Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: Open Circuits; and more!

Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/14/hidden-worlds/

#Pluralistic

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Defcon is a reminder that the world only seems hermetically sealed and legible to authorized parties with clearance to crack open the box. From shopping cart wheels to thermal fuses, that illegibility is only a few millimeters thick. Sand away the glossy outer layer and you will find yourself in a weird land of wax-blobs, rough approximations, expedient choices and endless opportunities for delight and terror, mischief and care.

eof/

But *Open Circuits* isn't just an aesthetic journey, it's a technical one. After all, Oskay is co-founder of nostr:npub1q0ja6uqhxmkx2k7fx3wdlg68n4drmw0e0cp4v2md9763r8welafsjum8gd, one of the defining places where hardware hackers gather to tear down, pick apart, mod, improve and destroy electronics. The accompanying text is a masterclass in the simple machines that combine together to make complex assemblies:

https://www.evilmadscientist.com/

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You can see my hacker aesthetic photos in my #Defcon31 photo set:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort=date-taken-desc&safe_search=1&tags=defcon31&user_id=37996580417%40N01&view_all=1

In this video, Eric Schlaepfer illustrates the painstaking work that went into decomposing these tiny, precise components into their messy, analog subcomponents. It's pure hacker aesthetic, and it's mesmerizing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byKyJ0b04Lo

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It reminds me of #GeorgeDyson's brilliant memoir/history of computing, *Turing's Cathedral*, where he describes how he and the other children of the scientists building the first digital computers at the #PrincetonInstitute spent their summers in the basement, hand-winding cores for the early colossi their parents were building on the floors above them:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/03/12/george-dysons-history-of-the-computer-turings-cathedral/

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A prolonged study of *Open Circuits* reveals something important about the #HackerAesthetic, a collection of graphic design, fashion and industrial design conventions that begins with this realization: that the crisp lines of digital logic can be decomposed into blobby, probabilistic lumps of metal, plastic, and even wax.

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Truly, quantity has a quality all its own. Miniaturize these assemblies and produce them at unimaginable scale and the simple, legible components turn into mystical black boxes that only the most dedicated study can reveal. Like every magician's trick, the unfathomable effect is built up through the precise repetition of something very simple.

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But peering inside these sealed packages reveals another world, a miniature land where things get simpler - and more complex. Inside these blobs of resin are snips of wire, plugs of wax, simple screws, fine sheets of metal in stacks, wafers of plain ceramic, springs and screws.

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The photos illustrate layperson-friendly explanations of what each component does, how it is constructed, and why. Perhaps you've pondered a circuit board and wondered about the colorful, candy-shaped components soldered to it. It's natural to assume that these are indivisible, abstract functional units, a thing that is best understood as a reliable and deterministic brick that can be used to construct a specific kind of wall.

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I did. The book is *Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty of Electronic Components*, by nostr:npub19qlafpudvd9dsreq6l4rtzddqujsh7fhurawvz46ese3tpy0gwgszgvurc and #EricSchlaepfer, and it is a drop-dead gorgeous collection of photos of electronic components, painstakingly cross-sectioned and polished:

https://nostarch.com/open-circuits

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After my talk, I went back to the #NoStarchPress booth for a book signing - which was *amazing*, so many beautiful hackers, plus I got to share a signing table with nostr:npub14wrle584xda6wzacscuxd7xvurmckcd9nn0nhr00rrnd8mf29gtqs5cjar. As I was leaving, #BillPollock slipped me a giant hardcover art-book, and said, "You're gonna love this."

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And of course, I got to give one of those presentations, "An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification," to a packed house. What a thrill! It was livestreamed, and if you missed it, you'll be able to catch it on Defcon's Youtube page as soon as they upload it (they've got a *lot* of uploading to do!):

https://www.youtube.com/@DEFCONConference/videos

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For the second year in a row, I caught a presentation from #JosephGabay about his work on #Warshopping: slicing up shopping cart wheels and haunting shopping mall parking lots during resurfacing to figure out how the anti-theft mechanism that stops your cart from leaving the parking lot works:

https://www.begaydocrime.com/

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But merch is only a sideshow. The real action is in the conference rooms, where hackers update you on the pursuit of their obsessions. These are such beautiful weirdos who pursue knowledge to *ridiculous* extremes, untangling gnarly hairballs just to follow a thread to its origin point.

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But merch is only a sideshow. The real action is in the conference rooms, where hackers update you on the pursuit of their obsessions. These are such beautiful weirdos who pursue knowledge to *ridiculous* extremes, untangling gnarly hairballs just to follow a thread to its origin point.

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(In case you're wondering if it's really possible to craft a malicious USB cable that injects badware into your computer and is visually indistinguishable from a regular cable, the answer is a resounding yes, and of course, Hak5 sells those cables, with a variety of USB tips:)

https://shop.hak5.org/collections/omg-row2/products/omg-cable

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I got back from Vegas yesterday and I've just unpacking my suitcase, and with it, the tangible evidence of Defcon's cave of wonders. My gear bag has a new essential: #Hak5's malicious cable detector, a little USB gizmo that lights up if it detects surreptitious malicious activity, even as it interdicts those nasty payloads:

https://shop.hak5.org/collections/omg-row2/products/malicious-cable-detector-by-o-mg

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Every trip to nostr:npub14qsg3uuyk2qehlcamwlsjl4caxrf25h72w4mk0p5ty3vtwg2fnns75qwuh - the massive annual hacker-con in Las Vegas - is a delight. Partly it's the familiar - seeing old friends, getting updates on hacks of years gone by. But mostly, it's the surprises, the things you never anticipated. Defcon never fails to surprise.

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/14/hidden-worlds/#making-the-invisible-visible-and-beautiful

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