• Peter: Inside a Blizzard Authenticator (aka I Failed to Raid Tonight)

    Characters: Rittal[85] Mieville[80] Terlan[80] Caltera[67] Dynia[67]
    Created: 2009-05-14 19:10:26 Edited: 2009-05-14 19:15:41

    Okay, so tonight I had a small accident with my Blizzard Authenticator. It managed to slip off of my keyring at some point today, I noticed two hours before we were to start raiding. I quick trip back to work and I found my authenticator laying down on the perimeter road of the university. I picked it up joyously and turn it over... bugger it was cracked.

    2009-05-14 18:48:52
    Front of Car Eaten Blizzard Authenticator


    2009-05-14 18:48:54
    Back of Car Eaten Blizzard Authenticator



    I've blanked out the authenticators serial number and barcode as it's still linked to my account. I'm going through the procedure of having it removed. The screen has a lovely crack across it as you can see.

    So being a typical geek I thought "bugger it, why not pull it apart?". So I did, first of all I tried to slip a knife down the sides of it to no avail, I couldn't get it apart. As Blizzard term this, it's a "Black Security Issue" so it shouldn't be easy to take apart right?

    2009-05-14 18:48:55
    End off Blizzard Authenticator



    Removed the label, for I want to keep it for posterity, it looks so much nicer then the new one anyway. Had to saw off of the end to expose the PCB. Yes, there's a blood sacrifice there too!

    2009-05-14 18:48:57
    More back off Blizzard Authenticator



    I couldn't see any visible glue, but I still couldn't pull it apart. Probably a very small amount of some strong plastic glue. The plastic was defiantly moulded, then stuck together.

    2009-05-14 18:48:59
    Removed back of Blizzard Authenticator



    After much abuse with the knife and a pair of snips I was able to "expose the core". The PCB was screwed down to front cover with four tiny screws. As part of removing the back cover I accidentally knocked a small surface mount capacitor next to the crystal, probably one of the filtering caps to ground.

    2009-05-14 18:50:39
    Display/Button side of Blizzard Authenticator PCB



    The front side shows standard contacts for the LCD and button, nothing interesting here.

    2009-05-14 18:50:41
    Back of the front panel of the Blizzard Authenticator



    Finally a clearer shot of the PCB, you can see contacts presumably for programming.

    2009-05-14 18:50:42
    Shot of the PCB of the Blizzard Authenticator



    Pin outs are:

    SD? (Which I think is SDA just hidden by the micro controller glue.)
    VPP
    SCLK
    REF
    NR
    OUT
    GND
    RES
    INL
    TP1
    TP2

    SDA/SCLK might indicate that it's programmed over I2C, which would be an interesting thing to try and explore. TP's are probably test points for something.

    So yes, I was a dunce and got mine broke, but hey, we got to see what was in one.

    P.
    "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." -- Douglas Adams

    • Peter: Re: Inside a Blizzard Authenticator (aka I Failed to Raid Tonight)

      Characters: Rittal[85] Mieville[80] Terlan[80] Caltera[67] Dynia[67]
      Created: 2009-05-14 19:12:25

      The other I did this was because my bank uses a similar earlier model for it's OTP solution. I was expecting it to stop working as soon as I took the lid off, but amazingly there's no protection for that. I can see one digit of the authenticator code still.
      "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." -- Douglas Adams