The Edge of I-Hacked

from MAKE: Blog: Weekend Project: S
Go gettem Kipkay

Styrofoam Plate Speaker - video powered by Metacafe

from computerworld.com

The author of several security books is slated to demonstrate how he could take advantage of flaws in Intel Corp.’s chips to launch a remote attack against a computer — regardless of what software platform it’s running.

Kris Kaspersky, an IT consultant and the author of Hacker Disassembling Uncovered and Data Recovery: Tips and Solutions, is booked to make the demo at the Hack In The Box Security Conference, slated to be held in October in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In a summary of his presentation, Kaspersky wrote that he will show off proof-of-concept code and demonstrate how to use JavaScript code or TCP/IP packet storms against Intel-based machines.

He also charged that such CPU bugs actually have damaged hard drives without users’ knowledge.

from arstechnica.com

A ZDNet reader tipped the site to the fact that Apple has finally filed suit against Psystar in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit accuses Psystar of violating Apples licenses and trademarks, as well as copyright infringement. While the lawsuit comes as no surprise, the fact that Apple waited to file suit until July 3 to sue Psystar is. Strangely enough, a copy of the complaint is not yet available on PACER, although there’s no indication that it’s under seal.

from iPhone World
Today we bring you a local download mirror of XPwn: a cross-platform command-line pwnage utility (yup, it’s the a stepling of the famous Pwnage tool). While it’s not quite in final release stage yet, it’s already quite functional.

According to the XPwn development team:

“XPwn includes the core functionality of the Mac PwnageTool in a flexible command-line utility for Linux hackers, enabling you to pwn your iPhone on more platforms than ever before.

However, the main significance of XPwn is the underlying library, which is a cross-platform implementation of many of the proprietary Apple containers and formats that are present in iPhone/iPod touch firmware packages. These include: Img2, 8900, complzss and iBootIm.

Also included is a library that is capable of extracting, altering, and creating Apple .dmg files (an undocumented format) and HFS+/HFSX (the native filesystem of Mac OSX and the iPhone) without the aid of hdiutil or other Mac-only utilities.”

WARNING: XPwn is NOT an easy-to-use tool suitable for beginners. While it is possible easy to use user interfaces will be developed for it eventually, it’s mostly meant to be a toy for *nix geeks. Absolutely no support should be expected or will be given.

Direct downloads:
- XPwn for Mac (13 MB)

- XPwn for Linux X86 (12MB) | XPwn for Linux X64 (12MB)
- XPwn for Win (14MB) + required for RAM utility libusb-win32-filter dll file

CRUCIAL Note for Windows Vista users:

“Important note for all Vista iPhone users: Libusb-win32-filter was not designed to run on Windows Vista, but it can be made to work. You must right click the “libusb-win32-filter-bin-0.1.12.1.exe” executable, click the Compatiblity tab, and check “Run this program in compatibility mode for”, and select Windows XP in the list.

If you fail to do these steps, the driver will install, but all USB devices on the computer be inoperable.

Please also be aware that the driver is unstable on Windows Vista and occasionally causes the to kernel panic (blue screen of death). This happens particularly when the computer attempts to enter a low-power mode.

If you do not wish to install libusb-win32-filter on Vista (and we do not recommend you do), you may still use the ipsw tool without it. “

from Errata Security

Errata is looking for Beta testers for the next release of the Ferret iPhone package. You will need an unlocked iPhone and the capability to install a binary on it.

Please contact me at marisa@erratasec.com if you are interested.

O.
MG

from PS3HaX Network - PS3 Hacks

After a long time it finally seems that there might be a break through for the PS3 hacking scene. XVISTAMAN2005, has found a way to partially install a debug PS3 firmware on a retail PS3. Partially meaning that he has found a way to get a retail PS3 into debug mode, but currently the options are non functional.

Additional changes when the PS3 goes into this mode is that the Blu-ray drive no longer plays blu-ray movies.

However luckily, you can get out of debug mode easily by simply updating to a higher retail PS3 firmware, restoring Blu-ray movie playback functionality, and any other PS3 functions that were disabled in debug mode. The media server feature goes away but to restore it again, insert the original PS3 HDD to PS3 and reformat - read the tutorial below so this makes more sense.

So what is amazing about this? This gives PS3 hackers a huge new area to work with that was not previously available before, plus not to mention that devs already had a working ISO loader running on a full debug console this method currently gives us a partial-debug console.

Note: For this to work your system must be below or at 1.80 for the 1.80 debug update and below or on 2.01 for the 2.15 debug update. Just use the next version up from your current firmware version for the retail update.

Stay tuned we will keep you updated, view the tutorial on how to install the debug firmware below as well as download links to debug firmware.

[[TUTORIAL] How to install debug firmware on retail PS3 partially-HDD swap method]

UPDATE 1:
For those who are seeking to do this method with 2 diffrent hard drive sizes, a method has been found:
Originally Posted by ggparallel

Now for everyone with hdd problems , you can do a copy of the whole hdd and make it working.
I used the following procedures i have two hdd 60GB and 40GB :

I made a full format of the 40GB hdd and then i used the dd_rescue utility to recover the 40GB image on the 60GB hdd now i have a perfect copy , and it works of course.

This is great news for PS3 Hackers! Thanks for the heads up R7i1c3K.

from Boing Boing TV

via to Hack-a-day

from earthtimes.org

San Francisco - Do you crave a Mac but baulk at shelling out thousands of dollars for Apple’s alternative PCs?A company by the name of Psystar may have the answer for you.

On Monday it released what it calls an Open Mac, for 400 dollars. The clones, which are standard Intel-based machines, use a piece of software wizardry called an Extensible Firmware Interface to trick Apple’s Leopard operating system into thinking it is running on a genuine Mac.

The basic machine comes without any operating software, but Psystar offers to sell users a copy of Leopard and even preinstall it so that buyers get a fully operational Apple clone straight out the box.

Legal experts said the tactic could violate the licensing agreement on the Leopard software and that Apple is likely to sue.

The OPen Mac sale price is 200 dollars less than an original Mac with lower specifications, but there’s a catch. The company’s website crashed shortly after announcing the new product - either because it was inundated with eager buyers, or with threatening letters from Apple’s legal team.

from bunnie’s blog

For ETech08, I built the “Chumby Tower” and one of the hacks featured in the tower is a version of the chumby that sniffs wifi and renders captured packets onto the display. The chumby is a great device for passively monitoring wifi signals, because it has a screen for rendering the data real-time, sufficient CPU power to do the data processing, and it’s cheap enough that you don’t mind dedicating it to that application. It’s handy, for example, to see if your neighbors are stealing your wifi link to surf the web; at a glance you can see what URLs are going by over the air.