Crooked Bough News Round-up

— This Week in Security: Target Coinbase, Leaking Call Records, and Microsoft Hotpatching

 

at 4/4/25 8:00am

We know a bit more about the GitHub Actions supply chain attack from last month. Palo Altos Unit 42 has been leading the charge on untangling this attack, and theyve read more

[Category: Hackaday Columns, News, Security Hacks, coinbase, github, Oracle, This Week in Security]

— Keep Bears at Bay with the Crackle of 280,000 Volts

 

at 4/4/25 5:00am

Bears! Are they scared of massive arcs that rip through the air, making a lot of noise in the process? [Jay] from the Plasma Channel sure hopes so, because thats read more

[Category: High Voltage, arc, Plasma Channel, spark, voltage multiplier]

— A Portable Electronics Workstation

 

at 4/4/25 2:00am

You dont see them as often as you used to, but it used to be common to see electronics trainers which were usually a collection of components and simple equipment read more

[Category: Raspberry Pi, Tool Hacks, portable workshop]

— Playstacean Evolves The PSOne Into The Crab It Was Always Meant to Be

 

at 4/3/25 11:00pm

Odd hardware designs crop up in art and renders far more frequently than in the flesh, but console modder [GingerOfOz] felt the need to bring [Anh Dang]s image of the read more

[Category: Games, carcinization, Case mods, console, console hack, playstation, sony]

— A Proper OS For The Sega Genesis/Megadrive

 

at 4/3/25 8:00pm

The console wars of the early 1990s had several players, but the battle that mattered was between Nintendos SNES and Segas Genesis, or Megadrive if you are European. They are read more

[Category: Retrocomputing, FUSIX, sega genesis, Sega Megadrive]

— The Weird Way A DEC Alpha Boots

 

at 4/3/25 5:00pm

Were used to there being an array of high-end microprocessor architectures, and its likely that many of us will have sat in front of machines running x86, ARM, or even read more

[Category: Retrocomputing, alphastation, dec alpha, workstation]

— Teardown of a Scam Ultrasonic Cleaner

 

at 4/3/25 2:00pm

Everyone knows that ultrasonic cleaners are great, but not every device thats marketed as an ultrasonic cleaner is necessarily such a device. In a recent video on the Cheap Cheerful read more

[Category: hardware, scam, ultrasonic cleaning]

— Australia’s Silliac Computer

 

at 4/3/25 12:30pm

When you think about the dawn of modern computers, you often think about the work done in the UK and the US. But Australia had an early computer scene, too, read more

[Category: Retrocomputing, Australia, illiac, SILLIAC]

— Ditto That

 

at 4/3/25 11:00am

In the 1982 movie Fast Times At Ridgemont High, a classroom of students receives a set of paperwork to pass backward. Nearly every student in the room takes a big read more

[Category: Featured, History, Interest, cyclostyle, ditto, ditto machine, hectograph, makin' copies, mimeograph, spirit duplicator, stencil duplicator]

— MIT Wants You to Secure Your Hardware Designs

 

at 4/3/25 9:30am

When you think of attacking or defending computer systems, you probably think of software viruses and the corresponding anti-virus software. But MITs 6.5950 class teaches secure hardware design how read more

[Category: Security Hacks, education, mit, Rowhammer]

— Remembering Betty Webb: Bletchley Park & Pentagon Code Breaker

 

at 4/3/25 8:00am

On 31 March of this year we had to bid farewell to Charlotte Elizabeth Betty Webb (née Vine-Stevens) at the age of 101. She was one of the cryptanalysts who read more

[Category: Hackaday Columns, Bletchley Park, obituary]

— A Very Trippy Look at Microsoft’s Beginnings

 

at 4/3/25 5:00am

Its not often youll see us singing the praises of Microsoft on these pages, but credit where credit is due, this first-person account of how the software giant got its read more

[Category: classic hacks, News, bill gates, microsoft, web design]

— Handheld 18650 Analyzer Scopes Out Salvaged Cells

 

at 4/3/25 2:00am

You can salvage lithium 18650 cells from all sorts of modern gadgets, from disposable vapes to cordless power tools. The tricky part, other than physically liberating them from whatever they read more

[Category: Battery Hacks, Tool Hacks, 18650, battery charger, battery tester]

— The Magic Touch: A 555 Touch Switch

 

at 4/2/25 11:00pm

There seems to be nothing a 555 cant do. Weve seen it before, but [electronzapdotcom] reminds us you can use a 555 and a few parts to make a reasonable read more

[Category: classic hacks, Parts, 555, touch switch]

— Monitor Your Smart Plugs on the Command Line

 

at 4/2/25 8:00pm

The plethora of smart home devices available today deliver all manner of opportunities, but its fair to say that interfacing with them is more often done in the browser or read more

[Category: home hacks, cli, power measurement, smart plug]

— One Book to Boot Them All

 

at 4/2/25 5:00pm

Somewhere in the universe, theres a place that lists every x86 operating system from scratch. Not just some bootloaders, or just a kernel stub, but documentation to build a fully read more

[Category: how-to, book, development, guide, operating system, os, Step-by-step, x86]

— Programmer’s Macro Pad Bangs Out Whole Functions

 

at 4/2/25 2:00pm

Macro pads are handy for opening up your favorite programs or executing commonly used keyboard shortcuts. But why stop there? Thats what [Jeroen Brinkman] must have been thinking while creating read more

[Category: Arduino Hacks, Peripherals Hacks, Arduino Micro Pro, macro pad, programming]

— FLOSS Weekly Episode 827: Yt-dlp, Sometimes You Can’t See the Tail

 

at 4/2/25 12:30pm

This week, Jonathan Bennett chats with Bashonly about yt-dlp, the audio/video downloader that carries the torch from youtube-dl! Why is this a hard problem, and what does the future hold read more

[Category: Hackaday Columns, Podcasts, FLOSS Weekly, youtube-dl, yt-dlp]

— Supercon 2024: Rethinking Body Art With LEDs

 

at 4/2/25 11:02am

Tattoos. Body paint. Henna. All these are popular kinds of body art with varying histories and cultural connotations, many going back centuries or even longer. They all have something in read more

[Category: cons, Hackaday Columns, LED Hacks, 2024 Hackaday Supercon, body art, glowable, glowables, glowing, led, sprite lights]

— 70 DIY Synths on One Webpage

 

at 4/2/25 9:30am

If you want to dip your toes into the deep, deep water of synth DIY but don’t know where to start, [Atarity] has just the resource for you. He’s compiled read more

[Category: ATtiny Hacks, Musical Hacks, analog, digital, echo, music from outer space, synth-diy, synthesizer]

— Australia’s Steady March Towards Space

 

at 4/2/25 8:00am

The list of countries to achieve their own successful orbital space launch is a short one, almost as small as the exclusive club of states that possess nuclear weapons. The read more

[Category: Current Events, Featured, Interest, Original Art, Space, Australia, gilmour space, hybrid rocket, orbit, rocket, space program]

As of 4/4/25 9:24am. Last new 4/4/25 8:52am.