Ep110: One Unicode to Rule Them, Hacking Focus Stacking, Virtual Typing, and Zombie Weather Channel

Hackaday Podcast · 19 Mar 2021 · 51m · Episode 110

What this episode covers

Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams discuss a week of hardware hacks, including a Coast Guard icebreaker sourcing obsolete diodes on eBay and CryCut's controversial shift to a subscription model for its cutting machines. They highlight Charlie X's reverse engineering of an Eakins microscope camera to enable automated focus stacking for PCB inspection, and Tech Night's two-year effort to reverse-engineer a defunct Weather Channel broadcast box using PAL and FPGA chips. The episode concludes with a deep dive into the history and technical implementation of Unicode/UTF-8, alongside brief mentions of fault injection using flyswatters and virtual typing research.

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • 050 - Four Years In

    Hosts Alvaro and Jen reflect on four years of the Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast, discussing the evolution of the field from FPGA bitstream extraction to modern crypto-mining and ransomware economics. They highlight specific reverse engineering projects, including Asahi Linux’s port of Linux to Apple’s M1 processor and a DEFCON presentation on hacking smart meters to map power outages during the Texas snowstorm. The episode also covers Alvaro’s impromptu teardown of a Q Health COVID-19 test, detailing the microfluidics and chemical exposure risks involved.

  • The Spark Gap · 42m

    The Spark Gap - Episode 24

    Hosts Carl and Corey discuss their 2015 resolutions, including revisiting basic electronics design and exploring open-source EDA tools like KiCad and Altium CircuitMaker. They announce a shift to a bi-weekly release schedule to allow for more guest interviews and higher-quality content. The episode then explores the topic of reverse engineering old hardware, citing examples like the original Xbox, cable modems, and Kinect sensors to demonstrate how discarded electronics can be repurposed or studied.

  • 017 - Supercon 2018 Part 2

    Jen and Alvaro interview Sarah Petkus and Mark Koch, who discuss reverse engineering at the Blue Man Group and their projects like the Shibon suit and Solstice board. Rick Altherr details his work reverse engineering Xilinx FPGA bitstreams and automotive engine control protocols using tools like Hex Fiend. Ruth Grace Wong and Joe Rozner share experiences with firmware debugging and prototype failures, while Piotr Esden and Dominc Spill discuss the Black Magic Probe and HackRF One for wireless reverse engineering.

  • 031 - The Title Isn't DibbleDabble

    Hosts Minja, Costillo, and Alvaro review their year, highlighting conferences like Supercon and DEFcon, and discussing the rise of edge machine learning on microcontrollers like the Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense. They detail hands-on reverse engineering experiences, including using an X-ray van from True View to inspect PCBs and learning chip decapping with John McMaster and Nanographs. The conversation also covers the implications of deep fakes, the repeal of net neutrality, and future goals involving KiCad PCB design and open-source robotics.

  • Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast · 1h 27m

    024 - Cars, Servers, and FPGAs!

    Rick Altherr, a security researcher at Eclipsium, discusses his work reverse engineering automotive ECUs, server BMCs, and FPGAs. He details the process of decoding undocumented serial protocols in aftermarket engine control units and explains the architecture of EFI and Baseboard Management Controllers (BMCs). Altherr also covers the open-source FPGA toolchain revolution, specifically how Clifford Wolf and others reverse-engineered Lattice iCE40 chips to enable tools like Yosys and NextPNR.

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by Hackaday Podcast. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.