Tuesday, June 2, 2020
The prototype of my simple FPGA based SoC with multiple Ethernet interfaces worked so well that I decided to create a PCB for it and increase the number of network interfaces from two to four. It also includes a special PMOD connector for a SD-Card to boot a firmware or Linux from. Also two of the Arty’s four existing PMODs are also still available for extensions. PMOD-C and PMOD-D are no longer available as their pins are used for some of the Ethernet PHY modules.
Due to I/O limitations the Seven Segment Display was removed from the original design.
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Tuesday, April 28, 2020
In my day to day business I work with Software Defined Networking (SDN) a lot. Especially with Open-Flow, Open-vSwitch and some commercial products.
Most of the time the projects are not “normal” ones where these techniques are used in larger scenarios like enterprise or data-center networks. Instead I use them on the other side of the scale in embedded environments for example to develop Space based satellite routers.
At the time of this writing we now have almost eight weeks lock-down due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. This means no travel time to my office and instead working from home. So this spare time must be filled with some experiments. Unfortunately at home I don’t have the resources I normally have at my workplace. So no fancy, multi k-euro development boards and tools. Wanting an embedded system with at least two Ethernet interfaces I looked around in my electronic junkyard and found some interesting components which might give a not so bad platform for some networking experiments. Especially low level Ethernet packet handling (filtering, modifying) is on of my interests. Maybe playing with P4, NetCope, or P4FPGA without spending a fortune.
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Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Using a YubiKey (or other USB security token) to unlock physical things.
While researching locks and lockable storage for a new premise I found lots of LockPicking information about how to hack and break into products from even renowned companies. It’s not only a waste of money buying “high security” products which could be unlocked by just a paper clip like shown in this Video but might also be dangerous.
At the same time I use my YubiKey daily with IT systems and services. So I thought to myself:
“Why not use a YubiKey as a key for physical storage/property?”.
So I started another research, if, how and with how much effort a lock for physical things could be designed which uses a standard USB security token as key.
Fortunately it was easy to design such a lock. The outcome is the “StickLock” (short “SL”) described in this project.
Note: Latest software could be found on GitHub.
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Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Thursday, December 22, 2016
During the last few blog posts about hacking Walkera quadcopter receivers I sought an easy way of programming them. Currently the easiest way of programming a microcontroller is by using the Arduino IDE. In this post I describe the integration of Walkera RC receiver board into the Arduino IDE.
This will also be the last post of this series as I have achieved (almost) all goals. Future ideas meight be to port the MultiWii firmware to Walkera boards or to use the boards for something completely different. In 2016 we had the idea to use a QR-Ladybird RX2634H board as a secure fitness tracker and made a submission to austrian support program NetIdee. See a short video about it on youtube (in german). Unfortunately it was rejected.
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