The battary powered switch!

[VaKo]

Nah, this is what is usually refferd to as a "half arsed hack". In fact if you go back to the pictures you'll see that this was actually not even that... I just taped some batterys, cat5 and foil together and somehow failed to damage anything.

But since its taking a device beyond its intended functionality, I'll call it a hack.

(before this my only hack was a slot car that went backwards very slowly, then overheated and took out the track)

[zivilyn]

Nah, this is what is usually refferd to as a "half arsed hack". In fact if you go back to the pictures you'll see that this was actually not even that... I just taped some batterys, cat5 and foil together and somehow failed to damage anything.

But since its taking a device beyond its intended functionality, I'll call it a hack.

(before this my only hack was a slot car that went backwards very slowly, then overheated and took out the track)

Hehe, yeah I know what you mean. I guess I'm just a stickler for the techinicality; altering the method in which the device gets power doesn't necessarily affect the device itself. But no worries, I'm just playing devil's advocate. :)

[VaKo]

My next idea was to put somekinda tiny *nix based computer in there as well, so you wouldn't have to bother with cabling into the device. Just set it to run ethereal and save to a CF card or something. The case has to go, so my idea is to hollow out a book and build it all into that, with a larger capacity battery, ie you leave it running on a system logging whatever, then just wander off with a text book under your arm when the alarm is raised.

[spine]

i really like what you guys are doing, ive actually made battery powered switch before back in highschool, we would LAN during lunch with our laptops,

sadly i havent found anything linux for my d-link i have a wrt54g but thats my current router

[Sparda]

My next idea was to put somekinda tiny *nix based computer in there as well, so you wouldn't have to bother with cabling into the device. Just set it to run ethereal and save to a CF card or something. The case has to go, so my idea is to hollow out a book and build it all into that, with a larger capacity battery, ie you leave it running on a system logging whatever, then just wander off with a text book under your arm when the alarm is raised.

Hmmmm... I think what you would do for this is take a laptop appart, configure it to run what ever you wanted it to run (most likly linux) with ethereal automaticly run and start picking up trafic. throw the motherboard into a book with the battary may be even the HD if it fits, use a very short Cat5 cable to connect it to the switch... may be this would work, does any body know of an even smaller form factor that that of laptops?

[VaKo]

These look pretty much like exactly what I want.

[spine]

not that i condone stealling but exit signs are a good soruce of batteries and a recharging unit, i used to live in a place where there were allot of stupid kids and they would brake them, so a would rip them off, no lie, i was like 12, im 19 now, ive been into electronics since i was like nine, im from venezuela "originally" now i reside in miami, anyway, theres allot of electronic hobbist magazines that come from spain and i would buy tons of them, but i mostly forgot all i learned, the only thing i know to the T is building power supplies

EDIT:

my d-link runs on rechargables, all i know is they work, the batteries are just yello so i dont know the specs

anyway look into that

[metatron]

There is a couple of ways that you could take this project personally I would take a Linksys WRT54G and run a modified version OpenWrt (I could get ethereal to run on it) and have it transmit the data to another computer but if you wanted to just be able to hook up a device and walk away, which is the more costly option I would make a Compact Flash Computer System, which will run uClinux and that can be modified to log or alter any data flowing across a network and log it on a seconded CF card, as well as this you could add a Linksys WCF12 802.11b card to it and have it transmit all the data.

The second option could be made to use very little power if you keep it real basic with say just had the motherboard, 2 CF card one for Linux and one for data and 2 LPE Ethernet cards.

The finished deice would be very small and could fit into a paper back book with out any issues what so ever.

[spine]

SEXY!

[metatron]

The top photo is a wireless access point with two Ethernet connections and you could fit it in a beer can if someone wanted to.

I’ve used them a few times for prototyping small firewalls.

Compact Flash Computer measures 1.5 x 1.7 x 0.2 inches (37 x 43 x 5 mm)

[VaKo]

Sweet, looks damn applicable! Any idea of cost?

[metatron]

A year and a half ago they where £420 for the developers Kit, but I have just emailed them to get a price update, I think there around £120 now for the developers Kit.

Developers Kit.

# Compact Flash Computer

# Bus Expansion Unit

# Motherboard

# RS232/BDM Header

# Power Supply

# RS232 Cable

# Source and Tools

[VaKo]

Not to bad, emailed them so I'll see what they can do for me. Thanks for your advice.

[metatron]

The pricing is provisional and is subject to change.

Compact Flash Mother Board Development Kit:

32 Coldfire m5272c CPU, 32MB SDRAM, 8MB FLASH

Bus Expansion Unit

8-slot mother board

RS232/BDM header

Power supply

CD source code

£399 (GBP).

Compact Flash Carrier Board Development Kit:

32 Coldfire m5272c CPU, 32MB SDRAM, 8MB FLASH

3-slot carrier board

RS232/BDM header

Power supply

CD source code

£299 (GBP).

I got this back from them.

[VaKo]

Yeah, got that one to... just a bit outside my price range right now unfortunatly. However, WRT54G's are only £20 from ebay so a battery powered mod for one of those might be in order.

[metatron]

Yeah that’s what I would go for as OpenWrt is quite strait forward and easy to work with and you could still log a small amount of data to WRT54G before having to transmit it.

I have a “The complete reference UNIX†book which you probably could fit a WRT54G in if you modified it a bit and it would fit in my “Java Server Programming†book with out to many problems.

http://openwrt.org/

[metatron]

I just saw this up on Digg “the smallest Linux Computer in the Worldâ€

http://www.picotux.com/

Technical Data picotux 100 module

Processor:32-bit ARM 7 Netsilicon NS7520

Processor Clock: 55 MHz

Flash Memory: 2 MB

RAM: 8 MB SDRAM

Ethernet: 10/100 Mbit, HD and FD, auto sensing

Serial (TTL): Up to 230.400 bps

General Input/Output Pins(TTL)

5, can be used as Handshake

LED for Ethernet

2; green (programmable) and yellow (Carrier)

Supply Voltage: 3,3 Volt +- 5%

Supply Current: 250 mA

Operating System: uClinux 2.4.27 Big Endian (native)

Shell: Busybox 1.0 and others

File Systems: CRAMFS, JFFS2, NFS

Applications: Webserver, Telnet

Size of the Linux Systems in Flash: 720 KB and more

Protected Bootloader for Update over Network:64 KB Code

Development System: GNU Tool chain

Compiler: GCC 3.4.4 for C/C++ and Fortran

Binutils: 2.15

Library: uClibc 0.9.26

Dimensions:

Height: 19 mm

Width: 19 mm

Deep: 36 mm

The most useful product they make is PT2115 Picotux 112 with 4MB Flash and PoE option which is 144 EUR, it’s fairly basic but it could be made to do some interesting things.

Price List

It’s could be possible to have it log data and have it tunnel out to the net and upload it to a remote server, I’ve done it with a DreamCast and it could be done with this.

[VaKo]

That looks pretty cool, would i need 2 of them linked to act as a pass threw? IE just have a 2" cat5 cable, and hook them into the back of a machine to basically bug it?

As for the openWRT system, is that similar to the hyperWRT firmware i currently have on the house router? Not played around with the more advanced functions on it, just used the expanded QOS settings and staticDCHP.

The WRT54G needs 12v 1000mA & 12VA[?] for power, so according to my sketchy calculations something like This should be enough to power it for a couple of hours. Then i'd need to build the antena into the book covers and lower the single strength of the wireless to reduce power consumption.

As for the book itself, planning on using something like "1001 Accounting Anecdotes, vol. 8", something so boring no one is tempted to have a flick threw. Also, if They're looking for a hacker, having a computer book on you might not be helpful.

[metatron]

If you hook it in to a Hub no.

OpenWrt is more powerful in the since that you can do more with it but it's harder to use then hyperWRT which is basically stock Linksys firmware with some added features.

[Sparda]

The WRT54G needs 12v 1000mA & 12VA[?] for power, so according to my sketchy calculations something like This should be enough to power it for a couple of hours. Then i'd need to build the antena into the book covers and lower the single strength of the wireless to reduce power consumption.

Your calculations are correct, but watch out, it uses 1000mA, you will need to get some longer lasting batarys, the pattarys in that picture are 3300mA, thoughs will alow it to last for 3.3 hours.