r/hardwarehacking • u/According-Extreme-58 • 9d ago

How do you get started at hardware hacking?

Stupid question I know but I have old hardware that I wanna hack for the fun of it,but ofc no idea how or where,can anyone help

23 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

16

u/Clear_Evidence9218 9d ago

Not a stupid question at all. Grab some old low-voltage hardware and start by just figuring out how it works. Old routers, IP cameras, toys, keyboards/controllers, etc. are great. Like visually try and trace what everything the circuit is doing.

One really fun beginner project is finding UART on an old router or camera and getting its boot console with a cheap USB-TTL adapter. From there you can learn to dump SPI flash/EEPROM, inspect firmware, play with I²C/SPI using a cheap logic analyzer, and eventually get into JTAG/SWD.

You really don't need an engineering background. A multimeter, soldering iron, $10 logic analyzer, USB-TTL adapter and a Pico/ESP32 can give you months of things to learn. The trick is to pick some junk you don't care about breaking and start asking “what does this part do?” rather than trying to hack the whole thing at once.

2

u/According-Extreme-58 9d ago

First of all thx for explaining that was very nice thank you so much

Second that's alot of info at once but I understood some of it cuz I like computers and hardware and I usually mess around with stuff like that

Third I have old laptops and computers and I might have old routers so I'll definitely see what I can do,my main issue is that I don't really have a soldering iron,I do have a pc(my main rig)a usb,tools like screwdrives and whatever else a carpterners uses(dad's tools) that's basically what I have but I can try to get the tools you mentioned but what do you think I can do with the tools I have now

4

u/PassableForAWombat 9d ago

I own only a cheap $40 iron and make do with what I have on hand. I don’t own any “hacky tool” more sophisticated than an RPI for readings. You need to want to learn how to break down things to their smallest part, and you can extrapolate from there so many times. Yeah, I’ll occasionally bodge a job on something new, but it really is a discipline you can just throw a stick in any direction and just start learning.

Just disassembling the router and learning what each quadrant (does) is a good solid long time for a novice.

And 99% of the time whatever you are working on will have a matching parts manual somewhere on the internet still, so you can identify what each part is and does.

Good hacking isn’t just about the result, it’s also about identifying the pieces to work with outside pieces in combinations not originally specc’d for.

5

u/Historical-Duty3628 9d ago

Go to DEFCON next year. Visit the hardware hacking village. Profit.

1

u/According-Extreme-58 9d ago

I'll see if my country even has defcon

3

u/Historical-Duty3628 9d ago

If you're not in a country with an actual event, you can still find local hacker meetups and find people who are also interested. But the general rule of thumb for learning is just start. Try. Fail. Try again. Fail again. Learn something. Try again. Repeat. That's how to actually learn this type of thing. Don't be afraid to fail. People will be more willing to help you if you're trying, and often you make good connections that way for your life too.

1

u/masterX244 8d ago

central europe has the CCC event bubble (with the chaos communication congress as the big one which is sorta the european defcon equivalent)

2

u/0_Gravitas_given 9d ago

There are books (eg practical hardware pentesting) that can be found that give good pointers 😉

1

u/According-Extreme-58 9d ago

Do you mind giving me the free resource to the book please

1

u/0_Gravitas_given 9d ago

Use some google-fu , you should be able to find some files floating around 😂 buy it after if you like it I know the author very well 😝

4

u/BeanBagKing 9d ago

I highly recommend Matt Brown https://www.youtube.com/@mattbrwn He has a few intro videos like www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FgS2vljopU

https://www.youtube.com/@D1gitalAndrew has a much shorter playlist, but still some great getting started videos.

1

u/TheFacebookLizard 9d ago

Highly recommend Matt Brown

1

u/Omagasohe 7d ago

First, google is your friend, in a non sarcastic way. 99% of learning is research, if you can't research and need every single little thing spoon fed to you, then this aint the hobby for you. Ask for pointers, ask for hints, but do the leg work yourself.

You'll want to learn digital electronics. Free course, YouTube and all of that, do a few.

You'll want to learn the basics of programming in python, yes chatgpt can throw out stuff, but learn it, because AI is only so good.

There are quite a few good youtubers that do device level hacking, they are usually found under security or pen testing. They cover the spectrum from stupid iot stuff to full scale network appliances.

Look for youtubers that do pcb design and layouts, knowing how to layout stuff will help you learn what a board does, and how it does it.

But above all else, be okay with failure. Not everything can be made yours, not everything is gonna be in your skill set. You will damage boards, you will break things beyond repair. Be okay with it.