05.06.2026 –, ZKM Kubus Sprache: English
Tamper-sensing meshes are electronic layers that detect an attacker drilling or cutting into a device. There isn’t a lot of public information about their construction, so I did a survey of about 30 devices with such meshes. In this talk, I’ll share the results of that survey.
I'll give a quick history of these meshes from the 1800s to today, touch on industry standards, and break down the technical trade-offs behind mesh design. From there, I'll walk you through real-world construction techniques and their weaknesses--covering substrate materials, trace materials, pattern, and 3D assembly styles.
From all of this, I've put together a set of criteria for actually secure mesh design. The gist of it is: off-the-shelf PCB processes are a solid proxy for real-world meshes for researchers or hackers; most meshes in the wild use PCB or FPC processes with feature sizes of 0.5mm or larger; and with basic techniques like silkscreen printing--the same process used for keyboard membranes--you can build meshes that match or beat the security of most devices out there.
I’m doing lots of EE, programming, and sewing. just finished my PhD and I’ll spend the next while developing my PhD research into Open-Source Hardware designs. I have been around chaos circles for a while and I’ve given a talk at GPN before.