What accessories do you recommend for the traveling remote developer?

Lauren — Tue, 07 Jul 2020 20:55:07 +0000

At the start of next month I will be traveling a good bit, while still working remotely. We're talking airports, hotel rooms, etc. I've been considering a portable monitor for my laptop (although specific recs would be great!), but what else do you guys recommend for an on-the-go dev?

Make a Rubber Ducky for $3 with Digispark

Lauren — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 06:46:52 +0000

Edit: Stray let me know in the comments that this will only work on the computer you install the Digistump Drivers on, unfortunately. Still looking for a workaround!

Wait, what is a Rubber Ducky?

A Rubber Ducky is an awesome USB keystroke injector. Basically, you can write whatever scripts you want containing clicks/keystrokes, and they are run immediately when plugged into Linux/Windows/Mac machines. This is super useful for many pentesting activities, and even pranks!

However, not many of us want to pay $49.99 for the tool, so some smart folks out there (not me) have devised a way to make one using a $3 Digispark microcontroller. Here's how to make your own.

What do I need?

Digispark ATTINY85 microcontroller (the only purchase)
Arduino IDE software
Digistump Drivers
Duckyspark software

Arduino IDE

The Arduino IDE will allow us to write, compile, and upload code to our Digispark

You can download the Arduino IDE for Windows, Linux, or Mac for free from their software page
Once opened, go to File -> Preferences, and in the Additional Boards Manager URLs input, enter http://digistump.com/package_digistump_index.json
Go to Tools -> Board -> Boards Manager and search for Digistump AVR Boards (you'll want the one authored by Digistump) and click install
If any other installations are prompted (like drivers) accept them
Finally, go to Tools -> Board and select Digispark (Default - 16.5mhz)

Digistump Drivers

Download the driver zip file and unzip it
Enter the directory and run the Install Drivers file, then go through the installation wizard and accept

Duckyspark

The Duckyspark Python script lets us translate Ducky code to Digispark code. There are a lot of scripts people have made that we want to use!

Clone the Duckyspark repository from their GitHub page to wherever you want it

Putting it All Together

Now that we have everything we need, it's time to try it out.

Find a ducky script you want to use, for a harmless one that's good for testing I recommend the Notepad Demo by Cloudcompany.at
Open the demo and either click Encode Payload and download it as duckycode.txt, or copy and paste the code into a txt file
Move your newly made txt file into the Duckyspark repo we cloned. Open a terminal and cd to the repo then run py Duckyspark_translator.py nameofyourfile.txt
You should get a 'Success!' message and a new file called digipayload.ino in the repo
Double-click the ino file, or open it in the Arduino IDE, then go to Sketch -> Verify/Compile
Finally, go to Sketch -> Upload and plug in your Digikey when prompted.
Once it is successfully uploaded, remove the Digikey and re-insert it. Your script should run!

Common Errors

If you get this error at compile: "DigiKeyboard.h: No such file or directory", your board was likely changed when the Arduino IDE was reopened. Go back to Tools -> Board and select Digispark (Default - 16.5mhz)
If you have any other errors and/or their fixes, please leave them in the comments :)

What now?

Now that you have everything installed, you can either write your own scripts in the DigiKeyboard language, or in Ducky and translate it with Duckyspark. Also as you've seen, there are tons of scripts out there for Ducky that you can translate. But be careful, many of them are for pentesting and other security applications, so don't make yourself vulnerable.

Thanks for reading!

DEV Community: Lauren