Dave mate, the only free thing you'll find in a dumpster in my neighbourhood is a
dump.
I noticed when you were doing the upgrade, were those Raspbian logos? So would it possible to hack into the Kernel via a telnet connection? Maybe try the old trick of logging in as user
root, password
root?
Informative and entertaining

btw We hope your air isn't too toxic from those devastating bush fires in the Sydney area.