Hasta La Gadget!

We know you are vigilant enough not to trust your car’s security to a wireless system, but plenty of other folks like the convenience of putting away the metallic keys and getting into their vehicles with a bit of Bond-like swagger. Professor Srdjan Capkun of ETH Zurich found himself perched on the fence between these two groups when he recently purchased a vehicle with a keyless entry system, so he did what any good researcher would: he tried to bypass its security measures. In total, he and his team tested 10 models from eight car makers and their results were pretty conclusive: each of the tested vehicles was broken into and driven away using a very simple and elegant method. Keyless entry systems typically work by sending a low-powered signal from the car to your key fob, with the two working only when they’re near each other, but the wily Zurich profs were able to intercept and extend that signal via antennas acting as repeaters, resulting in your key activating your car even when it’s nowhere near it. The signal-repeating antennae have to be pretty close to both the key and the car, but that’s why heist movies stress the importance of teamwork. Hit the source link for all the chilling details.

Research shocker! Keyless car entry systems can be hacked easily, elegantly originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 Jan 2011 19:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We knew Sony would be non-plussed about the PlayStation 3 jailbreak, and now we have a better idea as to the full extent of its anger. The company has filed suit (not yet, see below) asked for a restraining order against George “Geohot” Hotz, the “hacking group” fail0verflow (Hector Cantero, Sven Peter, “Bushing,” and “Segher”), and numerous John / Jane Does over the exploit and its release. To be more specific, the company cites violations of Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, various copyright infringements, and other acts of binary malfeasance. A temporary restraining order has also been sought, asking that all “circumvention tools” be taken offline and his computers and related media (i.e. anything storing said tools) be impounded. It looks like Geohot’s servers are being slammed at the moment, so we’ve gone ahead and hosted the relevant PDFs ourselves below. We’re still sifting through ourselves and will let you know what we unearth.

Update: Nilay here — let’s take a look at what’s going on. This isn’t a “lawsuit” in the traditional sense, since Sony hasn’t filed a complaint for copyright infringement or whatever against Geohot and friends. Instead, the company appears to be trying to shove the genie back in the bottle and have the jailbreak and any information about the jailbreak removed from the web by filing a temporary restraining order. That might work in the short term — Geohot’s already pulled his pages down — but history suggests that the forces of paperwork rarely triumph over the righteous anger of nerds, and that this code is out there for good. That said, we’ll see what the court says tomorrow; although we very much doubt Sony’s melodramatic proposed motion and order will be granted as written, we wouldn’t be surprised if some sort of order is eventually granted — and then from there a formal lawsuit is likely just a few days away.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Sony asks for restraining order against Geohot, fail0verflow over PS3 exploits originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 21:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You’ve got to hand it to the Nexus S. In spite of being a souped-up smartphone, it’s still unpretentious enough to accept power from a BlackBerry microUSB cable and easy enough to hack that it’s just received not one, but two OS ports. MeeGo, in its very raw and unfinished form, has been dropped onto the phone’s internal memory without the need for any flashing, and the method has also been successfully used to install Ubuntu on the current Google flagship. There’s very little that’s actually functional about the MeeGo install at the moment, but the ball has begun rolling and there’s a resulting question that’s occupying our minds right now — will the Nexus S have a perfectly hacked copy of MeeGo before or after Nokia releases its device for the platform? Answers on a postcard.

[Thanks, Michelle and Brad]

Continue reading Nexus S receives MeeGo and Ubuntu ports, makes our nerd senses tingle (video)

Nexus S receives MeeGo and Ubuntu ports, makes our nerd senses tingle (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 04:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You Nook owners just aren’t ever satisfied, are you? First, reading wasn’t enough so you went ahead and rooted to get your Angry Birds on. That was all fine and well, until that Froyo hack came along and (maybe?) nuked your device. If your confidence hasn’t yet been shattered, strap on your seatbelt for the latest chapter in the life of the Nook Color after e-reading. Apparently user occip over at the always-hacking xda-developers found a way to enable the currently dormant Bluetooth radio tucked away in some undisclosed cranny of B&N’s colorful Nook. This one’s not for the faint of heart just yet — you have to be on Froyo already, and that’s a feat in and of itself. Still, it paves the way for things like Bluetooth GPS dongles as well as headsets for apps like Skype. We’ll see what happens when B&N releases 2.2 officially, which should be pretty much any day now…

Nook Color Bluetooth chip shows signs of life — if you’ve already hacked it, of course originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 14:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ah, the joy of getting something for nothing — that’s what this time of year is all about, right? The techPowerUp! guys seem to think so, and they’ve got the perfect gift for all you thrifty PC gaming enthusiasts: a BIOS flash for the Radeon HD 6950 that unlocks the full potential of its hardware (in other words, it turns it into an HD 6970). We already knew the two retail SKUs were built on the same Cayman core, but this hack confirms that all the 6950’s performance handicaps have been enacted in software rather than hardware, leaving you all to flip a switch, click a few confirmatory dialogs, and get your game on. You should be aware that the retail 6970 card uses an 8-pin and a 6-pin connector for its auxiliary power whereas the 6950 only has a pair of 6-pin intakes, which might cause trouble under extreme loads, and there’s also the fact that you’ll most likely be hacking your warranty away together with your GPU’s limitations. But hey, you can’t make eggnog without cracking a few eggs.

AMD Radeon HD 6950 can be turned into an HD 6970 using a BIOS hack originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Dec 2010 04:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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