Founder, No Starch Press and Hacker Initiative. Views expressed are *entirely* my own. He/him/his Contact our editors at: [email protected]

San Francisco, CA
Joined February 2008
Explore the systems behind the headlines in The Spacecraft Hacker’s Handbook. Available everywhere November 3. Book: nostarch.com/spacecraft-hack… Full video: youtube.com/watch?v=v0wB8Zal… @0x4ndy
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Your next security challenge might be in orbit. The Spacecraft Hacker’s Handbook authors Andrzej Olchawa (@0x4ndy) and Milenko Starcik return to T-Minus to talk about taking your cybersecurity skills into space, and what you’ll need to learn along the way. Tune in: thecyberwire.com/podcasts/tm…
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A model trained on the internet was always going to need some supervision. The Craft of Post-Training explains how to fine-tune models and tell whether your changes actually helped. Now shipping from nostarch.com/craft-of-post-t… 🐶
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The Spacecraft Hacker’s Handbook authors Andrzej Olchawa (@0x4ndy) and Milenko Starcik showed @davidbombal how patched web vulnerabilities in mission control software could expose files and send commands to a spacecraft simulator. Watch the interview: youtube.com/watch?v=v0wB8Zal… and preorder the book! nostarch.com/spacecraft-hack…
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Sorry in advance to your brick budget 🧱 Building LEGO Worlds is now available everywhere!
Looks like I will be building LEGO worlds thanks to @nostarch! This book serves as a fantastic starting point for so many designs.
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Bill Pollock -- [email protected] retweeted
"The Secret Life of Circuits" is here and looks really, really nice. Props to @nostarch and @billpollock for making it happen. Check out this write-up for a sample chapter, a short sales pitch, ordering info, and other goodies: lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/slc…
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Our new Think Like a Programmer @humble bundle is live, with 18 No Starch Press ebooks on programming, debugging, Linux, AI, and more. Your purchase also supports the @EFF! humblebundle.com/books/think…
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here's a peek at jeff friesen's japanese hot springs village, including a torii gate and an onsen palace building lego worlds by jeff friesen is out tuesday!
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Your long weekend could use more books. 📚 Take 35% off everything at nostarch.com with code TOOMANYTABS
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Replying to @davidbombal
@davidbombal talked shop with some of our authors at DEF CON this year! First up, hardware hacker @travisgoodspeed, who shows David how he recovered the original Game Boy’s 256-byte boot ROM from a microscopic image of its CPU. watch the full video! youtube.com/watch?v=z1nRvJi9…
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Bill Pollock -- [email protected] retweeted
Did you know that before LLMs, people sometimes actively sought "knowledge" and turned to so-called "books"? If you want a sense of how our ancestors lived, "The Secret Life of Circuits" is shipping in just a few weeks: lcamtuf.coredump.cx/electron… ToC & sample chapter included.
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A @humble bundle for people learning Python, people automating busywork, people teaching the machines, and people trying to escape Excel. Pay what you want. DRM-free. Supports @ThePSF. humblebundle.com/books/pytho…
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40% off everything at nostarch.com through May 25 with code LONGWEEKEND. Start building your stack 📚
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Bill Pollock -- [email protected] retweeted
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei: “50% of all tech jobs, entry-level lawyers, consultants, and finance professionals will be completely wiped out within 1–5 years.”
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On my way to Berlin to celebrate the life of FX. And yes, I feel honored to have met him, to have had the opportunity to receive his mentorship and guidance, to later become his peer and finally a friend. I can't stop thinking about the imense loss. Good to be able to join others that feel the same.
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Bill Pollock -- [email protected] retweeted
The cat's out of the bag! My latest book, "The Secret Life of Circuits", is available in early access: lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/sec… It's what I wish I had when I was starting out. Electrons to embedded systems, 290+ color illustrations and 420+ pages of well-explained theory.
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Everyone today is a hacker in a sense but there are very few OG hackers on which shoulders we stand Oh dude, Felix “FX” Lindner you were so much a hackers hacker and you will be missed RIP my friend and thank you
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We lost FX. A lot of people wrote about this so I feel comfortable sharing here too. I’m heartbroken. We’re heartbroken. At 8 am pacific today (Monday), we are gathering on Zoom to share memories of FX, as a community. Ping me for a link.
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Just wrote a bluetooth scanner that can be used on any OS that will single out a specific MAC address. Currently doing range testing on an implantable device with a DJI mavic I have with a directional antenna mounted on it to test distance.
For the Nancy Guthrie case, an idea and maybe a crazy one but she had a pacemaker which often implantable devices use bluetooth such as Medtronic's. Couldn't you war-drive (drones even better) with a high gain antenna with amplifiers - get the MAC address from the provider, and comb the city and locations looking for that specific mac? I'm also sure if you had cooperation with the manufacturer they may provide the protocol, law enforcement could use a custom interrogator to "ping" the device and elicit a response. Pacemakers last months or years. It would continue to transmit even if (God forbid) someone was deceased. High gain + LNA + good SDR - 500+ ft possible with class 2 transmitters (normally in bluetooth pacemakers - common in implants, ~10 mW output) Parabolic + high sensitivity gear - 1000+ ft in ideal RF conditions Not saying this range is possible, with BLE + body interference + 2.4ghz being a heavily used spectrum = much lower range. Previous research has tested insulin pumps upward of 300+ ft in the past in BLE. Companies that use bluetooth in pacemakers: Medtronic Abbott Laboratories Boston Scientific Now in stating that - there's a bunch of limitations here - broadcast timing. They all use low power bluetooth, but if they have access to Nancy's phone and paired - would there be a way to take that pairing connection, amplify it and run it through? You could potentially extract pairing keys/secrets and emulate the phone's connection with an amplified setup (e.g., SDR spoofing the phone's BLE master role). A lot of "ifs" here just wondering if it's technically possible based on what I know these conditions would need to be true: The implant uses RF telemetry that can transmit without an external programmer actively interrogating it. The device is configured to advertise or beacon. The identifier is detectable passively. The identifier is not randomized. The device is currently transmitting. You are within viable range (which is likely very short). The RF environment is not swamping it. If solely using MICS frequencies this wouldn't work (402-405mhz): Very low power Designed for short-range use Often magnet-activated or programmer-initiated Session-based communication Encrypted/authenticated in modern systems The 2.4 GHz band is crowded; distinguishing one pacemaker from thousands of BLE devices in a city like Tucson would require a lot of noise reduction/filtering, but technically I think it's possible. Also note that law enforcement did state that the phone disconnected from the pacemaker - hinting at bluetooth was actually enabled. Papers used for analyzing this as a viable option: mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/16/460… mdpi.com/1424-8220/23/7/3411 mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/4/905 pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/article… pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/article… digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/c… secure-medicine.org/hubfs/Ar… sciencedirect.com/science/ar… medtronic.com/en-us/e/produc… armis.com/research/bleedingb… thinkmind.org/articles/cyber…
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