The Hardware HACKER

 "A look inside a mind without peer." Edward Snowden

The Hardware HACKER

ADVENTURES IN MAKINGT

& BREAKING HARDWARE

MAIN LOGIC BOARD

100,000+ coples

PRAISE FOR The Hardware Hacker

is a world without secreta: if you go the most important key is expressed in bunnie's is a world without mysteries, only This is a look inside a mind without peer."

force that combines the many genius careers the world's great hacker communicators: practi retical, philosophical, and often mind-blowing." DOCTOBOW, AUTHOR OF LITTLE BROTHER AND TECHNOLOGY

unie lives in the world of hardware where the solder meets the PCB. He has more practical experience and is a better teacher of how the ecosystem of hardware works than any other person I've ever met, and I know a lot of people in this space. He has rendered this experience and expertise into an amazing book-a hacker's-point-of view bible to anyone trying to work in or understand and work in the emerging and evolving world of hardware." -do ITO, DIRECTOR, MIT MEDIA LAB

100,000+ copies sold!

NOWLEDGMENTS

Ks to all the hard-working staff at No Starch Pr g this book happen. In particular, thanks to Bill P eiving and sponsoring the effort, and thanks to Jenni -Delgado for compiling, editing, and arranging

nto the form of this book.

ELD GUIDE TO ILIES OF NORTH AMERICA

brief contents

preface....

part 1

adventures in manufacturing...... chapter 1. made in china...... .7

chapter 2. inside three very different factories.. chapter 3. the factory floor.......

part 2

thinking differently:

intellectual property in china

chapter 4. gongkai innovation chapter 5. fake goods....

part 3

what open hardware means to me

chapter 6. the story of chumby......

chapter 7. novena: building my own laptop....

chapter 8. chibitronics: creating circuit stickers...

visi

brief contents

part 4 a hacker's perspective..

chapter 9. hardware hacking.......

chapter 10. biology and bioinformatics..

chapter 11. selected interviews.

epilogue..

afterword

index.....

100,000+ copies sold!

ELD GUIDE TO MILIES OF NORTH AMERICA

contents in detail

preface

part 1

adventures in manufacturing

1. made in china

The Ultimate Electronic Component

Flea Market

The Next Technological Revolution Touring Factories with Chumby...... 14

Scale in Shenzhen......... Feeding the Factory

Dedication to Quality.

Building Technology Without Using It.....

Skilled Workers

The Need for Craftspeople

16. 17

18 .20

23

24

26

29 .31

Automation for Electronics Assembly Precision, Injection Molding, and Patience. 34

The Challenge of Quality.

Closing Thoughts........

2. inside three very different factories

Where Arduinos Are Born....

Starting with a Sheet of Copper

Applying the PCB Pattern to the Copper...... Etching the PCBs......

Applying Soldermask and Silkscreen... Testing and Finishing the Boards.....

K contents in detail Where USB Memory Sticks Are Born.........

The Beginning of a USB Stick

Hand-Placing Chips on a PCB.

Bonding the Chips to the PCB.

A Close Look at the USB Stick Boards. A Tale of Two Zippers A Fully Automated Process A Semiautomated Process...

The Irony of Scarcity and Demand.

3. the factory floor

How to Make a Bill of Materials A Simple BOM for a Bicycle Safety Light. Approved Manufacturers

Tolerance, Composition, and Voltage Specification.

Electronic Component Form Factor..

Extended Part Numbers. The Bicycle Safety Light BOM Revisited.....

Planning for and Coping with Change...........

Process Optimization: Design for Manufacturing.....

Why DFM?.. Tolerances to Consider..

Following DFM Helps Your Bottom Line......

The Product Behind Your Product

Testing vs. Validation. Finding Balance in Industrial Design.

The chumby One's Trim and Finish. The Arduino Uno's Silkscreen Art

My Design Process.

Picking (and Maintaining) a Partner....

Tips for Forming a Relationship with a Factory..

Tips on Quotations

Miscellaneous Advice

Closing Thoughts....

100,000+ copies sold!

115

119

120

121

ELD GUIDE TO ILIES OF NORTH AMERICA

contents in detail

part 2 thinking differently:

intellectual property in china

4. gongkai innovation I Broke My Phone's Screen, and It Was Awesome

Shanzhai as Entrepreneurs.....

Who Are the Shanzhai? Community-Enforced IP Rules. 124

More Than Copycats......

The $12 Phone......

122 123

126 128

Inside the $12 Phone....... Introducing Gongkai From Gongkai to Open Source. 134

131

Engineers Have Rights, Too......

Closing Thoughts....

5. fake goods

135.

141

143

Well-Executed Counterfeit Chips Counterfeit Chips in US Military Hardware.... 143

149

150

. 153

154

156

157

Types of Counterfeit Parts....... Fakes and US Military Designs.

Anticounterfeit Measures.

Fake MicroSD Cards....

Visible Differences.. Investigating the Cards 158

Were the MicroSD Cards Authentic?. Further Forensic Investigation...

Gathering Data..

Summarizing My Findings.. Fake FPGAS

The White Screen Issue.

Incorrect ID Codes

The Solution.

Closing Thoughts.....

contents in detail

part 3 what open hardware means to me

6. the story of chumby A Hacker-Friendly Platform Evolving chumby.....

A More Hackable Device

Hardware with No Secrets......

The End of Chumby, New Adventures....... Why the Best Days of Open Hardware Are Yet to Come... Where We Came From: Open to Closed....... Where We Are: "Sit and Wait" vs. "Innovate".

Where We're Going: Heirloom Laptops.......

An Opportunity for Open Hardware.

Closing Thoughts.....

7. novena: building my own laptop

Not a Laptop for the Faint of Heart........

Designing the Early Novena.

Under the Hood..

The Enclosure......

The Heirloom Laptop's Custom Wood Composite..

Growing Novenas......

The Mechanical Engineering Details. aanges to the Finished Product.......

Case Construction and Injection-Molding Problems.

Changes to the Front Bezel.

DIY Speakers..........

The PVT2 Mainboard

A Breakout Board for Beginners.

100,000+ coples

sold!

ELD GUIDE TO

ILIES OF NORTH AMERICA

contents in detail

8. chibitronics: creating circuit stickers Crafting with Circuits

Developing a New Process......

Visiting the Factory...... Performing a Process Capability Test.

Delivering on a Promise. Why On-Time Delivery Is Important. Lessons Learned.......

Not All Simple Requests Are Simple for Everyone.

Never Skip a Check Plot If a Component Can Be Placed Incorrectly, It Will Be. Some Concepts Don't Translate into Chinese Well

Eliminate Single Points of Failure ....... Some Last-Minute Changes Are Worth It

Chinese New Year Impacts the Supply Chain.

Shipping Is Expensive and Difficult You're Not Out of the Woods Until You Ship..

Closing Thoughts.....

part 4

a hacker's perspective

9. hardware hacking

Hacking the PIC18F1320.. Decapping the IC

251 257

259

.260 261

.264

.266

..266

.267

268

.268

270

271

271

272

.273

274

274

215

275

279

..281

,282

.283

Taking a Closer Look Erasing the Flash Memory. .284

Erasing the Security Bits

Protecting the Other Data.

Hacking SD Cards

How SD Cards Work..... Reverse Engineering the Card's Microcontroller

Potential Security Issues.

A Resource for Hobbyists......

285

.287

289

,290 293

.298

298

Hacking HDCP-Secured Links to Allow Custom Overlays .298

Background and Context

How NeTV Worked

300

305

224

220

232

238

238

241

The Desktop Novena's Power Pass-Through Board.... Custom Battery Pack Problems.... .243

242

hoosing a Hard Drive.

nalizing Firmware.. 246

a Community.

ghts....

.247

.249

..244100,000+ copies

sold!

contents in detail

Hacking a Shanzhai Phone....... The System Architecture..........

Reverse Engineering the Boot Structure.

Building a Beachhead

Attaching a Debugger

Booting an OS.....

Building a New Toolchain.

Fernvale Results..... Closing Thoughts....

10. biology and bioinformatics

Comparing H1N1 to a Computer Virus........... DNA and RNA as Bits........ Organisms Have Unique Access Ports.

Hacking Swine Flu.. Adaptable Influenza.

A Silver Lining Reverse Engineering Superbugs.... The 0104:H4 DNA Sequence

Reversing Tools for Biology... Answering Biological Questions with UNIX Shell Scripts

More Questions Than Answers........

Mythbusting Personalized Genomics.

Myth: Having Your Genome Read Is Like Hex-Dumping the ROM of Your Computer....... Which Mutations Predict Disease.

Myth: We Know Myth: The Reference Genome Is an Accurate Reference

Patching a Genome CRISPRS in Bacteria

Determining Where to Cut a Gene...

Implications for Engineering Humans.

Hacking Evolution with Gene Drive... Closing Thoughts...

FIELD GUIDE TO MILIES OF NORTH AMERICA

contents in detail

357

.357

.358

.367

372

383

385

391

11. selected interviews

Andrew "bunnie" Huang: Hardware Hacker (CSDN).

About Open Hardware and the Maker Movement About Hardware Hackers

The Blueprint Talks to Andrew Huang

epilogue

afterword

index

FIELD GUIDE TO

AMILIES OF NORTH AMERICA

AMERICA

preface

When Bill Pollock, founder of No Starch Press, first contacted me with the idea of publishing a compilation of my writings, I was skeptical. I didn't think there would be enough material to fill a hundred pages. It seems I was wrong.

My mother often said, "It doesn't matter what's in your head if you can't tell people what's in it," and when I was in seventh grade, she enrolled me in an after-school essay writ ing class. I hated the class at the time, but in retrospect, I'm thankful. Starting with my college application essays and up to this day, I've found the ability to organize my thoughts into prose invaluable.

The

1. made in china

Before my first visit to China, I was convinced that Akihabara in Tokyo was the go-to place for the latest electronics, knick knacks, and components. That changed in January 2007, when I first set eyes on the SEG Electronics Market in Shenzhen. SEG is eight floors of all the components a hardware addict could ever want, and only later did I learn that it's just the tip of the Hua Qiang electronics district iceberg.

As the lead hardware engineer at Chumby at the time, I was in China with then-CEO Steve Tomlin to figure out how to make chumbys (an open source, Wi-Fi-enabled content delivery device) cheaply and on time. With prices like those at SEG, we were definitely in the right country to make at least the first part of that mission a success.

N NE

made in

All of those parts were crammed into tiny six-by-three foot booths, each with a storekeeper poking away at a laptop. Some storekeepers played Go, and some counted parts. Some booths were true mom-and-pop shops, with mothers tending to babies and kids playing in the aisles.

H

SEG ELECTRONICS MARKET www.segem.com.cn

The

Story of

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COMPUTER COMPUTER ACCESSORIES

3/F AN EXCLUSIVE ENDP

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Shenzhen's SEG Electronics Market, the new electronics mecca. Akihabara, eat your heart out!

THE ULTIMATE ELECTRONIC COMPONENT FLEA MARKET

When I first stepped into the SEG building, I was assaulted

whirlwind of electronic components: tapes and reels of

ors and capacitors, ICs of every type, inductors, relays,

pin test points, voltmeters, and trays of memory chips.

A total newcomer to manufacturing in volume, I was blown

way by everything I saw at SEG.

A couple of family-run component shops

orn

ornin

the

made in china 11

10 CHAPTER 1

Other booths were professional setups with uniformed staff, and these worked like a bar-complete with stools-for

electronic components.

The

ntender

The

The bottom-left corner of this display was packed with all kinds of SD cards.

Another booth had stacks of power supplies, varistors, batteries, and ROM programmers, and yet another had chips of every variety: Atmel, Intel, Broadcom, Samsung, Yamaha, Sony, AMD, Fujitsu, and more. Some chips were clearly ripped out of used equipment and remarked, some of them in brand new laser-marked OEM packaging.

of chips for sale at a single booth at SEG was incredible.

A swanky professional parts seller

No one at SEG says, "Oh, you can get 10 of these LEDs or a couple of these relays," like you might hear in Akihabara. No, no. These booths specialize, and if you see a component you like, you can usually buy several tubes, trays, or reels of it; you can get enough to go into production the next day. Looking around the market, I saw a woman sorting stacks of 1GB mini-SD cards like poker chips. A man was putting sticks of 1GB Kingston memory into retail packages, and to him, a girl was counting resistors.

oni

12 CHAPTER 1

I saw chips that I could never buy in the United States, reels of rare ceramic capacitors that I could only dream about at night. My senses tingled; my head spun. I couldn't suppress a smile of anticipation as I walked around the next corner to see shops stacked floor to ceiling with probably 100 million resistors and capacitors. 到長海电子有限公司

EN CHENHAI ELECTRON CO.,LTD.

8888

Reels and reels of components, in every shop window

Sony CCD and CMOS camera elements! I couldn't buy those in the United States if I pulled teeth out of the sales reps. (Some sellers even have the datasheets behind the coun ter; always ask.) Next, I spotted a stack of Micrel regulator chips, followed by a Blackfin DSP chip for sale. Nearby, a lady counted 256Mb DRAM chips-trays of 108 components, stacked 20 high, in perhaps 10 rows.

made in china 13

专营内存芯片

The equivalent of Digi-Key's entire stock of DRAM chips sat right in front of me!

And across from her were a half-dozen more little shops packed with chips just like hers. At one shop, a man stood proudly over a tray of 4Gb NAND flash chips. All of this was available for a little haggling, a bit of cash, and a hasty good-bye.

A close look at a tray of 4Gb flash chips

Andrew "bunnie" Huang

has shaped the fields of hacking and hardware for more than a decade. In The Hardware Hacker, bunnie shares his experiences manufacturing electronics and develop ing open hardware in a collection of personal essays that is sure to intrigue the explorer in us all.

bunnie's journey begins with a visit to the staggering electronics markets in Shenzhen, China, with their booths overflowing with capacitors, memory chips, volt meters, and possibility. He recounts his experiences navigating the world of Chinese factories in his effort to bring his hardware projects chumby, Novena, and Chibi tronics to life, covering everything from creating a Bill of Materials to choosing the most suitable factory. Throughout, bunnie shares his thoughts on engineering, law, and society and how his beliefs have affected his dedication to open hardware.

With a new afterword from bunnie, The Hardware Hacker offers a rare look inside the mind of one of the world's most esteemed hackers, making it a must-read for aspiring engineers, hackers, and makers everywhere.

Cover design by Hotiron Creative Printed in USA

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Price: $18.95 ($24.95 (DN) Shelve in: Technology & Engineering/Electronics

ISBN: 978-1-59327-978-3

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