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Stephen Fry and DVD Jon Back USB Sniffer Project

Posted by Soulskill on from the mainstream-hacking dept.

An anonymous reader writes "bushing and pytey of the iPhone DevTeam and Team Twiizers have created a Kickstarter project to fund the build of an open-source/open-hardware high-speed USB protocol analyzer. The board features a high-speed USB 2.0 sniffer that will help with the reverse engineering of proprietary USB hardware. The project has gained the backing of two high-profile individuals: Jon Lech Johansen (DVD Jon), and actor and comedian Stephen Fry."

92 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by ciaran_o_riordan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Stephen Fry also did a video for the GNU project's 25th birthday:

    http://www.gnu.org/fry/ "Freedom Fry"

    --
    Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
    1. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Aladrin · · Score: 1

      Right, because no matter how much good he does for a movement, if he ever fails to support it in even the smallest thing, we should burn him at the stake. /sarcasm

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
    2. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Spad · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, apart from the freedom to choose a locked down device if you want one.

      Unless, of course, you're advocating forcing people to use devices that give them freedom?

    3. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Funny

      The capitalist pig probably also drives a non-opensource car.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    4. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by ciaran_o_riordan · · Score: 1

      > Stephen fry also uses the iphone and loves it

      Yup. He loses a some RMS points for that. It's still cool that he made a birthday video for GNU.

      --
      Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
    5. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Coeurderoy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      nobody is perfect :-)
      personally I do not like the iPhone for all kinds or reasons, but although my teen son accepted one as a gift from his granfather I did not decide to disown him :-)

      and "you" probably drive a car with proprietary "car"matics, "eeeviill"...

      Let's than Stephen Fry for what support he gives, and try to explain issues to anybody who'd listen when possible..

    6. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by David+Gerard · · Score: 1

      Daily Mash: People Who Know How To Fucking Park On Brink Of Extinction

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    7. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by beelsebob · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But then, considering freedom good, and considering high quality hardware and software good are not mutually exclusive. Nor are acknowledging that sometimes you have to sacrifice one for the other.

      It's entirely possible to like both apple products, and open things.

    8. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by symes · · Score: 2, Informative

      Stephen Fry is an old man enjoying popularity with the young crowd by latching himself on to things he doesn't really understand.

      The minute he is criticised or meets some opposition to his actions he will storm off in a pathetic strop.

      You know this for fact? irrespective of what people might think of Fry's personality, he is very far from dim. It would not surprise me that he has a pretty decent handle on what he is prepared to discuss. IANAG (geriatric), even so I think that some of the biggest and most revered names in FOSS and such like are well and truly in Fry's age group. That said, he does strop.

    9. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by schnikies79 · · Score: 1

      Well since RMS is a egotastical tit that would rather force all things GNU down your throat, instead of giving you the freedom to decide, I don't see a problem with losing points.

      --
      Gone!
    10. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by adamofgreyskull · · Score: 5, Informative

      You're either a troll, or are ignorant. I saw a speech he gave a few years ago that was broadcast on BBC Parliament (or whatever it's called) on software freedom, DRM, format-shifting, P2P etc and he completely grokked the issues. He's not "just an old man", or "just a celebrity", he's actually incredibly fucking astute. He's a high-profile, highly intelligent celebrity, who actually knows what he's talking about, and exactly the kind of person people in power might actually listen to, as opposed to some AC on /. or "some beardy yank". tl;dr: He shares "our views" and communicates at a level that most British politicians respect and understand. This is a Good Thing.

    11. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by XLazarusX · · Score: 1

      With pathetic dogs like you nipping at his heels.

    12. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by schnikies79 · · Score: 1

      egotistical*

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      Gone!
    13. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by hey! · · Score: 1

      Yep. when all those ignorant young people discover that Fry is actually intelligent, educated and talented, they'll drop him like a hot potato and go back to pirating videos of anaemic pop songs performed by anorexic, Auto-tuned[tm] teen fashion models.

      If you want to know the truth, look at the calendar. People who were born more than ten years apart have nothing to say to each other. Koko Taylor or Billie Holiday have nothing to offer that fashion model pop star, because they belong to an era before iTunes. The Blues is dead; long live the Blues. And from the other side of the coin, there's no possibility of any *new* artists making anything worthy paying attention to. We might as well stop producing new culture, and content ourselves with trading old vinyl 78s.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    14. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Pax681 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      actually Stephen Fry is extremely intelligent and computer literate.

      he IS deffo a mac fanboi however, saying he doesn't understand just shows your complete ignorance of the man.

      For example, Emma thompson's laptop went tits up and she thought the script for the movie she had written was all but lost. she called stephen and asked his help....

      he managed to recover the script and everything else on the macbook that emma thought she had lost.

      so check the Production section of sense and sensinility wiki page for this little snippet
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_Sensibility_(film)

      On an episode of the popular quiz show QI, Emma Thompson revealed that she lost the screenplay on her faulty computer. When a repairman could not retrieve the file, she took the computer in a taxi to friend Stephen Fry, who, along with flatmate Hugh Laurie, spent seven hours retrieving the missing file.

      personally i am not a mac fan either however stephen fry does like their stuff and it was the writer Dougles Adams that got him into apple products

      he has also been dealing with mental health issues and WINNING.. he's not the type to run off in a strop....

      perhaps you should not comment on subjects that YOU can't understand or people you blatantly know nothing about eh?

    15. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by ciderbrew · · Score: 2, Interesting

      He drives a London black cab.

    16. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by ciderbrew · · Score: 1

      He buys rather a lot of apple things when he is in his manic state. he said he has about 10 ipods or so and he feels lucky to have the type of money to back his needs.

      Go watch Stephen Fry: Secret life of the Manic Depressive, if you care to know more.

    17. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ah like the "old men" that invented computing as we know it? Um, Like JCR Licklider?

      You know, the guy who was 45 in 1960, when he wrote about needing billions of bits in computers? IN 1960!??

      Yes, yes, I know, history is not important around here, especially when it doesn't involve rockets or space. Hell, even then no one cares.

    18. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by blackest_k · · Score: 1

      To be fair he was pretty keen on Android and Windows Mobile 7. He had a windows mobile 7 phone before they got released to the general public.

        I would be surprised if he actually pays for all of the devices he tweets about.

      --
      Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
    19. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by cgenman · · Score: 1, Troll

      Sometimes there are second considerations.

      Smartphones in the US were painfully abysmal before the iPhone. Every phone I owned before the iPhone deserved to be immediately flushed down a toilet. And I owned most of them. The stuff was GOD AWFUL. I remember using a friend's Nokia which was essentially a flip-out camera with a phone embedded into it, and it took 1/3rd of an hour of searching and 7 menu clicks to take a photo.

      The iPhone advanced phone interfaces and technology tremendously. Tremendously. We're in a far better phone world because of it. Is it horribly locked down? Definitely. But it also works really well. Sometimes making the world an actual better place is enough, even if you're not vegan while doing it.

      --
      The ______ Agenda
    20. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by ScrewMaster · · Score: 1

      egotistical*

      Actually, I think "egotastical" is interesting, as in "ego fantastic".

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    21. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by squizzar · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If I remember correctly he's a manic depressive, so possibly the odd strop is not unreasonable. Also given the propensity for Slashdotters to be a bit odd, I don't think it's entirely fair to put him down for some behavioural quirks, many of which are less serious than those exhibited by stereotypical computer types.

    22. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You're right. I find it strange that people who don't want to be stereotyped (such as "he's just a geek") stereotype other people so readily ("he's just a comedian"). News at 11: People sometimes have more than one interest!

      Asia Carrera, in addition to being a porn star, was at one time ranked number one in Unreal Tournament in the world. Crack all the jokes you like, but when was the last time you made millions and were ranked number one at a video game when it was at the top of its popularity?

    23. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by schnikies79 · · Score: 1

      My iPhone (haha) auto-corrected to egotastical.

      --
      Gone!
    24. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by beelsebob · · Score: 1

      Alternatively, you value freedom, but don't value it as much as you value actually being able to do things. The world is not a black and white place.

    25. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by toriver · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think his illness is referred to as "bipolar disease" which is related to manic depression but not the same.

    26. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Heed00 · · Score: 1

      Or maybe he just got something wrong. Why does he have to be a sell out?

      --
      Thought thinks itself.
    27. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by hedwards · · Score: 1

      Don't be silly, I'm pretty sure that he doesn't weigh the same as a duck so...

    28. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by spire3661 · · Score: 1

      Ive only ever seen his work as an actor and you can readily tell he is of above average intelligence.

      --
      Good-bye
    29. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by hedwards · · Score: 1

      I remember using a friend's Nokia which was essentially a flip-out camera with a phone embedded into it, and it took 1/3rd of an hour of searching and 7 menu clicks to take a photo.

      What were you using the emacs interface?

    30. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by spire3661 · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Its also the first widely popular smartphone that 'jsut works' The iPhone IS an incredible piece of hardware/software. Its not as open as we would like, but that doesnt mean its not a VERY capable device. I carried a windows phone for 4 years. I couldnt even install ACROBAT on it without failing.

      --
      Good-bye
    31. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by hedwards · · Score: 1

      Indeed, unlike Woz who seems more interested in playing pranks on people.

    32. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by hedwards · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The better question is why other people didn't see that coming. I mean the whole point of computing earlier on was to get through a set of data more quickly than one could manually do it. And to keep going longer as well. Both of which point to larger amounts of memory and disk space being needed.

      Given the amount of scientific discovery at the time it seems a bit odd to not think there was a huge need in the future.

    33. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by m50d · · Score: 1

      Sure, but the difference between an iphone and similar open platforms is pretty minor. We're not talking life or death here, nor the difference between being employed or not. There's what, a slightly smoother general "experience", and a handful of games that are iphone-only. As I say (above post was accidentally anonymous), you can't care much about freedom if that's enough to give it up for.

      --
      I am trolling
    34. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      "He's a high-profile, highly intelligent celebrity...

      Seconded. If you're familiar with the American TV show "House" then your familiar with another brilliant British actor and Fry friend and Blackadder alum Hugh Laurie, who has nothing but high praise for Fry. Fry I thought was also brilliant in the flawed "V for Vendetta" film adaptation of the great graphic novel. He a charming and intelligent actor and if he stands behind something I can buy into it.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    35. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I think it's easy to say that in an era of essentially free computing hardware. Dig deeper and you'll see that it *was* obvious to many people that computers were useful, it's just that they were too large, expensive and cantankerous at first.

      BTW, I'm glad you see that computers started because of "to get through a set of data more quickly than one could manually do it.", and *not* the insane viewpoint that we only have computers because of the space race of the 1960s. We could do the space race *because* we ALREADY had computers, not the other way around!

    36. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Combatso · · Score: 1

      score!

    37. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Inda · · Score: 1

      Sorry matey, but they're both the same.

      I believe he doesn't get enough of the manic side of things, only the depressive. That's gotta suck even more.

      Spike Milligan also suffered from it, as do many comedians.

      Remember he's a convicted criminal too, kids.

      --
      This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
    38. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by IrquiM · · Score: 1

      You must be one of the poorer capitalist pigs in this city. The rest of us have chauffeur driven limousines....

      --
      This is blinging
    39. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by commrade · · Score: 1

      Freedom *is* the ability to do things. A phone that I can compile a kernel module for lets me do a lot more things than one where I may purchase pre-approved entertainment centric apps.

      1700s: "Give me freedom or give me death!"

      2000s: "Give me freedom or... oooh, is that an iPhone?"

      /me slowly turns into RMS.

    40. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by mr_bubb · · Score: 1, Informative

      And, don't forget, the trio of Fry/Laurie/Thompson were also on "The Young Ones". I believe that trumps just about any other goddamn thing.

    41. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Hazelfield · · Score: 1

      Well, sometimes the "freedom to choose less freedom" isn't a good option to have. Chances are it becomes more or less mandatory.

      Let's say for example that my employer wants to install surveillance cameras to see how well we're working. I'd say "no way" and start working for another company. But when that company starts doing the same thing, and then the next, then soon I might run out of jobs to apply for. This way a pressure is created to accept measures you're uncomfortable with even though it's still voluntary on paper. Some things just shouldn't be allowed, even if both parties agree on it.

      (OK, so a locked-down music player may not be the end of the world, but you get my point.)

    42. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      surveillance cameras

      Replace with that with "pre-employment drug testing" and your example would be a case of something that has already happened. When the stock boy at Target must pass a drug test to get a job (a job so mind-numbing that you practically need to smoke a dube to unwind after work), all semblance of freedom has gone out the window.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    43. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by chartreuse · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Remember he's a convicted criminal too, kids.

      Yes, credit card fraud when he was 17 (three months' sentence), thirty-five years ago. Then he went to Cambridge, joined the Footlights, and began a brilliant career. (This was all covered in the BBC's celebration of Fry and Hugh Laurie's work just last Wednesday.)

      From Wikipedia: "In December 2006 he was ranked sixth for the BBC's Top Living Icon Award, was featured on The Culture Show, and was voted most intelligent man on television by readers of Radio Times. [...] BBC Four dedicated two nights of programming to Fry on 17 and 18 August 2007, in celebration of his 50th birthday. The first night, comprising programs featuring Fry, began with a sixty-minute documentary entitled Stephen Fry: 50 Not Out. The second night was composed of programs selected by Fry, as well as a 60-minute interview with Mark Lawson and a half-hour special, Stephen Fry: Guilty Pleasures. Stephen Fry Weekend proved such a ratings hit for BBC Four that it was repeated on BBC Two on 16 and 17 of that September."

      So if anything you're implying an early conviction is a good career move. But I'm sure you've never done anything illegal in your famously-productive life. What kind of example does that set for the kids? Go out and get convicted today!

    44. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      It isn't a gigantic surprise, actually. Outside of pure slapstick/dick-jokes circles, verbal comedy is actually a reasonably intellectually demanding flavor of entertainment-celebrity-dom. You essentially have to constantly (depending on the precise flavor) be either making concise-but-incisive observations about things that your audience knows about(so your jokes don't go right over their heads); but in a way that they haven't already thought of(so you don't merely bore them), and your phrasing has to be fast, cutting, and funny, without the luxury enjoyed by academic prose of being using a carpet bombing, rather than a scalpel, to examine the subject.

      I suspect that a reasonable number of comedians either just don't much care about that particular subject, or are in favor of whatever keeps their royalties highest; but comedians as a class are, in all likelihood, among the best places in the entertainment world to look for clear-thinking, incisive individuals who can cut through verbal fluff and ambient groupthink with clarity, precision, and enough speed to be amusing rather than agonizing.

      It's not for nothing, for instance, that comedians have basically replaced "news" anchors as the best source of national-audience television interviews in the United States. The fact that Frye cares about techie-interest stuff, rather than some other thing, is a fluke of person or biography; but I'd be pretty surprised to hear of any unincisive dullards making it beyond the lowest or crassest circles of the comedy world. Good verbal comedy is hard. Good verbal comedy on your feet, reacting without prep time, is harder...

    45. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by bmsleight · · Score: 1

      No HE drives the cab.

    46. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      It isn't terribly clear that Woz ever much cared about anything but the pure tech side of hacking(at which he is definitely several cuts above, albeit with most of his serious projects at the point of being historical now.). His unfortunate air crash, and cranial trauma(almost certainly under diagnosed and treated, given the tech and minimal understanding of traumatic brain injuries of the time) may also have blunted him a bit from his best days... He may also just not much care, or not be cut out to be interested in, the social and technological environment of things like the DMCA, cryptographically enforced DRM baked into ever more opaque and highly integrated hardware, and so forth. I'd imagine that it is hard for somebody who cut his teeth on basically designing entire computers from the board up, including implementing custom floppy controller firmwares, new bus designs, etc. to really have an emotional grip on a world where that is getting much, much, harder, and by design. Back when he was doing his top work, hardware was complex; but obfuscation was pretty much the best developed tool of the technological control trade. Cryptographic DRM was still way too computationally expensive, component integration was still pretty low(allowing for fairly easy snooping of those low-speed busses between chips) and so forth. He obviously isn't stupid; but he may well have not really be able to shake his sense of how it was in the old days, even in a world where $4 SoCs are doing mathematically nigh-unbreakable cryptographic verification of on-die firmwares that you can only even probe with $250,000 in chip teardown gear...

    47. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by PCM2 · · Score: 1

      Fry and Laurie co-starred in a sketch comedy show called A Bit of Fry and Laurie, which I thought was brilliant. Particularly in the later seasons they did some wickedly weird gags, somewhere on the Monty Python scale of surrealism combined with brainy wit. I don't know if it's available on DVD in the United States, but you know, it's out there...

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    48. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Darth · · Score: 1

      it is available. i own the box set.

      --
      Darth --
      Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
    49. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      "Stephen Fry is an old man enjoying popularity with the young crowd by latching himself on to things he doesn't really understand."

      Fry was enjoying popularity with the young crowd before you were born.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    50. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      "He shares "our views" and communicates at a level that most British politicians respect and understand"

      The anti-intellectual brigade certainly think so. Speeches such as this one have produced some powerfull enemies, wittness the recent media beat up over his "mysoginistic remarks".

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    51. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by cgenman · · Score: 1

      I'm not a huge fan of RIM. It never seemed to get more usable than a baseline Treo. Which, don't get me wrong, wasn't a bad phone. But RIM made some befuddling option layout choices. And worse than that, they really only had about 5 functions, but they had about 30 or 40 input icons.

      Blackberrys were not as bad as Nokias, by any stretch of the imagination. They had bloat problems, and were in love with proprietary technologies that were only useful to about 0.1% of their user base. Ultimately, I never found them to be as usable as Palm-phones. Palm never seemed to have the money to dilute their interface with useless options. But Palm's interface was basically Windows 3.1, with issues jimmying that complexity into a system where a TCP-IP stack was a luxury that barely fit.

      --
      The ______ Agenda
    52. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by thunderclap · · Score: 1

      There are anemic pop songs performed by anorexic, Auto-tuned(R) teen fashion models? I assumed that they were 20 something actors, former homeless people who now work in the music industry, You Tube prodigies, and industry created talent with the rare talented person thrown in. As for Billie Holiday having nothing to offer, wait long enough. Everything is recycled.

    53. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      wittness the recent media beat up over his "mysoginistic remarks".

      I didn't notice that (but then, I treat most of the "Celeb Nooz" parts of the gutter press with the contempt it deserves ; I wouldn't wipe the shit out of my crack with them, not out of respect for their finer feelings but because their rags use cheap paper that your fingers go through) ; but unless Fry's public sex life has changed drastically (see parenthetic comment above), then as a celibate he can be blunt about women's unpleasantly drippy, bleedy bits without facing charges of hypocrisy due to nonetheless wishing to shove his pissy spurty bits into the drippy, bleedy bits.

      Isn't it "misogyny" etc? Yeah. Greek "gynos-" = about women.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    54. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by jesset77 · · Score: 1

      Wait, you're still talking about Jeeves and Wooster, rite?

      --
      People willing to trade their freedom of expression for temporary entertainment deserve neither and will lose both.
    55. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by colinnwn · · Score: 1

      Tried to watch the first episode last night on Netflix streaming. I love Wooster & Jeeves. There were a few funny gags in this, but it rapidly got so much of a bore that I was forced by my fellow TV watchers to turn it off.

  2. Slashdotted Fry? by torsmo · · Score: 1

    Looks like Stephen's Twitter page is down.

    1. Re:Slashdotted Fry? by hedwards · · Score: 1

      Could be worse, at least we haven't Fryed Slashdot.

  3. Re:so? by imakemusic · · Score: 2, Funny

    Like I care when an Anonymous Coward dismisses a comedians endorsement of a software/hardware project...

    --
    Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
  4. Douglas Adams would've approved ... by Gopal.V · · Score: 1
    Actually, when I think about it, Douglas Adams did write a "Death to Dongly Things", sometime in the last decade.

    I sure hope Stephen Fry can write up a funny thing to stir up support, even among those of us who don't care enough.

    --
    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
    1. Re:Douglas Adams would've approved ... by Amorymeltzer · · Score: 2, Informative

      "Write" is a strong word. How about "published posthumously as part of a larger collection of writings?"

      --
      I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
    2. Re:Douglas Adams would've approved ... by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 1

      Stephen Fry and Douglas Adams were great friends and one of them was the second to own an Apple Mac in the UK ....

      Both were/are very knowledgeable about most techie things, especially Apple related (they are biased towards all things Apple...)

      --
      Puteulanus fenestra mortis
    3. Re:Douglas Adams would've approved ... by Doggabone · · Score: 1

      "Write" is a strong word. How about "published posthumously as part of a larger collection of writings?"

      Are you saying that Adams published his own work posthumously? Neat trick. He did, of course, write it, and it was first published as a column for MacWorld magazine. The posthumous collection of works came after ... *cue eerie music*

    4. Re:Douglas Adams would've approved ... by RockDoctor · · Score: 2, Funny

      "Write" is a strong word. How about "published posthumously as part of a larger collection of writings?"

      Are you saying that Adams published his own work posthumously? Neat trick.

      Of course he did. He's only spent the last decade dead for tax reasons.

      (You set 'em up ; I'll knock 'em in!)

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    5. Re:Douglas Adams would've approved ... by Doggabone · · Score: 1

      "Write" is a strong word. How about "published posthumously as part of a larger collection of writings?"

      Are you saying that Adams published his own work posthumously? Neat trick.

      Of course he did. He's only spent the last decade dead for tax reasons.

      (You set 'em up ; I'll knock 'em in!)

      +1 Nicely Played

    6. Re:Douglas Adams would've approved ... by imakemusic · · Score: 1

      That was a strong comment. How about published humorously in as “Dongly Things, A Pox on the Panoply of Plugs,” in US version of MacWorld magazine in September 1996 (p. 140) and republished in his post-humous book, The Salmon of Doubt.

      How the hell is "write" a strong word? When and however it was published, he wrote it.

      --
      Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
    7. Re:Douglas Adams would've approved ... by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 1

      ...and you base this on what ?

      Both Stephen and Douglas have used Apple Mac's since 1984.. and both have had stories told about them of their ability to fix low level problems with them

      Yes they may never have never complied a program in their life and their knowledge may be limited to a set of machines, but if that means they are not techies then you seem to be moving the goalposts to exclude them deliberately ?

      --
      Puteulanus fenestra mortis
  5. Anysort of breakout-board is always a welcome tool by smoothnorman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's a great idea, but at this point shouldn't it be a USB-3.0 device?

  6. Re:Anysort of breakout-board is always a welcome t by Kazymyr · · Score: 1

    Nope. Not unless you come across a device that is USB-3 compatibleonly. As in, no backwards compatibility with USB 2.0 and 1.1. Then you would need a USB 3.0 analyzer.

    That is very unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future.

    --
    I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
  7. Re:so? by adamofgreyskull · · Score: 4, Interesting

    He's not just a comedian though is he? Most actresses know less about foreign policy than Sarah Palin, whereas Stephen Fry knows a lot about open-ness, DRM and the importance of being able to play a DVD on the OS of your choice. Should we ignore anything Brian May has to say on the subject of Astrophysics because he's "just a musician"?

  8. Also his father by Kupfernigk · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Fry owes a lot to his father, who ran a company that made electronic controls from a factory in the grounds of their house in Norfolk. Fry's father was still writing code, the last I heard.

    Mind you, there's not much else to do in Norfolk.

    Computer literacy runs in the family.

    --
    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
    1. Re:Also his father by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      Fry owes a lot to his father, who ran a company that made electronic controls from a factory in the grounds of their house in Norfolk. Fry's father was still writing code, the last I heard.

      Mind you, there's not much else to do in Norfolk.

      Even less now that the prime turkey bother-er has has gone to that great factory farm in the firey depths, to be "attended to" by turkey-demons.
      (Bernard Matthews died yesterday. "Bootiful!")

      Computer literacy runs in the family.

      Instead of noses? (he says, typing whil;e wearing finger-mitts and a wooly hat)

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    2. Re:Also his father by TheThiefMaster · · Score: 1

      Mind you, there's not much else to do in Norfolk.

      I'll vouch for this.

  9. Yes, because by Kupfernigk · · Score: 1

    He's Brian Cox, OBE.

    --
    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
    1. Re:Yes, because by DavidWeight · · Score: 5, Informative

      Should we ignore anything Brian May has to say on the subject of Astrophysics because he's "just a musician"

      He's Brian Cox, OBE.

      Or he's Brian May-of Queen, with a PHD in astrophysics from Imperial College... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_May

  10. Why hardware? by bcmm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why does this need to be implemented in hardware?

    I presume the main purpose of this is analyzing the communication between a USB device and its proprietary Windows driver. Wouldn't it be easier to modify virtualization software to do this? Qemu can already connect a real USB device to a virtual machine (see its "-usbdevice host:" option).

    --
    # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
    Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
    1. Re:Why hardware? by marcansoft · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Two main reasons: Embedded device peripherals, and USB device development. Sometimes you don't have access to the OS running on the host to set up a sniffer (game consoles, some smartphones, and similar). And sometimes you need to debug a USB device that you're developing, and software USB sniffers don't provide the kind of detail needed to do that effectively (some errors are only evident when you watch the stuff on the wire, not the high-level requests).

      Also, software sniffers are imperfect. I've had issues with them. A physical hardware device is completely transparent and can work without either side noticing anything. Sure, you can make do with a software sniffer sometimes, but that doesn't mean there's no point to a hardware version.

      And since this is open, it can be repurposed for other uses. For example, you could use only the device port, and turn it into a kind of usb device-to-device bridge that lets your computer impersonate a USB device. That is currently not possible except on embedded systems with USB device controllers, and those have limitations. You could also use it as a pretty good logic analyzer, given proper firmware.

    2. Re:Why hardware? by Xest · · Score: 1

      Because then it's hardware and software independent.

      Want to know how that proprietary controller communicates with that proprietary console? simple. A windows driver wont always exist.

  11. Software only solution? by amiga500 · · Score: 1

    Pardon my ignorance, but why can't this sort of thing be done entirely in software? On consoles this wouldn't be possible, but for Windows can't you create a virtual USB driver which is a proxy to hardware USB device? It seems folks have been doing this sort of thing with Ethernet for a long time.

    1. Re:Software only solution? by dave420 · · Score: 2, Informative

      You just answered your own question. This will work on *anything* that has a USB port. Anything.

    2. Re:Software only solution? by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 1

      Let's say you're working on trying to reverse engineer the Xbox 360 controller protocol...

      Yes, it has two modes. "Works on windows" and "works on xbox". Getting it to give up it's secrets to work on, "Works on Xbox" mode has been a pain in the ass.

      --
      Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
  12. huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Brian May (he of Queen Fame) is known for being knowledgable on Astrophysics (and wearing clogs), whereas Brian Cox is less well know for his big hair and guitar solos.

    I suggest you go an wiki Brian May.

    1. Re:huh? by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 1

      The Brian Cox he means is the ex-bandmember of D:Ream, who has a PhD in particle physics, not astrophysics. He currently works on an experiment at the Large Hadron Collider.

      While his musical efforts are not as iconic as those of Dr May, his scientific contributions, both in terms of the science itself, and his promotion of the public understanding of science, are arguably more significant.

  13. Re:so? by hedwards · · Score: 1

    Doubtful, Ms. Palin seems to be deliberately obtuse about foreign policy. For God's sake she thinks that being governor of a state next to Russia counts as experience with international relations. And she spend most of her time in office running for VP.

  14. Re:Anysort of breakout-board is always a welcome t by hedwards · · Score: 1

    Not necessarily. You'll get a functional device in that case yes, but whenever USB enters a new major revision they've had to tack on a new chip to the mix. And there's no guarantee that the new chip will be completely compatible in terms of protocol with the older ones. In fact I'd suggest that they aren't compatible otherwise they wouldn't need a separate chip for it.

  15. I pledged! by jpedlow · · Score: 1

    I pledged $50, it's my most sincere hope that projects like this get off the ground. The students/hackers/tinkerers that are super into this kind of stuff could use all the tools they can get, I'm just a newbie when it comes to this stuff, but I can certainly respect it. Anyway, here's hoping that they hit 200% pledges, they're already at 115%!

  16. Re:Anysort of breakout-board is always a welcome t by Kazymyr · · Score: 1

    Not necessarily. You'll get a functional device in that case yes, but whenever USB enters a new major revision they've had to tack on a new chip to the mix. And there's no guarantee that the new chip will be completely compatible in terms of protocol with the older ones. In fact I'd suggest that they aren't compatible otherwise they wouldn't need a separate chip for it.

    So, wait. How do you get a functional device if the interface chip is incompatible? You lost me there. Either they communicate effectively, and the device is functional, or they don't (and it isn't).

    --
    I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
  17. Interesting by interval1066 · · Score: 1

    Of all the tech efforts for Fry to get behind a USB protocol analyzer is one of the least likely in my opinion, but it is a good and needed effort. Kudos to Fry for picking it.

    --
    Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
  18. Amusing video but... by fragMasterFlash · · Score: 2, Informative

    Having worked with several commercial USB protocol analyzers over the years I have yet to see one was anything more than an FPGA connected to an off the shelf USB PHY chip. As much as I like cute dog videos these guys need to post proper requirements and design specifications if they seriously want funding from me.

    1. Re:Amusing video but... by bushing · · Score: 1

      Having worked with several commercial USB protocol analyzers over the years I have yet to see one was anything more than an FPGA connected to an off the shelf USB PHY chip. As much as I like cute dog videos these guys need to post proper requirements and design specifications if they seriously want funding from me.

      Click through the links to the actual Kickstarter project description. We did some handwaving to keep it accessible for J. Random (Software) Hacker, but I think we gave enough details to answer your questions.

      (tl;dr: yes, you're right, and that's more or less what we're doing. Haven't decided on which PHY to use, looking at some SMSC and NXP parts.)

      OpenVizsla will be a completely open design of a device that can capture USB 1.1/2.0 (high-speed, full-speed and low-speed) traffic passively between a target USB device and the connected host (usually a PC, but potentially anything that has a USB host port -- think Xbox 360 and PS3). It will be controlled by any computer using open-source client software or potentially in standalone mode (where captured traffic is stored onto an on-board SD card).

      As is proper for any open and hackable design, unused I/Os on the FPGA will be exposed (via 0.1" header) for use as a primitive logic analyzer. We hope to eventually support additional sniffing interfaces (SPI, I2C RS232, SD card etc) that connect to a high-speed Mictor connector that can act as 'man-in-the-middle' and extend the device capability limitlessly.

      The OpenVizsla device is built around a multi-layer PCB with around 180 surface-mount components that allow the target USB packets to be captured, buffered and delivered to the PC (or stored on SD card in standalone mode).

      An XMOS event-driven processor will handle the huge amount of USB data (these little chips are fast!) and it will handle the overall communications with the host (which will be a fully published protocol!) and will provide on-board system programming, housekeeping and of course flash the status LEDs! In standalone mode, the XMOS chip will handle data acquisition and SD card storage; this processor is fully reconfigurable and can be modified and reprogrammed to improve the features or adapt to new requirements.

      For the high-speed USB signals a Xilinx Spartan3E FPGA (with attached, expandable RAM) will capture, process and buffer the USB traffic from an attached USB transceiver that we use to deserialize the USB signals from the target link.

    2. Re:Amusing video but... by mako1138 · · Score: 1

      Why'd you go with XMOS over, say, additional FPGA fabric?

  19. Is it just me.. by Beerdood · · Score: 1

    Or did that header with "Fry" and "Sniffer Project" make you immediately think of the smell-o-scope from futurama?

    --
    Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM