CVS Disposable Camcorder Hacked 182
ptorrone writes "We've been watching this on MAKE closely- and the king of the one-time digital camera hacks/analysis finally got his hands on a CVS Camcorder on Friday, the 24th via someone shipping him one FedEx. Within 18 hours, he had slurped the flash memory and has the unencrypted, XVID codec, 320x240, 30fps movies stored in the camera on his computer."
Re:Hours of crappy goodness (Score:3, Informative)
Fisher-Price being part of Mattel, of course.
Anyway, the camera was called "PXL-2000" and the format was called "Pixelvision". Read More... [michaeloreilly.com]
Article Text (Score:5, Informative)
Pure Digital's Single Use Camcorder for CVS
[PureDigital CVS camcorder]
Introduction
This web page is a little raw because I just got the camera and I'm leaving on a trip soon. So, I'll be brief and hopefully informative.
If you're not familiar with the camera, here is a good review.
Disassembly
Here's a photo gallery of the disassembly of my unit.
Similar in constructioon to the PV2, this unit is rugged and can be easily recycled.
Preliminary Analysis
Others found that pressing the Record and Delete buttons while turning on the camera yields a special diagnostic page. Mine said:
FW-VERSION: 03.40
CAMERA ID:
6B7051xxxxxx
PCB VER: B2
FLASH Memory Analysis NEW
I was able to get my videos out of the camera and onto my home computer by removing the 128MB flash memory chip and putting it into my home-built flash reader. I originally built the system for the PV2 camera -- here's some more info on it. The only modification I had to make was for the increased memory size of the new part. The reader is nothing special -- just a cheaper (and slower) version of comercially available units.
I've placed my analysis of the camcorder's flash memory on its own page. That page also has sample videos I have recovered from my camera.
Resources
The most current discussion that I follow is on the Camera Hacking message board. There is also discussion on Dakota PV2 discussion board.
contact me: my email address is my first name (john) at my last name (maushammer) dot com.
Is this legal? Yes.
Info on the original most recent still disposable digital camera
other systems I've played with
visit my homepage
Re:more infos @ http://doskir.de.vu (Score:1, Informative)
On Sale in two weeks (Score:4, Informative)
The ExtraBucks print from the register 2 days after the qualifiying purchase and although you do need your own ExtraCare card, the information you provide can be as false as possible. ExtraBucks are good on anything in the store excluding tobacco, alcohol and prescriptions.
Light, breakable cameras (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.xkcd.com/kite/ [xkcd.com]
I was so confident of my engineering skill and my insistence on multiple safety measures that I sent my nice, $150 digital camera up the kite line. It worked for a few hours after the 70-foot fall, but hasn't since.
WTF is CVS? (Score:4, Informative)
For the rest of us, CVS is a chain of pharmacies, they're selling a small, locked, one-time use digital video camera for $30 and charging $13 to get the data off it and onto DVD.
Site is slowing... here's a Coral Link (Score:3, Informative)
Hmm... I'm really starting to like Coral.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hours of crappy goodness (Score:4, Informative)
According to this article you are only renting the camera, and are supposed to give it back when you're done.
And an article in todays Star Tribune http://www.startribune.com/stories/535/5475334.ht
So if I ask to borrow your car to drive 20 miles, and I don't sign anything, I can take your car on a 2000 mile trip, turn back your odometer, and get away with it?
This isn't an informal "borrow a car from a friend" relationship. This is a storefront where people buy things and if a contract is involved, it's spelled out quite clearly. In this case, they sell you the camera, and then hope you'll bring it back.
A contract doesn't have to be signed in order to be binding.
No it doesn't but you do have to have at least a verbal agreement to have a binding contract. Unless they say whenever you buy one of these things "buy buying this product you agree to return it" then you have no obligation whatsoever to return it.
Sure, you might get away with breaking it, but that doesn't mean you're not stealing.
Gee.. I thought stealing meant someone took something from you without you giving it to them, or selling it to them. Since CVS is actually selling these things to consumers, there's no "theft" involved. If you want to co-opt the word theft to your own personal definition, fine. But don't go around using it that way and expect people to agree with you.
Re:On Sale in two weeks (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The question is... (Score:4, Informative)
The second still camera (the PV2) has a USB function that sucks out all the important system files out of Flash memory and saves them in SDRAM. It then reformats the memory and copies the files back in. It's a pretty good erase (maybe not NSA secure, but recovery would involve probing the IC wafer), and I don't see why it wouldn't be used.
But, the biggest security risk seems to be the time after development and before sending the cameras back to Pure Digital for recycling. According the people who operate the machines, the development machines don't erase the pictures. They stay on the camera in case something messes up -- they didn't want to have angry customers saying "what do you mean you accidently deleted my prints". It seems that the used cameras stay a while at the stores, so any operator could make prints of your pictures for up to a couple of weeks after you have them developed. But, bad employees is probably about the same risk as with traditional development.
Since the camcorder uses a separate partition with only picture data, I suspect it would be pretty easy to reformat only this section completely. (the PV2 had system and user data in the same filesystem, which is why it had to save the data in ram)
Re:oh yeah! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:oh yeah! (Score:3, Informative)
Also, yesterday I got the flash re-installed into the camera and it still works.
BTW: agree with grandparent's sig, too. I was watching the movie and kept thinking "ug, this is bad, but not as bad as Ep II"