# system_profiler SPUSBDataType

FT232R USB UART:

          Product ID: 0x6001
          Vendor ID: 0x0403  (Future Technology Devices International Limited)
          Version: 6.00
          Serial Number: AC01U4XN
          Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
          Manufacturer: FTDI
          Location ID: 0x14100000 / 2
          Current Available (mA): 500
          Current Required (mA): 90
          Extra Operating Current (mA): 0

The serial number you got is the same.

What you are trying to achieve here is to connect to the device, but in order to connect to it, you have to know where the device in the /dev folder is mapped to. A quick and dirty solution is to list all devices under /dev when the device is disconnected, once when it is connected, and diff the outputs. For example, the following should do the job:

ls -lha /dev/tty* > plugged.txt
ls -lha /dev/tty* > np.txt
vimdiff plugged.txt np.txt

The result should be obvious, /dev/tty.usbserial-AC01U4XN is the new device in case macOS. In the case of Linux, it was /dev/ttyUSB0.

Linux users, read it from here. macOS users, please continue reading

Now you can use either the built-in screen command or minicom to get data out from the badge. Usually, you need three information in order to communicate with a badge. Path on /dev (you already got that), speed in baud, and the async config parameters. Either you can guess the speed or you can Google that for the specific device. Standard baud rates include 110, 300, 600, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 14400, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200, 128000 and 256000 bits per second. I usually found 1200, 9600 and 115200 a common choice, but that is just me.
Regarding the async config parameters, the default is that 8 bits are used, there is no parity bit, and 1 stop bit is used. The short abbreviation for this is 8n1. In the next example, you will use the screen command. By default, it uses 8n1, but it is called cs8 to confuse the beginners.

If you type:
# screen /dev/tty.usbserial-AC01U4XN 9600
or
# screen /dev/ttyUSB0 9600
and wait for minutes and nothing happens, it is because the badge already tried to communicate via the USB port, but no-one was listening there. Disconnect the badge from the computer, connect again, and type the screen command above to connect. If you are quick enough you can see that the amber LED will stop blinking and your screen command is greeted with some interesting information. By quick enough I mean ˜90 seconds, as it takes the device 1.5 minutes to boot the OS and the CTF app.

Windows

You might check the end of the macOS section in case you can't see anything. Timing is everything.

The CTF

Welcome to the Hacktivity 2018 badge challenge!

This challenge consists of several tasks with one or more levels of
difficulty. They are all connected in some way or another to HW RE
and there's no competition, the whole purpose is to learn things.

Note: we recommend turning on local echo in your terminal!
Also, feel free to ask for hints at the Hackcenter!

Choose your destiny below:

  1. Visual HW debugging
  2. Reverse engineering
  3. RF hacking
  4. Crypto protection

Enter the number of the challenge you're interested in and press [