Collaborate Disseminate
At this point in the game there should be a single page on every corporate website, preferably accessible from its front page, that includes the name and all contact details for the Chief Security Officer, including the last four digits of her social security number. It should be her responsibility to ensure that no one uses this information for nefarious purposes in addition to her daily… Read More Continue reading A perfect storm of corporate idiocy
You hear about people finding USB drives and popping them into a computer to see what’s on them, only to end up loading some sort of malware onto their computer. It got me to thinking, given this notorious vulnerability, is it really a great idea to make electronics projects that plug into a computer’s USB port? Should I really contribute to the capitulation-by-ubiquity that USB has become?
A of couple years ago I was working on an innocuous project, a LED status light running off of USB. It ran off USB because I had more complicated hopes for it–some vague …read more
When you take an item with you on a camping trip and it fails, you are not normally in a position to replace it immediately, thus you have the choice of fixing it there and then, or doing without it. When his LED camping lantern failed, [Mark Smith] was in the lucky position of camping at a friend’s compound equipped with all the tools, so of course he set about fixing it. What he found shocked him metaphorically, but anyone who handles it while it is charging can expect the more literal variation.
The lamp was an LED lantern with …read more
When you start watching this video from Western Cape Government in South Africa, you think it’s a bit of a giggle.
And then…
Continue reading Texting is no laughing matter
There is one constant in the world of hardware hacker’s workshops, be they a private workshop in your garage or a public hackspace, and it goes something like this:
Everybody’s a safety expert in whatever it is they are working with, right up until the accident.
In other words, it is very tempting to harbour a cavalier attitude to something that either you are familiar with or the hazards of which you do not understand, and this breeds an environment in which mishaps become a distinct possibility.
As hardware people, we are familiar with basic tool safety or electrical safety. …read more
In March, the agency announced a ban on electronics on US-bound flights coming from the Middle East and North Africa. Continue reading Homeland Security Will Begin “Heightened Screening” of Phones on All US-Bound Flights
Your daily round-up of some of the other stories in the news Continue reading News in brief: cars confused by kangaroos; fears on airport books move; Google hit with €2.42bn fine
What in the world is a riving knife? Just the one thing that might save you from a very bad day in the shop. But if your table saw doesn’t come with one, fret not — with a little wherewithal you can add a riving knife to almost any table saw.
For those who have never experienced kickback on a table saw, we can assure you that at a minimum it will set your heart pounding. At the worst, it will suck your hand into the spinning blade and send your fingers flying, or perhaps embed a piece of wood …read more
At first glance, SawStop seems like a hacker’s dream. A garage tinkerer comes up with a great idea, builds a product around it, and the world becomes a better place. As time has gone on, other companies have introduced similar products. Recently, SawStop successfully stopped Bosch from importing saws equipped with their Reaxx safety system into the USA. This not only impacts sales of new saws, but parts for existing equipment. Who gets screwed here? Unfortunately, it’s the owners of the Bosch saws, who now have a safety feature they might not be able to use in the future. This …read more
Continue reading Ask Hackaday: SawStop — Bastion of Safety or Patent Troll
It seems like the multimeter is never easy to see during a project. Whether it’s troubleshooting a vehicle’s electrical system and awkwardly balancing the meter on some vacuum lines and the intake manifold, or installing a new solar panel and hoping the meter doesn’t fall on the ground while the leads are in both hands, it seems like there’s never a good way to see the meter while actually using it. Some meters have a small magnet and strap that can be used to hang them temporarily, but this will only get you so far.
[Alain Mauer]’s entry into the …read more
Continue reading Hackaday Prize Entry: Safety Glasses Are Also Hands-Free Multimeter
