thereâs the MicroPython option weâve explored last article, and thatâs what Iâm using for forwarding at the moment. This option needs the descriptor translated into TUSB macros, which took a bit of time, but I could make it work. Soon, USB device support will be added into the new MicroPython release, which will make my translation work obsolete in all the best ways, but it isnât merged just yet. More importantly, however, thereâs no stock keyboard code I could find thatâs compatible with this firmware, and as much as it could be educational, Iâm not looking into writing my own keyboard scanning code.
Currently, Iâm looking into a third option, KMK. A CircuitPython-based keyboard firmware, it should allow things like dynamic descriptor definitions, which lets us save a fair bit of time when iterating on descriptor hacking, especially compared to the MicroPython fork.
All of these options need you to merge keyboard and touchpad descriptors into one, which makes sense. The only caveat is the question of conflicting report IDs between the stock firmware keyboard descriptor and the stock touchpad descriptor. For fixing that, youâd want to rewrite report IDs on the fly â not that itâs complicated, just a single byte substitution, but itâs a good caveat to keep in mind! My touchpad code already does this because the library does automatic report ID insertion, but if yours doesnât, make sure theyâre changed.
Even Easier Reuse
Now, all of this was about tunneling I2C-HID-obtained HID events into USB. Are you using something like a Raspberry Pi? Good news! Thereâs i2c-hid support in Linux kernel, which only really wants the IRQ GPIO and the I2C address of your I2C device. Basically, all you need to do is to add a device tree fragment and some very minimal data. I donât have a tutorial for this, but thereâs some initial documentation in the kernel tree, and grepping the device tree directory for the overlay name alone should give you a wonderful start.
This article isnât long, and thatâs because of just how easy I2C-HID is to work with. Now, of course, there are quirks â just check out this file for some examples. Still, itâs nothing that you couldnât figure out with a logic analyzer, and now you can see just how easy this is. I hope that this can help you on your hacking forays, so whenever you next see a laptop touchpad, you know just how easy they can be to wire up, no matter if youâre using a microcontroller or a Raspberry Pi.
Custom Dog Door Prevents Culinary Atrocities https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-3e79ba15-dab17fe37574fe8f Custom Dog Door Prevents Culinary Atrocities Riley, an 8 lb pug, has more beauty than brains, and a palate as unrefined as crude oil. While we hate criticizing othersâ interests and tastes, his penchant for eating cat poop needed to stop. After a thorough exploration of a variety of options, including cat food additives that make its excrement taste worse (HOW? WHY? Clearly taste
Riley, an 8 lb pug, has more beauty than brains, and a palate as unrefined as crude oil. While we hate criticizing othersâ interests and tastes, his penchant for eating cat poop needed to stop. After a thorough exploration of a variety of options, including cat food additives that make its excrement taste worse (HOW? WHY? Clearly taste wasnât the issue!), automatic litter boxes that stow the secretions, and pet doors that authenticate access to the room with the litter box, [Science Buddies] eventually settled on a solution that was amenable to all members of the family.
The trick was in creating a door mechanism with a blacklist of sorts rather than a whitelist. As the cat didnât like to push the door open itself, the solution needed to have the pet door open by default. A magnet on Rileyâs collar would trip a sensor attached to an Arduino that would control servos to swing the door shut immediately if he attempted to access the defecated delights. Of course safety was a consideration with the door swinging in Rileyâs face.
Bot Forever! metĂ del traffico web è falso. I bot a breve saranno i padroni di internet https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-dc78fabd-c0e3d6c9f153c1d7 Bot Forever! metĂ del traffico web è falso. I bot a breve saranno i padroni di internet Secondo il rapporto annuale https://www.securitylab.ru/glossary/thales/Imperva Bad Bot di Thales , quasi la metĂ (49,6%) di tutto il traffico Internet nel 2023 proveniva dallâattivitĂ dei bot. Si tratta del 2% in piĂš rispetto a un anno prima e si tratta
Bot Forever! metà del traffico web è falso. I bot a breve saranno i padroni di internet
Secondo il rapporto annuale Imperva Bad Bot di Thales , quasi la metĂ (49,6%) di tutto il traffico Internet nel 2023 proveniva dallâattivitĂ dei bot. Si tratta del 2% in piĂš rispetto a un anno prima e si tratta della cifra piĂš alta dal 2013.https://www.securitylab.ru/glossary/thales/
Particolarmente preoccupante è il fatto che il traffico bot dannoso è cresciuto fino al 32% del totale, mentre la quota di utenti reali è in costante calo. Questa tendenza sta avendo un impatto negativo sulle organizzazioni di tutto il mondo e si stima che costi miliardi di dollari ogni anno a causa degli attacchi a siti Web, API e varie applicazioni.
Quali sono i bot incriminati
Il tipo piÚ comune di bot dannosi sono programmi specializzati che eseguono attività specifiche con intenti criminali, come assistere in crimini informatici, furti o campagne fraudolente. Livelli particolarmente elevati della loro attività sono stati registrati in Irlanda, Germania e Messico, mentre negli Stati Uniti si è osservato solo un leggero aumento.
Secondo il rapporto, lo sviluppo di tecnologie, compresa lâintelligenza artificiale generativa, ha contribuito alla crescita dei robot semplici: la loro quota è aumentata dal 33% nel 2022 al 39% nel 2023. Inoltre, gli algoritmi diventano piĂš sofisticati nel tempo.
Ad esempio, nel 2023, il 44% di tutto il traffico bot dannoso proveniva da programmi mascherati da utenti mobili. Tali strumenti utilizzano tipicamente proxy residenziali e mobili per nascondere le loro vere origini ed evitare il rilevamento.
Il rapporto documenta inoltre lâascesa di bot piĂš avanzati in grado di imitare il comportamento di persone reali e di aggirare con successo le misure di sicurezza. Nella maggior parte dei casi hanno preso di mira i settori del diritto, del governo, dellâintrattenimento e dei servizi finanziari.
I bot supereranno a breve il traffico generato dagli esseri umani
Separatamente, vale la pena notare la crescita degli attacchi di account takeover (ATO), che sono diventati piĂš frequenti del 10%. Quasi la metĂ di questi incidenti erano diretti contro le API. Le vittime piĂš frequenti sono state aziende del settore finanziario, turistico ed economico.
âI bot automatizzati supereranno presto la quota di traffico Internet proveniente dagli esseri umani, cambiando radicalmente il modo in cui le organizzazioni costruiscono e proteggono le proprie risorse webâ, avverte Nanhi Singh, direttore generale della sicurezza delle applicazioni presso Imperva .
Per contrastare la crescente minaccia, le organizzazioni devono essere piĂš vigili e implementare difese efficaci, in particolare contro gli attacchi di abuso delle API che possono portare alla compromissione degli account e al furto di dati.
What are the responsibilities and liabilities of #FreeSoftware developers? đ¨ A potential threat to Free Software developers looms in the form of an ongoing lawsuit in the UK involving Bitcoin and its core developers.
Free Software is everywhere, with studies estimating that it is present in about 96% of the applications that we use. But what are the responsibilities and...
Getting Started with Radio Astronomy https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-f5c2927d-7e3827149e9b9a1a Getting Started with Radio Astronomy There are many facets to being a radio hobbyist, but if youâve ever had the urge to dabble in radio astronomy, check out âThe Noviceâs Guide to Amateur Radio Astronomy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz15GmR_aXc,â a presentation at the 2024 conference of the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers. In that presentation (see the video below), [Nathan Butts]
There are many facets to being a radio hobbyist, but if youâve ever had the urge to dabble in radio astronomy, check out âThe Noviceâs Guide to Amateur Radio Astronomy,â a presentation at the 2024 conference of the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers. In that presentation (see the video below), [Nathan Butts] covers everything from why you should take up the hobby, how to set up a software defined radio (SDR) receiver, and how to repurpose old computers. This is just one of a series of videos recently posted from the conference â check out their channel to see them all.
Unlike optical astronomy, you can listen to the universe by radio during the day or night, rain or shine. You donât need a dark sky, although these days, a quiet radio location might be hard to find. [Nathan] also points out that some people just want to crunch data collected by others, and thatâs fun, too. There are many ways to get involved from designing hardware, writing software, or â of course â just listening.
It has never been easier to get involved. Cheap software-defined radios are perfect for this sort of work, and we all have massive computers and scores of small data-collection computers. Maybe youâll be the next person to hear a Wow signal. If you are worried about fielding an antenna, many people repurpose satellite dishes.
European space industry needs a single market approach, recommends Letta report https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-f4cde9b4-e12ff906ce02745b European space industry needs a single market approach, recommends Letta reportThe EU space market should be integrated, because the European space industry is no longer adequate to compete in the current global space economy, Italian MP Enrico Letta writes in his draft full report as seen by Euractiv.euractiv.com/section/industriaâŚ
European space industry needs a single market approach, recommends Letta report
The EU space market should be integrated, because the European space industry is no longer adequate to compete in the current global space economy, Italian MP Enrico Letta writes in his draft full report as seen by Euractiv.
Opinione EDPB: Meta non può contare su "Pay or Okay" Primo aggiornamento sull'opinione dell'EDPB "paga o va bene" sulle piattaforme piÚ grandi. ms16 April 2024
SoumniBot: the new Android bankerâs unique techniques https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-3dca6bec-de11670c9ba46f23 SoumniBot: the new Android bankerâs unique techniques The creators of widespread malware programs often employ various tools that hinder code detection and analysis, and Android malware is no exception. As an example of this, droppers, such as Badpack and Hqwar, designed for stealthily delivering Trojan bankers or spyware to smartphones, are very popular among malicious actors
SoumniBot: the new Android bankerâs unique techniques
The creators of widespread malware programs often employ various tools that hinder code detection and analysis, and Android malware is no exception. As an example of this, droppers, such as Badpack and Hqwar, designed for stealthily delivering Trojan bankers or spyware to smartphones, are very popular among malicious actors who attack mobile devices. That said, we recently discovered a new banker, SoumniBot, which targets Korean users and is notable for an unconventional approach to evading analysis and detection, namely obfuscation of the Android manifest.
SoumniBot obfuscation: exploiting bugs in the Android manifest extraction and parsing procedure
Any APK file is a ZIP archive with AndroidManifest.xml in the root folder. This file contains information about the declared components, permissions and other app data, and helps the operating system to retrieve information about various app entry points. Just like the operating system, the analyst starts by inspecting the manifest to find the entry points, which is where code analysis should start. This is likely what motivated the developers of SoumniBot to research the implementation of the manifest parsing and extracion routine, where they found several interesting opportunities to obfuscate APKs.
Technique 1: Invalid Compression method value
This is a relatively well-known technique used by various types of malware including SoumniBot and associated with the way manifests are unpacked. In libziparchive library, the standard unarchiving function permits only two Compression method values in the record header: 0x0000 (STORED, that is uncompressed) и 0x0008 (DEFLATED, that is compressed with deflate from the zlib library), or else it returns an error.
libziparchive unarchiving algorithm
Yet, instead of using this function, the developers of Android chose to implement an alternate scenario, where the value of the Compression method field is validated incorrectly.
Manifest extraction procedure
If the APK parser comes across any Compression method value but 0x0008 (DEFLATED) in the APK for the AndroidManifest.xml entry, it considers the data uncompressed. This allows app developers to put any value except 8 into Compression method and write uncompressed data. Although any unpacker that correctly implements compression method validation would consider a manifest like that invalid, the Android APK parser recognizes it correctly and allows the application to be installed. The image below illustrates the way the technique is executed in the file b456430b4ed0879271e6164a7c0e4f6e.
Invalid Compression method value followed by uncompressed data
Technique 2: Invalid manifest size
Letâs use the file 0318b7b906e9a34427bf6bbcf64b6fc8 as an example to review the essence of this technique. The header of AndroidManifest.xml entry inside the ZIP archive states the size of the manifest file. If the entry is stored uncompressed, it will be copied from the archive unchanged, even if its size is stated incorrectly. The manifest parser ignores any overlay, that is information following the payload thatâs unrelated to the manifest. The malware takes advantage of this: the size of the archived manifest stated in it exceeds its actual size, which results in overlay, with some of the archive content being added to the unpacked manifest. Stricter manifest parsers wouldnât be able to read a file like that, whereas the Android parser handles the invalid manifest without any errors.
The stated size of the manifest is much larger than its actual size
Note that although live devices interpret these files as valid, apkanalyzer, Googleâs own official utility for analyzing assembled APKs, cannot handle them. We have notified Google accordingly.
Technique 3: Long namespace names
The SoumniBot malware family, for example the file fa8b1592c9cda268d8affb6bceb7a120, has used this technique as well. The manifest contains very long strings, used as the names of XML namespaces.
Very long strings in the manifestâŚ
âŚused as namespace names
Manifests that contain strings like these become unreadable for both humans and programs, with the latter may not be able to allocate enough memory to process them. The manifest parser in the OS itself completely ignores namespaces, so the manifest is handled without errors.
Whatâs under the obfuscation: SoumniBotâs functionality
When started, the application requests a configuration with two parameters, mainsite и mqtt, from the server, whose address being a hardcoded constant.
Parameter request
Both parameters are server addresses, which the malware needs for proper functioning. The mainsite server receives collected data, and mqtt provides MQTT messaging functionality for receiving commands. If the source server did not provide these parameters for some reason, the application will use the default addresses, also stored in the code.
After requesting the parameters, the application starts a malicious service. If it cannot start or stops for some reason, a new attempt is made every 16 minutes. When run for the first time, the Trojan hides the app icon to complicate removal, and then starts to upload data in the background from the victimâs device to mainsite every 15 seconds. The data includes the IP address, country deduced from that, contact and account lists, SMS and MMS messages, and the victimâs ID generated with the help of the trustdevice-android library. The Trojan also subscribes to messages from the MQTT server to receive the commands described below.
#
Description
Parameters
0
Sends information about the infected device: phone number, carrier, etc., and the Trojan version, followed by all of the victimâs SMS messages, contacts, accounts, photos, videos and online banking digital certificates.
â
1
Sends the victimâs contact list.
â
2
Deletes a contact on the victimâs device.
data: the name of the contact to delete
3
Sends the victimâs SMS and MMS messages.
â
4
A debugging command likely to be replaced with sending call logs in a new version.
â
5
Sends the victimâs photos and videos.
â
8
Sends an SMS message.
data: ID that the malware uses to receive a message to forward. The Trojan sends the ID to mainsite and gets message text in return.
24
Sends a list of installed apps.
â
30
Adds a new contact on the device.
name: contact name; phoneNum: phone number
41
Gets ringtone volume levels.
â
42
Turns silent mode on or off.
data: a flag set to 1 to turn on silent mode and to 0 to turn it off
99
Sends a pong message in response to an MQTT ping request.
â
100
Turns on debug mode.
â
101
Turns off debug mode.
â
The command with the number 0 is worth special mention. It searches, among other things, external storage media for .key and .der files that contain paths to /NPKI/yessign. public static List getAllBankingKeys(Context context) { List list = new ArrayList(); Cursor cursor = context.getContentResolver().query(MediaStore.Files.getContentUri("external"), new String[]{"_id", "mime_type", "_size", "date_modified", "_data"}, "(_data LIKE \'%.key\' OR _data LIKE \'%.der\')", null, null); int index = cursor == null ? 0 : cursor.getColumnIndexOrThrow("_data"); if (cursor != null) { while (cursor.moveToNext()) { String s = cursor.getString(index); If (!s.contains("/NPKI/yessign")) { continue; } Logger.log("path is:" + s); list.add(s); break; } cursor.close(); } return list; } If the application finds files like that, it copies the directory where they are located into a ZIP archive and sends it to the C&C server. These files are digital certificates issued by Korean banks to their clients and used for signing in to online banking services or confirming banking transactions. This technique is quite uncommon for Android banking malware. Kaspersky security solutions detect SoumniBot despite its sophisticated obfuscation techniques, and assign to it the verdict of Trojan-Banker.AndroidOS.SoumniBot.
Conclusion
Malware creators seek to maximize the number of devices they infect without being noticed. This motivates them to look for new ways of complicating detection. The developers of SoumniBot unfortunately succeeded due to insufficiently strict validations in the Android manifest parser code.
We have detailed the techniques used by this Trojan, so that researchers around the world are aware of the tactics, which other types of malware might borrow in the future. Besides the unconventional obfuscation, SoumniBot is notable for stealing Korean online banking keys, which we rarely observe in Android bankers. This feature lets malicious actors empty unwitting victimsâ wallets and circumvent authentication methods used by banks. To avoid becoming a victim of malware like that, we recommend using a reliable security solution on your smartphone to detect the Trojan and prevent it from being installed despite all its tricks.
Aumento del 85.7% del fenomeno Ransomware in Italia. Lo riporta il Cyber Think Tank Assintel
Il report annuale sullo stato di salute della cyber security, pubblicato dal Cyber Think Tank di Assintel, evidenzia un aumento preoccupante degli attacchi informatici nel corso del 2023. I dati raccolti indicano un notevole incremento del 184% nel numero degli attacchi rispetto allâanno precedente, con un totale di 7.068 individuati e classificati durante lâanno.
Ă rilevante notare che il 61% di tali attacchi proviene esclusivamente dal Dark Web, sottolineando la necessitĂ di monitorare fonti non convenzionali. Lâanalisi stagionale degli attacchi ha rivelato un picco durante la primavera, con il mese di aprile che ha registrato il maggior numero di offensive, seguito da marzo, novembre, luglio e giugno. Invece, gennaio e febbraio hanno mostrato una minore attivitĂ criminale. Il cybercrime ha rappresentato la principale minaccia, costituendo il 93% degli attacchi totali nel 2023. Sebbene le categorie legate a spionaggio e guerra dellâinformazione sembrino in diminuzione, lâhacktivism è leggermente aumentato.
Settori come il manifatturiero, il professionale/scientifico/tecnico, lâICT, il sanitario e il finanziario/assicurativo sono stati tra i piĂš colpiti dagli attacchi. Inoltre, si è osservato un significativo aumento degli attacchi verso il continente americano, che ha rappresentato il 50% degli attacchi totali nel 2023, seguito da Europa, Asia e Africa. Le tecniche piĂš utilizzate dagli attaccanti includono il malware, che ha rappresentato il 70% del totale degli attacchi, seguito dallâutilizzo di vulnerabilitĂ e tecniche sconosciute. Circa un quarto degli attacchi ha avuto impatti critici, mentre il 67% ha causato impatti gravi, indicando un aumento degli attacchi con conseguenze economiche, legali o reputazionali catastrofiche per le vittime. Il Cyber Think Tank di Assintel ha sottolineato lâurgente necessitĂ di rafforzare le misure di sicurezza informatica e promuovere la collaborazione tra pubblico e privato per contrastare efficacemente questa crescente minaccia alla sicurezza digitale.
Rimane una minaccia rilevante il ransomware. Nel primo trimestre del 2023, si è registrato un significativo aumento degli attacchi mirati al furto di dati e alla richiesta di riscatti. Le gang ransomware hanno causato gravi danni economici e reputazionali, con un aumento del 19% nel numero di vittime rispetto al trimestre precedente. In particolare, lâItalia ha visto un aumento dellâ85.7% delle vittime rispetto al quarto trimestre del 2022.
Nel secondo trimestre del 2023, il numero di vittime di attacchi ransomware è aumentato del 62% rispetto al trimestre precedente, con le PMI che rappresentano lâ80% delle vittime. Le aziende di servizi sono state le piĂš colpite dalle gang ransomware, con il 47% delle vittime. Parallelamente agli attacchi di ransomware, il phishing ha continuato a rappresentare una minaccia significativa per la sicurezza informatica durante tutto lâanno 2023, con attaccanti che utilizzano metodi sempre piĂš sofisticati per ottenere informazioni sensibili.
Nel secondo semestre del 2023, il trend degli attacchi ransomware è proseguito, con un totale di 2.616 vittime registrate in 94 paesi diversi. Le gang ransomware hanno continuato a essere attive, con un totale di 52 gruppi identificati. Gli Stati Uniti sono stati il paese piĂš colpito, seguiti dal Regno Unito, dal Canada, dalla Germania e dallâItalia.
Pierguido Iezzi, CEO di Swascan (Tinexta Cyber) e coordinatore del Cyber Think Tank di Assintel, ha sottolineato la crescente vulnerabilitĂ delle aziende di tutte le dimensioni e lâimportanza di adottare un approccio olistico alla difesa informatica, che includa misure preventive e proattive. In un panorama sempre piĂš complesso e minaccioso per le PMI, il ruolo delle associazioni nel settore della Cyber Security diventa cruciale. Il Cyber Think Tank di Assintel si impegna quindi a fornire un supporto piĂš efficace alle PMI nel campo della Cyber Security, ampliando e consolidando lâecosistema delle Aziende Cyber Assintel.
Inoltre, offre un supporto prezioso alle PMI per gestire i rischi cyber, dalla tecnologia alla conformitĂ legale, mantenendole costantemente aggiornate sulle nuove normative e sulle tecnologie disponibili per migliorare la loro sicurezza informatica. Fa eco a queste parole il Presidente di Assintel, Paola Generali: âLâassociazionismo è una leva competitiva cruciale per le PMI, permettendo loro di condividere conoscenze e risorse e di fare fronte comune alle sfide trasversali che le interessano. Inoltre, le associazioni svolgono un ruolo fondamentale nel rappresentare le istanze delle PMI a livello istituzionale e nellâinteragire con le autoritĂ competentiâ.
In un contesto in cui la cybersecurity diventa sempre piĂš cruciale, lâimpegno collettivo diventa essenziale per garantire la sicurezza dei dati e delle infrastrutture digitali.
Todayâs hack is an unexpected but appreciated contribution from members of the iFixit crew, published by [Shahram Mokhtari]. This is an ROG Ally Asus-produced handheld gaming console mod that has you upgrade the battery to an aftermarket battery from an Asus laptop to double your battery life (40 Wh to 88 Wh).
There are two main things you need to do: replace the back cover with a 3D printed version that accommodates the new battery, and move the battery wires into the shell of an old connector. No soldering or crimping needed â just take the wires out of the old connector, one by one, and put them into a new connector. Once that is done and you reassemble your handheld, everything just works; the battery is recognized by the OS, can be charged, runs the handheld wonderfully all the same, and the only downside is that your ROG Ally becomes a bit thicker.
The best part is, itâs hard to fail at applying this mod, as itâs documented to the high standards weâd expect from iFixit. The entire journey is split into detailed steps, thereâs no shortage of pictures, and the group has also added warnings for the few potentially problematic aspects you want to watch out for. Plus, in the comment section, weâve learned that thereâs an entire community called AllyMods dedicated to ROG Ally modding that has spawned creations like the dual display mod, which is a joy to see!
This mod reminds us of the time someone modified a Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP with a thicker shell too, not just extending the battery, but also adding things like Bluetooth and 3.5 mm audio, USB-C and wireless charging. A worthy upgrade for a beloved device!
Today, 17 April, EDRi, in a coalition with 48 civil society organisations and 26 individual experts, call on Member State representatives not to agree to the proposed EU Council position on the Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Regulation whilst so many critiâŚ
allows #DetectionOrders to be issued very broadly - ignoring EU Council Legal Service's concerns that this is đ đż NOT compatible with human rights law prohibiting general monitoring.
Ivanti sotto attacco: hacker cinesi sfruttano falle CVE-2024-21893 nella VPN per infiltrarsi nelle reti. Scopri cosa c'è dietro il recente attacco informatico
Gli sviluppatori di PuTTY avvertono di una grave falla di sicurezza. Le chiavi sono compromesse
Gli sviluppatori di PuTTY avvertono di una vulnerabilitĂ critica che colpisce le versioni da 0.68 a 0.80. La falla potrebbe consentire a un utente malintenzionato di recuperare completamente le chiavi private NIST-P521.
La vulnerabilitĂ CVE-2024-31497 si verifica a causa di errori nella generazione di numeri crittografici ECDSA, che consentono il recupero delle chiavi private. La scoperta dellâerrore è attribuita ai ricercatori Fabian Bäumer e Markus Brinkmann dellâUniversitĂ della Ruhr di Bochum
I primi 9 bit di ciascun nonce ECDSA sono zero, consentendo il recupero completo della chiave privata da circa 60 firme utilizzando tecniche allâavanguardia.
Un utente malintenzionato che possiede diverse dozzine di messaggi firmati e una chiave pubblica avrà dati sufficienti per recuperare la chiave privata e falsificare le firme, il che può portare ad un accesso non autorizzato ai server e ai servizi che utilizzano questa chiave.
Il problema ha interessato anche altri prodotti integrati con versioni vulnerabili di PuTTY:
FileZilla (3.24.1 â 3.66.5);
WinSCP (5.9.5 â 6.3.2);
TortoiseGit (2.4.0.2 â 2.15.0);
TartarugaSVN (1.10.0 â 1.14.6).
In seguito alla divulgazione responsabile, il problema è stato risolto nelle nuove versioni di PuTTY 0.81, FileZilla 3.67.0, WinSCP 6.3.3 e TortoiseGit 2.15.0.1.
Gli sviluppatori del prodotto hanno utilizzato la tecnica RFC 6979 per generare tutti i tipi di chiavi DSA ed ECDSA, abbandonando il metodo precedente. Si consiglia agli utenti TortoiseSVN di utilizzare Plink dallâultima versione PuTTY 0.81 quando accedono ai repository SVN tramite SSH fino al rilascio dellâaggiornamento.
Le chiavi ECDSA NIST-P521 utilizzate in uno qualsiasi dei componenti interessati devono essere considerate compromesse e immediatamente revocate rimuovendole da â~/.ssh/authorized_keysâ e file simili su altri server SSH.
Il Futuro del Lavoro Secondo Elon Musk: Rivoluzione Tecnologica o Caos Sociale?
Lâultima previsione di Elon Musk sul futuro del lavoro sembra in parti uguali utopica e in qualche modo terrificante. Intervenendo a un vertice sullâintelligenza artificiale nel novembre 2023, lâeccentrico miliardario ha affermato che lâintelligenza artificiale avanzata alla fine sarĂ in grado di âfare tuttoâ quando si tratta di lavoro e occupazione.
âArriverĂ un punto in cui non sarĂ piĂš necessario alcun lavoroâ, ha detto al primo ministro britannico Rishi Sunak. âPuoi avere un lavoro se vuoi soddisfazione personale, ma lâintelligenza artificiale sarĂ in grado di fare tutto.â
Per chiunque la cui identitĂ e il cui sostentamento siano legati alla propria carriera, potrebbe essere una pillola difficile da ingoiare. Mentre Musk prevede che lâintelligenza artificiale renderĂ il lavoro umano facoltativo piuttosto che obbligatorio per la sopravvivenza, insiste che questa automazione della forza lavoro darĂ vita a quella che definisce âunâera di abbondanzaâ.
Lâidea è che i sistemi di intelligenza artificiale iper-intelligenti agiranno come âgeni magiciâ onniscienti, fornendo tutti i beni, servizi, istruzione di cui potremmo aver bisogno o che desideriamo. Niente piĂš carenze, solo tanto per tutti senza dover lavorare.
Per compensare la crisi occupazionale, Musk sta spingendo qualcosa chiamato âreddito alto universaleâ. A differenza dei regimi di reddito minimo di base, questo fornirebbe a tutti un sostegno finanziario piĂš generoso e dignitoso, senza fare domande. âSarĂ una sorta di pareggioâ, ha detto.
Sembra idilliaco in teoria. Ma ovviamente non tutti sono della sua idea. Esperti come Julia Hobsbawm lanciano un allarme. âTemo che il signor Musk sia un utopista irrealisticoâ, ha condiviso con GOBankingRates. âCome molti nel mondo della tecnologia, sostiene che sostituire gli esseri umani sul posto di lavoro sia inevitabile e auspicabile. Non lo è assolutamenteâ.
Hobsbawm sostiene che lâattenzione dovrebbe concentrarsi sulla formazione adeguata dei lavoratori per collaborare con i sistemi di intelligenza artificiale, non semplicemente consegnare loro un assegno mentre i robot prendono il sopravvento. âIl lavoro conta nella nostra vitaâ, insiste.
Quindi âlâera dellâabbondanzaâ di Musk è un vero scorcio di un futuro basato sullâintelligenza artificiale in cui nessuno dovrĂ lavorare? Oppure stiamo andando verso una disoccupazione di massa e un collasso sociale? Ad altri esperti piace Alessandra Levit, autore di âHumanity Worksâ, la quale adotta una visione piĂš misurata.
âPenso che abbia ragione⌠in un certo sensoâ, disse Levit. âProbabilmente avremo una forma di reddito di base e lâintelligenza artificiale automatizzerĂ parte dei posti di lavoro. Ma non accadrĂ da un giorno allâaltro o in modo cosĂŹ estremo come suggerisce Muskâ.
Levit prevede che, sebbene lâintelligenza artificiale avrĂ un impatto enorme su tutti i settori, creerĂ anche nuove opportunitĂ di lavoro che non possiamo ancora immaginare. âCredo che emergeranno ruoli abbastanza nuovi da far sĂŹ che gli esseri umani non smetteranno del tutto di lavorareâ.
Letta to recommend creation of EU Deep Tech Stock Exchange https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-ce545f15-98f9afbb93900e8d Letta to recommend creation of EU Deep Tech Stock ExchangeEurope's stock market are plagued by problems that prevent deep tech startups from getting the funding they need, Letta wrote.euractiv.com/section/digital/nâŚ
OpenJS nel mirino. Sventata una nuova backdoor simile a XZ Utils
Recentemente gli esperti di sicurezza informatica hanno sventato con successo un tentativo di hackeraggio di un progetto sulla piattaforma OpenJS, che in termini generali è molto simile al recente incidente di backdoor nellâutilitĂ di compressione XZ Utils.
LunedĂŹ 15 aprile la OpenJS Foundation, unâorganizzazione no-profit che monitora i progetti JavaScript utilizzati da miliardi di siti in tutto il mondo, ha ricevuto una serie di e-mail sospette. I mittenti hanno chiesto di aggiornare urgentemente uno dei progetti popolari per eliminare le vulnerabilitĂ critiche, senza specificare i dettagli.
Robin Bender Ginn di OpenJS e Omkar Arasaratnam della Open Source Security Foundation hanno riferito che gli autori della lettera hanno insistito per essere nominati nuovi manager di un popolare progetto (nome omesso), nonostante non avessero alcuna precedente esperienza di lavoro su di esso.
Gli esperti hanno notato la somiglianza dei metodi con le azioni dellâhacker di nome Jia Tan, del quale abbiamo parlato recentemente. Era Jia Tang, la cui identitĂ poteva nascondere unâintera squadra di hacker esperti, in precedenza era riuscita a introdurre una backdoor nellâutility XZ Utils.
Ginn e Arasaratnam hanno sottolineato che a nessuno di coloro che hanno presentato domanda è stato concesso un accesso privilegiato al progetto, poichÊ gli esperti sospettavano subito che qualcosa non andasse.
Secondo Chris Hughes di Endor Labs, circa un quarto di tutti i progetti di sicurezza informatica hanno un manager e il 94% dei progetti ne ha meno di dieci. Ha osservato che lâecosistema del software open source è estremamente eterogeneo e vulnerabile a causa della dipendenza globale da sviluppatori anonimi.
I funzionari della CISA Jack Cable e Aeva Black hanno espresso la necessitĂ di ripensare gli approcci alla sicurezza nella produzione tecnologica. Sostengono che le aziende che utilizzano software open source dovrebbero contribuire alla sostenibilitĂ dellâecosistema, anche finanziariamente o attraverso il tempo degli sviluppatori.
Arasaratnam ha anche annunciato i piani della Linux Foundation per sviluppare linee guida specifiche per i project manager che potrebbero dover affrontare aggressivi tentativi di acquisizione. Ha inoltre sottolineato lâimportanza di sostenere i manager nella lotta contro lâingegneria sociale e la manipolazione, che possono potenzialmente portare a conseguenze molto gravi.
The EU Must Seize its Opportunity to Inspire, Not Regulate, Innovation [Promoted content] https://poliverso.org/display/0477a01e-27317787-4ad5bace1acec6ba The EU Must Seize its Opportunity to Inspire, Not Regulate, Innovation [Promoted content]New leadership must determine which policies can help Europe balance sustainability and competitiveness by reaping the benefits of innovation at a time of acute global challenges. The next mandate must ensure technology-driven businesses can thrive in
The EU Must Seize its Opportunity to Inspire, Not Regulate, Innovation [Promoted content]
New leadership must determine which policies can help Europe balance sustainability and competitiveness by reaping the benefits of innovation at a time of acute global challenges. The next mandate must ensure technology-driven businesses can thrive in Europe while upholding the Union's fundamental values.
Most âfisheyeâ formats are mapped onto square frames in a way similar to whatâs seen here, but this is not what Apple is doing.
Yes, an Intel A380m card in MXM format
You also get a good few low-level interfaces, both for practical and debug purposes. Need to control a small fan? Thereâs a PWM output you might be able to use for fan control, and a tach signal input! Backlight control for an LCD panel youâve wired up? Thereâs PWM for that too. Want to poke at the GPUsâ JTAG? The MXM socket has pins defined for that. Itâs up to the cards to support or not support a lot of stuff that the MXM standard defines, so you might still benefit from a small MCU, but having those things seriously helps in embedded applications.
This is not a standard-defined shape for an MXM card.
Where are the power pins? Who knows!
For instance, hereâs an MXM adapter for certain kinds of iMacs, that lets you install an NVMe SSDs into the MXM slot of your trusty iMac while preserving the MXM GPU connections! It involves changing a chipset strap to enable bifurcation, so thereâs no power-hungry PCIe switch involved, and going from x16 to x8 on your MXM GPU wonât involve any notable bandwidth loss either. So, you can replace your SATA HDD or SSD with a speedy modern NVMe drive, that probably is way cheaper too!
DGFF card
#FSFE has developed #REUSE, both a tool and a specification to make Free Software licensing easy for humans and machines alike. đ
SPIDER.PAS in its full glory. (Credit: Lawrence Kesteloot)
But this time, while walking along the fence that surrounds the sprawling InfoAge campus, I came across an open gate and a volunteer selling tickets. When commenting to her that this was a pleasant surprise compared to the march Iâd anticipated, she responded that there had been so many people trying to get into the main entrance that morning that they decided to station her out here to handle the overflow.
Telemetria Fortinet
This capacitive touchscreen controller is not I2C-HID, even though it is I2C. By [Raymond Spekking], CC-BY-SA 4.0Not every I2C-connected input device is I2C-HID. For instance, if youâve seen older tablets with I2C-connected touchscreens, donât get your hopes up, as they likely donât use HID â itâs just a complex-ish I2C device, with enough proprietary registers and commands to drive you crazy even if your logic analysis skills are on point. I2C-HID is nowhere near that, and itâs also way better than PS/2 we used before â an x86-only interface with limited capabilities, already almost extinct from even x86 boards, and further threatened in this increasingly RISCy world. I2C-HID is low-power, especially compared to USB, as capable as HID goes, compatible with existing HID software, and ubiquitous enough that you surely already have an I2C port available on your SBC.
Thereâs a specification from Microsoft, and it might be your first jumping point. I tried reading the specification, but I didnât understand HID at the time either, so that didnât help much. Looking back, the specification is pretty hard to read, regardless. Hereâs the deal in the real world.
For some reason, Microsoft decided to distribute this spec as a .docx file, something that I immediately abused as a way of stress relief
Valentino Spataro
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