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Hacker with iPhone takes over Times Square screens

alexandrosmaragos.com

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Re: Hacker with iPhone takes over Times Square screens

#11

Post by JoachimSchipper »

michaeldhopkins wrote: post #6

Several comments on the Youtube page say it's fake, chiefly because the iPhone jack cannot output video. Is this true? If so, is it possible he wrote an app with special drivers to pull this off?

I think the iPhone jack has been abused as a general-purpose communication port before. I'm sure it can output some signal that something can interpret as/translate into a video signal...

That doesn't mean this isn't fake, of course. And I'm not convinced that the jack would have decent bandwidth...

Re: Hacker with iPhone takes over Times Square screens

#12

Post by blackmac »

pyre wrote: post #3

I'm waiting for the explanation. It looks cool, but the description sounds like a Hollywood understanding of computers: > the transmitter instantly sends the video signal to the video > repeater and the video repeater overrides any video screen > that it's being held next to It almost sound like they are hacking from some computer with six monitors and an interactive 3d OS. I'll be waiting for the explanation of the…

Sounds fake to me, this is not possible with the iPhone through default software and even with a jailbreak there is no way you could ever cram the video through the headphone jack, you would have to play it back through a very specialized app, that would need to compress it down to an unrecognizable mess and you still would have to figure out a way to push it to the screens. Not possible IMHO.

Re: Hacker with iPhone takes over Times Square screens

#13

Post by lt »

michaeldhopkins wrote: post #6

Several comments on the Youtube page say it's fake, chiefly because the iPhone jack cannot output video. Is this true? If so, is it possible he wrote an app with special drivers to pull this off?

Yes, it's possible. See project HiJack:

http://eecs.umich.edu/~prabal/projects/hijack/

Re: Hacker with iPhone takes over Times Square screens

#15

Post by cuchoperl »

michaeldhopkins wrote: post #6

Several comments on the Youtube page say it's fake, chiefly because the iPhone jack cannot output video. Is this true? If so, is it possible he wrote an app with special drivers to pull this off?

The iPhone jack can output an analog signal. What if you convert a digital video to an analog signal that can go out through the jack? The transmitter would just amplifies that signal.

Re: Hacker with iPhone takes over Times Square screens

#17

Post by michaeldhopkins »

lt wrote: post #13
michaeldhopkins wrote: post #6

Several comments on the Youtube page say it's fake, chiefly because the iPhone jack cannot output video. Is this true? If so, is it possible he wrote an app with special drivers to pull this off?

Yes, it's possible. See project HiJack: http://eecs.umich.edu/~prabal/projects/hijack/

Ah, thanks all. So it is possible, but most likely a hoax for other reasons mentioned in this thread.

Re: Hacker with iPhone takes over Times Square screens

#18

Post by Montagist »

pyre wrote: post #3

I'm waiting for the explanation. It looks cool, but the description sounds like a Hollywood understanding of computers: > the transmitter instantly sends the video signal to the video > repeater and the video repeater overrides any video screen > that it's being held next to It almost sound like they are hacking from some computer with six monitors and an interactive 3d OS. I'll be waiting for the explanation of the…

"six monitors and an interactive 3d OS" - LoL! Password Swordfish, anyone?

I know some of the apple products -can- send video through the headphone jack, so that's not why I don't believe. I also know there are a lot of interesting public-space electronics hacking kits coming out of small arduino shops like Adafruit. Still though, I'm a bit skeptical. Really looking forward to seeing if this is legit.

Re: Hacker with iPhone takes over Times Square screens

#19

Post by brk »

michaeldhopkins wrote: post #6

Several comments on the Youtube page say it's fake, chiefly because the iPhone jack cannot output video. Is this true? If so, is it possible he wrote an app with special drivers to pull this off?

I don't know about the headphone jack as a quasi video output. You could, in theory, sample the video and create an audio stream that was an encoded version of the video (though I suspect resolution, frame rate and color accuracy would all suffer to the point that it was noticeable on the large screens).

The bit that makes it suspect to me is that the iPad already has a VGA output, and even then standard iPhone/iPod Touch has had a composite video output available via the dock connector forever. Since this hack is more about hardware than software, why would you create your own video encoding stack to use the headphone jack instead of just taking the video that already comes out the dock connector?

In order for this to work, the piece that goes next to the screens would have to output a signal that was stronger than the signal actually being fed to the screens to cause the internal circuitry to lock onto the new signal. Seems unlikely to happen in a device that appears to be powered by watch batteries.

I think that something like this is theoretically possible, but requires much different/larger hardware than what is shown in the videos. I'd be happy to be proven wrong though.

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