Poisonous Pi – The Execution of a Raspberry Pi Hacking Workshop

43 years ago, a small team led by Chuck Peddle changed the way society computes today. In 1975, encased in plastic, this 40-pin DIP 8-bit microprocessor, known as the MOS Technology 6502, made its debut. Why should you care? Not only was this the cheapest microprocessor on the shelf, but I believe, without this OG beauty queen of tech, our technology landscape and cultural impact would be an exponentially different landscape. Granted, I would have preferred a future with less dog-feature-filtered selfies, but alas we are living in a pretty impressive time. This revolutionary home computing age ran its course creating everything from the Apple II, the Commodore family, and the soon to be addictive personal game consoles. Point being: you can’t appreciate one innovation, without understanding the heritage behind it. This 8-bit processor lineage soon led to the mighty mouse of projects, the Raspberry Pi. And as we tend to do with everything, that led eventually to some fun Raspberry Pi Hacking!

MOS Tech 6502

Background of My Raspberry Pi Hacking Adventure

I first heard about the Raspberry Pi at DEF CON about two years ago. I had just invested in my first WiFi Pineapple with youthful ignorance and broad intentions, generally a common theme in DEF CON noobs.  Upon the purchase, I walked by a table for The Human Rights Foundation, who were explaining Flash Drives for Freedom, a project focused on smuggling small media devices filled with western pop-culture content across the DMZ of North Korea in hopes of spreading information about the outside world. In addition to these thumb drives, the gentlemen mentioned more people donating Raspberry Pi Zeros, a smaller yet fully functioning version of the credit card sized computer, filled with information as well. I was inspired.

In hopes of avoiding sounding (Read more...)