[JJ] picked up a Garmin Nuvi 780 GPS from an auction recently. One of the more frustrating features [JJ] ran into is it’s PIN code; this GPS can’t be unlocked unless a four-digit code is entered, or it’s taken to a ‘safe location’. Not wanting to let his auction windfall go to waste, [JJ] rigged up an to unlock this GPS. The robot is built around an old HP scanner and a DVD drive sled to move the GPS in the X and Y axes. A clever little device made out of an eraser tip and a servo taps out every code from 0000 to 9999 and waits a bit to see if the device unlocks. It takes around 8 seconds for [JJ]’s robot to enter a single code, so entering all 10,000 PINs will take about a day and a half. Fortunately, the people who enter these codes don’t care too much about the security of their GPS devices.

The code used to unlock [JJ]’s GPS was 0248. It only took a couple of hours for the robot to enter the right code; we’d call that time well spent. You can check out the brute force robot in action after the break. • • • • Posted in, Tagged,,,, Post navigation. COMMENT FAIL “”hack – seek and exploit weaknesses in a computer or computer network.”” That may be a teenager’s dictionary definition of ‘hacking’, but to those of us that came through the early 70’s – we know and respect the word and activity a lot more than that simple definition.

Shutochnie scenki dlya pozdravleniya s dnem rozhdeniya zhenschine. The unlock code is a 25-digit code that is keyed to that device's serial number (it is actually generated when you enter the device serial number in the Unlock Wizard or online at Garmin's web site) and only unlocks the maps for use on that one specific Garmin device (and also by MapSource on your PC).

Reusing or redefining technology – both hardware and software – to achieve new and unsuspected applications of same. Explore – Learn – Innovate – Share nothing to do with computers or networks by definition, but if they are in the path of exploration – then so be it Just because Facebook says something is a fact – doesn’t make it so! You missed the point. You claim to have come up in the 70s, making you around 40 to 50 years old, yet you write like a teenager or at best a twenty-something. To put it another way, I was born in the 70s and I don’t say things like “fail” in normal conversation because it’s the vernacular of the kids today. I talk like an adult because that is what I am.

Maybe you’re young at heart and trying to stay “in” with the teens, but I think it’s more likely you’re just a kid posturing. Either way, it’s kinda lame (something we did say back in the 80s and 90s, BTW). Or someone like me who on many occasions have found myself on the receiving end of a password/pin prompt for which I do not recall the password/pin to my own device. As the last time I used said device in a capacity that required a pass/pin input was several months previous. Your options at that point are trying to brute force your own device which might not be practical if your need is time critical, such as another trip.

Preforming a factory reset if a reset is possible. Opc server wikipedia. If not writing the device off as a total loss, or selling it cheap on eBay. Which is better, some ROI or a paperweight? I’m not saying it’s outside the realm of possibility that it’s stolen but it’s easily equally plausible that it isn’t.

@scott bates — that is well put and i agree 100% to others of interest i never seen so much splitting of hairs on a HAD post surrounding the legitimacy of a “hack” — but i am somewhat new to this online community but far from new when it comes to both hardware and software and network hacks. It is unfortunate that the true meaning of the word hack has been HACKED by our media. Now days it is taboo to even associate oneself with the word.

But up till the mid 80’s it meant you were innovative, thought out of the box to accomplish work arounds and fix that which had others at a loss. A software author might send their code to a hacker to have it fixed or us commodore users would figure out how to bankswitch 4 megabyes of RAM on a c=64 computer then use this hardware to hack INTO an establishments computer via a unpublished number we found using a program like phoneman JUST to look around explore but NOT to destroy or deface.