Got a question from Chad Philips about the combination locks. He's been doing cool stuff with ping pong balls, lasers, and dc relays. Anyhow his question is concerning the combination lock cracker, which is still sadly unfinished.

How did you drive the stepper motor from your laptop? Did you use the parallel port and your own circuit or did you use a serial port?

I used the parallel port. Here's where I found the circuitry for the stepper motor control:

Neil Fraser: Hardware: Stepper Motors: Computer Control

While I didn't get the idea for the combo lock cracker from Neil he has his own approach:

Neil Fraser: Hardware: Locracker

I got my stepper motors here (CHEAP!)

BGmicro

Sadly I paid $$$ out to radio shack for the transistors and breadboard.

In my implementation the high nibble of the parallel data was for a stepper motor that would tighten a bolt to "pull" the shackle. The low nibble of the data would "dial" in the combination. This way I could pull while dialing but ... never got around to it.. :(

Source available upon request.

Cool stuff.

Recenty I was perusing the Make: Blog and happened to come across a howto on Controlling a relay and motor with a serial port. I commented on the project and have received two responses, one from the author, and one from a reader.

Several months ago using a Solid State Relay, I built a serial port controlled switch. This allowed me to turn on any AC device I want with a simple C program.

Crude Circuit Diagram

                                   ---------
AC ---- 15 A FUSE ---- Switch ---- :       : ------  DTR
                                   : Relay :            
AC ------------------------------- :       : ------  GND
                                   ---------

If you'll notice in the pictures I also left the unused pins connected in the event I found time or use for them. Alas I have not, but the box still does it's job.

Voila:


The "switchbox"


What's in the box??!?!


Phew it's just some components.

And here's the code:

#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <termio.h>
#include <sys/fcntl.h>

void initAC(int device);
void turnACon(int device);
void turnACoff(int device);

int status;
int nap = 0;

main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
struct termios tp;
int dataRead = 0;
int device;

if ((device = open("/dev/com2", O_RDONLY : O_NONBLOCK)) < 0) {
printf("Couldn't open com2\n");
exit(-1);
}

if (tcgetattr(device, &tp) < 0) {
printf("Couldn't get term attributes");
exit(-1);
}

if(argc == 3){
nap = strtol(argv[2], NULL, 0);
}

printf(" SERIAL ANALYZER V1.0 ");
printf("DCD RXD TXD DTR GND DSR RTS CTS RNG\n");

initAC(device);

while(1){
turnACon(device);
usleep(740000);
turnACoff(device);
usleep(200000);
}

}

void initAC(int device){
ioctl(device, TIOCMGET, &status);
status &= ~TIOCM_RTS;
ioctl(device, TIOCMSET, &status);
printStatus();
}
void turnACon(int device){
ioctl(device, TIOCMGET, &status);
status := TIOCM_DTR; // <- Thats a bit wise or, not Pascal assignment
ioctl(device, TIOCMSET, &status);
printStatus();
}
void turnACoff(int device){
ioctl(device, TIOCMGET, &status);
status &= ~TIOCM_DTR;
ioctl(device, TIOCMSET, &status);
printStatus();
}
printStatus(){

printf("\r");
printf(" %c ", (status & TIOCM_CAR) ? '1' : '0'); //DCD
printf(" * "); //RXD
printf(" * "); //TXD
printf(" %c ", (status & TIOCM_DTR) ? '1' : '0'); //DTR
printf(" * "); //GND
printf(" %c ", (status & TIOCM_DSR) ? '1' : '0'); //DSR
printf(" %c ", (status & TIOCM_RTS) ? '1' : '0'); //RTS
printf(" %c ", (status & TIOCM_CTS) ? '1' : '0'); //CTS
printf(" %c ", (status & TIOCM_RNG) ? '1' : '0'); //RNG

sleep(nap);
}


I hope that all have been enjoying their holidays. I certainly have.

My parents came up to visit this season. Tomorrow we'll be heading to Chicago to watch my brother graduate from Navy basic training.

A couple days ago my mother's sister and family came to visit us. It was a very nice visit, filled with laughs and Euchre. We were all amazed as my mom stomped us in the TV edition of SceneIt?

My sister-in-law gave me a Vintage Game Collection version of Risk. It is very nice. Instead of the plastic figurines, there are little wood pieces that are used to amass your armies.

Yesterday we played a complete 6 hour game of risk. The highlights were mom had seemed to solidify her position in North America with about 7 armies in each territory. Then my dad, with his southern hemisphere, turns in his three cards and destroys all but three of my territories (good work Kamchatka!) Then my dad once that battalion had been stopped, set his sights on my wife. He destroyed all but two armies in Iceland. My dad's armies now occupied more than half the board. It seemed like it was all over for my wife, but then it was her turn, and suddenly ICELAND HAD 50+ armies. She quickly reclaimed Europe. Then it was my turn, I turned in my cards... and in one turn was able to over take the US. Unfortunately we had not read the rule that you get an opponents cards after they have no armies... alas I was pretty barebones in North America. After two more rounds my father was ready to attack again, he was able to overtake me. Then it was down to my wife and dad. A couple rounds passed and Kristen turned in her cards AGAIN! After two more turns she won!

It was an amazing game.

Have a happy new year!

Not to be a poser, but its fitting

A Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Racquetball round-up. Lost 4 games this week. I won the 5th.

LCD Project. We can write to the LCD, read the buttons, and set the LEDs all via the daughter board. Still can't do two lines of display. Need to get a more "portable" power supply than the molex plugs inside a computer (but hey its 5V)

Combo Lock Project. Stalled while I worked on the LCD.

Safe travels all, and don't eat too much

Yup, the results are in. My wife and I will be parents again! Hurrah!

Ah August the turning point of our lives. I graduated in August, got married in August, became a father in August, celebrated my son's first birthday in August, watched my wife graduate from grad school in August, and will become a father again in August.

There are few things in this world that I enjoy more than tinkering with electronics. I understand some of the principles that govern the operation of the devices, but there is always a sense of awe and amazement when it works.

A fellow co-worker, Jim Vaught, shares a similar passion for tinkering. Together, quite a few interesting devices have been created. For instance, the first project I recall was when we were working on a commercial contract. During this contract email alerts would signal that we needed to fulfill a part of the contract within 24 hours. Well, an email bouncing in your inbox signally such a task wasn't enough. So a little tinkering later, we created a device that interfaces with the serial port and acts a switch for a revolving red light. The project was a great success, whenever an email was sent a special filter would invoke a progam that would turn on the light for a preset amount of time.

The next hacking project was combination locks. This project is not totally complete, but is close.

And most recently involves a present I got two years ago. I asked for an $6 LCD module and accidentally fried it. Months later I order another one and fried it too. A few months ago I ordered two more along with the two stepper motors for the combination lock cracker. I noticed that the daughter board the LCD module was connected to had some very simple circuitry. So I wondered if I could reverse engineer it, but I figured I could use some help.. and Jim was happy to offer his assistance. In a couple days we were able to reverse engineer most of the circuitry. Currently data can be read from the switches on the module!

Next steps are actually getting the LCD module to display. Expect a full disclosure on how we actually got it to work, including source code... Cheers!

How's that for dramatics?

Seriously, we've repainted. The living room is no longer the Sunflower Yellow colorwashed with Burnt Sienna. While the textured orange was a very nice color, it clashed too much with the pinkish brick of the fireplace. We've now gone back to a much more subdued Mission Rock, which is better described as a tannish brown with a hint of red. It's like Raisin only two shades lighter, observe:


Before

After


In other news, I've started my first run of a tool that counts the frequency of instructions in executables, so that I can find the most frequently used opcodes. After this test run I plan to go back and add more statistical analysis so we can really get interesting findings. Here's hoping.

Last weekend I went home for the Appalachian State University homecoming and to visit family and friends. The trip was rather nice, sans airport craziness.

Attempted to open two of my parents' locks for them, only to find disappointment. At work Tuesday my boss handed me a combination lock and asked if I could open it. I tried and initially failed. I began to think that maybe the lock I had opened at work was a fluke. Turns out the shackle locks on the left side (dial side up). I was trying to shim the wrong side, at home and at work. SO, I need to ask try again with my parents' locks. Anyhow we were also able to recover the combination

39-21-39.

Cheers!

More on the way concerning the automated lock cracker....

The new thing to do at the office seems to be ask a simple question, then get into a long, fairly intense discourse on who is right and what really happened. Then it dawns on one of us to look up said simple question in Wikipedia and prove that you are right...

So a couple months ago a new project manager brought in a combination lock and asked us if we knew any tricks to "recover" the combination.

Though most of us are hackers, not many of us are locksmiths. That is until the relatively recent posts on hack-a-day. They mentioned two ways to hack a combination lock. These little balls of metal have always intrigued me so I read the how-stuff-works post about them and learned about the internal working. Then I read the hack-a-day post about creating a shim to open virtually any shackle bolt lock. Much more elegant than bolt cutters. All you needed for this was an aluminum can. On the second try I was able to open the lock. Now I had the lock open, but I still didn't have the combination. So I read the hack-a-day post on how to reduce the keyspace of combination locks.

Not only was I able to eliminate the 64,000 possible combinations with these instructions to 100 but I new that the first number began with 1 becuase part of the lable was still on the back of the lock.. So really I only had to try about 20 combinations.

And like magic it opened!!! 13-27-33!!!

Then I got to thinking.. I can automate this. Apparently some have already beaten me to the punch on this, but I still wanted to make one.

So I bought a stepper motor (well ok 2 stepper motors) Then I went to Radio Shack three or four times. Long story short I was able to create the necessary circuit so that I could drive the stepper motor from my laptop.

A stepper motor is a special motor that allow for precise movement. A normal motor is either on or off. This motor will move one fixed amount per "step". The stepper motor I purchased can make 48 steps per revolution. The lock only has 40 positions. As it turns out, the lock acutally only has about 20 +- positions. To really the keyspace of a lock is about 8000..

Anyhow, I can dial in a combination with my stepper motor in 3 seconds. Assuming there are only 100 combinations and that a linear actuator would take roughly 2 seconds to test the lock.. I should be able to open a lock in less than 10 minutes.

Next steps are to get an actuator on the shackle so that I don't have to try the lock myself. As a proof of concept, though, this is a resounding success.

Yeah, I think I'm about done.

I've watched films and television for nearly 23 years. I've seen bad movies, good movies, cartoons, sitcoms, dramas, 3d animation, action, adventure, fantasy, film noir, horror, thriller, family, etc.

Even Gilmore Girls.

I'll continue to watch the show even though the commercials make my head hurt. It has a good storyline, but unfortunately they drag it out.

My main beef with Movies, TV, and gasp Video Games is that nothing happens. Don't tell me I'm entertained. The people in Plato's Allegory of the Cave were entertained. What if the two hours were spent doing research? developing? exercising? interacting? praying? meditating? reading? talking? helping?

The two hours will pass, whether you stare in one direction for two hours or you live.

My most difficult dilemma is how to convey this to my children. They will not grow up with 23 years of "experience." I feel the only way they will understand is if they experience it. However, I will not know until I try. I hope that Sebastian appreciates the time we spend together interacting someday, because I know there is nothing "memorable" about watching another detergent commercial.

****

Has this new culture of information inundation stifled imagination? Frequently my wife and I have found ourselves bored, and void of ideas. What do you want to do? I dunno, you? There is more than images on a screen. I'm tired of staring at shadows.

Quote of the day:

It may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma -
which human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve.

-- Edgar Allen Poe

This has been one of my favorite quotes to ponder. The interesting part about it is that it embodies my work. Summarized:

Man cannot create a puzzle, which man cannot solve.

This is rather disheartening for my work. Essentially we try to make really difficult puzzles to solve, in software. Ultimately there is a solution, albeit a difficult one to find. We continually strive to make the puzzle more and more difficult. However this quote maybe promising for things like the Halting Problem.

In short, the Halting Problem is:
Given program P, will the program ever halt or stop (reach the end, or will it run forever?). Furthermore, is there an algorithm that can solve this?

Alan Turing, the father of modern computer science, determined that such a solution cannot exist. Specifically the halting problem is undecidable over turing machines (a theoretical representation of a computer).

Can we find a way? Poe thinks so. Of course, Poe isn't the most model citizen... but then again... neither is Turing.

Yes the business trip to St. Louis was yet another success in my cache of work experience. So here's a summary.

Wednesday morning pack a bag, take Sebastian to the babysitters and head in to work. Work about 5 or 6 hours assisting in the assembly of 50 training notebooks (about 150 sheets of documentation in 5 sections, a burned labeled CD, all in a 3 hole binder) and pile into a 12 passenger van. It was only 5 of us in the van, but good thing we had it. We left for St. Louis around 2:00. Around 2:56 I got a call. The number wasn't recognized by my cell phone, so I wasn't certain who it was. Then I heard the voice, and I distinctly remember hearing the same voice back around New Year's. Yup, it's my boss. Not just my boss, the CEO of the company. We don't talk that often together so I knew this must be a "special occasion." He goes on to tell me about what was happening in St. Louis. Apparently at the event someone tried to stick it to Arxan. Essentially it went something like this, a member of the audience posed the question: If "this technology" is so good, why do we need Arxan? Then the presenter went on to say: It is my belief we don't.

Yeah that can kinda make a CEO edgey. You know when a room full of people are told by a fairly respected presenter, your stuff is crap. Needless to say the CEO was conveying this agitation. After about five minutes the whole van triaged to counter this falsehood of "our stuff is crap." The "technology" that was "better" than ours had a severe limitation. You had to use custom hardware. Furthermore the presenter was making the technology out to be the holy grail of security. This is perhaps a good presentation, but not the full truth. Security needs to be at all levels, for it to be effective. Anyhow, our technology doesn't require specialized hardware. After about an hour (now 4:00) we were able to calm ourselves down, and be ready for our presentation.

Then we hit the storm. We drove through hours rain and heavy wind. Fortunately just as we were on the outskirts of St. Louis the storm was over.

At 7:00 we get to the hotel, check-in, meet another fellow employee, and are off to a casino for dinner. It was a really tasty meal. I had a salad to start, and then for the entree filet mignon, mashed potatoes, and broccoli. Very good. Once dinner was over it was around 9:00. Time for bed eh? We got back to the hotel, reviewed the presentation and slept.

Thursday 7:00a breakfast. Got to the customer's location around 8:00a. Setup 25 laptops and put out the 50 training notebooks. People starting filing in around 8:30 - 9:00. Soon everyone was there and we were presenting. We drove home the point that we like the other technology are but one piece in the puzzle. Once again we were able to captivate the audience, everyone loves to learn how to hack. Unfortunately some were expecting something else from the presentation. Originally we were going to train the group on our product.

In the past, Mike and I trained 6 students together, each student had their own laptop. For us to be able to train the 50 proposed students would have meant we needed 16 trainers and 25 more laptops, not going to happen. Anyhow, the training went well. We got alot of positive feedback and some negative feedback, not without constructive criticism though. By 3:00 we were all packed. But before we left we got to tour their facility. It was indeed impressive. By 4:00 we were back on the road. Got back to my car around 9:00p, and was in bed by 9:15p.

Today was monumental. Perhaps that's an exaggeration, but todays accomplishments were tremendous. We finally got the software working on the hardware!!! The odd thing was that we were able to get the software to work on other hardware but not the hardware the customer supplied. There are quite a few more details, but thats the main gist.

Basically what the problem boiled down to was this:

: free space : code : data :

Now what was supposed to happen is the data was supposed to move into the free space, but since we chose a memory address that we thought would be empty this it what happened:

: free space : data : data :

Now this is a problem the data has overwritten the code, and the hardware didn't know what to do. Furthermore the crude diagram is only half true because the code only ran so long before it clobbered itself. *sigh* After much investigation we discovered that the address whe chose to put the data was the exact address our code was loaded into... this is bad. After some tinkering the resolution became:

: free space and a little more : code : data :

So that after the code ran we had:

: free space : the cooked data : code : data :

And there was much rejoicing.

Today was my wife's first day at work. She's recently graduated with her Master's Degree in Speech Language Pathology and is now working for a staffing agency. Her current placement is in two retirement homes, one closeby and one about thirty minutes away. Unfortunately the current attitude towards SLPs in the placements is that her work is unnecessary. This is far from the truth. Over the past two years I've learned a couple things about the field. And its a really big field, from swallowing to language, from throat cancer to articulation, from cranial facial anomalies to stuttering. How can this be disregarded??? If the patients can't talk to the other therapists, or eat for that matter, how can they be properly administered?

Hopefully she can change some minds.

As you may or may not know, I participated this past weekend in the Hunger Hike fundraiser. While waiting for the hike to begin I was interviewed. Kinda neat eh?

The Hunger Hike met the goal of $50,000 which is good news for the hungry of West Lafayette. It's good to see that even admist other disasters, local charities are still strong.

It was a fun day. We got there around 12:30pm, turned in our donations and got free t-shirts and water bottles. There were some door prizes and then while we were standing there a gentleman from WLFI came by and interviewed me about the hike. We sat and listened to the hub-bub and watched Sebastian find new canine friends. Then the Purdue Crew was off to carry their boat the 2-mile distance, preceded by jogger's taking on the 4.5 mile track. We trailed along with the rest of the families. Along the way we met up with Nick who Kristen met at RCIA. He's another sponsor-to-be like Kristen, waiting for someone to help along the way of becoming Catholic.

My current past-time project has been capturing images from the publicly available Purdue Webcams . Specifically the Neil Armstrong Engineering Hall that is being built. Last night we had a pretty significant storm roll through and I was hoping to be able to capture an image of lightning.

That didn't take too long.

My lovely wife Kristen took me home and now here I am.

Details:

So left work early. Got home changed into my recommended short sleeve shirt. Was a bit worried, the Toyota had no gas in it. --- gause change --- Where was I. So got to the doctor's office a tinge late.

An aside, this morning I had misplaced my referral slip. I have now talked to each ot the listed Oral Facial and MaxilloFacial surgeons. Anywho I finally found doc I was going to .

Now I'm at the office and I fill out the mandatory personal inforamation, as well as the myrriad of yes no questions. NO, I'm not allergic to anything, NO i'm not chemically delpendent, NO I don't smoke...etc.

After that it was time to head back, Sebastian was ready to go. We decided it might be a bit too early for him to need any teeth pulled.

A quick X-ray and then a eval later, and I was strapped to the vital signs monitor. Kinda neat, I could play with the hearbeat monitor, and breath rate. Then the IV, and the drugs .. heh. Doc said I'd begin to feel wierd. He was right I don't remember awhole lot more after that. I think he may have asked what I do. I hope I was intelligible. Pretty cool experience. Anyway I seem to recall getting in a wheelchair. Then it was in the car, a transfer from the wheelchair to the car. And I was off. I have no recollection of the car ride. I'm still a bit loopy right now.. but it appears as though my jaw is infact intact. Yay they didn't break it ... phew.

Well loopy is strong.. I'm just sleepy.

i guess thats it.

Can't wait to proof read. It looks coherent... sorta. Maybe I should write a statement of purpose... hehe

Cheers!

Yup, as they should, the fellas at work have been giving me hell about the impending operation:

"They might have to break your jaw"

"You'll be black and blue"

"Don't use a straw"

"It's fun seeing the bone of your jaw"

Bah, it'll be great fun. When it's over, it'll be over!

Cheers!

Edit: 11:41am
"We should have brought in a hammer and chisel..."

So, you have this thing. You want it to be great. But you want it to be great in many ways. Which way should be the greatest? Lets say this thing is a software package. (didn't see that one coming) Should it be uber useful, generating gobs of data for one user? Or should it be sorta useful, but allow tons of users to access it?

The solution it seems, I should be able to both right. I want it to be great, and useful, (and fast, and robust).

*sigh*

Things are going well at home. I'm gearing up for grad school applications. Anywho, back to work.

From FIPS 197:

Cipher	Key Length (Nk words)	Block Size (Nb words)	Number Rounds (Nr)
AES-128	4	4	10
AES-192	6	4	12
AES-256	8	4	14

You might notice that the block size is 4 always.

No matter the Key Length.

*sigh*

My assumption was that if you double the key, for instance moving from AES-128 to AES-256 that you should also double the block size. This is not the case. The key scheduling changes but NOT the block size.

This, much to my chagrin, cause me about 4 hours of headaches where I debugged my code looking for a part where I hadn't doubled the block size. I determined that I had successfully doubled my block size and couldn't figure out what was wrong. I investigated the implementation of the cipher and was aghast! They were using 4 word blocks!! What were they thinking. So I open FIPS 197 (the spec for AES) and lo and behold ... block size is 4 words.. independent of the key size. Grrr...

My code now works.

Hurray! Sebastian is all better. The rash is gone and he's back to his ol' self. It's nice to be in a room with him and he not scream and cry for hours on end! One more parental milestone. Now we're prepared for the terrible twos.. I think. Yikes.

Child development is pretty amazing. This little helpless ball of humanity rapidly develops to perform activities I've grown to take for granted. For example he's getting really good at finger feeding. Pears are no match for him, nor is macaroni, pineapple, peaches, green beans, carrots, crackers, etc. His ability to pick-up new sounds is also getting better, which means I need to be careful what I say. He's able to mooo and almost say fishy, He's started to "dance". Well when he hears a song he likes he'll walk around in circles and bob his head. He'll pick up a toy phone and say hi. He's a pretty quick study.

Furthermore parental development is also pretty amazing. I went from a bachelor who couldn't match belt and shoes, to a married parent in a little over two years. In that time I've learned quite a bit, and also become rather emotionally attached. At first, I'll admit, I wasn't that taken by the little guy. But over time, his smile, giggle, and spastic walking has really grown on me. Especiallly the da-da. I know he's just throwing it out right now, but when I'm holding a banana-nut muffin and he's smacking his lips and then looks in my eyes and says dada, I've got to give him a bit, even though he'd already had an entire muffin, and a yogurt cup.

Along with the bachelor who couldn't match belt and shoes, I have a lot of life-learning to owe to my wife. It didn't take her too long, but suddenly I could see the light, brown shoe, brown belt. It's a tricky rule, really. She's taught me alot about how dustpans shoudln't be put on food preparation surfaces. I've learned what love is. Now I know that sounds sappy, but it's true. I never knew love like I do now. I mean sure my parent's loved me, just like I do Sebastian, but this is that other love. The love that many seek and (hopefully) many find. I've gotten some criticism concerning being married so young, but I prefer the life I've chosen. I'm so glad that when I go home I have my wife to greet me. Some might say, but what about the thrill of a relationship or finding someone new. Finding Kristen was one of the most thrilling times of my life. The amazing amount of attraction, physically and emotionally I felt towards her I knew I would never feel again. I won't lie and say everyday is thrilling, I won't lie and say that we are perfect for each other. Of course not, that is a farce. Perfection is an unobtainable goal, that is its nature. But I will say that there are days of great thrill, days of great love and happiness, and much like a roller coaster there a times where I get frightened and have to deal with the lows. That's life. So what's my point. To have what I have is a privelege. I see my friends searching for their significant other. I feel for them. I got lucky. I knew I liked Kristen when I first met her, but amazingly we fell in love and now we have Sebastian a great outward symbol of our love. It's amazing what can happen in two years.

In other news...

Thursday September 15 I'll say farewell to 4 of my molars. Yup wisdom teeth are getting the old heave ho. *sigh* Clearly I'm excited about the operation. I'd rather have my wis..dom uh teeth .... pulled. Er.

Sebastian was recently immunized for Measles, Mumps, and Rubella. Poor little guy is the 1in 6 to get a fever. He's fine, but just a little bit off. The plus side is that since he's pretty tired he's really cuddly.

Last night though he woke up around midnight and was not a happy camper. I'm still getting used to the ear thermometer. The first reading was 106 F. The next were 103.4 F and 104 F. Needless to say we called the doctor. They said that every thing was fine and that acetimenophin would be sufficient, but to call back if his fever gets worse.

This morning he was 99-101 F, and very receptive to the banana nut muffin. Hopefully the little trooper has broken his fever.

In other news, Racquetball was very nice today. I won a game and lost the next.

Racquetball is probably the best game known to man.