259: Calculators Changed My Life

Brandon Wilson (@brandonlwilson) shared his stories about hacking TI calculators (and other things).

TICalc.org has the latest on getting started yourself including Z80 assemblers, or start on Brandon’s website: brandonw.net

Bradon will be speaking at Hardwear.io, a security conference for the hardware and security community. The conference consists of training (11th - 12th Sept 2018) and conference (13th - 14th Sept 2018). It is in The Hague, Netherlands. His talk is The Race to Secure Texas Instruments Graphing Calculators. He will also be hosting a village called Dumping the ROM of the Most Secure Sega Genesis Game Ever Created.

Topics:

00:00:00    Introduction    
00:00:33    Brandon Wilson    
00:01:39    Lightning Round    
00:02:37    Calculators!    
00:03:58    Programmable calculators, using TI BASIC    
00:05:00    Ti-85, programmable via assembly language    
00:06:35    App store for my calculator?    
00:07:34    How does TI prevent cheating?    
00:09:41    Testguard for teachers    
00:12:53    Some are WiFi capable    
00:13:41    How Brandon learned to hack the TI
00:15:12    Processors used in the TI calcs
00:16:39    What tools are available for reverse engineering?
00:17:42    Breaking the keys    
00:18:49    Flash unlock protection    
00:20:14    TI hacker  community    
00:21:32    TI used 512-bit RSA keys     
00:22:32    Key broken after 2 months of brute force
00:22:58    TI threatened the first key breaker    
00:23:31    Built a distributed community to attack keys
00:24:38    TI was not happy     
00:25:03    DMCA takedown notice
00:27:28    EFF offered to help     
00:29:30    The ethics of circumventing TIs protection    
00:33:23    Calculators as a platform for learning HW/FW    
00:35:11    Hackers' responsibility toward the hacked    
00:39:05    Hacks Brandon is uncomfortable with    
00:42:55    Bug bounties, are they effective?    
00:44:02    Brandon's other projects     
00:44:26    TI calculator processors used all over    
00:44:50    Sega Genesis
00:47:54    Code execution via the Sega Genesis CD    
00:53:35    Calculators changed my life (back up)    
00:54:21    Other projects, USB     
00:55:31    Abuse the USB protocol    
00:58:24    Modifying USB flash drive FW    
01:03:21    Reverse engineering tools    
01:06:13    Hardwear.io conference, Brandon's hacking village    
01:09:22    Brandon's Final Thought    
01:10:19    Outro    
01:11:20    Final Quote