A Builder Pointed Claude Opus 5 at Five Desk Peripherals and Found a Plaintext Command Shell in a Shure Microphone and a Webcam LED He Could Switch Off Mid-Record
Over two weeks, roughly 13 hours of model time and 98 prompts, the author of schlarp.com had Claude Opus 5 reverse-engineer firmware for an Insta360 Link webcam, an ASUS ROG Swift PG42UQ monitor, a Shure MV7 mic, an Elgato Cam Link 4K and an Elgato Key Light Mini. Findings include a 48-command USB HID shell in the MV7 whose entire authentication is a string comparison against the tier name (`su sup`), an Insta360 activity LED that can be disabled while recording, and an Ed25519 signature check on the Key Light Mini defeated by a single HTTP POST memory write (`ATSE=0200ED94,0E001009`). Per-device cost ranged from 1.2 hours and 10 prompts to 4.2 hours and 32 prompts, which is the number that matters for builders: hardware RE is now priced in an afternoon, not a career.
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