Hacker News

ESP32 Bit Pirate Hardware Hacking Kit with Web Tools That Speaks Every Protocol

98 points by geotp ago | 32 comments

TomWhitwell |next [-]

Why does AI have to explain everything three times - a headline, a standfirst and some intro blurb all saying what could be said in two words.

keysersoze33 |root |parent |next [-]

Read the github readme instead - much more to the point:

https://github.com/geo-tp/ESP32-Bit-Pirate

mschuster91 |root |parent [-]

Still heavily AI contaminated. The random bold formatting is as good a tell as it gets.

It's high time that Github creates a disclosure flag for LLM usage - it's already mandated in the EU for some kinds of media.

geotp |root |parent [-]

Then GitHub will have to flag everyone. Take 100 professional developers today, and you can be sure all 100 use AI somewhere in their workflow.

Take a look at the codebase or just try it out, and make up your own mind

_joel |root |parent [-]

Ok, stats to back up all 100% using AI please

gunalx |root |parent [-]

A casual look around the office. Not a good representative selection for the entire population but counting to 10 and asking, everyone used ai in some fashion, extrapolate the data and you get 100%. (Not a ai first office even)

_joel |root |parent [-]

a dataset of 10 is merely anecdata

whazor |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Once you know this, you cannot unsee this in every AI design everywhere

shrubby |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Okay, this cannot be unseen!

DANmode |root |parent |previous [-]

It built the site - you didn’t tell it to do anything but placeholders for the content.

pockybum522 |next |previous [-]

Looks like an extremely cool concept, but I'm wary about how many bugs I'd run into trying to use it if the code has had as little effort put into it as the website.

I think I'll keep just making up basic sketches when I need to work with one of these protocols - it's also nice that if I do that, when I see it work, I know I can expand functionality from there into what I need.

geotp |root |parent [-]

the firmware is in a very different state from the website. The codebase has a test suite, and hundreds of people are already using it, so it’s had a lot more work and real world testing

fartfeatures |next |previous [-]

Was that hero unit header text supposed to be sung in the voice of Ja Rule?

WD-42 |next |previous [-]

Can anyone decipher the website and paste the ai;dr

MattJ100 |root |parent |next [-]

I can lend a hand, after spending a painful 10s on the website (which really needs some thought put into it if this is a serious project).

If you have any moderate experience with hardware hacking, you would be aware of a handy little hardware device called the Bus Pirate, which has been around in various forms for many years. It is designed to be like a Swiss army knife for connecting to devices and inspecting and debugging them. For example, it can decode/encode various common (and uncommon) digital protocols that are used by chips and hardware devices to communicate with each other.

This project... it appears that someone has (with a significant amount of AI-assistance, if the website is anything to go by) produced firmware for ESP32 devices which aims to replicate the functionality of a Bus Pirate. This is notable because ESP32 boards are much cheaper and widely available.

Without looking much into it though, my instinct tells me that it would be significantly more limited than the purpose-built Bus Pirate hardware.

WD-42 |root |parent [-]

Thanks! That should be the first paragraph on the website!

geotp |root |parent |previous [-]

Read the github readme

https://github.com/geo-tp/ESP32-Bit-Pirate

braincode |next |previous [-]

Fantastic project, love it! You have an amazing selection of supported protocols on the "wire side".

I'm the co-author and project lead of SSH-Stamp:

https://github.com/brainstorm/ssh-stamp

Our focus has been on the "network side" by running a SSH server instead of a Web Server and multiplexing protocols via SSH sessions.

Our project is admittedly not as mature as the ESP32 Bit Pirate but OTOH we run with Rust Embedded and support other targets than Espressif (currently experimental on RPI Pico2 and Sipeed BL616).

We need testers :D

_joel |next |previous [-]

The author keeps saying read the README, they posted the website, so expect comments about the awful AI website.

voidUpdate |next |previous [-]

"every protocol"? that's pretty impressive. We should stock up on them in case aliens ever come to visit, so we can understand their communications protocol

bigiain |root |parent [-]

They still run Macintosh System 7 with wireless AppleTalk, right?

_joel |root |parent [-]

Over GRE tunnels

geotp |next |previous [-]

ESP32 Bit Pirate is open-source firmware that turns your device into a multi-protocol development and analysis tool, inspired by the legendary Bus Pirate.

It supports sniffing, sending, scripting, and interacting with various digital protocols (I2C, UART, 1-Wire, SPI, etc.) via a serial terminal or web-based CLI. It also communicates with radio protocols like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Sub-GHz and RFID.

Turn a $5 ESP32-S3 into a browser-based hardware workbench.The Bit Pirate firmware is complemented by scripting, hardware dock, extension, adapters, browser tools, documentation and practical embedded workflows to enable comprehensive hardware debugging and development with serial interfaces or Wi-Fi connectivity.

https://github.com/geo-tp/ESP32-Bit-Pirate

bambax |root |parent [-]

> Install ESP32 Bit Pirate firmware on supported ESP32-S3 boards

Ok but is there a list of supported boards? Couldn't find it.

Edit: I couldn't find the list on the site, but it's on Github.

throwa356262 |next |previous [-]

Can we get a normal landing page please? These AI generated pages make my eyes bleed.

Anyway, I find the tiny C3 to be much more stable than other versions. It is a bit sad the very few projects support it.

geotp |root |parent [-]

the project is open source, so feel free to fork it and give the landing page the improvements you think it needs

edoceo |next |previous [-]

But can it print to tiny eInk?

043f14a097f5008 |next |previous [-]

What the fuck is wrong with that website? It looks horrible. Why would anyone read that?

geotp |root |parent |next [-]

Read the github then

https://github.com/geo-tp/ESP32-Bit-Pirate

fiatpandas |root |parent |previous [-]

>Why would anyone read that?

That’s the whole problem. No one read it before publishing.

kotaKat |root |parent [-]

also needs a "Show HN" tbh

TechSquidTV |next |previous [-]

Almost like the algorithm is listening.

I have been getting into this as well. I had ChatGPT plan up a new UART adapter and similar.

eriwang915 |previous [-]

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