

Ask HN: Hack an Iphone using a power line communication? - lakeeffect

This is definitely a low level question.<p>Would it be possible to hack an iphone using a powerline adapter? I would assume no figuring it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to get passed the power source on most devises.  However, the iPhone power supply shares in input that has access to the local system. One would have to find a way around interference from the power cube or the computer that charges the device to easily test this, possibly by modifying a car charger or something.<p>If someone thinks it could be done i bet they could definitely gain a following on kick starter to fund the research.  I'm broke and i would send ten bucks.
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jacquesm
No.

You can't inject data in to a system using the power connector unless it is
explicitly designed to do so because the first barrier you hit is the
conditioning circuitry that will stabilize the voltage and will strip any data
that you are trying to super-impose on top of the supply line in to the
system. In other words you'd have to make a non-trivial modification to the
iphone first. I'm using the words 'powerline' here in a bit of a weird way,
because normally when you talk about powerline transmission you mean the
household circuitry, not the lower voltage line in to the device, but strictly
speaking that is also a 'power line'. More accurate would be the charging
voltage or supply voltage.

And even if you got past that it would still be pretty much impossible to get
a reliable effect from manipulating the input voltage to the various chips at
a high rate, most likely if you managed to bypass the filtering circuitry all
you'd manage to do by the time the voltage swing on the power line would be
high enough would be to either damage or crash the phone.

'Real' powerline modems work by having a capacitive or inductive coupling with
the powerline to retrieve the superimposed signal that was placed on the wire
with a similar circuit, and will use a separate channel to transfer this
information to some other device. You could integrate all that in to a single
box but it would make it much harder to get approval for a device (because it
would be connected to the mains voltage directly).

So if a device is not explicitly designed with this in mind you can't do it
without modification.

~~~
lakeeffect
Alright, i guess I was begging the question to get a further understanding.
Good work on your ability to share knowledge of the topic.

So what your saying is you could do it if your fucked with it enough, but it
would be most likely impossible to play a quick trick on a friend by switching
out his power source - the charing cube.

Let me ask another question, Now what about electricity through Googles
proposed one gig high speed test networks, hooked up to smart houses,
providing your internet and cable needs. How long 10-25 years? Would
additional technology need to be created?

I am trying to write an MBA paper guessing googles long term strategy, 25
years out. I know they applied to be in the energy market but I'm not sure how
they could fully use this ability other than transfer power from their data
centers to consumers.

~~~
jacquesm
> So what your saying is you could do it if your fucked with it enough, but it
> would be most likely impossible to play a quick trick on a friend by
> switching out his power source - the charing cube.

That's one way of saying it. But you are seriously underestimating the
specific value of 'fucked with it enough', without the required knowledge
you're looking at a project that will cost you a few months to more than a
year. This is not that easy. Electronics, modulation technology, isolation,
SMD hacking with regular tools, it's all possible, but it's not that easy.

> Let me ask another question, Now what about electricity through Googles
> proposed one gig high speed test networks, hooked up to smart houses,
> providing your internet and cable needs. How long 10-25 years? Would
> additional technology need to be created?

100mbit is available in some countries right now (Korea for instance)
<http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2006/11/8195.ars> , 1G is definitely
possible with todays tech but nobody would really know what to do with it. I'm
a pretty heavy user on a 20Mbit broadband connection the only thing that I
find limiting every now and then is that I 'only' have 5 Mbit up.

So additional tech would not need to be made at all, the bigger question is
what you would do with it.

> I am trying to write an MBA paper guessing googles long term strategy, 25
> years out. I know they applied to be in the energy market but I'm not sure
> how they could fully use this ability other than transfer power from their
> data centers to consumers.

Trying to guess googles long term strategy, 25 years out is like trying to
predict the information age from the moment of the invention of the Hollerith
card. There really is so much happening in such a short timespan that you have
no chance at all to do that.

Google started in '98, you're trying to make a stab at what they'll be doing
over twice as long from today as they've been in business, I doubt google
themselves looks that far ahead, so how could you try to guess what they
themselves probably do not know ?

Google mostly applied to be in the energy market so they can power their
datacenters and use the grid for transportation and to facilitate their solar
experiments, I'm not at all aware of Google wanting to be a domestic provider
of energy, do you have any pointers ?

------
lakeeffect
A person would have to have a good understanding of how Power Line
Communication Works.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_line_communication>

And of course knowing or being a guy that engineers powerline adapters
wouldn't hurt.

