So Your Roomba Vacuums ... Does It Also Take Pictures?
Phillip Torrone and his wife share their Seattle house with five Sony Aibo dog robots, two Segway motorized scooters, a suitcase-size robot whose brain is a laptop computer, and dozens of other gadgets. With the help of small digital video cameras, Mr. Torrone is modifying the Segway to automatically follow a pink ball. The laptop robot is trained to follow the Segway. When the robot gets close enough, it chirps out "ma-ma." Mr. Torrone has also modified his Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner to putter around the house and take pictures, periodically sending a Web log snapshots of electrical outlets and a dog bed.
Mr. Torrone is one of a growing breed of "hardware hackers" -- computer and electronics savants who rip apart gear to change both form and function. Their hobby is swiftly spreading: Reports of successful "hacks" often pop up online days or weeks after new videogame machines, cellphones or other gadgets hit stores, sometimes riling hardware makers who aren't pleased to see their creations tampered with. At least a half-dozen instructional hardware-hacking books have appeared in the past year, and several more are on the way.
Joe Grand, a San Diego hardware designer and editor of "Hardware Hacking: Have Fun While Voiding Your Warranty," is working on a book on hacking videogame machines, adding such things as customized lighting, higher-quality video and new controllers. He normally gives talks on computer security for groups including the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, but a recent hardware-hacking lecture he gave at a tech conference in Las Vegas was so packed, some people in the audience had to sit on the dais.
A tripod-mounted wok skimmer makes a long-range antenna for wireless Internet connections.
Hardware hackers say a flood of low-price, highly sophisticated consumer electronics has ushered in a renaissance in the dabbling spirit.
"These are pretty exciting times," says Mr. Torrone, who is on sabbatical from his day job in advertising. "We are starting to see basement tinkerers like we used to see back in the 1950s." For years, it has been software hackers, whose tools are a keyboard and mouse, who embodied the computer subculture. Now, hardware is getting cooler, says Mr. Grand, who felt like the "odd man out" in his days as a member of the Boston hacker collaborative known as the L0pht in the 1990s.
Sometimes tinkering can make money. Shortly after the MuVo2, a portable music player made by Creative Labs Inc., hit the market for $199 earlier this year, hackers discovered that its core was a miniature disk drive with massive four-gigabyte storage capacity that Hitachi Ltd. was selling separately to digital-camera users and others for $499. Soon, disk drives stripped out of the MuVo were showing up on eBay for around $250. The empty players -- which could be refitted with standard memory chips -- fetch $35 or so.
More often, hackers are driven by the need for improvised solutions -- or a desire to innovate in the theater of the technologically absurd.
While he was working at the computer-security company AtStake near Boston four years ago, Mr. Grand says too many colleagues were taking food that wasn't theirs from the office refrigerator. So he put the fridge into the cabinet of a big, unused Digital Equipment Corp. minicomputer. To the inside of the door, he bolted a custom-made circuit board that read employees' identification badges and unlocked for authorized eaters only. The setup was also rigged so Mr. Grand could log onto a Web site and monitor who was having late-night munchies.
Benjamin Heckendorn, a graphic designer in Wisconsin, specializes in vintage technology -- turning clunky old game machines, like the Atari 2600 (circa 1977), into smaller portable versions. He saws off extraneous bits and pieces and rewires the circuit board to fit inside a small case that surrounds a flat-panel, liquid-crystal display screen.
His moment of inspiration came as he watched the movie "The Green Mile." Bored as the three-hour prison drama wore on, he found himself thinking, "I wish I had my Game Boy." Then it dawned on him that his model lacked an illuminated screen, making it useless in a darkened theater. Some weeks later, he sketched the blueprint for his first portable Atari -- with built-in lighting -- and now sometimes sells his portables to vintage-game fans for $400 to $700.
Mr. Heckendorn has dubbed another recent triumph the "MGDp" -- a working, used computer that fits inside an 18-pack of Miller Genuine Draft beer. Mr. Heckendorn reinforced the beer box with aluminum, disemboweled an old PC, stuffed its essentials into the box, and cut holes for cords. It is well camouflaged against theft in his parked car, but he insists, "I would be more upset if they actually took an eighteen-er of beer than that old computer."
Stan Swan, an electronics teacher in Wellington, New Zealand, greatly boosts the range of wireless Wi-Fi Internet connections. He has constructed a custom antenna for his laptop computer out of a standard, finger-size Wi-Fi receiver, several feet of computer cable, a garden-hose coupler and a cheap Chinese skimmer normally used to fish things out of woks. The skimmer has a parabolic shape, much as a satellite dish does, that focuses the signal. And the gaps in the mesh allow wind to pass through for outdoor use. Mr. Swan, who says he is "very fond of Chinese food," once used a wok itself as his antenna, but gusts of wind kept knocking it over.
The Wi-Fi receiver costs about $25, the skimmer less than $10. With a 12-inch-diameter model, Mr. Swan says he can usually pick up Wi-Fi "hotspots" three miles away if he has an unobstructed line of sight. Consumer Wi-Fi equipment usually has a range of no more than a few hundred yards.
Mr. Swan, 55 years old, attributes his solution to old-fashioned New Zealand ingenuity born of the days when the country's isolation made it expensive to import consumer goods. "People of my age have very much been raised to improvise and not necessarily go out and purchase something off the shelf," says Mr. Swan. "Kiwis think around a problem and come up with a cost-effective idea."
Hackers sometimes play a cat-and-mouse game with hardware manufacturers riled by product modifications. Things got testy several years ago with Digital Convergence Corp., the now-defunct maker of the hand-held CueCat barcode scanner, which was given away free to consumers for plugging into their PCs. By waving the scanner over barcodes in newspaper and magazine ads, users could go instantly to Web sites with information about the advertised products, but their movements were being tracked for marketing purposes. Hardware hackers figured out how to use the scanners to reach the sites -- or read any bar code -- without leaving a trail for marketers. The secret: snipping a wire to circumvent a tiny chip on the CueCat's circuit board. Digital Convergence's lawyers sent cease-and-desist letters to people who posted Web sites with instructions on how to hack the machines, but the company ceased operating before the matter came to a head.
Microsoft Corp. changed the design of its Xbox videogame machine after hackers modified it so they could install Linux, a free operating system that is a Microsoft nemesis. In 2002, Andrew "bunnie" Huang, an MIT-trained engineer, figured out that data briefly passed between two chips on the Xbox motherboard without any encryption to hide its contents, allowing a way for the system to be modified. Microsoft quickly changed the security. Nvidia Corp., a Santa Clara, Calif., vendor that custom-built the parts for Microsoft, found itself with a surfeit of the old chips. That accounted for part of a $21 million inventory write-down the company took that year. In a letter to a tech news site, a spokesman blamed "the MIT hacker."
硬件黑客：科技亚文化的新军
菲利普?托伦(Phillip Torrone)和妻子在西雅图的家中有五只索尼(Sony, 又名:新力公司)的Aibo电子宠物狗、两辆Segway电动滑板车，还有一个行李箱大小、脑袋是笔记本电脑的机器人和其他几十个别的电子玩意儿。托伦借助几个小型数码摄像机来改良Segway电动滑板车，让它自动跟著一个粉色的球跑，而那个带笔记本电脑的机器人也“经过训练”，紧跟在滑板车后面。机器人靠近的时候，就会尖声地叫“ma-ma”。托伦还改装了他的Roomba自动吸尘器，让它在屋子里转来转去，并拍些照片。每过一阵，吸尘器就会向一个网络日志发送一些电源插座或是小狗床的快照。
托伦是眼下正在发展壮大的“硬件黑客族”中的一员。这些人都是电脑或电子方面的专家，喜欢把机器部件分拆，然后改装它们的外形或功能。这项嗜好很快就风靡开来。每当有新款视频游戏机、手机或其他电子产品上市，几天或几周后网上就会冒出成功“篡改”的案例报导。看著自己的产品被改头换面，硬件生产商大为恼火。在过去一年，至少有六七本指导人们改装硬件的书面世，还有一些这方面的书正在出版中。
乔?格兰德(Joe Grand)是圣地亚哥一名硬件设计师，也是《硬件改装：令保修卡失效的乐趣》(Hardware Hacking: Have Fun While Voiding Your Warranty)一书的编者。他目前正在写一本关于如何改装视频游戏机的书，内容加进了定制灯光、提高视频质量和新的控制器等。他一般是给包括空军特别调查办公室(the Air Force Office of Special Investigations)在内的一些团体做关于电脑安全的讲座，但最近他在拉斯维加斯的一个技术讨论会上做的硬件改装讲座却吸引大量的听众，以至于有些人要挤到讲台上坐。
硬件黑客们称，大量价格低而技术含量高的消费电子品使得改装精神又开始重放光芒。
“这是让人兴奋的时代，”托伦说。他从事广告工作，眼下正在享受定期休假。“我们彷佛开始看到50年代经常看到的那些修补地下室的工匠。”多年来，软件黑客们凭著键盘和鼠标一直被看作是电脑亚文化的代表。格兰德曾是90年代波士顿黑客组织L0pht的成员，那时他感觉自己“很孤独”。但如今情况不同了，硬件“酷”起来了，他说。
有时，改装也能挣钱。今年年初，Creative Labs Inc.生产的音乐随身听MuVo2以199美元的价格投放市场后不久，黑客们就发现它核心微硬盘的容量高达4G，而同种硬盘，日立公司(Hitachi Ltd.)单独卖给数码相机用户和其他用户的价格是499美元。很快，就有从MuVo上取下来的微硬盘在eBay上出售，标价250美元左右。而剩下的机壳可以装上普通标准的内存晶片，它大约能卖35美元。
格兰德说，他四年前在波士顿附近的AtStake电脑安全公司工作时，发现有非常多的同事从办公室的冰箱里偷吃不属于自己的食品。于是他把冰箱放进一台庞大的、暂时不用的Digital Equipment Corp.小型电脑的机柜中，在门朝里的一面装上定制的电路板作门闩，电路板阅读员工身份识别章，只有有资格享用食物的人才可以开门。格兰德还在这个装置上加了特别设置，这样他就能登陆到网上，看谁在夜间偷吃。
本杰明?赫肯顿(Benjamin Heckendorn)是威斯康星州的一名图形设计师，擅长利用一些老技术：把那些笨重的古老游戏机，像Atari 2600（1977年左右出品），改装成小一点的便携式游戏机。他把多余的零碎部分锯掉，重新连接电路板，使它能够装进一个较小的机壳内，并装上一个纯平的液晶显示屏。
这个灵感是他在看电影《The Green Mile》时忽然冒出来的。长达三个小时的监狱故事让他无聊透顶，于是一个念头跳了出来：“我要有一个Game Boy掌上游戏机该多好呀。”之后，他意识到他改装的游戏机缺一个照明屏，在光线暗的剧院里没法用。几个星期后，他设计出他的第一款带内置灯光的便携Atari。现在，他时常会把他改装的便携式游戏机卖给老式游戏机爱好者，售价在400美元到700美元之间。
赫肯顿最近又有一项胜利成果：MGDp－－把一台还能用的旧电脑塞进一个18罐装的美乐干啤纸箱中。赫肯顿用铝箔加固啤酒箱，把旧电脑的部件取出来，然后填进箱子中，在箱子上打上穿电线的孔。有如此好的伪装，当小汽车停在路边时电脑应该不会被人从车中偷走。但赫肯顿还是说：“如果有人真的想偷走那18罐装的啤酒，而非那台老电脑的话，我会更加郁闷。”
斯坦?斯旺(Stan Swan)是新西兰惠灵顿的一名电子教师,他大大拓宽了无线保真(Wi-Fi)网络的接入范围。他仅用一个手指大小的标准Wi-Fi接收器、几英尺长的电脑线、一个橡胶软管耦合器和一个便宜的中式漏勺（通常用来捞锅里的东西）就给自己的笔记本电脑定制了一个天线。漏勺是抛物线形，与卫星电视天线相似，能集中信号。另外，风可以从漏勺上的孔穿过，方便户外使用。斯旺称自己“非常喜欢中国菜”，他曾经用一口炒菜锅来做天线，但阵风总是把它吹翻。
Wi-Fi接收器要25美元，而漏勺不到10美元。斯旺说，如果瞄准线不受阻隔的话，用直径12英寸的模型通常能连入3英里外到Wi-Fi“热点”。而普通的消费类Wi-Fi设备的接入范围只有几百码。
55岁的斯旺谈到他的此项改良时认为，多年前，新西兰隔绝的地理环境使其进口消费品非常昂贵，也因此激发了新西兰人的创意精神。“跟我一般年纪的人从小就习惯了即兴发明点东西，不一定非要到商店去买，”斯旺说。“新西兰人善于思考问题，并找到一个划算的办法。”
硬件厂商对于自己的产品被改造深感恼火，黑客们有时跟这些厂商玩起猫抓老鼠的游戏。几年前，黑客一度和Digital Convergence Corp.公司闹得很僵。这家公司现在已经不存在，过去生产CueCat手持条形码扫描仪，免费发放给消费者接到PC上。用户只要把报刊杂志广告上的条形码在扫描仪前晃一晃，马上就能进入提供广告产品信息的网站，但他们的一举一动都被记录下来做行销的资料。硬件黑客们发现了怎样通过扫描仪连到网站上－－或是阅读任何条形码－－而不给营销人员留下任何线索的秘密：剪断绕在CueCat电路板一块小晶片上电线就行了。Digital Convergence的律师给那些在网站上告诉人们怎样破坏扫描仪功能的黑客寄发停止此类行为的警告信，但这个问题还没解决，公司就倒闭了。
微软公司(Microsoft Corp)发现有黑客修改其Xbox视频游戏机的设置，以免费安装微软死对头Linux的操作系统，之后微软马上修改了Xbox的设计。2002年，麻省理工学院(MIT)毕业的工程师黄欣国(Andrew Huang)发现数据只是简单地从Xbox主板的两片晶片中间经过，而没有任何加密来隐藏数据的内容，使修改系统有机可乘。微软很快就修改了安全设置。位于加州圣克拉拉的Nvidia Corp.公司专门为微软生产这部分的部件，发生这件事后，公司由于老晶片库存过量而苦不堪言，公司当年冲减了2,100万美元的库存，其中一部分就与此类晶片有关。在给科技新闻网站的一封信中，公司一位发言人严厉谴责了这位“MIT黑客”。
