I've always loved taking things apart. I remember, as a child, trying to sneak a set of screwdrivers onto a transatlantic flight. I wanted to see how the aeroplane worked and figured that unscrewing vital components while in flight would be just fine. I've (mostly) grown out of the habit of tearing down things which are currently useful, and tend to wait until they reach their natural end before poking them with sharpened metal. In late 2009, I purchased the Elonex E511EB from Waterstones. My …
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... as our money becomes completely electronic, new crimes will undoubtedly be committed which take advantage of the technology itself. Perhaps if we could imagine what crimes might happen, we could start to think about how to prevent them. What financial crimes could be committed within a completely electronic marketplace? Future of Money Design Award On one level, there's no change to the basic ideas of monetary crime. You either target an individual or a bank, then fool them or force…
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When I was a child, I prayed to God to send me a bicycle. The Priest told me God doesn't work like that; so I stole a bicycle and prayed for forgiveness. Emo Philips (probably) There's a noble tradition in hackerdom of finding creative ways around obstacles. My personal favourite expression of this desire to get things done quickly is the maximum "far better to seek forgiveness than beg for permission." It's something I practice both at work and for my private projects. It's much easier,…
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Friend, colleague, and fellow geek, Sam Machin has introduced me to the wonders of the OBDII port! Essentially, OBD (On Board Diagnostics) is a port which is found on every car produced since the late 1990s. It allows garages to see all sorts of diagnostic information about your car, its engine, and all other manner of petrol-headed goodness. It's designed to be easily accessible and conform to a common standard. So, it's no surprise that a whole cottage-industry has developed around this…
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This weekend, I went to Rewired State's Parliament hackday. I teamed up with amazing front end designer Max Bye and statistician par excellence John Sandall to create a data visualisation of Parliament's Demographics. Are the houses representative of the people in terms of gender diversity? Are the Labour Party younger than the Conservatives? Are the parties in the Lords particularly dissimilar? You can play with the hack or watch a video demonstration. Each bubble represents a…
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I don't watch much TV. During the last episode of The Apprentice, my Twitter-feed was suddenly flooded with people talking about Nick Holzherr's app "Whisk". Apparently it was some kind of recipe / shopping / mash up thing called Whisk. Sounded good. Sounded familiar. Then I remembered this from CadburyHack Cadbury UK@CadburyUKBest use of APIs at #CadburyHack - Whisk team for their recipes mashup pic.x.com/e9ztkuy3❤️ 0💬 0🔁 017:23 - Sun 27 May 2012 Now, I didn't see either the TV show or the…
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This is a bit of a brain dump of how I got a 3G USB dongle working on the Raspberry Pi. Following on from getting the Raspberry Pi to send SMS. That's The Power Of Love The first thing to say is use a powered USB hub! I had lots of problems getting the modem working when it was plugged directly into the Pi. A 3G signal takes more power than the Pi's USB sockets can supply. In the above image, you can see that the Raspbery Pi is plugged into the mains - via a 1.8A plug. The USB cable has …
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(I think I'm the first person to try this - so I decided to document the process.) A few weeks ago, I won a Raspberry Pi at the #OTA12 hackday. It arrived on Friday, so I thought I would turn it into an SMS server using the incredible FrontlineSMS. 0. Setting up the Pi This is the easy part. Follow the excellent guide on the eLinux wiki. Essentially, download the Debian image, extract, and dd it onto an SD card. The hardest part was finding a full sized SD! In the end, I found an old…
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An online acquaintance of mine, Becky Hogge, has released a book! Barefoot Into Cyberspace tells the story of the "hacker scene" over the tumultuous last few years. Yesterday, Becky released a transcript of her interview with Julian Assange - in it he discusses the News of the World hacking, amongst other things. A fascinating interview which helps set the scene for Becky's book. I've only just started reading the book, but it's clear that it's been written in a very accessible way. You…
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I gave a quick talk at BarCamp Brigton about how to hack the Amazon Kindle 3G. These hacks come in two flavours - easy and very easy. Very Easy - Pictures Wouldn't it be great to view pictures on your Kindle? Well? OK - pictures, perhaps not so much - but comics? Yes please! For best results, image files should be the same resolution as the Kindle. 600px * 800px - and grey-scale. Let's use the XKCD comics - mostly because they're already the right size and mostly in black and white. And …
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I was mightily disturbed to receive an email from Google apparently telling me I had purchased a Nexus One phone. Had I been hacked? Had my credit-card details been used to buy a phone? Were Google sending me one for free? Hello! Your new Nexus One phone has many cool and useful features. Learn more by clicking on the links to watch brief YouTube videos directly on your phone: Take pictures with your 5mpx camera and view them in your 3D Media Gallery. Learn more Get transcribed…
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