Fiftythree.org presents: The Etherkiller and Friends


Don't mess with the IT department guys. Although their office might look as messy as mine, they are a force not to be screwed with.


        It all started one day with this guy, the origional Etherkiller, developed with a few misc parts to warn new users that the IT department is not to be messed with. You too can make one at home, connect the transmit pins of the RJ-45 to HOT on 110VAC and the recieve pins to Common. Modify to suit tase by varying pinout.

This led to some general discussion that this particular device really is in a class of devices, now called the "killers", which need to be made.

The Players

Remote control

After blowing several circuits in the office, and for some sembelance of safely, we added this fuse box. Circuit breakers would be much better. Allright, truth be told this only got used a few times and a bunch of devices in the office just got real used to being rebooted.

Why not use a power strip? I don't remember, but for some reason that didn't sound as challenging. Oh, now I remember, it normally wouldn't trip fast enough. So we took this device to plug into the power strip to power it.

AUI Killer

This poor thing once was a TP to AUI tranciever until one day... Those trancievers are really hard to get open too.

Now you can fry all that AUI gear that should have been gone by now anyway.

BNC-Killer

"BNC-killer" makes the center pin hot. For added fun, connect to any remaining thinnet in the building to make sure everyone has switched over to twisted-pair like we told them to. Next time they will listen.

Here is a picture of bnc-killer in 10base2 kill mode. Obviously an adapter for BNC to N would let you blow up thicknet. And who the hell wouldn't want to do that?

VGA-Killer

Then we thought... what else has BNC connectors on it? Those old RGB video cables sure do, so we slapped on some T's and connected it to an old video cable. The cable pictured was for a sync on green system, but RGBHV would work with a few more T's. Tired of that crazy 13W3 on suns and sgis? Get an adaptor.

A co-worker, lets call him E., had a video card going to be shipped back to a major PC supplier because it had some video interference/ghosting problems. Well, I took the card and with a loud SNAP and a bright flash the ghosting problems were gone. A good 1/2" radius was charred on the card, by far the most impressive distruction at that time. E. was kinda pissed since it was under his name the card was getting shipped back.

Drive Killer

Normal harddrives and cdroms want +5VDC and +12VDC. We give them 120 VAC. They like it. Ohhh, they like it.

SCSI Killer

Use the above drive killer in a power strip at the same time with this one. We wouldn't want data to still get through, would we?

Add flavorful scsi adapters to this killer to suit taste.

Ide Killer

With this once, we actually took the time to seperate signal and ground. Now that's some damn dedication.

Floppy Killer

'Nuff said.

RJ-11 Killer

Telcos install circuit protection for a reason, right?

Localtalk Killer

The RJ-11 killer proved to be adaptable too. Perhaps having proper terminiation doesn't really matter at this point. Now localtalk is really local.

DB25 Killer

Thanks to a major network manufacturer who ships every device with a serial to RJ-45 connector, we are able to make serial toast. DB-9's are laying around too.

V.35 Killer

Taking serial to new extremes. T-1 down and telco says its not their equipment that's at fault? Take matters into your own hands and assure them it's their problem.

Bus Killer

This one is the real pride and joy of the department. It started as PCI Killer, but now in version 2, fits PCI, ISA, and AGP.

This incorporates 4 back slot covers with some epoxy to a front bay cover and a blank electrical outlet plate. Who knew they all could be so versitile?

Unclear how it works? Here is an action shot.

Powered Hub

This special hub supplies AC to the 10base-T jacks and the AUI port.

The hub was a fun one to wire:

Remarks

Try this at home, really! One day the local salesmen reps of a major networking company (that rhymes with Nabisco) came by to talk to my boss. Since he was on the phone they came in and talked to me so I showed them the etherkiller. I think it scared the shit out of them. I also got yelled at by my boss since he thinks we might not ever get warranty support again.

Coming soon hopefully will be some pictures of these goodies in action. But half of the battle is keeping the users wondering anyway. We've blown up about 3 network cards, 2 video cards, and some other misc drives. Hopefully sometime early this summer will be distruction day '02. Thanks to a friend, some modems were added to the pile for fryin'.

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