1/13/2025 at 5:43:18 PM
Thanks for the wiki -- I have always been interested in hardware hacking but I have always felt overwhelmed as I didn't know where to start. I believe this kind of resource can greatly help with that, especially the case studies.However, I can't help but feel that a major part of the content is LLM-generated, or at least LLM-rewritten. It feels off and uninteresting to read, honestly. Is it the case? To support my case, I see that the case study page (https://www.hardbreak.wiki/introduction/case-study-led-to-a-...) has very similar paragraphs next to each other, the second one seemingly being the "genuine" one, and the first one being the LLM-rewritten version.
I'm not against using LLMs to help fix typos or reformulate things, but you should definitely keep some of your style. The LLM that you used (if you used one) made the content super bland, and as a reader, I'm not really incentivized to browse more.
by spidersouris
1/13/2025 at 6:13:52 PM
Get a ham radio technician license, and you may develop an intuitive perspective on most electrical engineering concepts.i.e. the physics lab derivation of the core EE tool set is unnecessary if you understand what the models are describing.
AI is slop in and slop out... and dangerous to students... =3
John Shive's Wave Machines is where every student should start:
by Joel_Mckay
1/13/2025 at 10:22:14 PM
> Get a ham radio technician license, and you may develop an intuitive perspective on most electrical engineering concepts.May. I managed to get one without developing much intuition for most EE concepts, unfortunately.
by TeMPOraL
1/14/2025 at 10:06:22 AM
Were you also completely turned off by the community?I ask because I got into it about 15+ years ago for the purposes of helping with emergency comms and learning more about electronics, but found the community extremely hostile toward new comers that did not have money to burn on expensive gear. I ended up just giving up on it after a few years after investing in a bunch of Arduino stuff and learned far more about EE than I ever did playing at radio. The concept of the Elmer seemed dead, leaving nobody who wanted to show the new guys the ropes.
From what I understand, maybe that has changed in recent years?
Weirdly, I did take something away from my experience with ham radio; I know an awful lot about the weather and atmosphere now, which has turned into a lasting interest.
by 0xEF
1/14/2025 at 11:08:48 AM
Ham radio's decline is more than explainable as a cultural issue.The culture of every internet forum I've ever visited for it is absolutely deplorable. It seems like each one has a handful of really grouchy old gatekeepers who lie in wait to absolutely dunk on newcomers.
by cushychicken
1/14/2025 at 11:25:50 AM
We agree, but I suppose my next question would be why? What happened to turn these guys (or ham radio culture at large) into grouchy old gatekeepers? I'm generalizing, of course, but they were like that when I arrived. I can't imagine the hobby was always like that, especially seeing some of the old literature from the 50's and 60's in the US, which was very encouraging of mentoring and sharing info.If it's still the same today as it was back when I tried it out, that's a shame, because ham radio is absolutely full of hardware hacking opportunities. Heck, you can make an antenna out of a retractable tape measure.
by 0xEF
1/14/2025 at 2:45:34 PM
> What happened to turn these guys (or ham radio culture at large) into grouchy old gatekeepers? I'm generalizing, of course, but they were like that when I arrived.My bet would be, the Internet. Mailing lists and then discussion boards (and then group IMs) allowed for deeper, topical conversations, with much lower barrier to entry, so everyone left the radio spectrum - everyone except those already used to spending time on it, and not interested in moving on to the new thing.
by TeMPOraL
1/15/2025 at 2:44:06 AM
Amateur radio has always self-policed to a large extent. Mostly to keep the FCC off their backs, and I'm sure the internet has made it worse, but it's always been there.by wpm
1/14/2025 at 12:44:43 PM
Lead paint probablyby btreecat
1/14/2025 at 4:22:33 PM
HAHA that got me goodby cushychicken
1/14/2025 at 2:41:55 PM
Maybe, but the problem I see with HAM is that no interesting discussion is allowed to happen in the first place. Between the legal rules, cultural rules, and the expectation to avoid niche topics that would bore out 90% of participants, there's hardly anything left to talk about.by TeMPOraL
1/14/2025 at 4:01:37 PM
The overlap of hams and preppers is pretty large.. Most of those guys are of a particular mindset that only meshes with other like minded individuals.by doubleg72
1/14/2025 at 2:37:10 PM
> Were you also completely turned off by the community?I was never turned on :). I got my license partly because other people at our local Hackerspace were getting it, and partly because I imagined it'll be useful to have the knowledge and ability to build and legally operate my own radio hardware.
I never got the whole HAM talking over radio thing. Between the legal and cultural restrictions on the topics, and the expectations of not taking up the airwaves too much, I can't see how you could discuss anything interesting or worthwhile this way. It's no surprise that there seems to be nothing going on other than boring and obnoxious rag chewing - interesting conversations aren't allowed to occur in the first place.
I mean, the intersection between "non-commercial", "non-religious", "non-controversial/non-political", and "interesting to any HAM" is... basically just saying hello, weather, trash talk, and self-referential showing off.
by TeMPOraL
1/13/2025 at 10:45:37 PM
Did you mean you don't understand the equations/theory, or are having difficulty applying the concepts to design circuits?In the first case, install LTSpice (free from Analog Devices), and head here to run down the basics:
https://www.youtube.com/@FesZElectronics/videos
And in the latter, go though common basic designs analyzing how they work:
https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofelectroniccircuits...
https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofel02graf
https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780070110779
https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofel0006graf
Then try your own designs combining properties of several designs. Start with simple blinkers and buzzers at first... Try to avoid Arduino designs until you've done a few 555, transistor, and opamp circuits first. =3
by Joel_Mckay
1/13/2025 at 11:18:25 PM
Most of my issues seem to be about power - I have no feel for the relevant math, so even as I remember the basic equations and methods, I never feel certain I'm calculating it right. So in terms of hands-on experience, I pretty much jumped straight from burning through-hole resistors with 12V battery to ignite rocket motors made of PVC and caramel fuel, to Arduinos and RPIs and NodeMCUs -- basically, stuff that comes with an USB port it can draw power from...Thanks for the links, I'll work through them and hopefully come out with some understanding at the end of this process :).
by TeMPOraL
1/14/2025 at 1:56:48 AM
Note, part of the fun is the forensic analysis to figure out why stuff didn't work the first time... Maybe a LDO Voron 3d printer kit would be a fun project too =3by Joel_Mckay
1/13/2025 at 11:41:30 PM
I mean I'm a dummy who just wanted to listen to ISS static and trucker jargon.by otteromkram
1/13/2025 at 11:53:13 PM
Indeed, we also end up learning about our sun in levels of detail no person should find enthralling... lol =3by Joel_Mckay
1/14/2025 at 10:06:12 AM
At least in the UK you can't if you're a linux user, the software they use to spy on you while taking the test is windows only.by RobotToaster
1/14/2025 at 2:07:31 PM
Well first off, the certificate comes with certain guarantees, and they can't give those guarantees if they can't prove you didn't cheat on the test. "spy on you" is absolutely correct, but a bad faith phrasing. That said, I did my AWS test at a test / exam center where there's isolated computers and cameras to validate that there was no cheating.by Cthulhu_
1/13/2025 at 6:17:00 PM
dangerous to studentsIt's fatally dangerous to students who ignore it or dismiss it out of hand. That much is already certain.
by CamperBob2
1/13/2025 at 6:24:06 PM
How so?by Joel_Mckay
1/13/2025 at 6:29:42 PM
Wait and see. You're not paying attention now, but it's not too late to start.Go to your favorite programming puzzle site and see how you do against the latest models, for instance. If you can beat o1-pro regularly, for instance, then you're right, you have nothing to worry about and can safely disregard it. Same proposition that was offered to John Henry.
by CamperBob2
1/13/2025 at 6:51:43 PM
Please reformulate your argument, and I will check back tomorrow:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNSHZG9blQQ
LLMs are rules based search engines with higher dimension vector spaces encoding related topics. There is nothing intelligent about these algorithms, except the trick ones play on oneself interpreting well structured nonsense.
It is stunting kids development, as students often lack the ability to intuitively reason when they are being misled. "How many R's in 'Strawberry'?" is a classic example exposing the underlying pattern recognition failures. =3
by Joel_Mckay
1/14/2025 at 8:45:56 AM
I have never understood why the failure to answer the strawberry question has seen as a compelling argument as to the limits of AI. The AIs that suffer from this problem have difficulty counting. That has never been denied. Those AI's also do not see the letters of the words they are processing. Counting the letters in a word is a task that it is quite unsurprising that it fails. I Would say it is more surprising that that they can perform spelling tasks at all. More importantly the models where such weaknesses became apparent are all from the same timeframe where the models advanced so much that those weaknesses were visible only after so many other greater weaknesses had been overcome.People didn't think that planes flying so high that pilots couldn't breathe exposed a fundamental limitation of flight, just that their success had revealed the next hurdle.
The assertion that an LLM is X and therefore not intelligent is not a useful claim to make without either proof that it is X and proof that X is insufficient. You could say brains are interconnected cells that send pulses at intervals dictated by a combination of the pulses they sense, and there is nothing intelligent about that. The premises must be true and you have to demonstrate that the conclusion follows from those premises. For the record I think your premises are false and your conclusion doesn't follow.
Without a proof you could hypothesise reasons why such a system might not be intelligent and come up with an example of a task that no system that satisfies the premises could accomplish. While that example is unsolved the hypothesis remains unrefuted. What would you suggest as a test that shows a problem that could not be solved by such a machine? It must be solvable by at least one intelligent entity to show that it is solvable by intelligence. It must be undeniable when the problem is solved.
by Lerc
1/14/2025 at 9:22:17 AM
The AIs that suffer from this problem have difficulty counting.
by tecleandor
1/14/2025 at 11:02:38 AM
Ok, give me an example of what you would consider reasoning.by Lerc
1/14/2025 at 5:45:20 PM
Is that like 80% LLM slop? the allusion for failures to improve productivity in competent developers was cited in the initial response.The Strawberry test exposes one of the many subtle problems LLMs inherently offer in the Tokenization approach.
The clown car of Phds may be able to entertain the venture capital folks for awhile, but eventually a VR girlfriend chat-bot convinces a kid to kill themselves like last year.
Again, cognitive development like ethics development is currently impossible for LLM as they are lacking any form of intelligence (artificial or otherwise.) People have patched directives into the model, but these weights are likely fundamentally statistically insignificant due to cultural sarcasm in the data sets.
Please write your own responses, =3
by Joel_Mckay
1/14/2025 at 9:02:20 PM
You suspect my words of being AI generated while at the same time arguing that AI cannot possibly reason.It seems like you see AI where there is not, this compromises your ability to assess the limitations of AI.
You say that LLMs cannot have any form of intelligence but for some definitions of intelligence it is obvious they do. Existing models are not capable in all areas but they have some abilities. You are asserting that they cannot be intelligent which implies that you have a different definition of intelligence and that LLMs will never satisfy that definition.
What is that definition for intelligence? How would you prove something does not have it?
by Lerc
1/14/2025 at 9:54:21 PM
"What is that definition for intelligence?"That is a very open-ended detractor question, and is philosophically loaded with taboo violations of human neurology. i.e. It could seriously harm people to hear my opinion on the matter... so I will insist I am a USB connected turnip for now ... =)
"How would you prove something does not have it?"
A Receiver operating characteristic no better than chance, within a truly randomized data set. i.e. a system incapable of knowing how many Rs in Strawberry at the token level... is also inherently incapable of understanding what a Strawberry means in the context of perception (currently not possible for LLM.)
Have a great day =3
by Joel_Mckay
1/15/2025 at 4:37:52 AM
>A Receiver operating characteristic no better than chance, within a truly randomized data set. i.e. a system incapable of knowing how many Rs in Strawberry at the token level... is also inherently incapable of understanding what a Strawberry means in the context of perception (currently not possible for LLM.)This is just your claim, restated. In short it is saying they don't think because they fundamentally can't think.
There is no support as to why this is the case. Any plain assertion that they don't understand is unprovable because you can't measure directly measure understanding.
Please come up with just one measurable property that you can demonstrate is required for intelligence that LLMs fundamentally lack.
by Lerc
1/15/2025 at 5:46:44 AM
We are at a logical impasse... i.e. failure to understand the noted ROC curve is often a metric that matters in ML development, and LLMs are trivially broken at the tokenization layer:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Receiver_operating_characteris...
Note, introducing a straw-man argument and or bot slop in an unrelated topic is silly. My anecdotal opinion does not really matter on the subject of algorithmic performance standards. yawn... super boring like ML... lol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yawning_koala_bear_(35893...
_(cropped).jpg){kind=link}
Best of luck, =3
by Joel_Mckay
1/13/2025 at 7:17:51 PM
(Shrug) If you're retired or independently wealthy, you can afford that attitude. Hopefully one of those describes you.Otherwise, you're going to spend the rest of your career saying things like, "Well, OK, so the last model couldn't count the number of Rs in 'Strawberry' and the new one can, but..."
Personally, I dislike being wrong. So I don't base arguments on points that have a built-in expiration date, or that are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of whatever I'm talking about.
by CamperBob2
1/13/2025 at 7:58:09 PM
Every model is deprecated in time if evidenced Science is done well, and hopefully replaced by something more accurate in time. There is no absolute right/correctness unless you are a naive child under 25 cheating on structured homework.The point was there is nothing intelligent (or AI) about LLMs except the person fooling themselves.
In general, most template libraries already implement the best possible algorithms from the 1960s, and tuned for architecture specific optimizations. Knowing when each finite option is appropriate takes a bit of understanding/study, but does give results far quicker than fitting a statistically salient nonsense answer. Several study datum from senior developers is already available, and it proves LLMs provide zero benefit to people that know what they are doing.
Note, I am driven by having fun, rather than some bizarre irrational competitiveness. Prove your position, or I will assume you are just a silly person or chat bot. =3
by Joel_Mckay
1/14/2025 at 12:37:26 AM
I have no position on whether or not CamperBob is a chat-bot, but they are definitely not being silly. Their point, as I take it, is that it's dangerous to look at the state of "AI" as it is today and then ignore the rate of change. To their stated point from above:> Otherwise, you're going to spend the rest of your career saying things like, "Well, OK, so the last model couldn't count the number of Rs in 'Strawberry' and the new one can, but..."
That's a very important point. I mean, it's not guaranteed that any form of AI is going to advance to the point that it starts taking jobs from people like us, but when you fail to look forward and project a little bit and imagine what they could do with another year of progress... or two years of progress... or 5 years, etc? I posit that that kind of myopia could leave one very under-prepared for the world one lands in.
> The point was there is nothing intelligent (or AI) about LLMs except the person fooling themselves.
Sure. The "AI Effect". Irrelevant. It doesn't matter how the machine can do your job, or whether or not it's "really intelligent". It just matters that if it can create more value, more cheaply, than you or I, we are going to wind up like John Henry. Who, btw, for anybody not familiar with that particular bit of folklore "[won the race against the machine] only to die in victory with a hammer in hand as his heart gave out from stress."
by mindcrime
1/14/2025 at 1:14:18 AM
Both you and this chatbot Bob seem to be overly excited by the newfound LLM ability of correctly counting R's in "strawberry".For many, this is not a very exciting development.
Mind you, we do follow the progress but your argument of "wait and see" is not deserving serious discussion as your stance has turned into faith.
by zxvkhkxvdvbdxz
1/14/2025 at 1:51:57 AM
The limitations of tokenization does not stop with LLMs it seems for bob.Please don't down-vote the kids karma, as for me it is more important people feel comfortable having conversations (especially when they are almost 99% sure I'm a turnip connected to a USB port.) =3
by Joel_Mckay
1/14/2025 at 2:55:09 AM
Where do you see anything about "excitement" about anything? Quit making up bullshit strawman arguments and deal with the issue in a realistic way already. Sheesh.I'm not arguing for any specific outcome mind you. But a refusal to acknowledge "rate of change" effects and to assume that the future will be like today is incredibly short-sighted and myopic.
by mindcrime
1/14/2025 at 5:39:01 AM
"rate of change" effects on speculative fiction is meaningless.Try to remember to be kind, as we are still waiting to see bob's data =3
by Joel_Mckay
1/14/2025 at 1:23:44 AM
Speculative fiction is entertaining, but not based in reality..."they are definitely not being silly", that sounds like something a silly person would say. =)
" I posit that that kind of myopia could leave one very under-prepared for the world one lands in." The numerous study data analysis results says otherwise... Thus, still speculative hype until proven otherwise.
Not worried... initially suckered into it as a kid too... then left the world of ML years later because it was always boring, lame, and slow to change. lol =3
by Joel_Mckay
1/14/2025 at 2:57:52 AM
"they are definitely not being silly", that sounds like something a silly person would say. =)Ya know, it's fine to disagree with something. But hand-wavy, shallow dismissals of what someone has to say, with no willingness to even attempt to engage with the content on a rational basis, is unbecoming.
by mindcrime
1/14/2025 at 3:40:59 AM
I can’t help but have the thought that the Joel_McKay in this conversation is itself an LLM having been prompted to flippantly disregard and downplay mentions of a.i., and LLMs specifically.I’m not saying it is true , but I am saying it made the tone and content of his messages in this thread seem a lot more self-consistent and explainable when I re-read them with that context in mind. :-)
(@Joel_McKay: apologies for downplaying your sapience - human, LLM or otherwise.)
by ycombiredd
1/14/2025 at 3:51:08 PM
It hasn't said anything intelligent yet, so there is that...by mindcrime
1/14/2025 at 5:51:23 PM
I asked for bobs proof, and was given marketing.Then provided instructions on how to present facts, and still await the data.
Then immature folks showed up to try to cow people with troll content.
I don't have to prove anything, as the evidence was already collected and reported in peer-reviewed journals. People just prefer to ignore the cited evidence that proves they are full of steaming piles of fictional hype. =3
by Joel_Mckay
1/14/2025 at 6:10:36 PM
Proof of what exactly are you asking for?Certainly there is zero question that today's "AI" systems are making progress on a wide array of benchmarks. You can see that here:
https://aiindex.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/HAI_...
Look in the section starting on page 73. Or just examine this image:
https://aiindex.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/fig_...
There's your "speculative fiction" you seem so fond of.
Now, if your argument is no more than "who cares about benchmarks, 'AI' still isn't 'Real AI'" then all you're doing is repeating the 'AI Effect'[1] thing over and over again and refusing to acknowledge the obvious reality around you.
The AI's we have today, whether "real AI" or not, are highly capable in many important areas (and yes, far from perfect in others). But there is a starting point to talk about, and yes there is reason to think in terms of "rate of change" unless you have some evidence to support a belief that AI progress has reached a maximum and will progress no further.
I don't have to prove anything, as the evidence was already collected and reported in peer-reviewed journals.
Again, evidence for what exactly? What are you even claiming? All I see Bob claiming, and what I support him(?) in is the idea that there is legit reason to worry about the economic impact of AI in the near('ish?) future.
by mindcrime
1/14/2025 at 7:13:26 PM
Indeed, I gather you did not comprehend the threads topics, and instead introduced a straw-man arguing at some point in the future LLM proponents will be less full of steaming piles of fictional hype.Assertion:
1.) LLMs mislabeled “AI” is dangerous to students due to biasing them with subtle nonsense, and a VR girlfriend convincing a kid to kill themselves. Again the self referential nature of arguing the trends will continue toward AGI is nonscientific reasoning (a.k.a. moving the goal post because the “AI” buzzword lost its meaning due to marketing hype), but this is economically reasonable nonsense rhetoric.
2.) Software developers can be improved or replaced with LLMs. This was proven to be demonstrably false for experienced people.
3.) LLMs are intelligent or will become intelligent. This set of arguments show a fundamental misunderstanding of what LLMs are, and how they function.
4.) Joel may be a USB connected turnip. While I can’t disprove this self presented insight, it may be true at some point in the future.
I still like you, even if at some point you were reprogrammed to fear your imagination. =3
by Joel_Mckay
1/14/2025 at 5:35:17 AM
I assure you I am 100% turnip. =3by Joel_Mckay
1/14/2025 at 5:32:16 AM
Failure to back up the assertion about "AI" existing in LLMs means there is no meaningful conversation to be had, but I offered to wait for a coherent argument in a time-bound manner. =3by Joel_Mckay
1/14/2025 at 11:48:15 AM
> it's dangerous to look at the state of "AI" as it is today and then ignore the rate of change.It's self driving all over again!
by numpad0
1/13/2025 at 6:01:06 PM
Case in point, under Case Study > Reconnaissance > OSINT, these two paragraphs follow one another - same content but different wording.> The first step in any hardware hacking project is research. I started by Googling the router model number, "ASUS RT-N12 D1", and came across an article about a similar model, the ASUS RT-N12+ B1. The article mentioned that the device had an open UART interface allowing unauthenticated root access. However, it provided no exact details on how to exploit this or where the UART interface might be located. Could my router model have the same vulnerability?
> In the first step I googled the model number for my router "ASUS RT N12 D1" and I came accross this article. It shows that a similar model the "ASUS RT N12+ B1" appears to have an open UART interface, which gives unauthenticated root access. It does not show how to exacltly abuse this or any details where to find the UART interface. Let's see if our router model may have the same vulnerability!
by raywu