hack

When Jacob Appelbaum spoke at a workshop for Arab bloggers in Beirut in 2009, he knew his audience would pay special attention. The 26-year-old American programmer had spent the previous year in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Tunisia and Hong Kong training communities and activists how to use an increasingly popular program called Tor to evade government attempts to track their movements online.

Electronics geeks hacking oscilloscopes fall, for me, into the same category as support truck racing at Dakar: Technicians having fun with their tools. Following in the proud tradition of Oscilloscope Tennis, Oscilloscope Pong, and Oscilloscope Clocks, Matthew Sarnoff has built a VT100 serial terminal - from an oscilloscope.

Well, that didn't take long. Only two weeks after Barnes and Noble's Nook e-Book reader hit the shelves, hackers have already posted instructions for converting the machine into an Android tablet PC with a free cellular Internet connection. And while no applications currently exist for the reset reader, that's sure to change.

The Web has been abuzz this week with speculation about the company Psystar, which recently appeared out of nowhere offering (for just $399) a PC called the Open Computer that runs OS X Leopard.

Personal information in the digital realm is always susceptible to malicious activity. Passwords can be stolen from a database, credit card numbers swiped at the point of sale; even the new American passports contain RFID chips which critics claim can be surreptitiously read. Now, even a pacemaker can be hacked from the outside.

Researchers at Princeton have discovered that with a can of duster and a laptop, it takes only matter of minutes to crack most encryption software, including BitLocker, FileVault, dm-crypt and TrueCrypt. The weak link that makes this ridiculously simple hack possible is the DRAM chip. Heres why: Any time your computer is on, that chip contains the key used to access encrypted data on your hard drive. Once that chip loses power, the bits stored on it are supposed to disappear immediately. But thats not really what happens.

Camera makers love the incremental update: selling a new model with just enough enhancements that you'll be tempted to trade up. But if you own one of several Canon point-and-shoots, you can get new features, such as shooting in high-quality RAW format, measuring accurate exposures via a live histogram, and even running simple applications like games or a calendar, without having to pay for an upgrade. All you need to do is replace your firmware, the computer code embedded in the camera's memory that serves as its operating system.

When you´re tearing downhill on your snowboard, it´s a little distracting to take off your glove and dig out your iPod just to, say, hit pause. Instead, build this simple radio-frequency ID system and control your iPod by waving your hand in front of your coat.
A tag sewn into your glove sends instructions to a reader stashed in your pocket.
Unwire Your iPodCost: $161Time: 6
HoursEasy | | | | |
Hard

Imagine a gadget that fits in your back pocket and lets you surf the Web anywhere, write documents, make VoIP calls, watch movies, and listen to your entire music library. That´s not exactly what Nokia had in mind when it released the 770 ($360; nokia.com), a PDA-size Internet tablet with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. But because the device has an open-source operating system, anyone can build new programs for it, endowing it with nearly endless functions (we´ve nicknamed it the HackBerry).

Let's face ituntil they're cooking us breakfast and doing our laundry, the most fun you can have with store-bought robots is the fun you make yourself. Sure, robots like WowWee's Roboraptor (and its companions, Robopet and Robosapien) are surprisingly capable for $60-to-$200 toys, with wide ranges of motion, touch sensors and powerful software. But it's those same out-of-the-box skills that make the 'bots such prime fodder for hackers.

The Bubbling Cauldron

Want a real witches´ brew? Mix soap-bubble solution with dry ice, or use liquid nitrogen for bubbles that release fog when they pop. In the following video, PopSci´s contributing mad scientist, Theodore Gray, uses the help of a few young assistants to create cauldrons of toil and trouble.

Here´s how it´s done:

If you're anything like us, you were the type of kid who took apart dad's
new radio just to see what was inside. That kind of curiosity never dies,
which is why How 2.0, PopSci's award-winning home for the coolest
tips, tricks, hacks and do-it-yourself projects, wants to see what today's
tech tinkerers are up to.

Have you built something amazing you'd like to
show off? Tried a How 2.0 project and failed miserably? Blown something up
with the kids' chemistry set? If you've invented it, tweaked it, hacked it,

Reinvent Your XboxCost: $35Time: 1
HourEasy | | | | |
Hard

Although the sleek new Xbox 360 is all the rage with gaming geeks these days, that chunky old first-gen Xbox has something the 360 doesn´t: a legacy of hacks that give it a life beyond gaming, including the ability to take that episode of The Office you just downloaded and stream it to the flat-screen in front of your sofa.

Out of the box, the iPod is basically a one-trick pony. The games and applications found under the â€Extras†menu get old faster than Britney. But thanks to four years of work by a crafty group of programmers, you can now use your iPod´s processing power and scroll-wheel interface to play dozens of games, record voice memos, or browse Wikipedia, all without messing up the existing software or your music.

The secret is iPodLinux, an alternative operating system you can install free alongside the existing one on any iPod model.

Quick, how many cables go into the back of a wireless (a.k.a. Wi-Fi or 802.11) netcam? That would be one: a power cord.

How many cables go into the back of a wired netcam, which hooks directly into your ethernet? Also one, if you´re using PoE (power over ethernet). PoE takes advantage of the fact that only two of the four twisted pairs of wire (connected to pins 1/2 and 3/6) in a standard Cat5 ethernet cable carry signals. The other four wires are available to deliver power to your camera or whatever other AC-powered device you have on the network.