...stuff I do and things I like...

I did some Nokia 770 hacking today and I needed socat for part of it so I packaged it for others to use. I also packaged aircrack-ng because kismet is still not really working on the 770. So far I only tested airodump and it seems to work, it nicely displays all networks and happily dumps packets. What do you want more?

As usual the packages are listed on the Maemo Application Catalog and on my Nokia770 page.

so more fun with Apple MacBooks :-] This time the IR remote. The remote is basically for controlling music or video play back and for doing presentations/slide shows. The fun part is the the IR receiver is on by default and that the MENU button suspends the current desktop and brings up a MENU for choosing music, video or picture play back, thereby interrupting what ever the user is currently doing. So you can take your MacBook remote and go to some place with a lot of MacBooks and annoy people by interrupting what ever they are currently doing. If you don't have a MacBook remote you can just take a programmable remote and record the 6 keys of the MacBook remote and use that. I used my Palm (T|T3) and OmniRemote. So I recorded the signals of the remote and tried, it worked of course.

So tomorrow I will try to find another MacBook to test it if it works there too. I really think there is no authentication or so going on. Hopefully the IR port can be switched off other then with a piece of duct tape *G*

Yes I know this is not really a new thing, still it is funny. Apple people are funny :-)

Update:

Here is the OmniRemote file to emulate the MacBook remote, just send/beam it to your Palm. The Favorite button is mapped to MENU, the Power button is mapped to PLAY, right side up/down is mapped to up-down, left side up/down is mapped to left/right (volume). Have fun! OmniRemoteSeetingsForMacBookRemote.txt

Update2:

It looks like I was wrong. Each remote needs to be paired with the computer(s) before it can control it/tem. The documentation tells you how to do it. What a bummer. Anyway it still should be possible to sniff the IR signal while somebody is using their paired remote. Also I wonder if the pairing is two-way or if only the computer stores a list of allowed remotes (which could possible be brute-forced).

my friend Chris just got his MacBook (the black version) some days ago, and he really likes the MagSafe. The MagSafe is the magnetic power adapter on the new MacBook and MacBookPro (see here). So the thing is that the MagSafe seems to be pretty strong in terms of magnetic force, he put it on a table and when he looked at it again later the MacBook sucked in the USB cable from his external disk. Is it supposed to have this super force? I'm not an expert on magnetism or computer hardware but could the MagSafe damage other hardware that comes to close to it? I guess the MagSafe itself is protected against short circuiting it, since it is wide open - where other power adapters just have a tiny hole for the plug. If it is able to damage other hardware this would be a potential killer. I remember some story where table magnets in wagons of the German railway (Deutsche Bahn) damaged laptops that where put on them.

Anyway I find the whole story very funny and thats why I post it here :-)

Check this out: I will purchase the $100 laptop at $300 but only if 100,000 other will too. I think this is a good idea, you support the good cause and get a cool toy :-)

I've added greylisting to the list of spam countermeasures for our server project. It works surprisingly well and the amount of spam arriving at my inbox is reduced by a ratio of 20:1. While this is good there are of course downsides of greylisting such as an artificial delay for delivery of valid or good email. Also auto whitelisting should take care of regular contacts. Anyway I'm really interested in how many of our users will see the change in amount of spam vs. delivery delay, and if anyone of them will demand permanent whitelisting :-)

As I reported before the actual phone of the h63xx works now (for 3 month as I was told by the guys who got it working). The actual cool part is that there is a complete ready to go filesystem and boot loader (pre configured) for developers and skilled testers available since a couple of days if I remember right. I just untared all the files to my development SD card and booted, it worked right away and I was able to initiate and receive phone calls using gomunicator. I'm really happy that the project went so far.

The complete tar archive and instructions are available here: Mika's website

I think I have to get involved again with h63xx Linux port project, yea!

No comment :-)

found at: fun.drno.de

first, I know that the Flybook is not a brand new thing, but it is really cool and first of all really small. The story goes like this: my room mate and I frequently have a discussion about super/ultra portable computers and tablets. As I'm a big fan of PDAs/smart phones and he is a big fan tablets we regularly have a argument about what kind of device is the best/most practical. He basically suggested the Flybook - which I didn't know about until then. This device looks just hardcore right. It is: small PDA-sized, converts to a tablet (with touchscreen); has a keyboard, a hard disk, Bluetooth, WLan/WiFi, GSM/GPRS (I guess DATA only - it is not a phone), USB, Firewire and runs on a x86 compatible CPU. What else would you want? This thing is able to beat any I repeat any other portable device. OK it is a bit pricy and costs up to 2400$. The only other down point besides the price is that it only has 802.11b and Bluetooth 1.1, but this is hopefully going to be fixed in a future version (if there will be any). But anyway if I had the money I would get it.

several sites (Slashdot, Engadget) are running stories about a new Nokia 770, I think this will just be a major software upgrade instead of a new device. The reasons for this are following: the current software doesn't support all hardware like the microphone which is obviously needed for any kind of VoIP application. VoIP or GoogleTalk is exactly the new feature that is mentioned by these sites. Also, the 770 is still pretty new and it wouldn't make sense to replace it already (making the 770 obsolete). The current 770 could do way better with just a software upgrade so this is most likely to happen. Anyway they defently work on a new device but this will not be released any time soon.

ARD and ZDF (Germany's national/public TV stations) support open IP-TV standards and refuse to support Telekom's Microsoft based IP-TV project. Spiegel reports. This is really good for all kinds of reasons such as the likelihood that non-Microsoft users will be able to use IP-TV services. Anyway I'm kind of happy that the German government or affiliated organizations get some stuff right :-)

update: heise has the same story

I know this is really really old, still it is totally annoying...

...so yesterday I tried to play a DVD on my Linux laptop (T42p) for the first time and found that the region code has to be set before playing or reading the disc at all. I known this is real pebcak, but WTF? Maybe the drive should be pre set to a region or should learn it from the first disc instead of just throwing I/O errors?

The actual point is an other. I rented a DVD in the US (while I am in the US) and my laptop is set to Region-2 (Europe), so I can't play the DVD until I change the region code to 1. If I go back to Europe I have to reset it to 2 again, if I go back to the US I have to reset it again, and so forth. After 5 times I have to get the drive reseted by the manufacturer, so I can change the code another 5 times. I can only do this 20 times and then I'm stuck with what ever region I have set last.

So what I figured out is, that I just wont buy or rent DVDs anymore and rather get movies from some where else. Traveling is not uncommon these days and people own laptops exactly for this reason. If you google around you will find many people reporting this exact problem. What the hell is wrong?!?

This is one of the best examples for DRM CREATED PIRACY that I can think of. This is a real average Joe problem, not something that only effects the hardcore-user or early-adopter.

MC Plus+ Alice and Bob really fun song about crypto: ...I'm encrypting shit like every single day...

update:

More songs are available on the website of MC Plus+, also Alice and Bob is probably the best.

found on Bruce Schneier's weblog

My (with others) first scientific paper: Using Labeling to Prevent Cross-Service Attacks Against Smart Phones

Pictures (some are really funny and old) of famous Internet and computing people.

www.wbglinks.net/pages/watchmen