Don't squat with your spurs on.
Coded Things: Programming, Gaming, Gadgets
An SSH SOCKS proxy how-to!
Oct 25th
So, today I have learned that a new firefox plugin, “Firesheep” has been released. Now, there aren’t really any new developments in this plugin, except for the fact that it makes it easy for anyone to hijack a browser session. (We’re talking Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, anything with a login that’s not fully encrypted) Now, before you go all crazy, this is actually a good thing. It’s more than a proof-of-concept. This is how those black hat “leets” have been messing with people in coffee shops for years… and now anyone can. So before the huge wave of noobsicles try messing with your auto-facebooked foursquare, here’s how you truly protect yourself: An SSH SOCKS proxy!
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, this IS an advanced technique, but fret not — your good buddy Mic-B is here to hold your hand through all of this. In reality, it’s only one command on the command line, and some settings in Firefox. If your on Windows, the only additional step is installing SSH… Come on, this is easy. You got this.
You’ll need a couple of things to get this started. The first is an SSH server to be your actual proxy. “SSH server” sounds expensive and horrifying, but it’s really not. Basically, your using a second computer as your internet bodyguard, and encrypting your communications between your laptop in, say, a coffee shop and your computer at home. Your computer at home is then used to fetch the pages for you, encrypt them and send them back. I use my webserver, because I’m guaranteed uptime and Bresnan sucks in my area… but any computer with an internet connection will do.
The second thing that you’ll need is an SSH client for your computer. Macs and Unix machines have SSH built right in to the operating system at the command line. People using Windows should download something like CygWin, which will setup OpenSSH for you.
Dock that iPhone simulator!
Jun 28th
The iPhone Simulator
So, if you’ve been developing for iPhone and such you know how much it sucks to start xcode every time you want to test webpages or show off your new app. It gets downright frustrating. So, to link to the program in your dock; navigate to the following path. You can start this and select “keep in dock”, or drag it down there yourself:
/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/iPhone Simulator.app
If you would like to administer the files that are considered to be “on” the device, (including photos) you can navigate to:
/Users/YOUR_USER_NAME/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/
Hope this saves you some time!
Mic-B
iOS4 Downgrade
Jun 28th
Those dicks locked us out!
So, a friend of mine… “Steve” we’ll call him, uses an iPhone 3G as an iPod touch. Never had a problem with it. Basically, the advantage of this is that he has access to a camera. Nonetheless, before iOS4, there was no activation requirement on these units that would prevent you from using the device without a SIM. Such is no more. After upgrading to iOS4, he was locked out of his phone; and without AT&T here in Montana, he was pretty screwed. I gladly took his phone home as a project and jailbroke it back to 3.1.3 for him again.
So, originally I found this great writeup on how to do this process, but of course there were a few things I didn’t feel were clarified very well, although it got me from point A to B. They cover a few different methods of this; but chances are that if your an iPhone developer and pay for the xcode dev license, you probably know about the firmware settings through it — and most of the population doesn’t have access to that, so I won’t even waste my breath. Instead, here’s how the average joe can get the job done… if they have a mac. There are far too many windows-only tutorials on these things.
Anyhow, you need to gather a few things to begin:
Once you’ve downloaded all of this stuff, (it’ll take a few minutes) install libusb and unpack iRecovery. After this, plug in your iPhone. Open iTunes and hold down the “alt/option” key and click restore. When the box pops up (if you did this correctly… tested and working in iTunes 9.2.x) navigate to where you saved your firmware and select it. Upon restoring, iTunes should error out with a 1015.
1015 Error. Brought to us via tipb.com
Now it’s time to run iRecovery. If you get the “faster” version, it may not be compatible with Snow Leopard… so be warned; you may have to do some command-line stuff… which I find fun, but you may not. Some people get mixed results here. Namely, some phones are fully restored after this and require no additional work. In my case, however, the phone became stuck in an “endless DFU mode”. It was time to resort to some dirty work.
At this point, if you are in my boat, you should download and run blackra1n. Written by a badass named “George Hotz”, blackra1n will solve all of your woes. Open up the program, hit the single button that says “make it rain”, and let it run it’s course. In my case, it solved the endless DFU and came prepackaged with a blackra1n app that allowed me to instantly install Cydia, Icy or Rock My Phone. (These are homebrew repositories, FTWDK) Awesome installer, and a relatively easy process.
If you or anyone you know needs some help with this, shoot me a comment or an e-mail. Always here to help!
Happy Hacking!
Mic-B
Unlocked iPhone APN Data Settings
May 2nd
Cellular data network error.
Credit: LimitedEditionIphone.Com
Hey guys and gals,
There was a problem I ran into recently with an iPhone where the subscriber had purchased a data package for their SIM card, but was not able to access any data-related features. In a WAP browsing phone, everything seemed to work; but as soon as the SIM was swapped to the unlocked iPhone, the functions were limited to calling and SMS. With WiFi enabled, everything ran great. With a little searching and some deduction, I came across the APN setting for the cellular network.
To the nay-sayers or those who are currently crying foul: unlocking your phone is not illegal. The Copyright Office issued six exemptions to the DMCA last year, one of which allows consumers to unlock their cellphones “for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network.” Still with me? Let’s move on.
I suppose I should preface all this by telling you that in Montana, there’s only one certified GSM provider, Cellular One. There’s only one possible connection setting for people in this area unless they have a different service. (see: AT&T, T-Mobile, Worldphones, etc… most providers will kick you off for roaming 60% of the time or more) Also, this is not a workaround for not having a data subscription… it won’t work unless you pay for a data package, as you should. It just so happens to be the same GSM system that the iPhone uses, and it works just like any other smartphone. The company recently purchased and took over Chinook Wireless as well, prompting the cellphone communities to dub them “Chinookular One”. Duly noted… and class dismissed.
Originally, I scoured the free Nokia phone that came with the activated SIM and found an APN address… “wap.cellular1.net”, but as you can tell by the URL, the Nokia phone had been defaulted to run as only a WAP browser. That wasn’t going to do me any good. With that set, safari would pull up some pages, but still throw the error — and e-mail, weather, etc were all down as well. Eventually I stumbled across this pdf for an HTC Touch where Cellular One gives out the data connection address. I came across the correct settings, as detailed below. Super confusing and difficult, I know. Note: This is for iPhone OS 3.0.
Navigate in your iPhone’s system preferences to:
Settings–>General–>Network–>Cellular Data Network
And then type “internet.chinookwireless.net” in the APN field. Leave username and password both blank.
Seems to work great around here! Let me know if you experience any problems… I’d love to document them. If your a subscriber for a different service, have a look through some of their help and setup articles for smartphones as you can easily find this address for any carrier worth it’s salt.
Mic-B
P.S. – A fellow Montanan from Missoula, Evan Lovely, has a great write-up about iPhones in montana, with some more info on MMS settings (the phone I was working with didn’t have this for some reason) and some great comments after the article. Too bad I found this after the fact… could have saved me quite some time.
Check your warranty statuses!
May 1st
So, after fiddling with the promised “Fix Number Three” — an iPod Classic that would only charge — this week, I determined that although the harddrive was to blame and I could easily replace it; it was still under warranty. Which prompted me to write this, as I’m sure a lot of people don’t think about this when reading my blog posts here: Please, please check your warranty statuses. You could save both of us a lot of time, and yourself a lot of money by running your serial through a little box, or submitting a simple repair request. On average, I find warranties to normally end after one year. Visit the following to find some more information:
Apple
https://selfsolve.apple.com/agreementWarrantyDynamic.do
Sony
https://eservice.sony.com/webrma/web/index.do
Aside from all of this, I have another fix planned on the software side. I’ll show you all how to set up an unlocked iPhone to correctly use a data connection over a local (or any) GSM provider.
See you tomorrow,
Mic-B
ARRPG! Updates and Improvements
Jul 31st
ARRPG!
ARRPG! is well along the way, with a few improvements made just today. Now that it has a full armor and weapon system, as well as an adapted D&D 2nd Edition saving throw, pseudo-thac0 and leveling system, I’m on to programming the explore mode. Currently I’ve got unlockable map routes in place with main battle areas, ridiculous trivia questions, and a whole lotta funny captions. I’ve opted to keep the current savepoint-less system, simply for nostalgia. Remember the good old days, when games didn’t save your place and you only had so many lives? Well, they’re back. In the form of a ridiculous pirate rpg! Die once, and it’s over… the way it’s *supposed* to be. In my eyes, anyhow.
Regardless, check out the super-cool new Deadliest Warrior (thanks, scott) that pits Pirates against freaking Knights, man! Click the image for some ARRPG! in the interim.
Mic-B
Warhammer Online… Oh, what have I done?
Jul 30th
FallGoBoom, Choppa Extraordinaire
I know this is a bad idea, but I can’t help it. The way Games Workshop portrays my little greenskins makes me unconsolably happy. Don’t get me wrong though, I got bored with WoW a few months ago, and haven’t played in some time. I also play Warhammer 40k, so I’m a little biased. It’s not like WAR took me away from WoW… it just happened to suck me in. What sold me on the game (and apparently my buddy scott as well) were the public quests! Why haven’t all the major MMO’s adopted this yet?! Thanks to big, open parties, by level 5 my Choppa had a few good set peices and I was top contributor in every PQ I joined… all the way up to rank 12! Way to hook those new players! On top of all this, they also have free expansion packs. How could you not be excited about this game?
If you wanna see my character’s progress, or to laugh at me, you can click the image to the right to see all that glorious, nerdy info. Also, don’t forget the poor chap I had to shoot out back. The only problem I forsee with this is that I might actually play the crap out of this game. On Gorfang, if you were wondering.
Now, if I could only get to bed… DING! Rank 13…
Mic-B
Tips for ipod touch jailbreakers
Jul 29th
IpodTouchFans.Com
Well, I recently installed redsn0w on my iPod Touch, and I have to tell you… this was seriously the EASIEST device hack ever. Take it from a guy who’s hacked almost every console he owns — this one is child’s play. redsn0w works with the iPhone 2G and 3G (not the 3GS) and both 1st and 2nd generation iPod Touches. It installs with a few clicks. Blew me away.
The hardest step in the whole process is finding the*.ipsw files that iTunes downloads when you pay the god-awful price of $9.95 for the 3.0 update. (Yeah, I know I could have downloaded it from a torrent – by why not legally modify firmwares if we can?) IpodTouchFans was an indispensable site for finding all the info I needed, as well as good tips and little tweaks further on down the road. Anywho, here are the coveted IPSW locations on Windows XP and Mac OS X:
Mac – “User>Library>iTunes>iPod Software update”
Windows – “C:\Documents and Settings\<USER NAME>\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPod Software Updates”
Aside from that, the only thing I found trouble with was getting file transfer through SFTP to work. AFP has always been sloppy and slow in my experience, so i went the other route. Turns out Cyberduck could only connect to the iTouch through the MBP’s wireless connection. Whoda thunk it, huh?
Happy Hacking!
Mic-B
