Rick Altherr @kc8apf@mastodon.cloud

Reminder: I offer free mentoring and mock interviews. Embed sys, C++, perf analysis, at-scale monitoring, and more. Grab a spot on my calendar at http://calendly.com/kc8apf.

Really need to figure out a better chute for Big Chippin'. Filled the truck bed but dumped 6" of chips on the ground, roof, hood, ...

Perfect new arrival for a rainy October day

Checked alignment on microscope today. It's so far off that the normal adjustments can't compensate. Guess it's as good a time as any to open it up and do a thorough cleaning.

How to assess a secure MCU:
1. Beg for a datasheet
2. Sign NDA
3. Buy an eval board
4. Load program to dump ROM
5. RE ROM
6. Find undocumented registers and devices
7. Disbelief
8. Pick another device, repeat

Security through hiding rows in Excel 😬

Bought a preheater. Reworking TQFP-100 with an exposed pad is a breeze now.

Totally normal walk to the mailbox.

Today's trebuchet progress: frame mostly built. Need to work out pouch design and quick release.

Planning a trebuchet build with my kids. Started with some drawings and calculations.

"hidden coprocessor" is exactly what I want in a security-focused microcontroller: https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/application-note/AN12868.pdf

What the heck is hyperscale? I tried to find out in a new blog post: https://www.kc8apf.net/2020/05/what-the-heck-is-hyperscale/

Hot take: FPGAs are just very, very long instruction word (VVLIW?) processors

Guess I'm going to be the one to write an IPMI performance benchmark.

TFW you recognize throughput is varying with latency because every IPMI implementation sends requests sequentially instead of pipelining.

I'm coming to CanSecWest for the first time in 2020 and I'm bringing "Finding Firmware Implants" training to the Dojo with me. https://cansecwest.com/dojos/2020/firmimplants.html