Hacked Amazon Dash Button sends $5 to the ACLU whenever life demands it

In what feels like the first good use for an Amazon Dash Button, a programmer hacked his button to donate $5 to the ACLU whenever he wishes.

In a post published to Medium, Nathan Pryor detailed the process of building a custom charitable Dash Button, from writing a script that sends the money to designing its own official label.

He writes:

"It was my friend Katherine who made the comment 'I wish there was an ACLU Dash button I could push to donate any time I read about the latest offense from Trump.' Her language was sliiiiightly more colorful than that, but it got me thinking: why reserve that instant gratification for physical goods? Why not push a button and do some real good?"

So, Pryor set out to build one.

With no donation API from the ACLU to work with, his wrote one that could automatically pull up the ACLU's donation form and instantly enter his personal information and credit card number.

After a successful test-run on Amazon's website, Pryor linked his script to an AWS IoT Button, an Amazon Dash Button that's completely customizable. He even designed and printed a slick ACLU label to make it look more like a traditional branded button.

And guess what? It totally works. Now Pryor keeps the button by his laptop for whenever he feels like the ACLU could use a little extra help.

For those looking to hack their own Dash Buttons, Pryor included his script (though he makes no promises as to its effectiveness or security).

You were planning to donate more to charity anyway, right?