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Extracting Qualcomm's KeyMaster Keys – Breaking Android Full Disk Encryption
A security blog focusing on Android, the Linux Kernel and everything nice.
Most cited
Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 322 posts.
Hardware & Electronics
Any year
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BusKill: A kill cord for your laptop
BusKill is a Kill Cord for your laptop implementing a Dead Man Switch using $20 in USB hardware + udev rule to trigger your laptop self-destruct if stolen.
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Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill
In June of 2010 I moved to a place in Montana with only electric heat. By myself. In the past few winters I had conducted experiments in cutting the amount of energy I needed to stay warm, with a focus on heating myself instead of heating the whole house.
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What's New in CPUs Since the 80s and How Does It Affect Programmers?
My mental model of CPUs is stuck in the 1980s: basically boxes that do arithmetic, logic, bit twiddling and shifting, and loading and storing things in memory. I'm vaguely aware of various newer developments like vector instructions (SIMD) and the idea that newer CPUs have support for virtualization (though I have no…
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Body Hacking: Thoughts Regarding My Magnet Implant
I've had a magnet implanted in my finger for about three years. Here are some thoughts about having the implant and feeling a whole new world.
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SPARCbook 3000ST: The coolest 90s laptop (2019)
My personal website and blog
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A Better Light Source for Scanning Color Negative Film
Narrowband trichromatic (RGB) light sources are superior to broadband (white) light for scanning color negative film; there are very good reasons why all commercial film scanners use RGB. ( film scanners were using blue LEDs at least a decade before they would be widely used in consumer products! ) Scanning film with…
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Examining the silicon dies of the Intel 386 processor
You might think of the Intel 386 processor (1985) as just an early processor in the x86 line, but the 386 was a critical turning point for m...
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Raspberry Pi microSD card performance comparison
Back in 2015, I wrote a popular post comparing the performance of a number of microSD cards when used with the Raspberry Pi. In the intervening three years, the marketplace hasn't changed a ton, but there have been two new revisions to the Raspberry Pi (the model 3 B and just-released model 3 B+). In that article, I…
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6 GHz frequency modulated radar
Making a cheap and simple radar with a range of about 100 meters.
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Performance Speed Limits
A laundry list of speed limits that your code can’t exceed.
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ARM MacBook vs. Intel MacBook: A SIMD Benchmark
In my previous blog post, I compared the performance of my new ARM-based MacBook Pro with my 2017 Intel-based MacBook Pro. I used a number parsing benchmark. In some cases, the ARM-based MacBook Pro was nearly twice as fast as the older Intel-based MacBook Pro. I think that the Apple M1 processor is a breakthrough ……
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An interview with AMD CEO Lisa Su about solving hard problems
An interview with AMD CEO Lisa Su about her path to AMD, turning around the chip maker, the AI opportunity, and competing with Nvidia.
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Raspberry Pi – UASP, Trim, and Boot Performance via USB
In the past few weeks, I reviewed USB drive performance on the Raspberry Pi 4, and the importance of UASP support for USB drive performance. Both posts generated great discussion, and there were three things I wanted to cover in this follow-up, namely: Which drives support UASP Real-world performance benchmarks TRIM…
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A look at the die of the 8086 processor
The Intel 8086 microprocessor was introduced 42 years ago this month, 1 so I made some high-res die photos of the chip to celebrate. The ...
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The sixtyforgan: Commodore 64 equipped with a spring reverb
The sixtyforgan is a Commodore 64 equipped with a spring reverb, featuring the keyboard layout of a chromatic button accordion.
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Infinite Grid of Resistors
There is a well-known puzzle based on the premise of an �infinite� grid of resistors connecting adjacent nodes of a square lattice. A small portion of such a grid is illustrated below.
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New 2GB Raspberry Pi 5 has 33% smaller die, 30% idle power savings
Raspberry Pi launched the 2 gig Pi 5 for $50, and besides half the RAM and a lower price, it has a new stepping of the main BCM2712 chip. This is the BCM2712 D0 stepping. Older Pi 5's shipped with a C1. In their blog post, they said: The new D0 stepping strips away all that unneeded functionality, leaving only the…
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Audio CD ripping – optical drive accuracy listing
Tech-Tutorials, Howtos and buying advice2022208 points161 commentscited by 3Hardware & Electronics details
Audio CD ripping - optical drive accuracy listing
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The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)
Sometime in 2024, the IEEE will unveil a new 802.11 standard that will bring new capabilities to everyone’s favorite wireless communication standard. But the upcoming 802.11bf standard isn’t for communication — it’s for sensing. The newest version of Wi-Fi layers on the ability to sense people or objects by using math…
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Hacking Transcend WiFi SD Cards
UPDATE : This post has been featured in the Hacker News front page! Thanks! I have also updated this post with additional information (at t...
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The 16-Inch MacBook Pro
After my first day with the new 16-inch MacBook Pro, I’m very optimistic about it.
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The Globus INK: a mechanical navigation computer for Soviet spaceflight (2023)
The Soviet space program used completely different controls and instruments from American spacecraft. One of the most interesting navigati...