Collaborate Disseminate
[Enddrift] had a real problem trying to run a classic game, Hello Kitty Collection: Miracle Fashion Maker, into a GBA (Gameboy Advance) emulator. During startup, the game would hit an endless loop waiting for a read from a non-existent memory location and thus wouldn’t start under the emulator. The problem …read more
Continue reading The Multiyear Hunt for a Gameboy Game’s Bug
Researchers from Eclypsium, a provider of secure firmware, disclosed this week that they have been able to launch successful direct memory access (DMA) attacks that bypass security frameworks such as UEFI Secure Boot, Intel Boot Guard, HP Sure Start a… Continue reading Eclypsium Researchers Demonstrate Direct Memory Attacks
The manufacturers have issued BIOS updates to address the issues, but researchers warn DMA attacks are likely possible against a range of laptops and desktops. Continue reading Dell, HP Memory-Access Bugs Open Attacker Path to Kernel Privileges
Researchers have revealed how malicious Thunderbolt and PCI Express (PCIe) peripherals could be used to compromise computers running macOS, Windows, Linux and FreeBSD. Continue reading Thunderclap: Apple Macs at risk from malicious Thunderbolt peripherals
Not only is the Super Nintendo an all-around great platform, both during its prime in the 90s and now during the nostalgia craze, but its relative simplicity compared to modern systems makes it a lot more accessible from a computer science point-of-view. That means that we can get some in-depth discussion on how the Super Nintendo actually does what it does, and understand most of it, like this video from [Retro Game Mechanics Explained] which goes into an incredible amount of detail on the mechanics of the SNES’s memory system.
Two of the interesting memory systems the SNES uses are …read more
Continue reading Memory Mapping Methods in the Super Nintendo
Data privacy is the subject of much debate and discussion in the media. There has also been much speculation about the effects of recent changes to data privacy legislation and data breaches will have on consumers’ willingness to share their data. So, … Continue reading Consumers still happy to exchange data with businesses if there’s a benefit
Currently, only businesses themselves are liable for the fines, so the directors declare bankruptcy and then play whack-a-mole. They may now be held personally liable to the tune of up to £500,000. Continue reading Nuisance call bosses, get your wallets ready!
Writing your own drivers is a special discipline. Drivers on the one hand work closely with external hardware and at the same time are deeply ingrained into the operating system. That’s two kinds of specialization in one problem. In recent years a lot of dedicated networking hardware is being replaced by software. [Paul Emmerich] is a researcher who works on improving the performance of these systems.
Making software act like network hardware requires drivers that can swiftly handle a lot of small packets, something that the standard APIs where not designed for. In his talk at this year’s Chaos Commnication …read more
Continue reading 34C3: Roll Your Own Network Driver In Four Simple Steps
The electronics for motion control systems, routers, and 3D printers are split into two camps. The first is 8-bit microcontrollers, usually AVRs, and are regarded as being slower and incapable of cool acceleration features. The second camp consists of 32-bit microcontrollers, and these are able to drive a lot of steppers very quickly and very smoothly. While 32-bit micros are obviously the future, there are a few very clever people squeezing the last drops out of 8-bit platforms. That’s what the Buildbotics team did with their ATxmega chip — they’re using a clever application of DMA as counters to drive …read more
The electronics for motion control systems, routers, and 3D printers are split into two camps. The first is 8-bit microcontrollers, usually AVRs, and are regarded as being slower and incapable of cool acceleration features. The second camp consists of 32-bit microcontrollers, and these are able to drive a lot of steppers very quickly and very smoothly. While 32-bit micros are obviously the future, there are a few very clever people squeezing the last drops out of 8-bit platforms. That’s what the Buildbotics team did with their ATxmega chip — they’re using a clever application of DMA as counters to drive …read more
