Hack

If you're looking for a new smartphone today you're pretty much limited to operating systems powered by Google or Apple. The PinePhone Pro flagship from Pine64 is a very different proposition, running Linux instead of Android or iOS.

Back in 2015, the Raspberry Pi Foundation launched a $5 project board called the Pi Zero for entry-level tinkerers. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities were added in 2017 for an extra five bucks, and now the Zero W has entered its second generation.

An electronics hacker known as befinitiv recently posted a YouTube video demonstrating how he converted an old Cosina Hi-Lite 35-mm film camera into a digital snapper, using 3D printing, a Raspberry Pi Zero W and a Pi camera module.

A new computer processor called Morpheus thwarts hackers by randomly changing its microarchitecture every few milliseconds. The puzzling processor has now aced major tests, repelling hundreds of professional hackers in a DARPA security challenge.

IBM security analysts have discovered a global phishing campaign designed to infiltrate organizations associated with managing cold chain supplies of COVID-19 vaccines. The analysis suggests this campaign bears the hallmarks of nation-state spycraft.

One of the original circuit boards hand-made by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak for the first iteration "blue box" phone phreaking device in 1972 is going to auction, with an estimate of US$8,000 to $12,000.

Laptops have been getting thinner, more powerful and increasingly difficult to customize. The Reform from Berlin's MNT Research dares to be different with open software and open hardware that invites modders to get under the hood and go wild.

He's transformed an old bike into a rolling synth, and turned a games console into a music machine. Now Sam Battle of Look Mum No Computer goes back in time to revisit one of his earliest builds – a Gibson Les Paul with built-in MIDI keyboard.

Mac laptops and desktops running OSX have a reputation as being virus- and malware-free, but as Apple's market share increases, cybercriminals are beginning to focus their efforts on OSX machines, according to a recent report by Malwarebytes.

He's previously made music mobile with a synth bike, and built a nightmarish noise-maker called the Furby Organ. Now Sam Battle has tapped into the sonic guts of a Sega Mega Drive and created a monster synth ready to get its music-making game on.

Microsoft has detected a network of cyberattacks originating from a North Korean hacking group dubbed Thallium. It is the fourth nation-state group Microsoft has identified deploying malicious cyberactivity, following Russia, China and Iran.

Just a few weeks after Microsoft revealed an Iranian-led cyber campaign to compromise the 2020 US election, Facebook has announced the removal of a number of “inauthentic” accounts, Pages and Groups designed to spread misinformation.