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ds4design · 8 years ago

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Harmonographs Generate Geometric Images Unique as Fingerprints

When my elder brother and I were kids back in the late 1970’s, our hacker Dad showed us this 1960-61 catalog of the Atlas Lighting Co (later Thorn Lighting) with an interesting graphic design on the cover. He told us to do a thought experiment, asking us to figure out how it would be possible to have a machine that would draw the design on that catalog cover.

Incorrectly, our first thought was that the design was created with a Spirograph. A spirograph has two main parts: a large ring with gear teeth on the inside and outside circumferences and a set of smaller, toothed wheels with holes in them for inserting a drawing instrument — usually a ball point pen. You hold the big ring, insert the pen in the smaller wheel, and then mesh and rotate the smaller wheel around the big ring. But spirographs can’t be used to draw irregular, asymmetrical figures. You could always recreate a design. Because of the nature of gears, none of them were unique, one off, designs.

A spirograph set like this cannot make the image above [Image credit: Multicherry CC-BY-SA 3.0]

We figured adding some lever arms, and additional geared wheels (compound gears) could achieve the desired result. It turns out that such a machine is called a Cycloid Drawing Machine. But even with this kind of machine, it was possible to replicate a design as often as required. You would fix the gears and levers and draw a design. If the settings are not disturbed, you can make another copy. Here’s a video of a motorized version of the cycloid machine.

The eventual answer for making such designs was to use a contraption called as the harmonograph. The harmonograph is unique in the sense that while you can make similar looking designs, it would be practically impossible to exactly replicate them — no two will be exactly the same. This thought experiment eventually led to my brother building his own harmonograph. This was way back when the only internet we had was the Library, which was all the way across town and not convenient to pop in on a whim and fancy. This limited our access to information about the device, but eventually, after a couple of months, the project was complete.

Getting the Swing of Things

It quickly dawned on us that using gears wasn’t the solution to this problem. A pendulum clock gave us some pointers about a plausible solution. Much later we learned that the earliest ‘lateral’ harmonographs consisted of single axis pendulums. One moved the pen laterally along the drawing platform, while the other moved the drawing platform perpendicular to the pen. Their limited movement resulted in Lissajous curves. If the pendulums were instead allowed more degrees of movement by fixing them to gimbals, more complex designs were possible.

Harmonograph seen at BAMF 2016 (video)

But getting from theory to practice isn’t always easy. We could tie string to a pen and weigh it down with some weights, attach it to a hook, and swing it around. That might work, but we would need a spherical (concave) surface for the pen to make constant contact. Here’s an example that shows paint streaming out of a nozzle from a swinging container. Or we could use a free floating or spring damped pen which is able to move freely in the vertical axis to ensure that it is in contact with the paper while the pendulum swings around. [Jonathan Lansey] describes the construction of such a single pendulum harmonograph with a floating pen mechanism, along with a detailed mathematical analysis.

Our Prototype

After some more time with our thinking caps on, we finally had a good idea of how to build our device — a dual pendulum design, with one pendulum moving the pen and the other one moving the drawing platform. We could attach a rigid pendulum to a gimbal, fix a hinged lever on top of it and a pen at the end of the lever. Move the pendulum and the pen will move too, but will stay in constant contact with the paper because of the hinged lever. All we had in terms of plans was hand drawn sketches. We tried using material we had lying around, so there were a lot of changes going from sketches to finished parts. It helped that we had our own workshop with all the tools and machines needed to build it.

Our final design consisted of a welded steel frame that could be cantilevered to the edge of a table, so it wasn’t a self-standing design. The frame held two gimbals, each having a pendulum. One carried the pen lever with its counter weight, while the other was used to move the drawing platform. Adjusting the pendulum height changed the time constant, and adjusting the pen lever counter weight controlled how firmly the pen pushed on the paper. More weight caused friction, slowing down the pendulum faster. Less weight and the pen lines became whisker thin. The new version, seen in the video below, was built a couple of years back and is similar to the one we built in the ‘70’s, except it is completely self standing and portable.

Harmonograph Design Improvements

It’s possible to add additional degrees of movement to create even more stunning art. Instead of moving the pen via a single pendulum, you could use two pendulums and get the pen to move in an even more complex motion. [Karl Sims] describes the construction of such a three pendulum design which is simple to fabricate. Or you can attach two, or even three, pens and create multi-colored designs.

In 2017, with the comfort of having instant access to practically any kind of information, it’s easy to learn a lot more about the harmonograph than we could back in the ’70’s. For example, Vol 100, Issue 1389 of the New Scientist from 1983 features a nice one page overview of the harmonograph, giving some insight into its past history. And [Anthony Ashton]’s book Harmonograph: A Visual Guide to the Mathematics of Music is considered a definitive reference on this subject. Do a cursory search for harmonograph images in any search engine and you will have hundreds of beautiful pictures to admire.

We featured a three pendulum harmonograph, built using [Karl Sims]’s plans a long while ago and were wondering if any of you hackers out there have built another one? Let us know.

Filed under: Hackaday Columns, misc hacks

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certainheartrunaway · 6 years ago

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Ham Radio Updates

Ham Radio Update

http://www.hamradioupdate.com/rss20.xmlsource

Ham Radio Update – http://www.hamradioupdate.com/

Former Cushcraft President Glen Whitehouse, K1GW, SK

2 hours ago

ARRL -The former president of the Cushcraft Antenna Company, Glen Whitehouse, K1GW, of Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, died on September 5 after a lengthy illness. An ARRL Life Member and a ham for more than 60 years, Whitehouse was 76.

Whitehouse was known for his far-ranging interests in operating and technology as well as business. He was an avid contester and DXCC Honor Roll DXer and an early membe…

IARU attends ITU Inter-Regional Workshop

2 hours ago

ARRL -As part of its strategy to support topics related to Amateur Radio at World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 (WRC-19), the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) was on hand at the third inter-regional workshop in Geneva, Switzerland, this past week.

The workshop, attended by member states and other International Telecommunication Union (ITU) sector members, considered and discussed the posi…

RSGB release delayed Board Proceedings for May

8 hours ago

Southgate ARC – The delayed RSGB Board Proceedings for the May 2019 meeting have now been released

Nauru DXpedition

8 hours ago

Southgate ARC – Operators Yuris/YL2GM, Jack/YL2KA, Kaspars/ YL1ZF and Kristers/YL3JA will be active as C21WW (not C21W as first announced) from Nauru (OC-031) after their Western Kiribati operation (OPDX.1425) between September 16-25th

Kenwood ham radios in Australia

8 hours ago

Southgate ARC – In WIA News Geoff Emory VK4ZPP reports the JVC-Kenwood conglomerate has quietly discontinued sales of Kenwood amateur gear in Australia

ICQPodcast – Training, Licencing and Growing the Amateur Radio Hobby

8 hours ago

Southgate ARC – In this episode, Colin Butler (M6BOY) discusses training, licencing and growing the amateur radio hobby with Martin Butler (M1MRB/W9ICQ), Chris Howard M0TCH and Dan Romanchik (KB6NU)

Ham radio in newspaper’s Bygones column

8 hours ago

Southgate ARC – The Border Counties Advertizer’s Bygones column takes a look at an amateur radio picture from way back in 1996

DXCC Country/Entity Report

8 hours ago

Southgate ARC – According to the Amateur Radio Cluster Network for the week of Sunday, 1st/September, through Sunday, 8th/September there were 217 countries active

Comoros Island DXpedition

8 hours ago

Southgate ARC – Members of the Mediterraneo Dx Club (MDXC) will be active as D68CCC from Comoros Island (AF-007) between October 21st and November 2nd

IOTA news from OPDX

8 hours ago

Southgate ARC – Weekly IOTA News – compiled by Tedd Mirgliotta, KB8NW, editor of the Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin

West Malaysian special event

A day ago

Southgate ARC – Members of the Kelab Radio Amateur Jalan Klang Lama, the 9MDXC and MARTS will be activating the special event callsign 9M16KING from Kuala Lumpur between now and September 30th

QSO Today – Ralph Fedor, K0IR

A day ago

Southgate ARC – Ralph Fedor, K0IR, has participated in at least 15 DXpeditions to the most remote parts of the World

HamRadioNow: Emergency Communications, Hurricanes and Elmers

A day ago

Southgate ARC – In this edition of Ham Radio Now David Goldenberg W0DHG and Jim Aspinwall NO1PC talk Ham Radio: EmComm, Dorian, Elmering, etc

Good news for the two-metre band

A day ago

Southgate ARC – This week’s WIA News report: When CEPT met in Turkey it finalised its positions on a wide range of WRC-19 Agenda Items, including proposals for WRC-23

FT8 used for Australian 3.4 GHz record

A day ago

Southgate ARC – The WIA reports a new Australian DX record in the 3.4 GHz band was made using the digital mode FT8

DM02 Satellite Expedition

A day ago

Southgate ARC – Alex, N7AGF, and Ron, AD0DX, are planning to activate DM02 on Sunday, September 22, 2019 on FM and Linear satellites

Contest activity in September

A day ago

Southgate ARC – Each weekend in September, the South African Radio League (SARL) has some contesting activity to keep you busy

AMSAT Board of Directors election ballots due September 15

A day ago

Southgate ARC – Votes must be received no later than Sunday, September 15, 2019 in order to be counted in the 2019 AMSAT Board of Directors Election

ICQ Podcast Episode 304 – Training, Licencing & Growing the Amateur Radio Hobby

A day ago

ICQ Podcast -In this episode, Colin Butler (M6BOY) discusses training, licencing and growing the amateur radio hobby with Martin Butler (M1MRB/W9ICQ), Chris Howard M0TCH and Dan Romanchik (KB6NU).

ICQ AMATEUR/HAM RADIO PODCAST DONORS

We would like to thank Donald Gover (KC9ZMY ), Nigel Wells (2w0cgm) and John Baggott (K2BAG) and our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit – http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate

International Air Ambulance Week 2019

Eddie De Young (AE7AA) Named CQ Awards Editor

IARU Region 1 145 MHz Contest

2 days ago

WA7BNM Contest Calendar – 1400Z, Sep 7 to 1400Z, Sep 8

Hurricane Watch Net Activates as Dorian Exits the US for Maritime Canada

2 days ago

ARRL –[UPDATED: 2019-09-07 1700 UTC] With Hurricane Dorian literally speeding up the east coast of the US, the Hurricane Watch Net (HWN) has reactivated. As of 1500 UTC, Dorian, a Category 1 storm, was some 200 miles south-southeast of Eastport, Maine, and about the same distance southwest of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The storm is moving to the northeast at 29 MPH. HWN Manager Bobby Graves, KB5HAV, said …

Propagation de K7RA

2 days ago

Southgate ARC – Old Solar Cycle 24 sunspots returned this week, but for only two days (Sunday and Monday) with a sunspot number of 12. Average daily solar flux increased from 66 reported in last week’s Propagation Forecast Bulletin ARLP035 to 67.4 this week

VK6WIA NewsWest

2 days ago

Southgate ARC – NewsWest for Sunday 8th September is the History of Amateur Radio edition. Today we look back on Amateur Radio History. What I enjoy most about reading amateur Radio History is that so much never changes. Stay tuned to find out why

New amateur radio maps

2 days ago

Southgate ARC – EI8IC has released a number of new amateur radio maps: CQ Zones, ITU Zones, UK/EI Contest District Codes

Ham radio continues on the Hi-Line

2 days ago

Southgate ARC – The Havre Daily newspaper interviews Lloyd Stallkamp NO7G about ham radio and the Hi-Line Amateur Radio Club

Ham radio company wins big

2 days ago

Southgate ARC – Al Williams WD5GNR writes on Hackaday about the strategic partnership between FlexRadio and Raytheon to develop an HF radio for the US Air Force based on the existing SmartSDR/Flex-6000

Foundations of Amateur Radio

2 days ago

Southgate ARC – Boating adventures – The other day I was on a boat. That’s right, me, on a floating thing, on the water, the ocean actually, steering and everything. I should confess that when I was younger I spent most weekends sailing as a sea scout in Holland.

Eddie De Young, AE7AA, Named CQ Awards Editor

3 days ago

ARRL -Eddie De Young, AE7AA, of Clearwater, Florida, has been named Awards Editor of CQ Amateur Radio magazine. His first Awards column appears in the September 2019 issue. De Young succeeds Ted Melinosky, K1BV, who served both as Awards Editor and USA-Counties Award Custodian for more than 20 years. Brian Bird, NX0X, now is USA-CA custodian.

Licensed since 1954, De Young has held more than two dozen …

Past Japan Amateur Radio League Vice Chair Hisao Shono, JA1AA, SK

3 days ago

ARRL -Hisao Shono, JA1AA, died on August 19. He was 100. Shono served two terms as vice chair of the Japan Amateur Radio League. He was licensed in 1938 as J2IB. In 1952, when Amateur Radio was again permitted in Japan, he became the first to be relicensed and became JA1AA. He enjoyed DXing and QRP operation.

Hurricane Watch Net Suspends Operation, May Reactivate on Saturday

3 days ago

ARRL -The Hurricane Watch Net (HWN) suspended operation temporarily at 1600 UTC today (September 6), after a 139-hour marathon activation that began last Saturday. The net may reactivate if weather conditions dictate.

“The hurricane has been moving just offshore of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina,” HWN Manager Bobby Graves, KB5HAV, said. “This morning, Hurricane Dorian made US lan…

FCC Extends Waiver Permitting Use of PACTOR 4 for Hurricane Relief Efforts

3 days ago

The October issue of Digital QST is Now Available!

3 days ago

The K7RA Solar Update

3 days ago

ARRL -Old Cycle 24 sunspots returned this week, but for only two days (Sunday and Monday) with a sunspot number of 12. Average daily solar flux increased from 66 reported in last week’s bulletin to 67.4 this week.

Radiation from a coronal hole increased the average planetary A index from 5.7 last week to 19.9 this week, with the level on Saturday and Sunday at 38 and 45. In Fairbanks, Alaska’s College…

The Space Weather Woman

3 days ago

Southgate ARC – Our Sun and the Hurricane Create a Perfect Storm – The latest space weather forecast from Dr Tamitha Skov WX6SWW

The superheterodyne radio

3 days ago

Southgate ARC – The superhet or superheterodyne radio has been in use for over a hundred years and it is still one of the most popular formats for a receiver

STEVE returns during Labor Day geomagnetic storm

3 days ago

Southgate ARC – Last weekend polar skies lit up brightly in response to a geomagnetic storm. But not all the lights in the sky were auroras. STEVE was there, too

Radio hams track interfering signals

3 days ago

Southgate ARC – ARRL report volunteers from the Skagit Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Club (SARECC) in Anacortes, Washington, recently assisted the US Coast Guard in tracking the source of interference on VHF Marine Channel 5A (156.250 MHz)

International Air Ambulance Week 2019

3 days ago

Southgate ARC – This year’s International Air Ambulance Week will take place between 7th and 15th September with the focus on supporting and generating donations for flying medical services around the world. The event covers two weekends, giving amateurs a great chance to get involved and support the event

Hurricane Dorian: Ham radio important in emergencies

3 days ago

Southgate ARC – WVLT TV news reports amateur radio operators are helping during Hurricane Dorian

GJ, Jersey

3 days ago

Southgate ARC – Bob, GU4YOX, will be active in this year’s CQWW DX CW Contest (November 23-24th) as GJ4YOX

DXCC Most Wanted

3 days ago

Southgate ARC – The ‘DXCC Most Wanted’ entities list has been updated on ClubLog as of August 30th

2m Threat: Radio DARC broadcast

3 days ago

Southgate ARC – This Sunday morning at 0900 GMT the Radio DARC broadcast on 6070 kHz AM will cover the role of the German Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) in the recent French threat to 144-146 MHz

DX News from the ARRL

3 days ago

Southgate ARC – The American Radio Relay League’s round-up of the forthcoming week’s DX activity on the amateur radio bands

North American CW Sprint Set for September 8 UTC

4 days ago

ARRL -The fall running of the North American CW Sprint, sponsored by NCJ, is this coming weekend. Many operators believe it levels out the playing field, making it the most fun of any contest. An operator must QSY (change to another frequency) after making a single contact where he/she initiated the contact by calling a CQ, or by contacting a station calling CQ and “inheriting” the frequency after th…

Washington Amateur Radio Club Volunteers Track Interfering Signals

4 days ago

ARRL -Volunteers from the Skagit Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Club (SARECC) in Anacortes, Washington, recently assisted the US Coast Guard in tracking the source of interference on VHF Marine Channel 5A (156.250 MHz). This channel serves the commercial Vessel Traffic Service north of Bush Point on Whidbey Island, as well as in some Canadian waters in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The service …

QST Congratulates its Key Competition Winners

4 days ago

ARRL -Ingenuity and craftsman abound within the Amateur Radio community, as shown in the results of the 2019 QST Key Competition. More than two dozen entries were submitted, and the judges gathered in late July to evaluate them. The competition sought Morse key and paddle designs in four categories: straight key, semiautomatic key (bug), paddle, and sideswiper. Each was a mechanical work of art, but …

The Doctor Will See You Now!

4 days ago

WSPR explained: How to get started with one-way ham radio

4 days ago

Southgate ARC – Geoff Fox writes on Extreme Tech about how radio amateurs transmitting as little as one milliwatt can be heard on the other side of the world

Key role of radio hams in natural disasters

4 days ago

Southgate ARC – WBRC TV News reports on the important role radio amateur undertake during hurricanes or tornadoes

IARU attends ITU Inter-Regional Workshop

4 days ago

Southgate ARC – As part of its strategy to support the topics of interest to the amateur service at WRC-19, IARU is present at the third inter-regional workshop in Geneva this week

Hurricane Dorian: Storm watch continues

4 days ago

Southgate ARC – ARRL reports as of 1500 UTC Sep 4, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) was reporting that a hurricane warning has been extended northeastward along the North Carolina coast

Hurricane Dorian: Radio hams help connect with families in Bahamas

4 days ago

Southgate ARC – WINK TV news reports communication is key after a devastating storm. Families across Southwest Florida are trying to make sure families in the Bahamas are safe. That’s when ham radios come in handy

Foundation Licence course on the London/Essex border

4 days ago

Southgate ARC – Loughton and Epping Forest Amateur Radio Society ( LEFARS ) will be running a weekend Foundation Level Course and Exam over the weekend of the 5th and 6th of October at All Saints Church Hall, Romford Road, Chigwell

EURAO Party – Autumn 2019: claiming for 2m

4 days ago

Southgate ARC – The European Radio Amateurs’ Organization announces a new party on the air, this time with the motto: ‘claiming for 2m’

Amateur radio opens the world

4 days ago

Southgate ARC – Krugersdon News reports on Clarissa Clarke ZS6LIS who was one of the South African representatives at the Youngsters On The Air (YOTA) event in Bulgaria

2019 Syllabus Foundation in Braintree

4 days ago

Southgate ARC – The Braintree and District Amateur Radio Society in Essex is one of the first clubs to announce a 2019 syllabus Foundation course

Tony’s 10m Band Report

4 days ago

Southgate ARC – Strangely during the week was better than the weekend, Sunday was especially poor. Top chased after DX was OH73ELK (Finland). ~Also TM17FFF (France), 5T5PA (Mauritania)and S55G (Slovenia) showed up well. But there were others

Storm Watch Continues Along Southeastern US Coast

5 days ago

ARRL –[UPDATED: 2019-09-05- @ 1942 UTC] Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES®) teams from Florida to Virginia went on alert this week, even before Hurricane Dorian left the Bahamas and started making its way up the southeastern US coast. As of 1800 UTC on September 5, Dorian was back to a Category 2 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 110 MPH. It was 115 miles south-southwest of Wilmington, North…

Regional Organizations Wrapping Up WRC-19 Preparations

5 days ago

ARRL -The African Telecommunications Union (ATU) held its final preparatory meeting ahead of World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 (WRC-19), convened by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Attending the session in South Africa was Brian Jacobs, ZS6YZ, who represented the South African Radio League (SARL) and International Amateur Radio Union Region 1 (IARU R1) as part of the South Afr…

Tracking Dorian: Hurricane Watch Net Hunkered Down for the Long Haul

5 days ago

ARRL -The Hurricane Watch Net (HWN) has been in continuous operation for Dorian since last Saturday at 2100 UTC, and it plans to remain in operation on 14.325 MHz and 7.268 MHz until further notice, HWN Manager Bobby Graves, KB5HAV, said. The storm, then a Category 5 hurricane, made landfall on Grand Bahama Island with maximum sustained winds of 180 MPH, where it stalled for a day and a half. Only on…

NZ5A Wins the August QST Cover Plaque Award

5 days ago

ARRL -The winning article for the August 2019 QST Cover Plaque award is “Optimizing Propagation on 630 and 2200 Meters” by Robert S. Logan, NZ5A.

The QST Cover Plaque Award — given to the author or authors of the most popular article in each issue — is determined by a vote of ARRL members on the QST Cover Plaque Poll web page.

Route 66 on the Air

5 days ago

Southgate ARC – The Route 66 on the Air event will take place from September 7 until September 15 with special event calls W6A to W6U

Radio Amateurs of Canada AGM

5 days ago

Southgate ARC – The Radio Amateurs of Canada is pleased to hold its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Riverview, New Brunswick just outside of Moncton. The AGM event will be hosted by the Moncton Area Amateur Radio Club and will be held in conjunction with its Annual Fleamarket, which is being held at the same location. All RAC members are encouraged to attend the Annual General Meeting

Hurricane Dorian: Temporary waiver for ham radio mode Pactor 4

5 days ago

Southgate ARC – ARRL reports the FCC has granted ARRL’s emergency request for a temporary waiver to permit only those radio amateurs active and involved in Hurricane Dorian response and relief efforts to use the PACTOR 4 digital protocol on HF

HRN412 EmComm, Huricanes, and Elmers

5 days ago

Southgate ARC – David and Jim Aspinwall NO1PC talk Ham Radio: EmComm, Dorian, Elmering, etc

Ham Radio gets embedded RTL-SDR

5 days ago

Southgate ARC – Tom Nardi writes on Hackaday about the work of Rodrigo Freire PY2RAF who has integrated a RTL-SDR into a Yaesu FT-991

IOTA news from the DARC

5 days ago

Southgate ARC – Compiled by Andreas, DK5ON of the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club

ARES on Alert for Hurricane Dorian’s Possible Arrival

6 days ago

Route 66 On the Air Special Event Set Announced

6 days ago

FCC Readies for Hurricane Dorian

6 days ago

ARRL -As Hurricane Dorian nears the US southeast coast, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai reports the agency been working throughout the weekend to finalize preparations for the storm and coordinate with federal and state partners.

“Our staff has reached out to wireless carriers and broadcasters to offer assistance,” Pai said in a statement. “With our government partners, including FEMA, we have worked to ensure…

FlexRadio Teams with Raytheon Team to Develop Airborne HF Radio

6 days ago

ARRL -In a strategic partnership with Raytheon, US Amateur Radio equipment manufacturer FlexRadio®has been selected by the US Air Force to adapt its off-the-shelf SmartSDR/FLEX-6000 architecture for HF modernization of airborne communications platforms. The new radio will provide beyond line-of-sight, long distance communications for air crews.

“We are excited to convey that our proven modular direct …

A New QST QuickStats Poll Has Been Posted

6 days ago

September is National Preparedness Month

6 days ago

Radio Romania to end shortwave broadcasts?

6 days ago

Southgate ARC – It looks as though Radio Romania International may be planning to end broadcasts on shortwave according to a press release from the Romanian Syndicate of Journalists MediaSind

2019 37th AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting

6 days ago

Southgate ARC – Please join us for the 2019 AMSAT 50th Anniversary Symposium, to be held in the Washington, DC Metro Area on October 18, 19, and 20, 2019

GB100GP active for Jamboree on the Air this October

6 days ago

Southgate ARC – The Scout’s UK Headquarters station GB2GP, located at Gilwell Park, North London, will be active for this year’s JOTA with the very special callsign GB100GP to celebrate 100 year’s of Scouting at Gilwell Park

Annual maintenance shutdown of the MSF service

6 days ago

Southgate ARC – The annual maintenance shutdown of the MSF service to allow safe working on the masts and antennas will take place on 12 September 2019

FCC Grants Temporary Waiver Permitting Use of PACTOR 4 for Hurricane Response and Relief

7 days ago

ARRL -The FCC has granted ARRL’s emergency request for a temporary waiver to permit only those radio amateurs active and involved in Hurricane Dorian response and relief efforts to use the PACTOR 4 digital protocol on HF. The waiver is valid through 2100 UTC on Friday, September 6. The waiver request was necessary because Section 97.307(f) of the FCC’s Amateur Radio Service rules limits digital data …

WRC-19 Asia-Pacific preparatory meetings

7 days ago

Southgate ARC – WIA Board Director Greg VK2GPK reports WIA continues its commitment to international representation in the lead up to the ITU World Radio Conference (WRC-19) which is being held in Egypt later this year

South Orkney Islands DXpedition

7 days ago

Southgate ARC – VP8/VP8DXU Corporate Sponsors — We are delighted to announce that Low Band Systems will supply their High-Power Bandpass Filters for all planned bands. This complement of best in class filters, in conjunction with vertical and horizontal polarized antennas, will allow us to operate two stations on the same band simultaneously and improve overall inter-station operability

Rescue assistance by Malabar Amateur Radio Society (MARS)

7 days ago

Southgate ARC – A few hours after the landslide occurred at Kavalpapra, Nilambur in Kerala, INDIA on August 9 where around 40 houses where gone under the mud and the all means of communications were breakdown, members of Malabar Amateur Radio Society (MARS) played a crucial role providing communication support to the Authorities

QSO Today – Eric Sears – ZL2BMI

7 days ago

Southgate ARC – Eric Sears, ZL2BMI, who joins me from New Zealand, is famous for this 80 meter QRP double sideband rig that he designed and documented in the 1980s for his personal use when “tramping” in the forests and mountains of New Zealand

ICQPodcast – Radio Caroline (GB55RC)

7 days ago

Southgate ARC – In this episode, Martin M1MRB is joined by Chris Howard M0TCH, Martin Rothwell M0SGL, Ed Durrant DD5LP, Frank Howell K4FMH and Bill Barnes N3JIX to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief and this episode’s feature is the GB55RC activation onboard Radio Caroline at the start of August

Ham College 56

7 days ago

Southgate ARC – General Amateur Radio Exam part 27. Meters, Batteries, RF Exposure. Plus surprise visit from Ray Novak, N9JA live in the Icom booth at Tokyo Hamfair 2019. Preview ground breaking new technology

DXCC Country/Entity Report

7 days ago

Southgate ARC – According to the Amateur Radio Cluster Network for the week of Sunday, 25th August, through Sunday, 1st September there were 207 countries active

ATU finalises its positions for WRC-19

7 days ago

Southgate ARC – IARU Region 1 has released a report on the African Telecommunications Union preparatory meeting for WRC-19 held in East London, August 26-30

AMSAT SA Dual Band Yagi now available for export

7 days ago

Southgate ARC – AMSAT South Africa (AMSAT SA) has developed a dual-band Yagi VHF/UHF antenna for satellite operation

ADF4351 new Arduino code

7 days ago

Southgate ARC – I have been challenged by another member of our club, the Banbury Amateur Radio Society, to get some code working to program the Analog Devices ADF4351 – a digital signal generator with a range of 35MHz to 4.4GHz (yes you read that right)

IOTA news from OPDX

7 days ago

Southgate ARC – Weekly IOTA News – compiled by Tedd Mirgliotta, KB8NW, editor of the Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin

Major Hurricane Dorian Prompts Sustained Activations

8 days ago

ARRL -Hurricane Dorian, now a dangerous Category 5 storm, hit the island of Abaco in the Bahamas with 185 MPH winds and heavy rain. The Hurricane Watch Net (HWN) on 14.325 MHz (7268 MHz alternate) and the VoIP Hurricane Net (EchoLink WX_TALK Conference) remain activated in conjunction with WX4NHC at the National Hurricane Center to keep on top of ground-truth weather information and to handle emergen…

ARRL Foundation Scholarship Program is Now Accepting Applications

8 days ago

ARRL –Applications for the 2020 ARRL Foundation Scholarship Program will be accepted between September 1 and December 31, 2019.

All applicants must be FCC-licensed radio amateurs, and many scholarships have other specific requirements, such as intended area of study, residence within a particular ARRL Division, Section or state, and license class. Applicants should review the scholarships and check of…

ICQ Podcast Episode 303 – Radio Caroline (GB55RC)

8 days ago

ICQ Podcast -In this episode, Martin M1MRB is joined by Chris Howard M0TCH, Martin Rothwell M0SGL, Ed Durrant DD5LP, Frank Howell K4FMH and Bill Barnes N3JIX to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief and this episode’s feature is the GB55RC activation onboard Radio Caroline at the start of August.

ICQ AMATEUR/HAM RADIO PODCAST DONORS We would like to thank Joe Ferguson (W4JF) and our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit – http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate

– Parks on the Air Come to England – World’s First FT8 Contact on 122 GHz – VRT Withdraws Slur Against Radio Amateurs – BBC Service to Kashmir on Shortwave Increased – Ideas Sought for the Next FUNcube Satellite – Hiram Percy Maxim 150th Birthday Celebration – Radio Hams Continue Support of RNLI – Automated Contacts Prohibited – RSGB Release Mock Exam Papers

The Space Weather Woman

8 days ago

Southgate ARC – Hurricane Dorian and Smart Space Radiation Medicine – The latest space weather forecast from Dr Tamitha Skov WX6SWW

Propagation Report from Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP

8 days ago

Southgate ARC – Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to remain at low levels

The satellite phone you already own: From orbit, UbiquitiLink will look like a cell tower

8 days ago

Southgate ARC – For anyone that’s ever been broken down along a remote stretch of highway and desperately searched for a cell signal, knowing that a constellation of communications satellites is zipping by overhead is cold comfort indeed

The September/October 2019 Communicator

8 days ago

Southgate ARC – Projects, News, Views and Reviews… Back after Summer break, here is the September / October SARC Communicator newsletter

SARL attended ATU APM19-4 meeting in East London

8 days ago

Southgate ARC – SARL News reports the fourth and final African Telecommunications Union WRC-19 Preparatory Meeting was held in East London (South Africa) from August 26-30, 2019

Ham radio operators stand ready in case of disaster

8 days ago

Southgate ARC – British Columbia local news reports amateur radio may be the only communication left after a major calamity

GB8NCI at Exmouth National Coastwatch Institution

8 days ago

Southgate ARC – The Exmouth Journal reports amateur radio enthusiasts across Europe learnt about the work of the National Coastwatch Institution thanks to an Exmouth station’s annual radio event on August 24-25

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topbreakingnews · 7 years ago

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"Bringing Columbia Home" honors fallen shuttle, crew - CBS News

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“Bringing Columbia Home” honors fallen shuttle, crew CBS News When the space shuttle Columbia tumbled out of control during re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003 — 15 years ago today — the orbiter was just west of Dallas, 38 miles up and traveling at more than 12,000 mph. The 100-ton spacecraft quickly broke apart, killing … How the Columbia tragedy began the age of private space travelQuartz ‘Bringing Columbia Home’: Launch director’s book tells shuttle’s final storyWTSP 10 News 15 years ago Space Shuttle Columbia broke up while returning homeChron.com Channel3000.com – WISC-TV3 –Hackaday –FOX43.com –WBIR-TV all 48 news articles »

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planetarduino · 7 years ago

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Entropy and The Arduino: When Clock Jitter is Useful

What do you do, when you need a random number in your programming? The chances are that you reach for your environment’s function to do the job, usually something like rand() or similar. This returns the required number, and you go happily on your way.

A shift register configured as a pseudo-random number generator. [by KCAuXy4p CC0 1.0]

Except of course the reality isn’t quite that simple, and as many of you will know it all comes down to the level of randomness that you require. The simplest way to generate a random number in software is through a pseudo-random number generator, or PRNG. If you prefer to think in hardware terms, the most elementary PRNG is a shift register with a feedback loop from two of its cells through an XOR gate. While it provides a steady stream of bits it suffers from the fatal flaw that the stream is an endlessly repeating sequence rather than truly random. A PRNG is random enough to provide a level of chance in a computer game, but that predictability would make it entirely unsuitable to be used in cryptographic security for a financial transaction.

There is a handy way to deal with the PRNG predictability problem, and it lies in ensuring that its random number generation starts at a random point. Imagine the shift register in the previous paragraph being initialised with a random number rather than a string of zeros. This random point is referred to as the seed, and if a PRNG algorithm can be started with a seed derived from a truly unpredictable source, then its output becomes no longer predictable.

Selecting Unpredictable Seeds

Computer systems that use a PRNG will therefore often have some form of seed() function alongside their rand() function. Sometimes this will take a number as an argument allowing the user to provide their own random number, at other times they will take a random number from some source of their own. The Sinclair 8-bit home computers for example took their seed from a count of the number of TV frames since switch-on.

The not-very-random result of a thousand analogRead() calls.

The Arduino Uno has a random() function that returns a random number from a PRNG, and as you might expect it also has a randomSeed() function to ensure that the PRNG is seeded with something that will underpin its randomness. All well and good, you might think, but sadly the Atmel processor on which it depends has no hardware entropy source from which to derive that seed. The user is left to search for a random number of their own, and sadly as we were alerted by a Twitter conversation between @scanlime and @cybergibbons, this is the point at which matters start to go awry. The documentation for randomSeed() suggests reading the random noise on an unused pin via analogRead(), and using that figure does not return anything like the required level of entropy. A very quick test using the Arduino Graph example yields a stream of readings from a pin, and aggregating several thousand of them into a spreadsheet shows an extremely narrow distribution. Clearly a better source is called for.

Noisy Hardware or a Jittery Clock

As a slightly old-school electronic engineer, my thoughts turn straight to a piece of hardware. Source a nice and noisy germanium diode, give it a couple of op-amps to amplify and filter the noise before feeding it to that Arduino pin. Maybe you were thinking about radioactive decay and Geiger counters at that point, or even bouncing balls. Unfortunately though, even if they scratch the urge to make an interesting piece of engineering, these pieces of hardware run the risk of becoming overcomplex and perhaps a bit messy.

The significantly more random result of a thousand Arduino Entropy Library calls.

The best of the suggestions in the Twitter thread brings us to the Arduino Entropy Library, which uses jitter in the microcontroller clock to generate truly random numbers that can be used as seeds. Lifting code from the library’s random number example gave us a continuous stream of numbers, and taking a thousand of them for the same spreadsheet treatment shows a much more even distribution. The library performs as it should, though it should be noted that it’s not a particularly fast way to generate a random number.

So should you ever need a truly random number in your Arduino sketch rather than one that appears random enough for some purposes, you now know that you can safely disregard the documentation for a random seed and use the entropy library instead. Of course this comes at the expense of adding an extra library to the overhead of your sketch, but if space is at a premium you still have the option of some form of hardware noise generator. Meanwhile perhaps it is time for the Arduino folks to re-appraise their documentation.

The subject of entropy and generating random numbers is one that has appeared on these pages many times. [Voja Antonic] made a in-depth study using uninitialized RAM as an entropy source for microcontrollers. If you have an insatiable appetite for understanding Linux entropy, we point you at [Elliot Williams]’ comprehensive examination of the subject.

[Arduino image: DustyDingo Public domain]

Filed under: Arduino Hacks, Hackaday Columns, Microcontrollers, Skills

Entropy and The Arduino: When Clock Jitter is Useful was originally published on PlanetArduino

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jacobrosenthal · 8 years ago

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Hackaday Superconference Badge Hacking

At the Hackaday Superconference this year Blaine and I finally decided to try our hand at a conference badge puzzle. The cambadge was introduced a month before the conference with the source code following shortly after so you you could prepare hack ideas and even start prototyping shields and addons. In their words:

It’s a camera. It has games, and it’s designed by [Mike Harrison] of Mike’s Electric Stuff. He designed and prototyped this badge in a single weekend. On board is a PIC32 microcontroller, an OV9650 camera module, and a bright, crisp 128×128 resolution color OLED display.

There would be prizes for best hardware hack, best app hack and even a film fest prize. But most importantly, there was also a puzzle prize. The puzzle firmware was implemented by Mike Szczys with the ciphers being developed by Jeff Rosowski (Krux).

Navigating to the puzzle menu revealed three options in binary, 00, 01, 10.

00 was some graphical 'game', 01 appeared to be a reciting of the hacker's manifesto, and 10 was a ouija board. That's all the information we were given.

PUZZLE 00

We halfheartedly played with the 00 puzzle while trying to be social during the pre party and started to put together a ruleset. A green cursor could be moved around an 8x8 grid by tilting the accelerometer. One button seemed to ‘place’ a red circle under the cursor. Further placements that shared a row (vertically, horizontally or diagonally) would light up the row in orange.

This was presumably a failure scenario but it was puzzling that we still had control of the cursor. A very jetlagged Scotty from StrangeParts got six placements before giving it up and handing it back, suggesting to google it or write a script to solve it. We finally figured out the failure screen allows you to remove a failed placement and continue the game. This allowed us to put down a random six placements and continue taking back movements until we had all eight which went surprisingly quickly. In just a few minutes and roughly five take backs we had "Winner Winner!" printed on screen.

Suspiciously, the menu screen also now has a set of hieroglyphic symbols under the 00 menu item. In googling later, we’d find out later this is a Queens Puzzle and we got a bit lucky. Theres 92 possible solutions but our methodology is called iterative repair and does not guarantee a solution.

PUZZLE 10

We talked to John Dahan who won last year by using the strings command on the binary to find the success email to skip all puzzles. Strings is a common utility that prints all ascii characters it can find in a binary. We talked to Mike who said that wasn't going to work this year, but were were undeterred. Before even bothering to understand the puzzle ruleset we just started looking at the scrubbed source and production hex file. The source was definitely missing the puzzles, though we did get a dist folder with intact elf files. That could come in very handy and also means we don’t have to install MPLAB-X IDE ide to generate it myself. The .hex file was strange though. Generally .hex are intel hex format, ie ascii hex code representation with checksumming, but this was a binary. We wasted a bunch of time here remembering obj-copy stuff, only to realize we weren’t gaining anything and this was indeed a binary we could utilize as is. Running “strings Badge103.hex” output the results in this gist.

After entering eight letters into ouija board the screen reads “What was that?” and appears to tell you which letters you had right by “X”ing out incorrect letters.

This would be super easy in retrospect, but hacking was way more fun. We searched the strings list for “What was that” hoping to find any suspicious text around it.

$ strings Badge103.hex | grep -A 5 "What was that"

What was that?

HACKADAY

MARKUSHESS

None

Not found

Read Err

HACKADAY is indeed eight characters which when entered was answered with “The planchette moves by itself:” and the code “PNIRHJZYL GSIXDF WFDNXJF JH CZDRI.”

Too lazy to bother cracking the cipher we entered “MARKUSHESS.” Though we still have no idea how to crack this code, Markus was the hacker from Clifford Stoll’s The Cuckoo's Egg so we weren’t surprised to receive an egg image.

We were subsequently kicked back out to the puzzle menu now with more symbols.

PUZZLE 01

The puzzle consists of twenty-seven lines of the Hacker’s Manifesto where you must scroll each line left or right to read it on the tiny screen. For some reason the cursor always starts at the fourth line which seems odd. At the bottom there is a list of twenty-seven negative and positive numbers with a four alpha character input to presumably complete the puzzle.

It seems obvious that the list of numbers maps to the lines of the manifesto. We looked to see if aligning the rows might spell a question in far right or left column that we could answer with four characters, but couldn't see anything obvious.

It was a huge pain to click buttons and invariably the badge would turn off or we’d get distracted and lose our place. We glanced through the strings dump for anything that might make sense for puzzle 10, but didn't see anything this time. As the party was ending we spent time running down mysterious QR codes that showed up around the venue thinking they could be related somehow, but were thrown out before we could get more than a few.

Later we woudl find there was a (seperate) prize that unlocked on the badge if you scanned all ten of the mysterious QR codes sprinkled throughout the venues.

The next day we were bored looking at puzzles and wanted to do more reverse engineering. I've been looking for a reason to get better with Radare forever. Radare lets you snoop through binaries, disassemble them, rebuild the function graph, and even edit the code in place! So not unlike a crackme, we could presumably find the code that prints Winner, backtrace to find the branching instruction that decides success, and hardcode it to so that when we enter the game it gives us the winner screen. TLDR feel free to skip this section as we didn’t get anywhere, but we would love guidance to be better at this for the next conference.

HUGE DIVERSION AHEAD

Radare has a bit of a learning curve, as described by a slide from a recent talk from the founding developer, pancake.

We can open our binary file in Radare and analyze it for functions, printing the results.

$ r2 -a mips -e asm.bits=32 Badge103.hex

WARNING: bin_strings buffer is too big (0x02bf8a80). Use -zzz or set bin.maxstrbuf (RABIN2_MAXSTRBUF) in r2 (rabin2)

-- It's not a bug, it's a work in progress

[0x00000000]> aaa

[x] Analyze all flags starting with sym. and entry0 (aa)

[ ]

[aav: Cannot find section at this address

aav: Cannot find section at this address

[x] Analyze len bytes of instructions for references (aar)

[x] Analyze function calls (aac)

[ ] [*] Use -AA or aaaa to perform additional experimental analysis.

[x] Constructing a function name for fcn.* and sym.func.* functions (aan))

[0x00000000]> afl

0x00000000 1 16 fcn.00000000

[0x00000000]>

We should see a huge list of functions, but sadly we don’t. Earlier we found someone saved us having to install MPLAB-X IDE and we also have an unmangled elf to mess with.

$ r2 -a mips ~/Downloads/cambadge.X/dist/Normal/production/cambadge.X.production.elf

Warning: Cannot initialize dynamic strings

-- The unix-like reverse engineering framework.

[0x9d009000]> aaa

[x] Analyze all flags starting with sym. and entry0 (aa)

[ ]

[aav: using from to 0x9d000000 0x9d08b3f3

Using vmin 0x9d000000 and vmax 0xbfc00c00

aav: using from to 0x9d000000 0x9d08b3f3

Using vmin 0x9d000000 and vmax 0xbfc00c00

[x] Analyze len bytes of instructions for references (aar)

[x] Analyze function calls (aac)

[ ] [*] Use -AA or aaaa to perform additional experimental analysis.

[x] Constructing a function name for fcn.* and sym.func.* functions (aan))

0x9d008180 1 16 sym._gen_exception

0x9d008200 44 1384 sym.__vector_dispatch_0

0x9d008220 43 1352 sym.__vector_dispatch_1

….

0x9d023cd8 1 8 sym._on_bootstrap

0x9d023ce0 1 8 sym._libc_private_storage

0xbfc00480 3 1908 sym.__DbgExecReturn

[0x9d009000]>

That’s what we’re supposed to see! We can even visualize a complete call graph.

But remember, we know this has all our puzzles stripped so there won’t be much to see here. What we want is this view in our puzzle inclusive binary. Why doesn't our binary ‘hex’ file load cleanly into Radare? Presumably the elf file has a bunch of debug info like sections and entry point (reset vector) to help set up Radare automatically which we don’t understand how to do manually. So how do we help it? In our production dist files we also have a .map file that has the function names and addresses in it. There we find the reset address

.reset 0x9d009000 0x1e4 484 Reset handler

And from cambadge.X.production.elf we can get the entry point(reset vector) to confirm

[0x9d009000]> ie

[Entrypoints]

vaddr=0x9d009000 paddr=0x00009000 baddr=0x9d000000 laddr=0x00000000 haddr=0x00000018 type=program

1 entrypoints

[0x9d009000]>

And we can print the hexdump of the binary code at that location

[0x9d009000]> px @ 0x9d009000

- offset - 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 0123456789ABCDEF

0x9d009000 0224 400f 0000 0000 0060 1a40 c004 5a7f .$@......`[email protected].

0x9d009010 0500 4013 0000 0000 029d 1a3c a43c 5a27 ..@........<.<Z'

0x9d009020 0800 4003 0000 0000 01a0 1d3c f0ff bd27 ..@........<...'

0x9d009030 00a0 1c3c f07f 9c27 029d 083c d03c 0825 ...<...'...<.<.%

0x9d009040 09f8 0001 0000 0000 00a0 083c 1c00 0825 ...........<...%

0x9d009050 01a0 093c 5cea 2925 0600 0010 0000 0000 ...<\.)%........

0x9d009060 0000 00ad 0400 00ad 0800 00ad 0c00 00ad ................

0x9d009070 1000 0825 2b08 0901 f9ff 2014 0000 0000 ...%+..... .....

0x9d009080 029d 083c f8fb 0825 0000 098d 1800 2011 ...<...%...... .

0x9d009090 0400 0825 0000 0a8d 0400 0825 0000 0b8d ...%.......%....

0x9d0090a0 0900 6011 0400 0825 0000 0c91 ffff 4a25 ..`....%......J%

0x9d0090b0 0100 0825 0000 2ca1 fbff 4015 0100 2925 ...%..,...@...)%

0x9d0090c0 0500 0010 0000 0000 0000 20a1 ffff 4a25 .......... ...J%

0x9d0090d0 fdff 4015 0100 2925 0300 0825 fcff 0a24 ..@...)%...%...$

0x9d0090e0 2440 4801 0000 098d e7ff 2015 0000 0000 $@H....... .....

0x9d0090f0 0000 093c 0000 2925 1000 2011 0000 0000 ...<..)%.. .....

[0x9d009000]>

Back to our puzzle inclusive binary code, Let’s search for that reset vector bytecode “0224 400f” as that shouldn't have changed even with puzzles stripped out:

$ r2 -a mips -e asm.bits=32 Badge103.hex

[0x00000000]> /x 0224 400f

Searching 3 bytes in [0x0-0x2bf8a80]

0x00000e80 hit0_0 022440

0x00006d66 hit0_1 022440

0x000102ce hit0_2 022440

0x000191fe hit0_3 022440

0x00025466 hit0_4 022440

[0x00000000]> px @ hit0_0

- offset - 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 0123456789ABCDEF

0x00000e80 0224 400f 0000 0000 0060 1a40 c004 5a7f .$@......`[email protected].

0x00000e90 0500 4013 0000 0000 039d 1a3c 9cd6 5a27 ..@........<..Z'

0x00000ea0 0800 4003 0000 0000 01a0 1d3c f0ff bd27 ..@........<...'

0x00000eb0 00a0 1c3c f07f 9c27 039d 083c c8d6 0825 ...<...'...<...%

0x00000ec0 09f8 0001 0000 0000 00a0 083c 3c00 0825 ...........<<..%

0x00000ed0 01a0 093c b0ea 2925 0600 0010 0000 0000 ...<..)%........

0x00000ee0 0000 00ad 0400 00ad 0800 00ad 0c00 00ad ................

0x00000ef0 1000 0825 2b08 0901 f9ff 2014 0000 0000 ...%+..... .....

0x00000f00 029d 083c d478 0825 0000 098d 1800 2011 ...<.x.%...... .

0x00000f10 0400 0825 0000 0a8d 0400 0825 0000 0b8d ...%.......%....

0x00000f20 0900 6011 0400 0825 0000 0c91 ffff 4a25 ..`....%......J%

0x00000f30 0100 0825 0000 2ca1 fbff 4015 0100 2925 ...%..,...@...)%

0x00000f40 0500 0010 0000 0000 0000 20a1 ffff 4a25 .......... ...J%

0x00000f50 fdff 4015 0100 2925 0300 0825 fcff 0a24 ..@...)%...%...$

0x00000f60 2440 4801 0000 098d e7ff 2015 0000 0000 $@H....... .....

0x00000f70 0000 093c 0000 2925 1000 2011 0000 0000 ...<..)%.. .....

[0x00000000]>

Found it! Maybe we can shift our 0x00000e80 address by 0x9D008180 so it becomes 0x9d009000 and Radare has more success analyzing functions? This is where we gave up though. Anyone reading this please reach out if you can help us understand Radare better for the next conference.

Back on track

A day lost, we went back to solving it the honest way -- sort of. Blaine wasn’t even an official attendee so we were having to share a badge. Since we were armed with the strings dump of the manifesto text and list of integes we turned to node to script something to print the columns so we could maybe see what we couldn’t see with our own eyes.

Still, nothing looked right and we went down a hundred other rabbit holes that didn't work out, all the while begging Krux and Mike for any guidance. Finally when the conference ceremony was just hours away Krux helped us find our script had an off by one error. With that fixed it turns out all this time a middle column read “realbunniehuanghardwarehack” Bunnie was perhaps first known for hacking the xbox. “Winner Winner!”

A Fourth Puzzle

Now we had a third set of hieroglyphs and “[email protected]”. To be fair we saw this email in the strings earlier, so we're pretty sure we'd be seeing it again. But what were these glyphs?

Several, especially the last one sure looks like unicode but we couldn’t find many of the rest. We spent a lot of time on that before asking Krux who didn't seem interested in that line of reasoning. We decided to do a transposition arbitrarily to the english alphabet just to play with the characters. Transposing the first character to a, and so one, we got “abcde fgahidjkclefg gmgce ccgcm nkeopfi” There were only 16 distinct 'letters', with c, g, and e being highest in frequency. However this tiny subset of text just doesn't lend to any kind of frequency analysis. We spent a lot of time thinking the spaces were useful and that “ccgcm” would be an odd word with double repeated starting letter. Llama didn’t seem likely, but you never know. We looked at brute forcing rot, morse and other symbol alphabets but didn’t come up with anything that worked before we finally ran out of time.

During the badge ceremony one other team had apparently also got this far and was awarded some cash for their efforts. Mike and Krux spoiled the last puzzle on stage, it's apparently the Commander Keen, Standard Galactic Alphabet. When translated it reads: “PRESTONPLUSWHEATONNINETEENEIGHTYFOUR” which is a Last Starfighter reference. Presumably emailing “Last Starfighter” to [email protected] would have won us the that sweet $256 prize.

Next time

Huge thanks to everyone involved at Superconference. It was a crazy lineup of amazing speakers. It was also awesome to see so much money given away to the Hackaday prize entrants I had been bumping into all weekend. Huge thanks to Mike and Krux for getting us to commit to a badge puzzle for the first time and for helping us through to the (very) end.

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