Hackszine.com: Mobile Phones Archives

Archive: Mobile Phones

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November 17, 2008

Android hack - a smarter garage door opener

Brad Fitzpatrick created a garage door application for his G1 Android-based Google Phone. This would be noteworthy enough, but the interesting thing about Brad's hack is that it opens the garage door automatically as he approaches his home.

I got it all working. I now have an Android Activity (GarageDoorActivity) which interacts with an Android Service I wrote (InRangeService), letting me start and stop the service's wifi scanning task. The service gets the system WifiManager, holds a WifiLock to keep the radio active, and then does a Wifi scan every couple seconds, looking for my house.

When my house is in range, it does the magic HTTP request to my garage door opener's webserver (HMAC-signed timestamped URL, for non-replayability/forgeability if sniffed) and my garage door opens. Complete with a bunch of fun Toast notifications (like Growl) and Android Notifications (both persistent ongoing notifications for background scanning, and one-time notifications for things like the garage door actually opening).

So when Brad comes home, he starts the application which scans the WiFi network and then opens the garage door as soon as his home network is in range. He even describes an automated version where the phone constantly monitors the network for common scenarios. For instance, your if your phone sees your work network disappear, followed an hour later by your home network appearing, it could safely assume you have come home from work, opening the door without any interaction.

This is compelling support for a fully hackable, open source device. With normal iPhone development, you don't this level of deep access to be able to monitor WiFi connectivity or run an application as a background process.

Brad's released the source code for this one. If this app gives you any ideas, his code might be a good place to start. Just make sure to send us a link to your Android hack when you get your G1 to turn lights on and off when you walk around the house.

Android Garage Door Opener
Download the Java Source

November 10, 2008

Installing Debian alongside Android on the G1

Now that you can run commands as root on the Google phone, you may have been thinking about what else you can do with the device. You know, besides the usual talking, texting, and surfing while driving.

The device is Linux based, sure, but the installed software is relatively spartan and there isn't too much internal space to get dangerous. Thankfully, Jay Freeman wrote a nice guide for installing a more complete Linux distribution on the device, right alongside Android.

The main thing I've so far seen on this matter have been a few attempts to get busybox on there. I, however, think we can go a lot further: following the instructions in this article will end you up with a full distribution of Debian, one of the most highly respected Linux distributions, and the ability to install almost anything you want.

To do this, we need to think through a few of the details of getting this sort of thing running on the G1. The first question: where do we put it? The device has some internal flash, but it isn't really enough: only 128MB to share with the OS and other applications.

We therefore turn our attention to the much more reasonably sized microSD card, a format which lets us get up to 16GB of space.

Debian & Android Together on G1

October 17, 2008

Coding a Flickr bike

One of the developers behind the Yahoo Purple Pedals project posted a lot of details about how they went about developing a networked bike that automatically uploads geocoded photos to Flickr.

The team created background applications for the GPS-enabled Nokia N95. The software forces the camera to take photos regularly without user interaction and posts the photo, the device's IMEI ID and the current location to a server application over HTTP. Finally, the server application matches the IMEI to a Flickr ID in its database and posts the photo to Flickr for the world to see.

Both the device-side and server-side applications have been made available under the LGPL license, which should give you a pretty significant head start with developing your own mobile-photo project.

Coding a Networked Bike
Purple Pedals

July 31, 2008

Buzz Kill - stopping iPhone GSM speaker noise

Every GSM cellphone user is familiar with the annoying Bzzzhtzttt noises that tend to emanate from random electronics anywhere you take your device. The iPhone is no exception, but the problem is exacerbated since most people have it sitting on their desk with a speaker close by playing music at reasonable amplification. It sucks.

Mac Life has a solution that may work for you. Just yank the ferrite beads from an old usb cable—they are inside the plastic bulge near one end of most cables—and place them around or taped in-line with your speaker cable. There are a few stories of success with this method, and nobody has mentioned an impact on audio quality, so it's a cheap fix that's worth a shot.

iPhone Buzz Kill

July 21, 2008

Tether your iPhone 3G

Your iPhone can connect you to the web from just about anywhere, but sometimes browsing on a tiny screen isn't enough. With jailbroken 3G and some free software, it's pretty easy to bring that internet-anywhere access to your laptop.

Nate True put together a howto that will guide you through the steps for configuring your iPhone 3G as a web proxy using the 3Proxy software. The laptop connects to the iPhone over an ad-hoc WiFi connection, the iPhone connects to the internet on its 3G connection, and 3Proxy sits in the middle, shuttling http requests and responses from your laptop to the world wide internets.

There are a number of steps involved if you include the whole jailbreaking process. If you get this out of the way, though, you'll be prepared to jack in in an emergency (or in a lame-o airport with pay wifi).

How to tether your iPhone 3G
3Proxy
PwnageTool 2.0.1 (for jailbreaking your iPhone 3G)

July 19, 2008

Citizen Engineer 01 - SIM card and payphone hacks

Ladyada and PT have kicked off the first episode of their Citizen Engineer video series in style. This episode explores GSM SIM card technology and the more retro tech found inside a retired Bell payphone. Ladyada shows how to create a SIM reader which you can use to do things like read deleted SMS messages or brute-force the card's secret key. In the second part, the team dismantles an old Bell payphone and hacks it to function as a home telephone, require quarters for use, and make Skype calls.

Citizen Engineer

April 24, 2008

Open GPS Tracker

Now this looks like fun:

The Open GPS Tracker is a small device which plugs into a $20 prepaid mobile phone to make a GPS tracker. The Tracker responds to text message commands, detects motion, and sends you its exact position, ready for Google Maps or your mapping software. The Tracker firmware is open source and user-customizable.

From the looks of things, the total cost to build a remote-operated GPS tracking unit is on the order of $100. The design uses a prepaid cell phone to receive commands and report its position via SMS.

I'm sure there are a number of boring nefarious application for this that will freak out a lot of folks, but just think about the more interesting possibilities. You could add this to a weather balloon or autonomous flying vehicle easily track it down if there were any flight problems. A bunch of people in any city could put these in their cars on a short time delay and automatically report traffic flow conditions. You could even roll your own "lo-jack" system that would let you find your car if it was stolen, only with this your car's location is only being reported to you instead of a monitoring station, actually increasing your privacy.

Open GPS Tracker

April 6, 2008

Windows Mobile del.icio.us plugin

If you're a del.icio.us power user and you use Windows Mobile, you've probably missed the del.icio.us plugin that's available in desktop browsers like IE and Firefox. Dale Lane took this problem as a challenge and coded a nice little Pocket IE plugin that adds a del.icio.us submittal form to the browser's menu.

This is not as trivial as I expected - it took hundreds and hundreds of lines of code just to get a new entry in the Internet Explorer's menu that gets me access to the web browser object as an IWebBrowser2. And (perhaps especially so for someone who has been getting a little lazy with Java and C#! ), some of it is a little intricate and complex.
Still, once done I could use my access to the browser to launch my "post to del.icio.us" form and prefill it with the URL and page name of PIE's current page. From there, the form uses the public del.icio.us API to send all the info off to my del.icio.us list.

It's written in C++ and he's zipped up the full Visual Studio project. Based on the difficulty and lack of great documentation for doing something like this, this is actually a pretty solid find. If you want to make a PIE plugin, this would be a good place to start.

A del.icio.us plugin for Windows Mobile (or C++ is a pain)
Pocket IE del.icio.us plugin and source

January 6, 2008

Turn a Windows Mobile 6 device into a WiFi Router

WMWifiRouter is a new utility that you can run on your WiFi-capable WM6 device to turn it into a GPRS-uplinked WiFi router. When activated, it will set up your WiFi link in ad-hoc mode and start a DHCP server. Your laptop will see a new network called WMWifiRouter, and connecting to it will funnel all of your network traffic through your phone and its GPRS connection.

It used to be that you had to use a separate laptop connected to your phone to do the routing and network address translation side of things. This hack will allow you connect 1 or more WiFi laptops anywhere where you can get a cell connection, and you can do it without additional hardware. All you need is your phone.

Why isn't this available as part of the base WM6 operating system?

WMWifiRouter - Link
WMWifiRouter forum discussion at xda-developers.com - Link

December 30, 2007

Eavesdropping on Bluetooth headsets

Here's a short video in which Joshua Wright demonstrates how a Bluetooth headset can be hijacked, allowing audio to be captured or sent to the device:

Few users realize that Bluetooth headsets can be exploited granting a remote attacker the ability to record and inject audio through the headset while the device is not in an active call. SANS Institute author and senior instructor Joshua Wright demonstrates.

All that is necessary is knowing the device address, which can be easily sniffed, and the secret pin, which defaults to 0000. The headset audio is tapped while not in a call, so any room conversation the headset's mic can pick up can potentially be listened to remotely.

December 21, 2007

Essential hacker stocking stuffers

Like most of us, you've probably got some last-minute shopping to take care of. Or maybe there's a special someone in your life who keeps asking you for gift ideas and you need to start dropping hints to avoid another button down and a neck tie. Whatever the reason, here's a quick and dirty hacker gift guide with a variety of gift ideas that should put a smile on someone's face.

Make sure to add your own favorites to the list in the comments area and pass it along. I'm focusing primarily on smaller items that are available in local stores, but feel free to toss in whatever you think is important and shouldn't be missed.

Reading Material:

Make: The Best Of - a killer collection of the best 75 projects from our favorite magazine.
The Dangerous Book For Boys - this is a great book for sharing with your kids. Chock-full of essential information like how to tie knots, play poker, use a compass, build a tree house, and relate to girls.
Knoppix Hacks, 2nd Edition - the swiss army knife for your computer.
Illustrated Guide To Astronomical Wonders - ideal for anyone who's interested in knowing their way around the universe.
Also check out other books from the O'Reilly Hacks Series - Link

Gadgets:

Asus Eee PC - this ultra-tiny Linux laptop is just starting to appear in stores - Hacks
Linksys WRT54GL Router - the L in the GL stands for Linux. It's a $60 router that can be customized to do more than it's thousand dollar big-brothers - Hacks
Western Digital MyBook World Edition External Hard Drive - any extra storage is really nice to have, but this network-available drive contains mirrored RAID storage and a mini Linux computer that can run a web and database server - Hacks
iPhone or iPod Touch - did I really put that here? - Hacks
Broadband Mobile Card from Verizon or Sprint - they are getting super
popular, and heck, they are cheaper than an iPhone.
Nokia N95-3 - the winner of our most hackable mobile phone survey - Hacks

Toys:

Air Hogs Havoc Heli Laser Battle - remember the Picco-Zs and their clones from last year? Here's two of them in a single package, enhanced with a trigger that let's you zap your friend's heli down.
E-Sky Lama V4 Helicopter- Yeah, I'm crazy for helicopters right now. The counter-rotating models like this one are about $100, ready (and easy) to fly, and very hackable.
WowWee RoboSapien V2 - fun for the kids. More fun with a soldering iron - Hacks

Gear:

2GB or larger micro SD card, plus various SD and USB adapters - perfect for scooting files around, the size of a finger nail, and you can put a full Linux distro, anti virus software, or a Puppy Linux virtual machine on it - Hacks
Mini Multimeter - always handy.
Bike Multitool - a good one will pack allen and hex wrenches, screw drivers, and a knife into a pretty small package. Perfect for voiding warrantees in a pinch. Oh, and there's a chain tool, too - Link, Link
Soldering Tools - whether it's a new Weller or just a pair of helping hands, it'll be welcome in any stocking - Link, Link

What have we missed here? Add your wishes to the comments. Then find a completely non-tacky way to get this list into the hands of someone who wants you to be a happy hacker.

December 6, 2007

Nokia Energy Profiler--keep an eye on your power consumption

Screenshot0006-2

Nokia has released an Energy Profiler for Series 60 3rd Edition FP1 devices. The profiler will gather data on energy consumption and temperature so you can fire up the energy profile, launch that application you suspect of sucking down your battery, and see just how much power it's eating up. This is a great little program: it can take screenshots while it's running, export to CSV (which you can open in any modern spreadsheet program), and spit out SVG-formatted traces - Link

November 28, 2007

RC car controlled with the N95 acceleration sensor

Amazing! Andreas Jakl posted a cool N95 hack that uses the built-in accelerometer, Python, Bluetooth, and a microcontroller to control the movement of a remote control car:

Now we wanted to take the acceleration sensor of a mobile phone to the next level and use it to control something literally "bigger" than an application that is running on the phone itself.
The result is called "ShakerRacer" (thanks to Adam Montandon for this great name!). Stephan Selinger, one of our professors, bought a normal RC car for about €90 and "tuned" it. Not in the traditional way, but instead he replaced the standard remote control component with an own microcontroller and a Bluetooth-module.

Using the Python module aXYZ from cyke64, it was possible to write a small application that translates the movements of the N95 acceleration sensor to commands that can be understood by the car. This enables you to go as fast as 30 km/h by just tilting your phone!

ShakerRacer: Real RC car controlled with the N95 acceleration sensor - [via] Link

November 20, 2007

Ask the readers: what's the best hackable web phone?

It's not a simple decision, choosing on your next mobile device. There are a lot of different models with various features, built on several software platforms, and with hardware that works well for some carriers, but not well for others. It's a total mess.

One Hackszine reader wrote in on the subject, specifically asking about devices with a solid web browsing platform. He writes:

With all the reviews and nonsense out there. Its making it hard for me to decide on a new phone. I love the look and the screen of the iphone. But I've heard to many bad things about the software. I want a phone that has great web browsing. All I do is talk, text and hopefully browse. I have AT&T and will stay with them for a while. What do you think of the Blackjack? Would you recommend another phone for my needs?

I've messed around with a number of devices, and based strictly on browsing interface, I think the iPhone is at the top of the list except--and for some this is a big exception--for it's lack of Flash support. This being Hackszine, however, I need to also note that while the iPhone can be hacked to run end-user code, the manufacturer has been motivated to make this as difficult as possible, and it won't always be a sure bet going forward into new revisions.

So what other devices are available, and how do you choose a good one? What do Hackszine readers prefer?

I can't possibly list every device, but here's my personal evaluation cirteria.

Connectivity
This is the single most important factor to consider when you're deciding on a web-enabled device. What technologies does your network support? Are you often in range of an 802.11 network?

Find a device that works best with the network you plan to be using. For T-mobile and AT&T, this means the device should support EDGE. For Verison, you'll want a CDMA capable device.

For me, WiFi support is a huge must as well. In the city, you're often in range of free wireless and it's a drag to be sitting on a mobile network when real broadband is available.

Browser Technology
Mobile Safari and recent versions of Pocket IE are both really capable browsers that render web pages true to form, including fairly robust Javascript support.

There's also a mobile version of Firefox, called Minimo, that's available for Windows Mobile Pocket PC (touchscreen) devices, but not the Smartphones.

Navigating the web with a direction pad is a nasty experience. While the touchscreen devices like the iPhone and Pocket PCs are larger, if you're looking for a good mobile browser, you really should stick to a touchscreen platform.

Hackability
If you ignore the manufacturer's attempts to keep it a closed platform (can you ignore this??), the iPhone's unix core, open source development tools, and strong developer community make it a really attractive device. As I mentioned, there's currently no Flash support, though this is rumored to come soon in another update.

Both the Windows Mobile and Series 60 devices have more open development platforms and free development environments available. I've written code for both operating systems, and I have to say that writing anything but Flash Lite for the Series 60 devices is horrendous. The Windows mobile devices, on the other hand, are, for the most part, a pleasure to write software for. This is true even for native application code, which can be developed in a number of languages that are supported in Embedded Visual Studio.

Ask the Readers
I've only used a few devices on a day to day basis, and there are so many new ones available that I haven't tried, so I'm hoping you folks can help out with determining the best available, hackable mobile web device.

What do you look for in a web-enabled device? Which device has the best web browsing experience? What should be avoided? Give us a shout in the comments.

October 31, 2007

Decrypting GSM

Check out this video from last August's CCC Camp, which describes using a Universal Software Radio Perhiperal (USRP) to record GSM messages, and then using an FPGA to defeat the A5/1 encryption that's used to secure an encrypted GSM channel in the span of a couple weeks. By spending a couple months to precompute a 5 TB lookup table you could bring the decryption process down to just a few minutes.

First half of the talk is an introduction into GSM interception. Second half presents a new method for cracking the GSM encryption A5/1. This is a new attack that can crack any encrypted channel (SMS, Voice) within 3-5 minutes regardless of how long the conversation is (e.g. can crack a telephone conversation that only lasts 4 seconds).

Now, most of us won't be running out right now to grab an FPGA and a software radio so we can start cracking GSM voice converstations and SMS messages, but the actual discussion of how GSM works and how the team went about putting together a real-time cracking method for A5/1 is fascinating. What's really crazy is that for a few thousand dollars, anyone could really set up a GSM recording and cracking system. This isn't just NSA or government-funded spy stuff.

At about the 19 minute mark, Steve talks a little about how mobile identification and position information is transmitted. If you've ever called the phone company to track down a stolen phone, you've probably been told this isn't possible. Turns out that if you've had a phone lost or stolen, it actually transmits its position information _all_the_time_. So, technically, your network operator should be able to tell you the phone's location to within 200 meters.

The A5 Cracking Project - [via] Link
GNU Radio - Link