News

Hackerspace Signals Show Featuring HackerspaceKL

mel — 2010-10-28T05:56:13Z

The hackerspace signal is a radio station dedicated to hackers, hacking, hacks and everything related. The signals archive are available here. During HITB2010KUL, I was featured as a guest (together with Saumil Shah) for the show. During the interview session, we talked about HITB (how it happened, why it happened, etc) and eventually to HackerspaceKL. I talked a little bit about the history behind the formation of HackerspaceKL and a little about what we do at the space.

A copy of the interview is here (mp3) and here (ogg).

Enjoy and thanks to Fish_ and DrWhax of RandomData for the awesome interview. Lepak, yo!

UNIX-g33ks Part Deux

sniffit — 2010-10-19T08:15:48Z

Registration and announcing UNIX-g33ks Part Deux

We are back from HITB2010KUL (expect a write up in a couple of days) and we are raring to go. Apparently some people have been asking if we are going to restart the UNIX-g33ks series while visiting us at the Hard Hack Village and the answer is, YES, we are continuing UNIX-g33ks with Part Deux - FreeBSD essentials.

As before the sessions will be conducted by Suresh Ramasamy, our resident FreeBSD kung-fu practitioner and will be held at HackerspaceKL from 1.30 pm to 3.30 pm. However we are going to be changing a little bit in regards to our fee structure.

Members of HackerspaceKL - Free ( member benefits rock eh?)

Non-Members have 2 options to pay for the sessions -

Full Payment of RM 70 for all 7 sessions.
An installment plan of RM 40 for the first 4 sessions & the remaining RM 30 for the last 3 sessions

We are also limiting the number of maximum participants to 25 people, and this is done on a first come, first serve basis.

The registration form for UNIX-g33ks : Part Deux is available here

For session scheduling please refer to the Events page and inquiries maybe addressed at the HSKL UNIX-g33ks mailing list.

Minor Manufacturing Defect on the Arduino Uno

mel — 2010-10-29T02:29:29Z

[UPDATE 29/10/2010] The Arduino team has been kind enough to send me a replacement board. Thanks guys. This is a really great service from the Arduino team!

I got my hands on the new Arduino Uno last Thursday. Due to the Hard Hack Village at HITB2010KUL, I didn't get a chance to play with until yesterday. The first thing I did was to test the LOLShield. The Uno lighted up all the LEDs except for the last two columns. I tested LOLshield with another board, and it worked fine. It was suspected that there might be something wrong with one of the digital pins. Sure enough, three pins weren't soldered at all:

TX, RX and digital pin 2 were apparently not soldered. I proceeded to inspect the Uno closer now, and noticed a few things. There is a small leftover PCB on one of the edges, which looks like a small tooth. This seems to be the same issue as posted here. There is also a reddish orange color on the side of the board - again the same issue as reported here. Overall, this is a no biggie to me - the board works fine except for the 3 unsoldered pins. However, the most disappointing thing for me is the finishing. All but one side of the board are rough (the side on the picture above have smooth side surface and edge). They look like they were cut using knives instead of industrial grade PCB cutter. An Arduino Duemilanove that I have which was manufactured in China has excellent finishing, and the Uno has nothing like it. This is pretty disappointing since we at this part of the world have to fork out so much money to support a project that we love (1-to-1 at the exchange, EUR25 is way affordable, but RM100 after exchange rate is quite a fair bit of price). We understand that the Arduino project has been trying its best to provide the boards to the community as cheap as possible, and we appreciate it. However, bad finishings and unsoldered pins should not have gone unnoticed.

Collect Your Pre-Ordered Tees At HackerspaceKL

sniffit — 2010-10-15T18:08:18Z

HITB Security Conference KL is now over. Expect a write up on the Hard Hack Village at HITB2010KUL in a couple of days if you missed out on it.

Pre-ordered t-shirts can be collected at hackerspacekl or delivery by request. Please send your delivery details to mel at hackerspace dot my to arrange for delivery and payments.

[NOTE: Any shipping charges will be borne by those who ordered the t-shirts]

DIY 0-30V Regulated Power Supply

klks — 2010-10-19T03:59:14Z

Introduction

So over the weekend I saw a commercial 0-30V 3A regulated power supply with digital output, current & voltage control. The only drawback was it costs RM499 which is well over my budged. So I decided why not build my own from whatever i could scrap and save some money. Firstly I didn't need current control and i needed something within 1A. Searching the interweb turned out many designs but they were all complex and most didn't come with eagle schematics, then I remembered that last year i purchased a schematic book from Jalan Pasar which had a schematic for a 0-30V AC/DC Regulated Power Supply able to supply up to 1A, the schematic looked easy enough plus the parts were relatively inexpensive.

Bill of Materials

Qty	Item	@	Cost (RM)	Note
1	PCB	2	2
1	Metal Case	19	19	Dimension 5 x 3.5 x 6
1	Transformer	25	25	15-0-15 24VA 1.6A
1	Bridge Rectifier	-		Supports up to 2A Salvaged
1	Heatsink	-		Salvaged
1	LM317T	3.5	3.5	0-35V @ 1.5A
1	330 Ohm	0.1	0.1	1/4 W
1	100 uF eCap	0.2	0.2	50V
1	1000 uF eCap	0.5	0.5	50V Salvaged
2	0.1 uF (104)	0.1	0.2	Ceramic NP
1	10K Pot	1	1
4	T-Block	1	4	2 pin
1	Pot Knob	1.5	1.5
1	1.5A Fuse + Holder	1.20	1.20
1	AC Switch	-		Salvaged
1	0-50V Meter	14	14
1	Power Cord	-	-	Salvaged
4	PCB Plastic Stand	0.3	1.2
2	ETB 1303	1.5	3	Red & Black
2	Wire Hooks	2.2	4.4

		Total	80.8

Designing The Schematics

D-I-Y Kit schematic from book purchased at Jalan Pasar.

Notice that the schematic recommends using a 100 ohm resistor for R1 and a 5/10K Pot for VR. I decided to follow this and my supply hit the max even before the nob hit 1/4 of a turn, had to replace R1 with 330R to fix that problem.

Schematic on Eagle

Making Improvements & Fixes

- Adding Protection Diode

Quote from National Semiconductor data-sheet for LM317T (Page 8)

"When external capacitors are used with any IC regulator it is sometimes necessary to add protection diodes to prevent the capacitors from discharging through low current points into the regulator. Most 10μF capacitors have low enough internal series resistance to deliver 20A spikes when shorted. Although the surge is short, there is enough energy to damage parts of the IC. When an output capacitor is connected to a regulator and the input is shorted, the output capacitor will discharge into the output of the regulator. The discharge current depends on the value of the capacitor, the output voltage of the regulator, and the rate of decrease of VIN. In the LM117, this discharge path is through a large junction that is able to sustain 15A surge with no problem. This is not true of other types of positive regulators. For output capacitors of 25μF or less, there is no need to use diodes."

- Adding Bridge Rectifier

Adding a bridge rectifier makes it easier as there is less routing on the PCB. The bridge rectifier chosen could sustain up to 2A.

- Adding Plastic Stands

Plastic Stands would mean that my PCB would not be touching the housing. This is needed if your using a metal housing.

- Adding T-Blocks

Adding T-Blocks meant that it would be easier to replace/remove wires if there was an upgrade in the future.

- Replacing 100R with 330R

Using an LM317 Calculator from http://www.whatcircuits.com/lm317-calculator-v2/ i found that when using a 330R was more suited for a 10K Pot in order for the power supply to reach its max while having the knob turned to almost max (Using a 100R would mean turning the pot 1/4 to reach the max output of the power supply).

Etching The Board, Mounting Items & Soldering

The toner-transfer method was used to do the transfer while Ferric Chloride was used to etch the board.

A fully soldered and assembled board

Testing

Lessons Learned

Always check the polarity of the capacitors before turning on the power supply or it will pop real loud and smell like charred fish.

HackerspaceKL Income and Expenditure Statement - January - September 2010

mel — 2010-10-01T02:07:24Z

As part of our initiative as a not-for-profit organization, we will be publishing our income and expenditure statements every month. This is our account as it stands up until the end of September 2010. We are indebted to individuals who have donated money to the space, and also the members that have provided support to keep the space alive. As of the end of September 2010, we are in the red: RM -1540.92. For the past 9 months, we have been collecting an average of RM1775.23 per month, and monthly expenses were RM1946.44 per month. That is RM -171.21 short per month.

Since the space is almost fully equipped (our last major spending was for an airconditioner and projector, and yes, not having Internet broadband service is really a good idea), we would not be spending anymore, and the average monthly expenses should be getting lesser.

Current paying members stand at 11, and this is not enough to cover the monthly rental and expenses. Our electrical and water consumption have been quite low as well. To be really sustainable, the space needs at least RM1500 per month - this provided that we don't make any major purchases such as another airconditioning unit or Internet broadband services.

Details: HackerspaceKL Income and Expenditure Statement 2010

Programming the ATtiny2313 Using the USBTinyISP AVR Programmer

mel — 2010-09-29T14:26:28Z

In this posting I will show you how to program ATMEL ATtiny2313 and ATtiny85 chips. My objectives are to build a USBTinyISP programmer, and a TV-B-Gone kit. The ATtiny2313 is for the programmer, and the ATtiny85 is for the TV-B-Gone. Unless you bought the TV-B-Gone kit from Adafruit, you don't have to program the chip as it is already programmed. Instead, I opted to make my own programmer and assembled my own TV-B-Gone kit. Both of the chips can be bought online from Farnell, while the other parts are in abundance in Jalan Pasar.

Here's an impasse: I'm building a programmer, and the chips that I bought weren't programmed, and they need to be programmed before they can be used to program another chip (insert Xzibit meme here). Thankfully, another HSKL member, klks84, already has a programmer.

[Note: One could have argued that I can just buy the USBTinyISP and TV-B-Gone kit, and don't have to waste my time building them myself. But, in all seriousness, I don't see the economics of that. A TV-B-Gone costs USD19.50 and the USBTinyISP is USD22.00 - that's an ass-whopping USD41.50 (or RM132.80) excluding shipping. However, building them myself is way cheaper - a USBTinyISP programmer with the parts from Jalan Pasar (and the chips from Farnell) costs less than RM20 (or USD6.25). A diy TV-B-Gone kit costs about the same. So you see, it's much cheaper and more economical to build stuff the DIY way. After all, hackerspaces are all about DIY.]

Let's get started. Before you begin, familiarize yourself with AVR programming. This is a good tutorial on avrdude. avrdude is a command-line utility that you will use to program the chips. Basically, it enables you to upload firmware (you can think of firmware as a set of instructions telling the chip what to do). avrdude is available for Windows, OSX and Linux. I am using the the OSX version, which can be downloaded here. If you're on Windows, you can use WinAVR.

Next, you need a ready-made USBTinyISP programmer. You can get them from Adafruit. klks84' DIY programmer is a single side board version (this is the one I will be making). In this tutorial, whenever I refer to the programmer, I am referring to the USBTinyISP pictured below.

You also need the datasheets for whatever ICs that you are going to program. For ATMEL chips, they can be found from their website.

To program the ATtiny2313, you will need:

1 x 12Mhz Crystal Oscillator
2 x 22pF ceramic capacitors

To program the ATtiny85, you will need 1 8Mhz ceramic oscillator. You could use a crystal oscillator, but I have a couple of 8MHz ceramic oscillators lying around so I'm gonna use those instead (I'll cover that in another posting). You will also need jumper cables to connect the programmer to the breadboard. Mine looks like this:

And finally, you need a breadboard and USB cable. Let's start.

Step 1: Setting Up avrdude

Connect the programmer to your laptop using the USB cable. The red LED should light up. Otherwise, something is wrong. On the command line, type:

avrdude -c usbtiny -p t2313 -P usb -C ./avrdude.conf

If you haven't read ladyada's avrdude tutorial, now is the time to do so :) But anyways let me explain the command-line options. -c tells avrdude the type of programmer. In this case it's usbtiny. -p tells the part number, in this case it's ATtiny2313 (meaning that I am going to program an ATtiny2313 chip). -P is the programmer's port, in this case USB, and -C is the config file (mine's on the current directory). You should see something like this:

The initialization failed error is normal, as the programmer cannot find the chip. When you run the command above, the green LED will start blinking.

Step 2: Connecting the chip to the programmer

Before connecting the chip to the programmer, make sure you know the pin assignments on the programmer and the chip. This is where the datasheets for the ATMEL chips comes in handy. On the programmer, the 6 pins on the right (see picture above) are the ones that you will connect to the chip. The pin assignments for the USBTinyISP are as follows:

1 2

3 4

5 6

(yeah I know I'm not really following the standards here) where:

1 - MISO

2 - Vcc

3 - SCK

4 - MOSI

5 - RST

6 - GND

If you are using your own programmer, make sure you know the assignments of each pin.

For the ATtiny2313, the relevant pins are:

20 - Vcc

19 - SCK

18 - MISO

17 - MOSI

1 - RST

10 - GND

4 - XTAL2

5 - XTAL1

After you get the pin assignment right, place the chip on the breadboard. Connect the relevant pins from the programmer to the relevant pins on the chip. Basically, you will be connecting Vcc from the programmer to Vcc on the chip, MISO to MISO, SCK to SCK and so on.

Step 3: Check if the programmer recognizes the chip

Run the same command: avrdude -c usbtiny -p t2313 -P usb -C ./avrdude.conf. You should get this:

If you get an error like the one below:

This could mean that your part number (-p option) is wrong. It is also a good idea to check the connections. To find the correct part number for the chip, run:

./avrdude -c usbtiny -p foobar -P usb -C ./avrdude.conf

avrdude will exit with an error and the list of part numbers.

Step 4: Set the fuse bits

Before flashing the chips, the first thing that you must do is to set the fuse bits. What are fuses? You can think of fuses as a config file for the chip. And as any config file goes, they tell the chip what to use, what to set, etc etc. Here's a tutorial on fuses.

Why do we need to set the fuse, and which fuse bit do we need to set? For both the ATtiny2313 and ATtiny85, you want to to use the external oscillators instead of the internal one. IC chips requires oscillators or resonators to function at a certain 'beat'. Without the 'beat', the chip won't know how to run codes, or the code may run at undetermined rate. So, in order to use a chip (or in this case, programming it), it must have an oscillator or resonator as part of the circuit components. Go ahead, take a look at some of your circuits that contain IC chips - there's definitely a crystal oscillators or ceramic resonators there!

So what are we setting? We basically wants to set the chips to use an external oscillators. In this case, for the ATtiny2313, we will want to use the 12Mhz crystal oscillator, and 8MHz for the ATtiny85. How do we know what Mhz to use? From the datasheet, of course! And how do we know what values to set? You can use fuse calculator. To set the fuse bits on the ATtiny2313, I run the following command:

avrdude -C usbtiny -p t2313 -P usb -C ./avrdude.conf -U hfuse:w:0xdf:m -U -lfuse:w:0xef:m

This command sets the high fuse (hfuse) and low fuse (lfuse) to 0xdf and 0xef respectively.

After setting the fuse, you can then program the chip. But first, you must connect the crystal.

Step 5: Connecting the crystal to the ATtiny2313

Here's the schematics:

[NOTE: Compare the schematics with the connections on the breadboard. Something is obviously wrong :) ]

The crystal needs to be connected to the XTAL1 and XTAL2 pins on the chip. Again, the datasheet will tell you what the pins are. For the ATtiny2313, they are pins 4 (XTAL2) and 5 (XTAL1). Since you are using a crystal, you need 2 22pF capacitors. The capacitors act as 'load capacitors' to start the crystal. Otherwise, the crystal won't work.

Always make sure that you set the fuse bits first before connecting the crystal.

Step 6: Flash the chips!

Finally, you can flash the chip. Here's the command:

avrdude -C avrdude.conf -U flash:w:main.hex -c usbtiny -p t2313 -P usb

main.hex comes with the USBTinyISP firmware, which you can download here.

And that's it. You now have a programmed ATtiny2313! In the next posting I will show you how to load the TV-B-Gone firmware onto the ATtiny85 chip.

Thanks to klks84 for loaning me his USBTinyISP programmer, and temaning me shopping in Jalan Pasar.

Reading Materials/References

AVR Tutorial

USBTinyISP - AVR Programmer and SPI Interface

Single Sided USBTinyISP

ATtiny2313 Datasheet

Instructables - Burning USBTinyISP firmware to an ATtiny2313

Fuse Calculator

AVR Tutorial - Fuses

Sample works on QuarterK

jordan — 2010-09-30T14:40:01Z

Some sample works on QuarterK have been done by @j00dan.

Big "HSKL" with little movement

small moving "HSKL"

Random pattern

Random pattern 2

Moving sentence with @matseng latest QuaterK library

Pre-order Your Limited Edition HackerspaceKL T-shirt Online Now

mel — 2010-09-24T21:15:18Z

Wants to own limited edition HackerspaceKL t-shirt (HackerspaceKL Limited Edition Tees Coming Soon!)? You can now pre-order them online, and collect them at the HackerspaceKL/Randomdata booth at HITBSecConf2010 at Crown Plaza Mutiara on the 13-14th October, from 9am - 5pm. Here are the t-shirts and their prices:

Members (HackerspaceKL, Randomdata): RM30 per t-shirt

Non-member: RM35 per t-shirt

Members (HackerspaceKL and Randomdata): RM25 per t-shirt

Non-members: RM30 per t-shirt

Here's the link to the per-order form https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dEc3ZXFIeDQ2ZEdIVUJkNXZHMUI0MUE6MQ#gid=0

We will stop taking pre-orders on midnight 30th September 2010.

Adafruit & Hacker Spaces & Hackerspace KL = 31337

kakeman — 2010-09-27T15:21:46Z

A few months ago Adafruit Industries offered a program that enable hacker spaces around the world to buy stuff from Adafruit at reseller price.

Here are the hacker spaces that have registered for such privilege, Hackerspace KL is there.

Despite the high shipping cost (from US to Malaysia), we have made our first order. For all members who have placed orders, please be patient...

HackerspaceKL Limited Edition Tees Coming Soon!

mel — 2010-09-24T21:19:56Z

These are the designs of the HackerspaceKL tees. There are two designs, one is the normal HackerspaceKL and another is the limited edition. The limited edition is only available for sale at the upcoming HITBSecConf2010 Kuala Lumpur (http://conference.hackinthebox.org/hitbsecconf2010kul/?page_id=956) , at the HSKL/Randomdata (http://www.randomdata.nl/blog/) booth.

The Limited Edition t-shirt has the logos of HackerspaceKL and Randomdata in front, and the HITBSecConf2010 Kuala Lumpur logo at the back.

This is the standard edition HackerspaceKL t-shirt.

Stay tuned for more info on the prices and availability.

Introducing the QuarterK

mel — 2010-09-20T04:51:02Z

Mats Engstrom (@matseng) a member of HackerspaceKL has built an awesome Arduino shield consisting of 4 8x8 LED matrix. The shield is called the QuarterK, and is currently at version 0.1.

I managed to get my hands on one of the kit during last Friday's Electronics Friday. Here's is a pic of the unassembled kit:

Assembling the kit is pretty easy, and take less than a couple of hours. Here's a step-by-step instruction from Mat's personal website.

This is how the assembled kit looks like:

And here's a video of the QuarterK from Mats:

The libraries and circuits are available for download from GitHub.

So what can you do with the QuarterK? It's up to your creativity. Another cool thing about the QuarterK is that it has a speaker and game controller pins (which I haven't built yet), so you can play games like pong.

The QuarterK is not yet available for the masses, however, special limited editions will be made available for sale at HackerspaceKL's booth at the upcoming HITBSecConf2010 Kuala Lumpur.

Last Call: Buying Stuff from Adafruit.com

kakeman — 2010-09-19T15:31:25Z

Calling for all Hackerspace KL members,

As a member, you get to buy stuff from Adafruit.com with discount up to 40%. Please let me know what you want to buy by latest on 21/9/10 9:00pm, as I'll place the order after that.

@kakeman

RootedCON'2010 CTF

RuFI0 — 2010-09-14T07:34:40Z

For those interested :)

http://www.rs-labs.com/rooted2010-ctf/

Game starts on the 17th of September, 2010.

UNIX-g33ks Part Deux + Software Freedom Day KL, HITB Hard Hack Village.

sniffit — 2010-09-13T08:17:29Z

New updates on events happening at HackerspaceKL Sept-Oct

First, on behalf of HackerspaceKL, I would like to wish all our readers, friends & supporters Selamat Hari Raya Eid Fitr.

After a long silence, it's time to bring news on what's going down with HackerspaceKL in the months to come. I humbly apologize for the lack of updates as it has been a hectic and tiring amount of days for myself personally as well a majority of the HackerspaceKL crew.

UNIX-g33ks Part Deux begins 09/19/2010

The UNIX-g33ks series continues with the Part Deux of the series, FreeBSD Essentials. The sessions are scheduled to start on the coming 19th of September 2010 at HackerspaceKL with our resident FreeBSD guru, Suresh Ramasamy, beginning at 1.30 pm till 3.30 pm.

These sessions are focused on FreeBSD content along with some tips and tricks on how to manage your FreeBSD setup efficiently. The breakdown of the sessions are as follows:-

Understanding how the operating system internals work
Installing FreeBSD
System level configuration and customization
Introduction to /usr/src tree
Application management via PORTS
Configuring custom freebsd kernel
Linux compatibility stack
FreeBSD System management and maintenance

Note: Some of these sessions maybe combined to run on the same date depending on the subject matter.

The cool part of FreeBSD essentials is that they can also be applied to managing your Mac OS X setups too. So if you're a Mac OS X user

Software Freedom Day KL (SFD-KL) is on 09/19/2010

Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Our goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about the benefits of using high quality FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business -- in short, everywhere! The non-profit organization Software Freedom International coordinates SFD at a global level, providing support, giveaways and a point of collaboration, but volunteer teams around the world organize the local SFD events to impact their own communities.

This year, for the first time, SFD is going to be held at HackerspaceKL, organized by our very own one-geek army Ng Swee Meng (@sweemeng on twitter). His efforts to make SFD-KL happen started from 2009 itself, but due to the nature of the clashing schedules, it didn't happen last year.

SFD-KL will take place at HackerspaceKL on the same day as UNIX-g33ks Part Deux, 19th of September 2010. Check out the event page here.

More info about Software Freedom Day is available at http://softwarefreedomday.org/

HITB Hard Hack Village happening on 10/13 - 10/14/2010

A follow up from this post HackerspaceKL will be at the Hard Hack Village at HITBSecConf-Malaysia with Randomdata (Utrecht/Netherlands) help you to setup your own electronics and demonstrate how easy things work. One of the main electronic components which will be used is the Arduino micro-controller platform. rduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

Various electronic kits will be available for sale like Arduino, TV-Bgone, spokepov’s and sim-card readers on those days, so don't forget to bring your wallets. In addition, there will also be a “Jumpstart Arduino” lab session which will give you a quick start on how to get working with Arduino.

Hard Hack Village will be held at the Crowne Plaza Mutiara, KL on the 13th & 14th of October 2010.

Stay tuned for more surprises available at HITB Hard Hack Village brought to you by your one and only hackerspace community in Malaysia, HackerspaceKL.

More info on HITBSecConf2010-Malaysia is available here .

So if you are curious on what we do or want to participate in these or other upcoming activities, contact us via the mailing list or through our facebook page .