# carmaa/inception

Inception is a physical memory manipulation and hacking tool exploiting PCI-based DMA. The tool can attack over FireWire, Thunderbolt, ExpressCard, PC Card and any other PCI/PCIe interfaces.

Repository: https://github.com/carmaa/inception
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/carmaa-inception
Language: Python
License Family: other
Last push: 2025-06-13T09:40:01+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 34/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 26, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5555, "days_push": 446, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1602, forks 196 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:09.782939+00:00)

## What it is
Inception is a Python-based physical memory manipulation tool that exploits PCI-based DMA (over FireWire, Thunderbolt, ExpressCard, PC Card, and other PCI/PCIe interfaces) to gain read/write access to a target machine's RAM. It can patch OS code in memory, e.g., to bypass password authentication on unlocked or locked machines.

## Use cases
- demonstrate FireWire/Thunderbolt DMA attacks against live machines
- bypass OS login password by patching memory over DMA
- security research on physical access attack vectors
- forensics and OPSEC awareness training on DMA threats
- test whether a machine is vulnerable to SBP-2 DMA exploits

## When to choose
- you need a quick, scriptable DMA memory attack over FireWire/PCIe interfaces
- you are demonstrating physical-access attack risks for security education
- you are researching legacy DMA attack techniques on older hardware/OSes

## When to avoid
- you need a maintained tool - the project is no longer under active development (use PCILeech instead)
- target runs modern OS X (>10.7.2) or Windows (>8.1) with locked screen, or VT-D/IOMMU enabled
- you lack physical access to a FireWire/Thunderbolt/PCIe port on the victim machine

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: abandoned
- function: security, penetration-testing, cryptography
- domain: security, penetration-testing, hardware
- platform: windows, python, cli
- tags: dma-attacks, firewire, physical-memory, pentest, sbp-2, thunderbolt, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- carmaa/inception (main) score 34

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:09.782939+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:52:37.061772+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/carmaa/inception (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:09.782939+00:00, sha c20a41630f0f)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.