Top all-time · #92
bunnie
Personal blog · bunniestudios.comhardwarewriting
bunnie's personal blog at bunniestudios.com covers hardware and writing. Since 2007, 375 different Hacker News readers have linked it 673 times, most often “From Gongkai to Open Source (2014)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-26, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 6 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link bunnie's hardware and supply-chain posts (gongkai, Shenzhen manufacturing, teardowns of fake SD cards) and call several of them great or fascinating.
- Recommended for · 6 comments
- Called 'great read', 'a good article', 'fascinating' posts, 'much more clearly', and 'an interesting read'.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- From Gongkai to Open Source (2014)24 people · 33 mentions · first linked 2016-07-09
- On Hacking MicroSD Cards21 people · 21 mentions · first linked 2013-12-29
- On Hacking MicroSD Cards (2013)16 people · 19 mentions · first linked 2016-11-23
- On MicroSD Problems (2010)12 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2016-10-14
- From Gongkai to Open Source11 people · 19 mentions · first linked 2014-12-28
- Precursor – A mobile, open source electronics platform11 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2020-09-19
- The $12 Gongkai Phone9 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2013-04-17
- /9 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2017-01-16
- Open Hardware on Its Own Doesn’t Solve the Trust Problem8 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2019-12-27
- Andrew “Bunnie” Huang“: Supply Chain Security Talk8 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2019-02-27
What Hacker News says?
https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2020/introducing-precurso... This is the most secure phone that has been made recently.
Comment linking /blog/2020/introducing-precursor/
on “Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android”Submitted Why I’m Suing the US Government as a story · 1855 points
HN discussionTrue. You could to some extent. I think part of the story is the opportunity though. The domain name, the boxes and the time are all things that grant him the opportunity to do it. He probably could have sold them in plastic bags on eBay (someone probably already does), but it wouldn't be same thing. We all seem to agree like things like this is a good thing, but then we undermine people's ability to do it by favori…
Comment linking /blog/?p=4266
on “I Sell Onions on the Internet”Submitted Rust: A Critical Retrospective as a story · 577 points
HN discussionCopper tape on cardboard. Cardboard is a fantastic material. You can draw the schematic on, and then run copper tape along the schematic. It's easy to annotate, since you just need to use a pen. It's able to handle much more current than a breadboard, since the copper tape has a lot more metal than thin wires. You can solder directly to it, and with tape (or some other insulating material) you can cross wires withou…
Comment linking /blog/?p=5259
on “Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time”Submitted Precursor – A mobile, open source electronics platform as a story · 484 points
HN discussionI don't think Bunnie is looking to develop products that redistribute video. If you've seen his previous NeTV project[1] he's looking to inject video overlays into the HDCP stream and let you do things like he described in his letter. His method of getting into the HDCP stream[2] via a MITM attack is probably what's running afoul of the government. [1] https://www.adafruit.com/products/609 [2] http://www.bunniestudi…
Comment linking /blog/?p=2117
on “Why I’m Suing the US Government”Submitted On Liberating My Smartwatch from Cloud Services as a story · 468 points
HN discussionGreat read https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1022
Comment linking /blog/?page_id=1022
on “Ask HN: What do you do with your Raspberry Pi?”Submitted On Hacking MicroSD Cards as a story · 399 points
HN discussionI'm a big fan of Adafruit, which is a great place to buy electronic components that all have projects, tutorials, active forums, etc. Here's the "learn" page on the Adafruit web site: https://learn.adafruit.com/ And the Adafruit Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/adafruit And it's definitely worth just dipping in and out of -- and eventually reading all the way through -- "The Art of Electronics." It's a terri…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: How to self-learn electronics?”Submitted Update on Novena Open Laptop as a story · 361 points
HN discussionUnder section 1201 anti-circumvention rules, unless Youtube-DL enters the US legal system & counter-notifies, Github/Microsoft face CRIMINAL liability charges with steep JAIL TIME and a half-million dollar fine. I want to chew Microsoft out for this one, but the US-based copyright mafia have built themselves an unbelievably vicious draconian set of laws that prevent any sort of challenge, including those coming from…
Comment linking /blog/?p=4782
on “How journalists use youtube-dl”Submitted Building my Own Laptop as a story · 354 points
HN discussionBunnie Huang is working on Betrusted [1], a communications device that is designed to be secure from state actors. The first step is Precursor (about: [2], purchase:[3]) the hardware and OS that will be the platform for the communications device. It's designed to be secure even though it communicates via insecure wifi, for instance via tethering or at home. The CPU and most peripherals are in an FPGA with an auditab…
Comment linking /blog/?p=5921
on “Apple previews Lockdown Mode”Submitted Intro to hacking MicroSD cards (2013) as a story · 352 points
HN discussionThose questions apply to literally every computer. https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5706
Comment linking /blog/?p=5706
on “Your Computer Isn't Yours”Submitted Sex, Circuits and Deep House as a story · 309 points
HN discussionJust because Broadcom won't sell them doesn't mean the factory won't make some more. This is China, they have a pretty liberal (and one could argue: more reasonable) approach to issues of intellectual property :). Or at least it used to be so; sadly, in the last few years the US was pressuring Chinese government to crack down on it. Anyway, you can read more about this phenomenon here: [0]. Oh, and one more thing. I…
Comment linking /blog/?cat=20
on “Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer”Submitted New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring as a story · 307 points
HN discussionEven the microSSD card likely has an ARM core that can be hacked: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554
Comment linking /blog/?p=3554
on “What is AT&T doing at 1111340002?”Submitted Crowdfunding the Novena Open Laptop as a story · 292 points
HN discussionThere's Protomold[1] which does relatively cheap short runs of plastic manufacturing. I'm sure there are plenty of alternatives (and I recall seeing a massive chinese 3d printing contract manufacturer, but forget the name). Not sure about assembling all the parts into the case. Depending on who does the PCB production and assembly, they might also offer a full assembly service, or not. The Factory Floor series[2] by…
Comment linking /blog/?page_id=2812
on “Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years”Submitted A Clash of Cultures as a story · 291 points
HN discussionIn my mind, if everything was open source or there were no IP restrictions, a lot of this stuff would happen automatically. Companies would tend to standardize on parts after a while as everyone would clone the good parts of everyone else. Open source 3D printers always have cheap replacement parts widely available. These regulations are trying to use the state to correct for problems that in some cases occur becaus…
Comment linking /blog/?p=284
on “EU to make it mandatory to use customer-replaceable batteries in household items”Submitted I Broke My Phone’s Screen, and It Was Awesome as a story · 279 points
HN discussion> The boon of progress and freedom X country would get from becoming even little more rational about IP would pay for itself and be better for actual people. That's what China has been doing for decades , and "gongkai" [1] is just one tiny part of it. While life for the average Chinese citizen has gone up - the CCP managed to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty - the life of most Western populations h…
Comment linking /blog/?p=4297
on “Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial”Submitted What is a System-on-Chip (SoC), and why do we care if they are open source? as a story · 275 points
HN discussionSo if we want to go with completely open arch, we'd be looking at something like this: https://www.hackster.io/news/a-feather-compatible-fpga-board... https://github.com/mcci-catena/HW-Designs/tree/master/Boards... https://github.com/mcci-catena/catena-riscv32-fpga ie. an FPGA you can put your own OS AND radio firmware on. Something like https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5921 (and see the updates https://www.cro…
Comment linking /blog/?p=5921
on “I want a computer that I own”Submitted The $12 “Gongkai” Phone (2013) as a story · 259 points
HN discussion
