Teardown: BlackBerry wise Card Reader | Hackaday

Years earlier than Steve Jobs confirmed off the primary iPhone, the BlackBerry was already the should-have accent for mobile authorities. again then, nobody changed into concerned about gazing motion pictures or enjoying the newest games on their mobile contraptions, they simply desired a at ease and quickly approach to ship and acquire electronic mail on the go. For that, the BlackBerry turned into king.

quick forward to these days, and the business is just a shell of what it once became. They don't even hassle making their own hardware anymore. Over the closing a couple of years they've opted to partner with a series of increasingly vague manufacturers to produce a handful of lackluster Android phones so that they nevertheless have whatever to promote to their dwindling userbase. any person excited in regards to the new 5G BlackBerry being built by Texas birth-up OnwardMobility? Did you even comprehend it turned into within the works before now?

A DoD usual entry Card

but this text isn't about BlackBerry phones. It's about whatever thing that's even extra irrelevant to patrons: the BlackBerry sensible Card Reader. Technically, this little device isn't based on the phones of the equal identify, but it surely makes feel that analysis In movement (which ultimately simply renamed itself to BlackBerry restricted) would market the machine below the manufacturer of their most well-known product. notwithstanding as you may are expecting, utility became available to allow it to work with the BlackBerry cellphone that you basically definitely owned in case you essential a committed sensible card reader.

for people that may not be mindful, a sensible card during this context is a two-ingredient authentication token contained in an identification card. These are used notably by using businesses such because the department of defense, the place they're referred to as ordinary access cards, that require you to insert your id card into a reader earlier than that you could log into a relaxed computing device device. This swish machine changed into marketed as a portable reader that may connect to computer systems over USB or Bluetooth. Worn around your neck with the covered lanyard, the battery-powered reader allowed the cardboard itself to stay on the consumer's body while nevertheless being readable through neighborhood instruments.

Civilians will respect the simple technology from up to date "Chip and PIN" debit and credit playing cards, however we've in no way needed to stick one of those into our computing device just to log in. To be certain, the BlackBerry smart Card Reader became certainly not supposed for the typical domestic computer user, it was bought to organizations and businesses that had tight safety necessities; which simply so took place to be the same areas that would doubtless already be the use of BlackBerry cell gadgets.

Of path, instances and expertise exchange. These contraptions once cost $200 apiece and were bought in giant quantities for distribution to trusted personnel, but are now all but nugatory. Even in new and unopened circumstance, they will also be had for as little as $10 USD on eBay. For that rate, it's certainly price taking a peek inner. perhaps the hacker neighborhood can even find new purposes for these as soon as reducing-part devices.

A Cyberpunk accessory

The BlackBerry sensible Card Reader looks precisely like the kind of element i'd expect some futuristic armed forces force to make use of as an authentication machine, with a design that's in some way simultaneously simplistic and aggressive. If somebody told me this thing was a prop from RoboCop or decide Dredd, I'd trust it.

Promotional shot, circa mid 2009.

as a minimum this version, anyway. It appears that the hardware changed a number of instances, and every one looks distinctive ample that there's no mistaking which one is which. It's probably safe to assume that became intentional from a logistics standpoint. The specimen we're taking a look at is the 2nd revision, released in 2009.

The wise card slots into a groove within the front of the equipment, which keeps it comfortable while still being completely seen. handiest the lessen part of the card, where the chip itself is located, is really coated.

There are not any controls or indicators of any variety on the entrance of the reader. originally look, you could even believe it changed into some variety of passive holder for the cardboard. Which once more, became kind of the element. defense contractors wouldn't have worn all of it day if it become lined in blinking LEDs and warning signs, simplest up to date hackers are into that type of thing.

On the lower back there's small lcd, a tri-colour LED, and a single button. a faucet of the button activates the Bluetooth radio and shows the PIN code on the liquid crystal display, whereas retaining the button resets the gadget. There's no energy button, and so long as the battery isn't flat, the gadget looks to always be on. even though after awhile it's going to go into some variety of sleep mode and monitor "OFF" on the liquid crystal display.

The Reader's Bluetooth PIN is just a little greater secure than the typical 0000. constructed for enterprise

The BlackBerry wise Card Reader readily comes aside after the removing of four T6 screws observed in the back of the battery cover. There wasn't even a tamper-evident sticky label over any of the screw heads, which frankly stunned me for a excessive safety device.

inner we're introduced with a concise PCB design, devoid of even a hint of silkscreen markings to help us get our bearings. There are not any evident programming headers or debug elements. If there become ever a board design that talked about "No person Serviceable constituents internal", this may be it. curiously, whereas there's certainly a spot the place one would have been mounted, the RF defend that might have surrounded the CSR 41B14 Bluetooth chipset has no longer been put in.

The star of the demonstrate would appear to be the Analog gadgets AD6529BABCZ, but I've been unable to find any documentation on what this chip definitely is. but I did run into just a few mentions of the AD6528, which is a GSM baseband processor intended for mobile phones and PDAs.

originally i assumed it became unrelated, but a detailed analyze probably the most aspects of the chip shows wonderful parallels with the smart Card Reader. The AD6528 has a 32-bit ARM7 processor with onboard RAM, a reveal interface, integrated USB support, and offers various low vigour modes. Naturally it also has support for interfacing with the SIM playing cards, which themselves are very comparable to the chips used in wise cards. the dimensions and package of the AD6528 additionally fit the AD6529.

Given these statistics, we could be taking a look at a customized edition of the AD6528 that was made chiefly for this high-security application. should you're making an attempt to promote a tool to the branch of the defense, spinning up a brand new chip is hardly out of the query. This version of the chip might also even had been bumped as much as Industrial or defense force/Aerospace ranking.

next to the AD6529 there's a Intel 320W30 flash memory chip that doubtless holds the gadget's firmware, and a Samsung K1S32161CD SRAM chip.

protecting Trim

easily the most magnificent function of the BlackBerry sensible Card Reader, especially given the period wherein it changed into designed and developed, is how thin it is. this is partially as a result of the undeniable fact that there's absolutely nothing on the lower back aspect of the PCB, which allowed it to be pushed as tightly as viable in opposition t the inner of the case.

an in depth look at the chip interface also indicates how the designers had been capable of keep away from placing an genuine vigor turn on the machine. When a card is totally seated in the reader, a miniature change is pressed in. We didn't see this inside the chip reader of the VeriFone 925CTLS charge terminal, as there became no rationale to ever shut the hardware down. but in a battery powered machine, a feature to put the hardware to sleep when a card isn't current will drastically raise the runtime.

speaking of the battery, they might have made the BlackBerry wise Card Reader even slimmer if they hadn't used the identical 1150 mAh C-S2 battery utilized by modern BlackBerry phones, even though that become a suave choice on account that their clients possible already had stockpiles of the cells from their mobile fleets.

inserting it to use

Realistically, the components inner of this equipment are all so antiquated at this aspect that there's now not a whole lot to salvage apart from possibly the chip interface itself in case you're seeking to test with wise cards. The enclosure might doubtlessly be reused, and it already has the interface and battery compartment for BlackBerry C-S2 batteries. but until you're constructing a DIY smart card reader, I'm not sure what else the case design would in reality lend itself to.

Oddly, the PIN code is given in the machine name.

attempting to reprogram it could be complex, to assert the least. For one issue, there doesn't appear to be any public statistics on the chip that's riding it. extra pretty much, there's no signal of a programming header, and trying to get rid of the BGA flash chip and studying the firmware off of it manually is farther than most hackers would be inclined to go.

So can we use it as-is? lamentably, that's no longer searching very good either. When linked over USB, the reader doesn't look like supported by using current open source sensible card libraries akin to PCSClite. i will be able to see the reader when scanning for Bluetooth contraptions, but up to now, I've been unable to successfully pair with it.

officially the home windows utility for the gadget supports XP and Vista, so in case you may locate a replica of it, you might doubtlessly run it in a VM and sniff the USB packets with Wireshark to get a hold of a modern open source driver. but besides taking up an enchanting problem, there's now not a good deal element in it; that you can choose up a newly manufactured sensible card reader for about as a great deal as one of those relics prices.

As lots because it pains me to claim it, I don't believe there's the rest very exciting you could do with the BlackBerry smart Card Reader. It might possibly be value deciding on a few up to enhance your dystopian cyberpunk cosplay, but that's about it. though in case you do be ready to come up with anything, we'd like to hear about it.