A photodiode allows current to pass, but only if there is light present. The NES Zapper is a simple photodiode connected to a switch. This is very different from modern LCD displays, where each individual pixel is a device which changes state (slowly!) between passing or blocking light from the backlight, and the timing of the display change is dependent on the internal digital processing in the display. Using even finer timing (which, again according to the Wikipedia article, the Zapper was not capable of), arbitrary locations on the screen can be identified by detecting the pulses resulting from the sweep of the electron beam across the screen.Īll of this is fundamentally dependent on the low-persistence nature of CRTs: each location on the screen emits light only when the input signal passes them as it sweeps out the entire image. Whichever flash produced a pulse from the sensor indicated a hit target. I've never used a Zapper myself, but according to the Wikipedia article, it worked as follows: when the trigger is pulled, the console would display a flash of light from the location of each target in sequence. Given that the CRT TVs used at the time essentially instantaneously displayed the signal sent from the console, this was quite sufficient. It has a single light sensor in the tip, which picks up light from the part of the screen it is aimed at. I don’t think that’s right when we know this is solvable.It's a light gun.
“My own car is fully susceptible to this attack.
“This is throwing the gauntlet down and saying, ‘here’s proof this is a problem,’” says Kamkar. RollJam is intended to definitively demonstrate that lesson.
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With those precedents in traditional internet security, car makers should know that using rolling codes without an added code expiration measure no longer suffices to keep their products secure.
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In fact, Kamkar says his goal with RollJam is to demonstrate to car and garage door companies that they need to make that upgrade to expiring codes, or leave their customers vulnerable to interception attacks like the one he's demonstrated.Īfter all, Kamkar points out, two factor authentication systems like Google Authenticator or RSA’s SecurID use codes that expire in seconds, while millions of car owners still protect their vehicles with vulnerable systems whose codes never expire. The latest version of Keeloq's chips, which the company calls Dual Keeloq, use a system of codes that expire over short time periods and foil his attack. Kamkar also says that Cadillac may be correct that its newest vehicles aren't subject to the attack. And while Whyte appears to have kept the code for his tool under wraps, Kamkar plans to release his on Github, timed to his DefCon talk Friday. But Kamkar says his refined RollJam is designed to better automate the attack Whyte used, without the need to attach the device to a laptop. Security researcher Spencer Whyte wrote in March of last year that he'd created a similar device. Kamkar isn't the first, as Cadillac implies, to invent the RollJam's method of jamming, interception and playback. Cadillac spokesperson David Caldwell wrote in an email that Kamkar's intrusion method "is well-known to our cyber security experts," and he believes it works only with prior model year vehicles, "as recent/current Cadillac models have moved to a new system." Liftmaster and Volkswagen declined to comment, and a Viper spokesperson said it's trying to learn more about Kamkar's findings. WIRED reached out one-by-one to each of those companies.