Networking, Operating systems, Raspberry Pi Zero, Security

PoisonTap is a Raspberry Pi Zero security threat worth taking note of

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Poison Tap

I wasn’t going to blog this as it’s a pretty horrid use of the Pi, but I wanted to highlight the security concern!

PoisonTap is a Raspberry Pi Zero/Node.js hacking machine. According to the maker’s website, it:

siphons cookies, exposes internal router & installs web backdoor on locked computers

It plugs into the USB port of a computer and first of all tricks the host computer into thinking that it’s connecting to a network and then it intercepts unencrypted web traffic. It also stores cookies coming from the web browser and tells the computer to be a router, thus making it accessible remotely. And it does all this without the machine being unlocked.

Read more about the PoisonTap by going to Samy Kamkar’s website.

It’s entirely up to you whether you try it out – just don’t blame me if you get in trouble!

Dennis Fisher of On The Wire has interviewed Samy for his podcast – listen here.

Here’s a live demo of it working:

Course, Shopping

Udemy offering Raspberry Pi courses at silly discounts for one day only

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Thought I’d share this with you as someone at work pointed it out.

Online course provider Udemy is currently running a Black Friday offer on (presumably) all of their courses, including Raspberry Pi courses. They are offering the courses at up to 95% off – many are just £11 and there are a whole raft of Pi-related courses available.

Take a look at their offering here.

Accessories, Operating systems

Western Digital expands their Raspberry Pi PiDrive hard drive range with the Foundation Edition

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Pi Drive Foundation Edition

Western Digital has announced some new products in their PiDrive range. The PiDrive is a series of hard drives which can be powered and driven directly off the Pi’s USB ports. The Foundation Edition is designed to take the Operating System burden off of the SD card and onto the hard drive. The Edition comes with a 4GB SD card that straight away tells the Pi to boot from the hard drive. It also has the ability to store multiple versions of an OS on the same drive so you can pick and choose which ‘project’ to boot up. There are three versions of the Foundation Edition – 375GB, 250GB and a 64GB flash drive version for those who haven’t got as much physical space. The prices are: 375GB ($37.50/£37), 250GB ($29/£29) and 64GB ($19/£19). They can currently be purchased from the Western Digital US website or from the UK website.

Competitions, Health, Science, Sensors, Sport

American school student creates rehabilitation aid from a soccer ball and a Raspberry Pi

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Thanks to Alex over at Raspberry Pi for finding this one!

US-based eighth-grade student Amelia Day wanted to fuse her love of soccer (I know, I know, ‘football’) and her engineering skills into a project for school. So, she took a ball and filled it with sensors, LEDs, buzzers and, of course, a Raspberry Pi. Designed initially to be a soccer (umm… football) training aid, it soon became clear that it could be used for much more than that. She worked out that it could be used as a physical and mental rehabilitation aid for stroke therapy patients – the idea being that kicking the ball ‘correctly’ would build muscle memory and potentially create new neural pathways. Amelia entered the 3M Young Science Challenge 2016 competition and placed third runner-up. Take a look at the video above for more from Amelia. Such a great project from this youngster – hopefully she’ll carry on using the Pi for more inventions!

Accessories, Events, pi-top

pi-top launches Champions scheme to help get Raspberry Pi workstations into the community

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Photo: Andrew Mulholland from MozFest 2016

Photo: Andrew Mulholland from MozFest 2016

Over on the pi-top blog, Cat Lamin has just announced the pi-top Champions scheme in which Raspberry Pi community members have been selected to spread a little Pi about. Myself and Tim Richardson (we run the Cambridge Raspberry Jam together, in case you didn’t know!) were selected recently and we’re very excited to be a part of it. We’ll be receiving ten pi-topCEEDs (also available via CPC for those in the UK!) very soon which we can use at Jams and other events as workstations. In exchange, we’ll be championing the pi-top range as a great solution to the “where can I get screens from” issue that’s always been there for the Raspberry Pi. We’ll also be lending the equipment to local groups if they wish (as long as it’s looked after!) for their events.

If you’d like to find out more about the scheme, head over to pi-top now.

Events, Raspberry Jams

Sittingbourne/Kent Raspberry Jam – 10th December

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JamLogo

Coming up in a few weeks time, Bethanie Fentiman is running a Raspberry Jam in Sittingbourne, Kent. There will be a mixture of drop-in activities and workshops including Sonic Pi, physical computing and Minecraft. Sounds like a great, informal event. It’s being held at Ideas Test on the High Street from 11am-3pm on Saturday, 10th December, so if you’re in the area, go along and learn something new or share your experience! Tickets are free and are available here.