Archive for the ‘General’ Category
[DefCon32] Autos, Alcohol, Blood, Sweat, & Creative Reversing Obfuscated Car Modding Tool
In the intricate world of reverse engineering, Atlas, a seasoned security researcher, unveils a captivating journey through the deobfuscation of an automotive modding tool. This software, capable of flashing firmware and tweaking vehicle engines, represents a complex challenge due to its heavily obfuscated code. Atlas’s narrative, rich with technical ingenuity, guides the audience through innovative approaches to unraveling hidden truths, empowering researchers with new methodologies and tools to tackle similar challenges.
Confronting Obfuscation Challenges
Atlas begins by describing the daunting nature of obfuscated code, which obscures functionality to thwart analysis. The automotive modding tool, a blend of machine code and proprietary logic, posed unique hurdles. By leveraging tools like Vivisect, Atlas meticulously dissected the binary, identifying key patterns such as virtual function tables. These tables, often marked by grouped function pointers, served as entry points to understand the code’s structure. His approach focused on analyzing the “this” pointer in 32-bit architectures, typically passed via the ECX register, to map out critical functions like destructors.
Crafting Custom Analysis Tools
To overcome the limitations of existing binary analysis tools, Atlas customized his toolkit, enhancing Vivisect to handle the tool’s unique obfuscation techniques. He explored cross-references to function pointers, uncovering embedded strings and objects. For instance, comparing register values like EDI against offsets revealed string manipulations, allowing Atlas to reconstruct the code’s intent. His creative modifications enabled dynamic analysis, transforming static binaries into actionable insights, a process he encourages others to replicate by adapting tools to specific needs.
Decoding the Automotive Modding Tool
The core of Atlas’s work centered on understanding the modding tool’s interaction with vehicle systems. By analyzing function calls and memory operations, he identified how the tool manipulated firmware to alter engine performance. His methodology involved tracing execution paths, spotting decrement and free operations, and reconstructing object hierarchies. This granular approach not only demystified the tool but also highlighted vulnerabilities in its design, offering lessons for securing automotive software against unauthorized modifications.
Empowering the Community
Atlas concludes with a call to action, urging researchers to think beyond conventional tools and embrace creative problem-solving. By sharing his customized Vivisect enhancements and methodologies, he aims to inspire others to tackle obfuscated code with confidence. His emphasis on understanding the “why” behind code behavior fosters a deeper appreciation for reverse engineering, equipping the community to uncover truths in complex systems.
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[DevoxxBE2024] Let’s Use IntelliJ as a Game Engine, Just Because We Can by Alexander Chatzizacharias
At Devoxx Belgium 2024, Alexander Chatzizacharias delivered a, lighthearted yet insightful talk on the whimsical idea of using IntelliJ IDEA as a game engine. As a Java enthusiast and self-proclaimed gamer, Alexander explored the absurdity and fun of leveraging IntelliJ’s plugin platform to create games within a codebase. His session, filled with humor and technical creativity, demonstrated how curiosity-driven projects can spark innovation while entertaining developers. From rendering Pong to battling mutable state in a Space Invaders-inspired game, Alexander’s talk was a testament to the joy of experimentation.
The Origin Story: Productivity Through Play
Alexander’s journey began with a reaction to Unity 3D’s controversial per-install pricing model in 2023, prompting him to explore alternative game engines. Inspired by a prior Devoxx talk on productivity through fun, he decided to transform IntelliJ IDEA, a powerful IDE, into a game engine using its plugin platform. Built with Kotlin and Java Swing, his approach avoided external frameworks like JavaFX or Chromium Embedded Framework to maintain authenticity. The goal was to render games within IntelliJ’s existing window, interact with code, and maximize performance, all while embracing the chaos of a developer’s curiosity. Alexander’s mantra—“productivity is messing around and having fun”—set the tone for a session that balanced technical depth with playfulness.
Pong: Proving the Concept
The first milestone was recreating Pong, the 1972 game that launched the video game industry, within IntelliJ. Using intentions (Alt+Enter context menus), Alexander rendered paddles and a ball over a code editor, leveraging Java Swing for graphics and a custom Kotlin Vector2 class inspired by Unity 3D for position and direction calculations. Collision detection was implemented by iterating through code lines, wrapping each character in a rectangle, and checking for overlaps—faking physics with simple direction reversals. This “fake it till you make it” approach ensured a functional game without complex physics, proving that IntelliJ could handle basic game logic and rendering. The demo, complete with a multiplayer jest, highlighted the feasibility of embedding games in an IDE.
State Invaders: Battling Mutable Variables
Next, Alexander tackled a backend developer’s “cardinal sin”: mutable state. He created State Invaders, a Space Invaders-inspired game where players eliminate mutable variables (var keywords) from the codebase. Using IntelliJ’s PSI (Program Structure Interface), the plugin scans for mutable fields, rendering them as enemy sprites. Players shoot these “invaders,” removing the variables from the code, humorously reducing the “chance of production crashing” from 100% to 80%. A nostalgic cutscene referencing the internet meme “All your base are belong to us” added flair. The game demonstrated how plugins can interact with code structure, offering a playful way to enforce coding best practices while maintaining a functional codebase.
Packag-Man: Navigating Dependency Mazes
Addressing another developer pain point—over-reliance on packages—Alexander built Packag-Man, a Pac-Man variant. The game generates a maze from Gradle or Maven dependency names, with each letter forming a cell. Ghosts represent past dependency mistakes, and consuming them removes the corresponding package from the build file. Sound effects, including a looped clip of a presenter saying “Java,” enhanced the experience. IntelliJ’s abstractions for dependency parsing ensured compatibility with both Gradle and Maven, showcasing the platform’s flexibility. The game’s random ghost placement added challenge, reflecting the unpredictable nature of dependency management, while reinforcing the theme of cleaning up technical debt through play.
Sonic the Test Dog and Code Hero: Unit Tests and Copy-Paste Challenges
Alexander continued with Sonic the Test Dog, a Sonic-inspired game addressing inadequate unit testing. Players navigate a vertical codebase to collect unit tests (represented as coins), with a boss battle against “Velocity Nick” in a Person.java file. Removing coins deletes tests, humorously highlighting testing pitfalls. Finally, Code Hero, inspired by Guitar Hero and OSU, tackles copy-pasting from Stack Overflow. Players type pasted code letter-by-letter to a rhythm, using open-source beat maps for timing. A live demo with an audience member showcased the game’s difficulty, proving developers must “earn” their code. These games underscored IntelliJ’s potential for creative, code-integrated interactions.
Lessons and Future Hopes
Alexander concluded with reflections on IntelliJ’s plugin platform limitations, including poor documentation, lack of MP3 and PNG support, and cumbersome APIs for color and write actions. He urged JetBrains to improve these for better game development support, humorously suggesting GIF support for explosions. Emphasizing coding as a “superpower,” he encouraged developers to experiment without fear of “bad ideas,” as the dopamine hit of a working prototype is unmatched. A final demo hinted at running Doom in IntelliJ, leaving the audience to ponder its feasibility. Alexander’s talk, blending technical ingenuity with fun, inspired attendees to explore unconventional uses of their tools.
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[DefCon32] Secrets & Shadows: Leveraging Big Data for Vulnerability Discovery
Vulnerability discovery at scale requires rethinking traditional approaches, and Bill Demirkapi, an independent security researcher, demonstrates how big data uncovers overlooked weaknesses. By leveraging unconventional sources like virus scanning platforms, Bill identifies tens of thousands of vulnerabilities, from forgotten cloud assets to leaked secrets. His talk shifts the paradigm from target-specific analysis to correlating vulnerabilities across diverse datasets, exposing systemic flaws in major organizations.
Scaling Vulnerability Discovery
Bill challenges conventional methods that focus on specific targets, advocating for a data-driven approach. By analyzing DNS records for dangling domains and secret patterns in public repositories, he uncovers misconfigurations like exposed AWS keys. His methodology correlates these findings with organizational assets, revealing vulnerabilities that traditional scans miss. A case study highlights an ignored AWS support case, where a leaked key remained active due to a generic billing email.
Exploiting Forgotten Cloud Assets
Dangling domains, pointing to unclaimed IP addresses, offer attackers entry points to compromise services. Bill’s research identifies these through large-scale DNS analysis, exposing forgotten cloud assets in enterprises. By cross-referencing with cloud provider data, he maps vulnerabilities to specific organizations, demonstrating the devastating impact of seemingly trivial oversights.
Addressing Leaked Secrets
Leaked credentials, such as AWS access keys, pose significant risks when posted publicly. Bill’s use of virus scanning platforms to detect these secrets reveals a gap in provider responses—AWS, unlike Google Cloud or Slack, does not automatically revoke exposed keys. He proposes automated revocation mechanisms and shares a tool to streamline key detection, urging providers to prioritize proactive security.
Industry-Wide Solutions
Bill calls for systemic changes, emphasizing provider responsibility to revoke exposed credentials immediately. His open-source tools and methodology, available for community use, enable researchers to replicate his approach across vulnerability classes. By breaking down traditional discovery methods, Bill’s work fosters a collaborative effort to address ecosystem-wide security gaps.
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[DefCon32] Process Injection Attacks with ROP
Advanced return-oriented programming (ROP) opens new frontiers in process injection, and Bramwell Brizendine and Shiva Shashank Kusuma, from Verona Lab, present a robust methodology to master it. Their talk details chaining complex Windows APIs via ROP, overcoming challenges like string comparison in memory-constrained environments. By introducing a universal solution for identifying target processes, Bramwell and Shiva provide reusable patterns for reliable injection, demonstrated through a live exploit of Winamp.
ROP Challenges in Process Injection
Bramwell outlines the intricacies of ROP-based process injection, which requires chaining multiple WinAPIs with precise parameter handling. Unlike traditional injection, ROP lacks direct string comparison capabilities due to missing gadgets. Their novel solution constructs an enumeration function purely in ROP, enabling precise identification of target processes like Winamp by process ID (PID), a breakthrough for reliable injection.
Building Reusable API Patterns
Shiva details their creation of diverse patterns for WinAPIs, leveraging the PUSHAD instruction for flexibility. For APIs lacking PUSHAD patterns, they employ a “sniper” approach, meticulously crafting alternatives. Their demo walks through injecting shellcode into Winamp, using CreateToolhelp32Snapshot, EnumProcesses, and CreateRemoteThread, with memory permissions adjusted via NtMapViewOfSection. This structured approach ensures reproducibility across different targets.
Practical Demonstration and Tools
The live demo showcases their ROP-based injection, starting with a snapshot of running processes, enumerating to find Winamp’s PID, and injecting shellcode via remote thread creation. Their ROProcket tool, designed for ROP and jump-oriented programming, supports this methodology, offering templates for researchers to adapt. Bramwell emphasizes the goal of providing a scalable framework, not just a one-off exploit.
Implications for Security Research
By sharing their patterns and tools, Bramwell and Shiva empower researchers to explore ROP-based injection systematically. They highlight the need for defenses against such techniques, as early-stage injections can evade EDR systems. Their work invites further innovation in ROP methodologies, urging the community to build on their open-source contributions for enhanced security testing.
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[OxidizeConf2024] Leveling Up Hardware Production with Rust
Revolutionizing Hardware Manufacturing
The landscape of hardware manufacturing has long been constrained by proprietary tools provided by chip vendors, often treated as opaque systems that limit developer control. Ryan Summers from Forged.dev delivered an engaging presentation at OxidizeConf2024, showcasing how Rust and the Probe.rs library are transforming hardware production processes. With a background in safety-critical embedded systems, including medical devices like neurostimulators, Ryan illustrated how Rust’s modern tooling empowers developers to achieve precise control over device programming, moving beyond the limitations of traditional black-box solutions.
Ryan’s talk focused on the production process for a hypothetical Bluetooth-enabled pacemaker, highlighting the need for meticulous device provisioning and testing. In traditional manufacturing, tasks like assigning serial numbers, calibrating sensors, and programming firmware rely on vendor-supplied binaries with limited customization options. Probe.rs, an open-source Rust library, changes this paradigm by offering fine-grained memory control, enabling developers to tailor device configurations and integrate them into automated production workflows. This approach ensures higher quality and reliability, particularly for safety-critical applications where failures are not an option.
The Power of Probe.rs
Central to Ryan’s presentation was the Probe.rs library, which redefines how developers interact with microcontrollers during production. Unlike vendor-supplied tools that restrict operations to basic flashing and erasing, Probe.rs provides a programmatic interface for memory manipulation and direct communication with devices. Ryan demonstrated how this enables tasks like assigning unique Bluetooth addresses and storing calibration data in external memory chips, streamlining the provisioning process. The library’s flexibility allows manufacturers to integrate these tasks into automated systems, reducing errors and improving efficiency.
Moreover, Probe.rs extends beyond manufacturing to support advanced use cases like embedded testing and performance profiling. Ryan highlighted the emerging embedded-test feature, which allows unit tests to run directly on hardware, a boon for validating safety-critical systems. By leveraging Rust’s type safety and memory guarantees, Probe.rs minimizes the risk of errors during programming, ensuring that devices meet stringent quality standards. This capability is particularly valuable in medical and automotive industries, where precision is paramount.
Scaling Production with Rust
Ryan also discussed scaling hardware production with Rust, addressing both small-scale and high-volume manufacturing. For safety-critical devices, such as pacemakers, every unit must undergo rigorous testing to detect defects like cold solder joints or short circuits. Probe.rs facilitates this by enabling automated testing workflows that integrate with production lines, ensuring consistent quality. Ryan noted that while some consumer markets may prioritize speed over quality, safety-critical sectors demand the precision that Rust and Probe.rs deliver.
For large-scale production, Ryan and Probe.rs founder Noah collaborated on Forged.dev Marinas, a tool designed to manage firmware deployment, serial number assignment, and cloud-based data storage. This solution caters to manufacturers needing to comply with regulations like FDA standards, ensuring traceability and accountability. Ryan’s insights underscored Rust’s potential to unify development and production processes, offering a cohesive ecosystem that contrasts with the fragmented tools of traditional manufacturing.
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[DefCon32] Manipulating Shim and Office for Code Injection
The Windows ecosystem harbors hidden attack surfaces, and security researchers Ron Ben-Yizhak and David Shandalov from Deep Instinct unveil a sophisticated technique to exploit them. By manipulating the Application Compatibility Framework (shim) and OfficeClickToRun service, they achieve stealthy code injection and privilege escalation without traditional traces like registry modifications. Their reverse engineering of undocumented APIs and kernel drivers reveals novel methods to subvert system defenses, challenging assumptions about patched vulnerabilities.
Reviving the Shim Attack Surface
Ron introduces the Application Compatibility Framework, designed to ensure legacy software runs on modern Windows systems. The shim infrastructure, managed by a kernel driver, applies runtime fixes to processes. By exploiting undocumented APIs, Ron and David craft a malicious shim that injects code without disk-based evidence, evading detection by endpoint detection and response (EDR) systems. This approach, applied to 64-bit processes, bypasses traditional monitoring, as injection occurs before EDR hooks are established.
Exploiting OfficeClickToRun for Escalation
David details their attack surface research on OfficeClickToRun.exe, a service running as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. By leveraging its undocumented RPC interfaces and Opportunistic Lock (OpLock) mechanisms, they inject a DLL into a high-privilege process, achieving escalation. This method requires specific conditions, which they meticulously engineered, demonstrating the power of combining disparate system components into a cohesive attack vector.
Methodology and Community Collaboration
The duo’s methodology hinges on deep reverse engineering, analyzing shim data structures and AVL tables to manipulate process behavior. They modernize a previously known technique, making it registry-free and elusive. Ron and David share their tools’ source code, inviting the community to refine these attacks and explore additional shim fixes. Their findings highlight the potential for OpLock and shim mechanisms to serve as building blocks for complex, multi-component attacks.
Defensive Measures and Future Research
To counter these threats, Ron and David urge developers to monitor early-stage process injections and scrutinize undocumented APIs. They encourage further exploration of shim data structures and AVL table manipulations, which could yield new attack vectors. By open-sourcing their tools, they foster collaborative advancements in offensive security, aiming to strengthen Windows defenses against such stealthy techniques.
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[DefCon32] Sudos and Sudon’ts: Peering Inside Sudo for Windows
In a groundbreaking move, Microsoft introduced Sudo for Windows in February 2024, bringing a Unix-like privilege elevation mechanism to Windows 11 Insider Preview. Michael Torres, a security researcher at Google, delves into the architecture of this novel feature, exploring its implementation, inter-process communication, and potential vulnerabilities. Michael’s analysis, rooted in reverse engineering and Rust’s interaction with Windows APIs, uncovers security flaws that challenge the tool’s robustness. His open-source approach invites the community to scrutinize and enhance Sudo for Windows, ensuring it balances usability with security.
Understanding Sudo for Windows
Michael begins by demystifying Sudo for Windows, a utility designed to allow users to execute commands with elevated permissions directly from a non-elevated console. Unlike its Unix counterpart, it leverages User Account Control (UAC) for elevation and Advanced Local Procedure Call (ALPC) for communication between processes. Available in Windows 11 version 24H2, the tool supports three configurations: running commands in a new window, disabling input in the current window, or inline execution akin to Linux sudo. Michael highlights its open-source nature, hosted on GitHub, which enables researchers to dissect its codebase for potential weaknesses.
Security Implications and Rust Challenges
Delving into the technical intricacies, Michael examines how Sudo for Windows interoperates with Windows APIs through Rust, a language touted for memory safety. However, invoking native Windows APIs requires “unsafe” Rust code, introducing risks of memory corruption vulnerabilities—counterintuitive to Rust’s safety guarantees. He identifies non-critical issues reported to Microsoft’s Security Response Center (MSRC) and one embargoed vulnerability, emphasizing the need for rigorous scrutiny. For bug hunters, Michael advises focusing on unsafe Rust boundaries, where Windows API calls create exploitable seams.
Path Resolution and Process Coordination
Michael explores the path resolution process, critical for handling file and relative path inputs in Sudo for Windows. The tool’s reliance on ALPC for coordinating elevated and non-elevated processes introduces complexity, as it must maintain secure communication across privilege boundaries. Missteps in path handling or process elevation could lead to unintended escalations, a concern Michael flags for further investigation. His analysis underscores the delicate balance between functionality and security in this new feature.
Community Engagement and Future Directions
Encouraging community involvement, Michael praises the open-source release, urging researchers to probe the codebase for additional vulnerabilities. As Sudo for Windows rolls out to mainline Windows 11, its adoption could reshape administrative workflows, but only if security holds. He advocates for responsible bug hunting to prevent malicious exploitation, ensuring the tool delivers on its promise of seamless elevation without compromising system integrity.
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[DefCon32] Spies and Bytes: Victory in the Digital Age
Cyber warfare reshapes global security, demanding agility and collaboration. General Paul M. Nakasone, retired U.S. Army and former director of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, shares insights from his career defending against nation-state hackers. His narrative, rooted in real-world operations, highlights strategies for securing critical infrastructure and countering sophisticated threats. Now founding director of Vanderbilt University’s Institute for National Security, Paul envisions a future where adaptive cyber strategies and new leadership tackle emerging challenges.
Paul’s experiences, from thwarting cyberattacks to fostering international alliances, underscore the importance of transparency and intelligence sharing. His forward-looking vision emphasizes resilience and interdisciplinary approaches to safeguard the digital frontier.
Defending Against Nation-State Threats
Paul recounts operations against adversaries like China and Russia, where rapid intelligence sharing thwarted attacks on U.S. infrastructure. As NSA director, he prioritized real-time collaboration with allies, disrupting cyber campaigns targeting elections and utilities.
These efforts highlight the need for dynamic defenses, adapting to adversaries’ evolving tactics in a borderless digital battlefield.
Building Resilient Cyber Defenses
At U.S. Cyber Command, Paul oversaw strategies integrating offensive and defensive operations. He describes fortifying critical systems, like power grids, through persistent engagement—proactively disrupting attacker infrastructure. Partnerships with private sectors, including tech giants, amplified these efforts, leveraging collective expertise.
Transparency in operations, he argues, builds trust and deters adversaries, a lesson drawn from high-stakes missions.
The Role of Intelligence and Alliances
International cooperation was central to Paul’s tenure. Alliances with NATO and Five Eyes nations enabled coordinated responses to threats, such as ransomware campaigns. Intelligence-driven operations, blending human and technical sources, provided actionable insights, often preventing attacks before they materialized.
This collaborative model sets a benchmark for future cyber defense, emphasizing shared responsibility.
Shaping the Future of Cybersecurity
At Vanderbilt, Paul aims to cultivate young leaders through the Institute for National Security, launching in October 2025. By integrating AI, cybersecurity, and decision-making, the institute addresses the industry’s age gap, where most professionals are over 50. He invites the DEF CON community to join, fostering innovation through partnerships and open dialogue.
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[DevoxxBE2024] AI and Code Quality: Building a Synergy with Human Intelligence by Arthur Magne
In a session at Devoxx Belgium 2024, Arthur Magne, CPO and co-founder of Packmind, explored how AI can enhance code quality when guided by human expertise. Addressing the rapid rise of AI-generated code through tools like GitHub Copilot, Arthur highlighted the risks of amplifying poor practices and the importance of aligning AI outputs with team standards. His talk showcased Packmind’s approach to integrating AI with human-defined best practices, enabling teams to maintain high-quality, maintainable code while leveraging AI’s potential to accelerate learning and enforce standards.
The Double-Edged Sword of AI in Software Development
Arthur opened with Marc Andreessen’s 2011 phrase, “Software is eating the world,” updating it to reflect AI’s current dominance in code generation. Tools like GitHub Copilot and Codium produce vast amounts of code, but their outputs reflect the quality of their training data—often outdated or flawed, as noted by Veracode’s Chris Wysopal. A 2024 Uplevel study found 41% more bugs in AI-assisted code among 800 developers, and GitLab’s 2023 report showed a 100% increase in code churn since AI’s rise in 2022, indicating potential technical debt. Arthur argued that while AI boosts individual productivity (88% of developers feel faster, per GitHub), team-level benefits are limited without proper guidance, as code reviews and bug fixes offset time savings.
The Role of Human Guidance in AI-Driven Development
AI lacks context about team-specific practices, such as security, accessibility, or architecture preferences, leading to generic or suboptimal code. Arthur emphasized the need for human guidance to steer AI outputs. By explicitly defining best practices—covering frameworks like Spring, security protocols, or testing strategies—teams can ensure AI generates code aligned with their standards. However, outdated documentation, like neglected Confluence pages, can mislead AI, amplifying hidden issues. Arthur advocated for a critical human-in-the-loop approach, where developers validate AI suggestions and integrate company context to produce high-quality, maintainable code.
Packmind’s Solution: AI as a Technical Coach
Packmind, a tool developed over four years, acts as an IDE and browser extension for platforms like GitHub and GitLab, enabling teams to define and share best practices. Arthur demonstrated how Packmind identifies practices during code reviews, such as preferring flatMap over for loops with concatenation in TypeScript or Java for performance. Developers can flag negative examples (e.g., inefficient loops) or positive ones (e.g., standardized loggers) and create structured practice descriptions with AI assistance, including “what,” “why,” and “how to fix” sections. These practices are validated through team discussions or communities of practice, ensuring consensus before enforcement. Packmind’s AI suggests improvements, generates guidelines, and integrates with tools like GitHub Copilot to produce code adhering to team standards.
Enforcing Standards and Upskilling Teams
Once validated, practices are enforced via Packmind’s IDE extension, which flags violations and suggests fixes tailored to team conventions, akin to a customized SonarQube. For example, a team preferring TestNG over JUnit can configure AI to generate compliant test cases. Arthur highlighted Packmind’s role in upskilling, allowing junior developers to propose practices and learn from team feedback. AI-driven practice reviews, conducted biweekly or monthly, foster collaboration and spread expertise across organizations. Studies cited by Arthur suggest that teams using AI without understanding underlying practices struggle to maintain code post-project, underscoring the need for AI to augment, not replace, human expertise.
Balancing Productivity and Long-Term Quality
Quoting Kent Beck, Arthur noted that AI automates 80% of repetitive tasks, freeing developers to focus on high-value expertise. Packmind’s process ensures AI amplifies team knowledge rather than generic patterns, reducing code review overhead and technical debt. By pushing validated practices to tools like GitHub Copilot, teams achieve consistent, high-quality code. Arthur concluded by stressing the importance of explicit standards and critical evaluation to harness AI’s potential, inviting attendees to discuss further at Packmind’s booth. His talk underscored a synergy where AI accelerates development while human intelligence ensures lasting quality.
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[DefCon32] Redefining V2G: How to Use Your Vehicle as a Game Controller
Modern vehicles, intricate networks of computers on wheels, offer more than mobility—they can become game controllers. Timm Lauser and Jannis Hamborg, researchers from P3 Group, present Vehicle-to-Game (V2G), a Python-based project that transforms cars into Bluetooth gamepads. By leveraging the CAN bus or OBD2 port, V2G maps vehicle inputs like steering or pedals to game controls, blending automotive hacking with playful innovation.
Timm and Jannis, driven by curiosity about vehicle networks, developed V2G to run on laptops or Raspberry Pi Zero WH, requiring reverse-engineering of CAN messages or UDS diagnostics. Their work, accessible via a public GitHub repository, invites enthusiasts to explore car interfaces while highlighting the accessibility of automotive security research.
Understanding Vehicle Networks
Timm explains vehicle architectures, where CAN buses and diagnostic ports like OBD2 facilitate communication between ECUs. V2G intercepts signals from components like the steering wheel or accelerator, translating them into gamepad inputs. This requires understanding proprietary CAN messages, often unique to each vehicle model.
Their Volkswagen ID.3 demo showcases real-time mapping of driving inputs to game controls, illustrating the project’s practicality.
Building the V2G Framework
Jannis details V2G’s implementation, using Python to interface with CAN buses via affordable hardware. The framework supports Bluetooth gamepad emulation, allowing cars to control games like racing simulators. Reverse-engineering CAN signals, though labor-intensive, is achievable with tools like CAN-utils, making V2G adaptable to various vehicles.
The open-source release encourages community contributions, with QR codes linking to the repository for further development.
Creative Applications and Challenges
Beyond gaming, V2G sparks interest in automotive interfaces, such as heads-up display integration. Timm and Jannis explore connecting to in-car screens via adapters, though cost remains a barrier. Flight simulator mapping, suggested by an audience member, highlights V2G’s versatility for unconventional inputs.
Challenges include model-specific CAN protocols and hardware costs, but the project lowers barriers for hobbyists and researchers.
Implications for Automotive Security
While playful, V2G underscores the accessibility of vehicle networks, a double-edged sword for security. Exposed interfaces like OBD2 ports are potential attack vectors, urging manufacturers to secure diagnostic communications. Timm and Jannis advocate responsible exploration, fostering learning without compromising safety.