Author Archives: Michael Uttmark

Do you trust your hard drive indication light?

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Researchers in the past have exfiltrated information through air gaps by blinking all sorts of lights from LEDs in keyboards to the main display itself. However, all of these methods all have one problem in common: they are extremely noticeable. If you worked in a high-security lab and your computer screen started to blink at a rapid pace, you might be a little concerned. But fret not, a group of researchers has found a new light to blink (PDF warning). Conveniently, this light blinks “randomly” even without the help of a virus: it’s the hard drive activity indication light. …read more

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The Elements Converge for ±.002 in Tolerance

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What can be accomplished with just a torch and compressed air? We can think of many things, but bringing a 17-foot-long marine shaft into ±.002 in tolerance was not on our list.

Heat straightening (PDF) utilizes an oxy-acetylene flame that is used to quickly heat a small section of a workpiece. As the metal cools, it contracts more than it expanded when heated, resulting in a changed volume. With skill, any distortions on a shaft can theoretically be straightened out with enough time (and oxy-acetylene). Heat straightening is commonly applied to steel but works on nickel, copper, brass and aluminum …read more

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Project Zero Finds A Graphic Zero Day

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After finding the infamous Heartbleed vulnerability along with a variety of other zero days, Google decided to form a full-time team dedicated to finding similar vulnerabilities. That team, dubbed Project Zero, just released a new vulnerability, and this one’s particularly graphic, consisting of a group of flaws in the Windows Nvidia Driver.

Most of the vulnerabilities found were due to poor programming techniques. From writing to user provided pointers blindly, to incorrect bounds checking, most vulnerabilities were due to simple mistakes that were quickly fixed by Nvidia. As the author put it, Nvidia’s “drivers contained a lot of code which …read more

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This 3D Printed Microscope Bends for 50nm Precision

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Exploiting the flexibility of plastic, a group of researchers has created a 3D printable microscope with sub-micron accuracy. By bending the supports of the microscope stage, they can manipulate a sample with surprising precision. Coupled with commonly available M3 bolts and stepper motors with gear reduction, they have reported a precision of up to 50nm in translational movement. We’ve seen functionality derived from flexibility before but not at this scale. And while it’s not a scanning electron microscope, 50nm is the size of a small virus (no, not that kind of virus).

OpenFlexure has a viewing area of 8x8x4mm, which …read more

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Living High-Altitude Balloon

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High-altitude balloons are used to perform experiments in “near space” at 60,000-120,000 ft. (18000-36000m). However, conditions at such altitude are not particularly friendly and balloons have to compete with ultraviolet radiation, bad weather and the troubles of long distance communication. The trick is to send up a live entity to make repairs as needed. A group of students from Stanford University and Brown University repurposed nature in their solution. Enter Bioballoon: a living high-altitude research balloon.

Instead of using inorganic materials, the Stanford-Brown International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) team designed microbes that grow the components required to build various tools …read more

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