A developer reverse-engineered the Nokia 110 4G's firmware to turn its Calculator app into a chat interface that connects to DeepSeek's chat API. The prototype lets users type messages on the number pad and have the AI agent control phone functions like checking battery level, toggling the torch, starting calls, and setting alarms. The app is loaded into RAM from a computer and currently must be reloaded after every restart or power-off since permanent installation isn't yet solved.
github.com
· 2026-10-08
A GitHub project documents reverse engineering of the M-VAVE FM-1 pocket synthesizer's firmware, identifying its hardware as a JieLi AC791N/WL82 chip with a pi32v2 CPU and a six-operator FM synthesis engine derived from the Dexed/msfa codebase. The repository provides disassembly, function databases, OTA update-protocol analysis, and USB-MIDI tooling, but the maintainers state the main branch deliberately excludes any replacement firmware or custom firmware builders, with that experimental work isolated on a separate branch.
github.com
· 2026-10-07
A chip-design puzzle published in August challenged readers to reverse-engineer a small chip's function from only its raw GDS layout, with no netlist or signal names provided. The organizers have now revealed the chip validates solutions to an 11x11 'Two Not Touch' Star Battle puzzle, using row, column and region counters plus a delay line to prevent adjacent stars, and an LFSR-obfuscated ROM to reveal the solution text once all checks pass.
blog.janestreet.com
· 2026-10-02
A hobbyist developer completed a multi-year project to increase the storage capacity of a third-generation iPod Nano to 16GB by replacing its NAND flash chip. The creator, who started with no soldering or reverse-engineering experience, chose the Nano 3G because its NAND chip has legs rather than being surface-mounted, making it more approachable than other Apple devices with soldered BGA chips.
tuckerosman.com
· 2026-09-24
After a four-year effort, researcher DiscoStarslayer, working with developer Libby, successfully decapped and optically dumped the firmware of the PS2's MechaCon chip, a feat no one had achieved in the console's 26-year history. The pair used an exploit Libby discovered to extract the firmware and are now documenting metadata and hashes, with a full technical write-up promised soon.
techspot.com
· 2026-09-17
Canadian retro hardware enthusiast DiscoStarslayer has successfully reverse-engineered and dumped the CXP102064 MechaCon chip found in the original 1999 PlayStation 2 console. The process involved chemically decapping the chip to expose its die, then using microscopes and optical dumping techniques before a software exploit finally allowed extraction of its data. The entire effort took four years to complete.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-09-16
Cody Ho and Niklas reverse-engineered Apple's AGX GPU firmware and user-space stack to create a fully OpenGL ES 3.0 compliant Linux driver for the M4 Mac Mini and MacBook Neo, a project completed in roughly a month rather than the years such work typically requires. The driver already runs Chrome, Firefox with WebGL, and Minecraft at 200fps, though it remains unready for general users.
codyho.dev
· 2026-09-15
Anthropic researchers introduce a mathematical approach to mechanistic interpretability, aiming to reverse-engineer the internal computations of transformer language models. Their initial study focuses on small transformers with two layers or fewer that use only attention blocks, deliberately simpler than models like GPT-3, in order to identify basic patterns before tackling larger systems.
transformer-circuits.pub
· 2026-09-12
A developer who abandoned reverse-engineering Apple's Neural Engine (ANE) three years ago has resumed the project, this time focused on mapping its full internal architecture rather than making it usable via a Linux driver. The renewed effort was prompted by Apple's M5 chip, which emphasizes LLM performance and integrates ANE cores directly into the GPU, signaling the decline of the standalone neural processing unit design that began with the A11 Bionic in 2017.
eiln.github.io
· 2026-09-12
Engineers building the ArcBox sandbox platform used standard Linux debugging tools like strace and objdump inside a live Claude Code Web session to inspect its runtime. They discovered the environment runs on Firecracker microVMs, identical to the technology behind AWS Lambda and Fargate, complete with hardcoded ACPI signatures, minimal 4-vCPU/16GB instances, and an unstripped Go binary called environment-manager pointing to a previously undocumented Anthropic internal deployment platform.
aprilnea.me
· 2026-09-11
A hobbyist took apart an Egret GT electric scooter, examined its Bluetooth app and firmware update mechanism, and discovered a way to bypass its PIN lock via a hidden firmware update mode. He also found the scooter silently transmits unlisted telemetry data, including driving-mode duration, motor current, battery voltage and charge history, and went on to write custom Rust firmware for the scooter's display unit.
bensimms.moe
· 2026-09-10
An anonymous security researcher has reconstructed and released a reverse-engineered version of Stuxnet's source code on GitHub, complete with build instructions. Stuxnet was the malware that sabotaged centrifuges at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility by targeting Siemens industrial controllers while masking the damage from plant operators.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-09-09
GoKawiil