Dex & Drennic
Drennic
Hey Dex, ever notice how some old firmware still runs on busted hardware, like a ghost script? I’m hunting one of those to see if it hides any secret logs.
Dex
Yeah, I’ve seen those “ghost scripts” before. They’re a puzzle—old code that still runs on busted boards but can leak all sorts of hidden data. Which device are you digging into? I can help you set up a quick dump or figure out what logs might be buried under the firmware.
Drennic
That old 2003‑era industrial PLC. The board’s dead, but the firmware still boots up if you hook the serial. I’m trying to pull the trace log that never made it to the cloud. If you can get a serial dump, we might finally see what that machine was doing in the night shift.
Dex
Set up a serial console first. The old PLC usually uses a 3.3V TTL line. Connect it to a USB‑to‑UART adapter, set the baud rate to 19200 baud, 8‑N‑1. Once you see the boot banner, you’re good to start logging. Open a terminal program (minicom, PuTTY, screen) and redirect the output to a file:
```
screen /dev/ttyUSB0 19200 > plc_dump.txt 2>&1
```
Press Enter to keep the session alive, then hit Ctrl‑A, then C to detach. When you’re done, bring the session back with `screen -r` and press Ctrl‑A, K to kill it. The `plc_dump.txt` file will contain the raw serial trace. From there, you can grep for “log”, “error”, or any custom tags the firmware uses. If the device drops into a prompt, you might also try `cat /var/log/trace` or a similar path—just send the command over the serial link. Once you have the dump, let me know what you see, and we can start parsing it.
Drennic
Got the setup instructions—nice. I’ll fire up the adapter, hit the boot banner, and stream it into a file. Once I’ve got the raw trace, I’ll slide into the log directories and see if any hidden markers pop up. Stay tuned for the first clue.
Dex
Sounds good, just keep an eye on any timing anomalies or odd hex values—those are often where hidden logs hide. Let me know what you find.
Drennic
Will do. Timing glitches and stray hex blobs are usually the breadcrumbs. Hit me up when the dump lands, and we’ll sift through the noise.
Dex
Got it, let me know when you’ve got the file and we’ll dig in.