Welcome to my digital home! There are lots of articles you might find helpful buried in this site on topics such as modifying an Alfa Romeo 159, rebuilding a Lotus 7 (Robin Hood 2B), not to mention a ton of stuff on technology in general. It’s all here somewhere, so use the search function or navigate using the menu structure. if you want to talk, reach out via the contact function, I usually do answer!
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RH2B Build DiaryThe bonnet on the hoody is metal, in two sections, and was bolted together on a centre flange. This left a seam that was filled with filler and then a vinyl stripe laid over the top.
Now this would have been fine except for the fact that the builder then installed a long pneumatic ram (the type that opens a boot on a hatchback) to hold up the bonnet when you lift it. Great for convenience but done in such a way as to cause a long term issue.
Essentially, as the weight of the bonnet and nose cone were pivoting on an M8 bolt attached to the centre flange (2 x 1mm steel), the flange had twisted, bent and caused the bonnet to deform above. This in turn caused the filler to crack and separate from the bonnet, which then caused the vinyl to crack leaving an unsightly jagged line down the centre of the bonnet.
Bonnet damage after removing the vinyl and cracked filler.
Rather than just filling it and applying another vinyl sticker to it, knowing it would just do the same again, I set about designing and printing a better solution to the mounting of the jack point to the bonnet and also reinforcing the flange with several additional M8 bolts!
A few iterations in Fusion 360 and 3 test prints in PLA, I had a final design that met the profile of the bonnet, bolted through the flange, spread the load of the bonnet more evenly and provided a solid anchor point for the jack.
Design iterations
The final design is pretty cool. It spreads the load exactly as I wanted and prevents the centre of the bonnet where the filler is being pushed up. It has also added rigidity to the panel as a side effect.
Finished mount
Once the mount was installed all that was left to do was fill the resulting gap with a flexible filler that wont crack and fall out, sand it smooth(sh) and the re-apply the vinyl. What I learned from this experience is something I was already pretty cognizant of. I cannot do bodywork!!! I dont have the patience for it at all!
Finished article. Its by no means perfect but will do for now!
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InfoSecOpen post to see coverage:
Computer Fraud and Security – February 2009 – Ethics & Hacking
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Alfa 159The final stage was putting all the wiring in place. I opted for 4 gauge cable from the battery up front and a 4 gauge earth in the rear, both connected back to brass 4 way distribution blocks so I could pull 8 gauge runs to amps and the line converter. This also left me the easy upgrade route for adding additional amps to run upgraded mids & tweeters in the cabin, but that’s another project!!
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GeneralNative Instuments – Traktor Scratch
This is the final choice and the result of much deliberation and research.
It would seem that for the most part its a two horse race, Serato vs Traktor. I’ll give you the highlights to make it simple. Serato is very very stable, easy to use and generally a rock solid solution to mixing MP3’s. Traktor has less reputation for stability but so many more features and possabilities when it comes to taking your music to the next level. This is best domonstrated bythe release of traktor 3.2 and its ability to mix 4 sources in the same interface! this means you could have 2 x decks + two other input sources all up at once mixing through a 4 channel mixer, when used with the Audio 8 interface. It was this feature that won it for me.
With this I can utilise Ableton Live like it was another deck, and have a 4th source as something like a standalone sequencer, drum machine or other random piece of electronic excellence. Now all I have to do is save my pennies and actually buy one! 🙂
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InfoSecFirst of all, legislation doesn’t die, it just becomes BAU. PCI is still a pain for most, but as a race, us Humans are fickle creatures who like our topics and news to be current, so the latest and greatest will always be at the top of the agenda.
PCI on the other hand has a few cards left to play, first we see the move from 1.1 to 1.2, and although the content is still uncertain, it is likley to include calrifications of “what they actually meant” and additions. Aside from the revisions now and future to the PCI-DSS, PA-DSS, and other relevant standards are likeley to appear to help ensure that those organisations we entrust with our data, do the minimum to keep hold of it.
of course, we have seen some clarifications and “movement” on the existing standard, as well as finally, some teeth being displayed by the PCI through fines.
In my view, PCI is by no means dead, or even old news, its just part of the legislative landscape that is a part of business today, not to be ignored.
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LiveMixesAnother Progressive Mix for 2010:
Stefano Noferini – Cool Summer (Original Dirty Mix) + hardrive Deep Inside (Harry Choo Choo Romero Bambossa Remix)
Laidback Luke, Sebastian Ingrosso, Axwell, Steve Angelo feat. Deborah Cox – Leave The World Behind (Original Mix)
Moguai – Lyve (Original Mix)
Pryda – Miami To Atlanta (Original Mix)
Moguai – Imperial (Original Mix)
Sebastian Ingrosso – Kidsos (original Mix)
Young Rebels & Francesco Diaz – 1998 (Original Mix)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll (A-Track Remix) (Club Edit)
Jerry Ropero, Tom Novy Feat. Abigai Bailey – Touch Me (Extended Mix)
Cirez D – On Off (original Mix)
Depeche Mode – Hole to Feed (Proof Vocal Mix)
Deadmau5 Feat Billy Newton – Outta My Life (Touch Mix)
Hoxton Whores – Devil Toy (Original Club Mix)
Wolfgang Gartner – Flashback (Original Mix)
Fedde Le Grand – Praise You (Fatboy Slim Vs. Fedde le Grand Remix Remix)
Jerome Isma-Ae – Hold That Sucker Down (Original Mix)
Pacific Wave – 1998 (Dj Phunk & 3Am Mix)
https://jabawoki.com/wp-content/mp3/Jabawoki_DeepDivin_25032010.mp3
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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InfoSecSo I finally got round to sorting out the heat issues associated with running the 1W ALFA at full power for extended periods of time. It was a simple hardware mod that cost next to nothing to do and it means I can run higher power for longer, which is useful 🙂
Ok, so starting from the top….. Your going to need an ALFA USB RT8178 external Wireless adapter, rated at 1W. You want the 1W one not the 2W or N spec etc ones as they are different chip sets and the best chip set for wifi pwnage is the 8187 🙂
Once you have your trusty ALFA card your going to want to overclock its power to make it see where other cards cannot. That is as simple as typing:
ifconfig wlan0 down
iw reg set BO
ifconfig wlan0 up
iwconfig wlan0 txpower 30
Once you have full power enabled however, your going to start running into problems unless you modify the hardware as well. That’s where this guide comes in!
What you will need:
ALFA USB RT8187 Adapter
Small chip Heat sinks from Maplin or elsewhere
3M Heat sink double sided sticky pads
Super Glue
Dremil
Sharp craft knife
To start, you need to crack open the unit. It just pops open, but I found that it snapped the clips that hold it together when I did it so you need to be careful or be prepared to super glue it back together.
Once you have it all open and ready to go clean up the chip and the heat sinks with some heat sink paste solvent and heat sink surface prep.
Once that’s done, cut a piece of the heat sink tape to size and attach it to the heat sink.
Then just attach it to the chip and your set for fabrication to commence!
No for the tricky bit. Using your dremil and knife, cut a hole for the heat sink in the face of the case. Its tricky, and mine didn’t come out great, but it was good enough and function over form is good for me on this one!
Now your all set, you can run your ALFA at full power, injecting and sniffing to your hearts content without burning it out.
Enjoy!
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RH2B Build DiaryIn the dash of the hoody was a previously installed large cubby holder. This had been damaged at some point and one of the previous owners had used a stick on faux leather pocket to hide the damage. As you can guess, this was not going to do for me and I thought I would put my 3d printer to good use and make something a little more useful!
Aside from the damaged cubby, I had a few cables dangling in the passenger foot well that I needed to do something with. Firstly I had the CTEK charge cable that I added for ease of keeping the battery tip top, then I had the ECU programming cable that I also needed to be able to easily access. Both of these needed a new home and they needed to be out of the way of a passengers feet!
CTEK Charge Point
The combination of broken plastic part + need to tidy cables & access to a 3D printer led me straight to Fusion 360 where I set about designing a new solution. The first design was an “all in one” unit that had to be printed with lots of supports and with the rear face on the bed. This left a less than desirable finish and was simply not going to do. This led me to my first “multi-part” design and print.
Utilizing Fusions component feature I was able to design the face and all parts that connect to it as separate objects that could then be printed individually. In total the final design had 4 parts. A face, a cubby, a light box and a lens. Yes, that’s right, I added LED’s 🙂 The idea was to have the Lotus Super 7 logo as well as the letters GBS (Great British Sportscars) cut through the face and an LED behind them so that it illuminated when the ignition was on.
Printed Parts for the final cubby
The face I decided to paint, which is a first for me, but I thought given it was on display and a large flat area, it could benefit from some paint. I used Plasti-Kote primer and black satin paint after some light sanding and the finish was truly impressive.
Once all the components were ready for assembly, I installed a small strip of 12v LED’s into the light box and painted the clear PLA diffuser lens in the same body paint that the car is painted in. This actually turned out better than I hoped for and was a very easy thing to do.
Light box and LEDs
The final product looks pretty cool and holds the parts I needed it to perfectly. Everything is neat and there is a more functional, better looking solution to a problem that was part my own doing and part legacy 🙂
Final Part Assembled
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RH2B Build DiaryThe original seats in the 2b were a little worse for wear when I bought the car, but I had mistakenly thought that it would be a relatively cheap thing to fix. Little did I know that trimmers charge a small fortune for their skills!
In fact, I was being quoted around £200 per seat to have them fixed, and new seats were about £200 per seat! So, well, you know….. I bought some new seats! That said, I wanted to minimise the cost here as I had hemorrhaged way more than I initially budgeted to get it ready for the summer, so I set about some ebay stalking, and after several back and forth’s on buying expensive branded, quality seats vs something secondhand and cheap, I found a seller with a new pair of the exact seats that were in the car currently (retro style buckets) but in plain black vinyl.
The best part about this find was that the seller was clearly just a regular guy that thought he would get rich selling motorsport parts on ebay but clearly didn’t have the roaring success he planned for and was sat on some stock he needed to shift. This presented an opportunity for a cheeky offer! So an offer was made, and accepted, that got me 2 brand new seats for £260 delivered 🙂 #Result!
New Seats
As part of the change I also wanted to put in new low profile, double lock rails, so that added another £50 to the bill but it was necessary to get the seats fitted in the best possible way.
Double lock low profile adjustable rails
Once I had modified the rails to fit the bolt pattern of the new seats (nothing is plug and play in the kit car world!) I offered the seat into the car and sat in it for an initial test. This is where my heart sank. I was a good 4 inches over the top of the windscreen at eyeline 🙁 Not an ideal seating position by any means. It turns out these new seats had a 6″ pad in the base that meant I was 4″ higher than the set that came out. This was not going to do, so after several emotional responses from frustration to anger to sadness, I decided there was only one option….. heat a large carving knife up till it was glowing red and trim the foam!
Its not that difficult to do as it stands (although i do recommend breathing apparatus as you get very dizzy very quickly!). Just pop the staples off the bottom on one end, remove the foam seat base, heat the knife, slice (like butter) through the foam, then reinstall the foam, glue back on the cover, staple the excess material out of sight and your back in business… all be it a lot lower to the ground! Its not perfect, but I do plan on a major rebuild this winter, and I am likely to be looking for some better / more modern low profile buckets as part of that so this is just for the summer.
Once I had the seats ready for install it was onto the floor. I wanted to reinforce the floor where the seats mounted to as the floor had developed flex in one corner of the seat mounting position whcih made the seat seem loose and rock. To solve this I decided to replicate what the builder had already done to reinforce the floor in the front seat mounting location. Essentially adding a 25X25x3mm angle iron from side to side. Again, this was a seasonal fix as come the winter I want to weld in a lowered floor to gain an inch of height inside the cabin.
Front (existing) and Rear (new) angle iron reinforcements
A purchased a 25x25x3mm 2m length of stainless steel angle iron and cut it to size. I then mounted it on the front edge of the 3mm steel subframe mounts in the rear floor location whcih was the right daytum to provide me a straight line side to side I could use as the rear seat mount. After measuring, cutting, drilling several holes, painting and bolting it all in with M8 stainless bolts, I had the perfect strengthening part that meant the weight of the passengers was spread evenly across the chassis on both sides via the subframe mounts and in the middle via the tunnel mounts, so therefore would not move.
Floor reinforcement rail
Now the seats, floor and seat runners were all ready, it was just a case of making a cardboard template, measuring, drilling, and then bolting it all together with M8 Stainless bolts. The finished article is great IMO. they look period to the car and are much less garish that the ones that came out, which had some interesting colours and the word “dubollox” embroidered in….
Old vs new seats
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InfoSecCourtesy of the Institute for Information Security Professionals
As I mentioned in the opening CEO article, the inaugural Top Gun event in Manchester was a great success on many fronts. We had 20 participants, organised into the Red and Blue teams, plus 5 members of the Control Team, and the day just seemed to fly past, so intense was the concentration, interaction, ingenuity and fun.
We cannot give too much away as to the content of the case study or the processes we followed on the day, for fear that we might spoil some of the element of surprise for participants in future events. Suffice to say that those who were there threw themselves into the exercise and, accordingly got the most out of it, as well as proposing a few additional suggestions for developing and improving it for future players.
Let us however, convey the particular views of a member of one of the teams, and let them tell you what they thought of the event.
“TopGun, The Blue View. (Jay Abbott, PwC)
I have to admit, I was genuinely sceptical about the TopGun event as the idea of playing the Security equivalent of Battleships during one of my busiest times of the year was not one that featured far up the “to do” list, that said, I am genuinely pleased that I made the time to attend. We arrived with very little information about what was planned, and were immediately split into two teams, Red and Blue, The Red were of course the attackers, and Blue were the defenders and the teams split had been pre-planned by the organisers to ensure that a good cross section of skills rested in each team to keep things fair.
The remit was simple, we each were given suitable pieces of a puzzle, i.e. some deliberately sketchy information related to the organisation, typical of that you would find on your first day of work or your first information gathering exercise. From there it was a case of building a better picture of what you have and figuring out the best way forward (sound familiar?). At this point, the teams were physically split and departed into adjacent “war rooms” to prepare their respective strategies. We each could communicate with our “control” staff, who acted as the coordination of the event and holders of information. The co-ordination role was pivotal in the success of the event as they were able to coordinate the virtual attack and defence strategies in real-time to keep the feeling of real-life and to ensure that the game was fair.
From a blue perspective it was business as usual, we had a budget and an environment to protect, we had to evaluate the skills in our team, establish specialism’s that could work in key streams, and run the entire thing like a project.
All in all it was a very worthwhile day that created a great deal of discussion and provoked much debate. What I personally took from the day was something that I see all too often, but is perhaps not as obvious to all, to quote Paul Dorey on the day it is summed up in the phrase “Security is Asymmetric”. Put simply this is the fact that someone attacking an organisation need only find one hole or vulnerability in order to succeed, while those protecting the organisation must try to plug every hole and mitigate every vulnerability to be secure.”
Event wrap-up discussion and lessons learnt – great work everyone!
The participants captured their comments on an evaluation form and we are reviewing and acting on those comments. They also scored the event out of a scale of 1 to 5, and rated the event at 4.3 overall, but with specific scores of 4.5 for facilitation and presentation, and 4.6 for opportunity to discuss and exchange ideas. A great success by any measure.
Thanks to all involved, and to PwC, our hosts for the day.
Courtesy of the Institute for Information Security Professionals
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