Technology

NSA@home – distributed FPGA MD5 cracker

NSA@home – distributed FPGA MD5 cracker

Here’s an innovative use of recycled HD-video electronics: NSA@home is a fast FPGA-based SHA-1 and MD5 bruteforce cracker. It is capable of searching the full 8-character keyspace (from a 64-character set) in about a day in the current configuration for 800 hashes concurrently. The cracker is built out of surplus Grass Valley HD video transform […]

HOWTO – beat carnival games

HOWTO – beat carnival games

I decided to brave the manure, mullets and *-on-a-stick this weekend and swung by the state fair. It seems like every time I go there are a couple people walking around all day with enormous stuffed animals, presumably won through some feat of basketball tossing or ring flinging. Enormous. Impossible to win enormous. Paid carnival […]

More mint-tin amp action

More mint-tin amp action

Michael O’Brien, a.k.a. Turbotron, has posted pics of this project to the MAKE Flickr Pool. It’s a mint-tin amp based on the LM386 chip, the same op-amp chip used in the MAKE Mousey the Junkbot and Cracker Box Amp projects. The case is an Altoids box, painted gloss black enamel, the grill is from a […]

USB POV SMD kit

USB POV SMD kit

This is cool, a USB surface mount version of the POV kit we carry here @ MAKE…. ohararp writes – Have you ever seen a kit developed solely for learning how to assemble an electronic circuit of only SMT parts? Did it have BLUE LEDs? I haven’t seen one with either! Expect to see all […]

Google Earth has a flight simulator

Google Earth has a flight simulator

The latest version of Google Earth contains a hidden feature: a full-fledged flight simulator! Press Command+Option+A in OS X or Ctrl+Alt+A on a PC or Linux box and you’ll be greeted with a hidden dialog box that lets you choose an aircraft (F16 or SR22) and an airport. Once you’ve made you selection, you’ll be […]