Hardware is the future. There is no better proof of this than the hardware clans that have grown up around DEF CON, which in recent years has become known. Latest trending topics being covered on ZDNet including Reviews, Tech Industry, Security, Hardware, Apple, and Windows. Hackers at the Defcon Voter Hacking Village taking a look at the software on a Diebold voting machine. Alfred Ng CNET He. Def-Con 4 Full Movie' title='Def-Con 4 Full Movie' />A young man finds a back door into a military central computer in which reality is confused with gameplaying, possibly starting World War III. Back when Mercedes was using the reanimated corpse of Pablo Picasso as the head of design for the Unimog division. While plenty of the tens of thousands of hackers who descend on Las Vegas every year for the security conference DEF CON are there to break shit, lots of them are. TheINQUIRER publishes daily news, reviews on the latest gadgets and devices, and INQdepth articles for tech buffs and hobbyists. B2cNvls8zTMLKcqRl74EenO9XB8=/fit-in/970x0/2017/07/29/92470fbb-ee34-47d0-8b97-ce9339f1c9a8/hackers-tweaking-a-voting-machine-to-break-in.jpg' alt='Def-Con 4 Full Movie' title='Def-Con 4 Full Movie' />Homemade robot cracks a safe at Def Con. A group of hackers have built a robot that can crack a safe. A team from Spark. Fun Electronics in Colorado took their robot to the underground hacking convention, Def Con in Las Vegas. They bought a Sentry. Safe safe the day before the demonstration and opened it onstage Friday. The robot took about 3. The audience clapped and cheered when the safe was opened. It works by reducing the number of possible combinations from one million to 1,0. Then it tries the remaining possibilities to break in. A team of hackers from Spark. Fun Electronics in Colorado built a robot pictured that can crack combination safes with no human interaction The team brought the robot to Def Con, a convention of underground hackers, in Las Vegas, where they demonstrated the robots abilities on Friday. Spark. Fun, an electronics hardware supplier, is owned and founded by Nathan Seidle. He told BBC That was one of the scariest things weve done. Lots of things can go wrong and this was a very big audience. HOW THE ROBOT REDUCES THE NUMBER OF POSSIBLE COMBOSThe mechanism inside the safe has three dials that allow the safe to be opened when they are aligned. Because each dial can be any two digit number, there are one million possible combinations. Instead of trying each of those combinations, the robot is able to determine the number of one of the dials within 2. Because Seidle discovered one dial has a slightly larger indent on the solution than the others, the robot can figure the final number first, more quickly than the others. Seidle also discovered that safes are designed to offset human error. The numbers before and after the actual number for the combination work as well, so the robot only has to check every third number, which it can do much faster than a person. Using these methods, the robot only has to work through 1,0. Were really happy it opened up. According to the outlet, several hundred people came out to watch the robot crack the safe at Def Con, the largest gathering of underground hackers in the world. The robot costs about 2. D printed pieces, which can be replaced for different types of combination safes though it cannot crack digital safes. We designed it for a particular type of safe, but it doesnt really matter you can actually 3. D print a coupler that can match any safe that you may have, Seidle said. Seidle brought together some of his colleagues at Spark. Fun to make the safe cracking robot after his wife bought him a second hand locked safe for Christmas. The previous owner had forgotten the combination, so Seidles wife bought it for cheap and challenged him to crack it. He decided to build a machine that would crack it for him, so he wouldnt have to. Seidle and his Spark. Fun colleagues built the robot in four months. The robot was supposed to take a maximum of 7. Once it gets started, it requires no human interaction to crack the safe. It only took 1. Seidles wife bought for him off Craigslist during one demonstration, Wired reported. The team bought a new safe when they arrived in Las Vegas and their robot took 3. It works by reducing the number of possible combinations from one million to 1,0. Then it tries the remaining possibilities to break in. The original safe was also a Sentry. Safe, and though the company did not comment on the Def Con demonstration, a spokesperson did tell WIRED that the safe accomplished what it was designed to do. It would be realistically very difficult, if not impossible, for the average person to replicate in the field. Though some Sentry. Safe models also use a lock and key, Seidle and his team unlocked one by using a pen, BBC reported. No matter how much money you spend on a safe, nothing is impervious, Seidle said. Watch Barbie: A Perfect Christmas HD 1080P. The team brought their robot to Def Con pictured, which was themed around election hacking this year.