How to Hack Radios: A Practical Approach to RF Physical Layers

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Presented at BSidesSanFrancisco 2018 by

Matt Knight

This workshop offers a tutorial on how to apply Software DefinedRadio, with an emphasis on the “Radio” part. Rather than glazing overRF basics, we will frame our entire discussion about reverseengineering wireless systems around digital radio fundamentals.The session will begin with a short crash course in digital signalprocessing and RF communication, covering just enough to be dangerous,before introducing a reverse engineering workflow that can be appliedto just about any low complexity IoT wireless system. The bulk ofthis session will demonstrate how this workflow can be applied torecover and inject packets from/into a variety of devices withproprietary modulations by walking through it, live and in detail,with attendees actively contributing to reverse-engineered solutionsand working along in parallel.Attendees should expect to come away with practical knowledge of howto apply SDR to examine and deconstruct proprietary wirelessprotocols. Those who wish to participate should come prepared withthe following:- USB 3.0 flash drive with this live USB image:https://wiki.gnuradio.org/index.php/GNU_Radio_Live_SDR_Environment- SDR hardware, such as an RTL-SDR.