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Everything I own, owned

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Re: Everything I own, owned

#31

Post by [deleted] »

pudgywalsh wrote: post #20
teddyh wrote: post #10

Key takeaway: > And the existence of WebUSB, WebHID, and WebBluetooth mean that for some devices, depending on the specifics of which classes are used, a moment of user indiscretion in accepting a permissions prompt could permanently backdoor one of their attached devices.

The key takeaway for me was he bought a $300 microphone and is acting indignant that he has full access to his own hardware via — gasp — a command shell. Do we live in a bizarro world now where we expect — no, demand — our hardware be locked down? It's worth mentioning all USB mics are toys anyway. Analog interfaces have gone away — artificially so — now they cram them into the device. All mics are analog.

[deleted]

Re: Everything I own, owned

#32

Post by [deleted] »

philips wrote: post #5

I just reverse engineered the Supernote note file format with an agent a few weeks ago. For years the community had been asking for a document on the format. And in a few hours the agent, with 20 something file format example fixtures and 30 something prompts, was able to reverse out the format. It would have been completely not worth the effort to do this by hand for a niche device. Now, in a few hours of effort the…

[deleted]

Re: Everything I own, owned

#33

Post by AshamedCaptain »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #18
teddyh wrote: post #10

Key takeaway: > And the existence of WebUSB, WebHID, and WebBluetooth mean that for some devices, depending on the specifics of which classes are used, a moment of user indiscretion in accepting a permissions prompt could permanently backdoor one of their attached devices.

This is why most of the browsers rejected these specs. They are super useful, but the security risks are incredible. Most USB devices were not designed to hold up to being exposed to the internet.

I kinda remember that the counterargument Google used is that only devices with a special attribute would ever be available through WebHID, ensuring that such older devices would never be exposed.

Cue my surprise when it turns out you can use WebHID to program a Minidisc / Net-MD device [1], so.. they never did implement that filter, apparently. I mean, certainly it is useful, but ... What The F., Google?

[1] https://web.minidisc.wiki/

Re: Everything I own, owned

#34

Post by tuckerpo »

Ah, I remember when reversing hardware took weeks / months, an oscilloscope, logic analyzer, Ghidra/IDA, Wireshark, breakout boards, wireless sniffers... back in the olden days of... 2019.

Re: Everything I own, owned

#35

Post by ndiddy »

> My ASUS ROG Swift PG42UQ monitor was actually where I started, because I got annoyed at the pop-up overlay that comes up every once in a while that tells me to run “pixel cleaning”. I have never intentionally run pixel cleaning on this monitor and I never will, I don’t care, and I would like for that overlay to go away forever. Maybe there’s a debug menu or something that can turn it off, or worst case we patch a branch in the firmware?

Note that this is an OLED monitor, so the "pixel cleaning" thing is probably some sort of anti-burn in feature. You could probably ask the AI to look at the firmware and describe what it does.

Re: Everything I own, owned

#36

Post by layer8 »

compiler-devel wrote: post #22

It's amazing to see LLMs give us software and hardware freedoms that the open source movement has only ever dreamed about.

The flip side is that this might become a thing of the past for future hardware/firmware, if AI hardening becomes standard practice.

There’s no substitute for having open systems that aren’t cryptographically locked down by the manufacturer.

Re: Everything I own, owned

#37

Post by fwipsy »

tuckerpo wrote: post #34

Ah, I remember when reversing hardware took weeks / months, an oscilloscope, logic analyzer, Ghidra/IDA, Wireshark, breakout boards, wireless sniffers... back in the olden days of... 2019.

if an AI could do it without an oscilloscope, probably a human could too.

Re: Everything I own, owned

#38

Post by AshamedCaptain »

compiler-devel wrote: post #22

It's amazing to see LLMs give us software and hardware freedoms that the open source movement has only ever dreamed about.

I think that this is not true -- the achievements mentioned here are hardly ground breaking and mostly build on work that was already done years before LLMs were a thing.

There are things that the "open source movement" dreams about, and one just has to search around... E.g. like codecs, Qualcomm's aptX lossless, adaptative, and other more recent variations.

Re: Everything I own, owned

#39

Post by drfloyd51 »

throwyawayyyy wrote: post #24

I initially thought, but why would you want a "webcam whose activity LED I can switch off while it records"? But then I think I got the point: why would one want a webcam which _could be hacked_ so that its activity LED didn't go on.

I am certain if it can be “tricked” into using it with the LED off, there is certainly a feature being sold to “enterprises” where it happens on purpose.

Re: Everything I own, owned

#40

Post by kibwen »

compiler-devel wrote: post #22

It's amazing to see LLMs give us software and hardware freedoms that the open source movement has only ever dreamed about.

There's a difference between the people sitting at the table and the mice scurrying around catching the crumbs. Freedom is sitting at the table. The OP, sadly, is catching the crumbs.
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