I have been meaning to pick up a Proxmark3 for the last couple of months to round out my RFID testing kit (while waiting for the chameleon mini to be released this summer).
The problem is that most of the known suppliers are selling the Proxmark3 for around $420. I then found that Elechouse has their internal version of the Proxmark3 V2 for only $200 ($220 with a battery to make it truly portable).
So of course I ordered and built one: 
Building it was fairly simple and Chris Merrett has an awesome github package put together to make installing it on OSX painless.
Once built and tested cloning HID Prox Cards (which open most corporate doors) is this easy:
I am really looking forward to getting this out into the wild and showing people why they shouldn’t trust their door locks at their business or in their hotel room.
Crash Safari Code
Crashsafari.com is a website that overloads the browser with a self-generating text string which populates the address bar. After about 20 seconds or so it will force an iPhone to reboot, while significantly heating it up as the smartphone tries to handle the code of the site.
The code of the website appears to generate an ever-increasing string of characters, which becomes harder and harder for the browser to load, likely resulting in a memory issue and forcing the reboot of the device.
I pulled the source of the website broke it down to its smallest operable part and put it here (dont be a jerk).
What is in a Top Golf Golfball?
I have been to Top Golf for 3 different events this year and was always amazed by their RFID technology and have always left wondering “What is in a Top Golf golfball?”.
So when I saw a few “Top Golf” golf balls in the $1 ball bin at a golf store I bought them and decided to answer that question.
That little “passive EPC Gen 2 ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID” tag is what makes TopGolf so awesome. Now all I need to do is invest in a UHF RFID reader to see what is actually on the tag.
Protip: Sawing a golf ball in half is a lot harder than it sounds.
Learning About SDR.
I have become more and more interested in hardware security lately and while I have been having a lot of fun learning about RFID Security I knew the next logical step would be to try to learn how to use a software-defined radio.
After doing a lot of reading and research over the last couple of weeks I came to learn that the best way to learn SDR is with a ~$20 HD DVB-T from Realtek called the RTL2832U.
The RTL-SDR blog sells an “upgraded” RTL-SDR on Amazon for $25 that I picked up and really like.
Some of the projects I have started to explore include:
Tracking Airplanes Using Dump1090:
Decoding and Tracking TPMS:
RTLSDR-Scanner for general scanning:
I have a lot more to learn with this setup but I can easily see that this will quickly turn me into dropping a few hundred dollars into a HackRF so that I can transmit as well as receive.
My Guiding Quotes of 2015
At the start of every month I pick a quote I like and hang it at my desk and try to use it to guide my thought process for the month and I thought I would share them here as I was cleaning off my desk for the year.
Here are the quotes I used in 2015:
January:
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
– Doyle
February:
Never confuse movement with action.
– Hemingway
March:
You must either modify your dreams or magnify your skills.
– Jim Rohn
April:
Courage is grace under pressure.
– Hemingway
May:
The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.
– Thomas Paine
June:
If I panic, everyone else panics.
– Kobe Bryant
July:
Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.
– Napoleon
August:
I shouldn’t be near Vegas and have money in my pocket.
-Adam Sandler
(Let’s just say I had a lot of fun at BSides, Blackhat and Defcon this year.)
September:
If you ask me anything I don’t know, I’m not going to answer.
– Yogi Berra
October:
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
– Marcus Aurelius
November:
In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The next best thing is the wrong thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.
– Theodore Roosevelt
December:
Have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.
– Herb Kelleher
…and yes I know doing this now apparently makes me dumb.