Comms with screen

So today I learnt you can connect to a coms port using screen!

eg

screen  /dev/ttyUSB0 115200 8N1

same screen key bindings work :)

no need for minicom crap now!

perl modules in ubuntu

Thought I better write this down before I forget it, how to install missing perl modules under ubuntu using apt-get

so say you see this:

Requirements
------------
Net::LDAP
Getopt::Std
Net::Nslookup
Net::Dns

how do you install those?

well simple...
apt-get install libnet-ldap-perl
apt-get install libnet-dns-perl

etc

Flash Video over other windows even when firefox is minimised

Fecking annoying bug recently, if i opened a flash video in firefox it would mess up other windows by showing through everything, even if i minimised firefox.

The fix was pretty easy

In a terminal, execute


gstreamer-properties

and in the second tab change the Plugin option in the "Default Output" to "X Window System - Without XV".

Removing Ubuntu One (ubuntuone-syncd)

First track down and kill the process of ubuntuone-syncd

ps -ef|grep ubuntu
kill -9 {pid number}

then remove the folders it uses
rm –rf ~/.local/share/ubuntuone
rm –rf ~/.cache/ubuntuone
rm –rf ~/.config/ubuntuone
rm –rf ~/Ubuntu\ One

then remove the packages
 sudo apt-get purge ubuntuone-client* python-ubuntuone-storage*


you should be sorted!

getting yaptest to run under ubuntu

So here are some (hopefully complete) notes I have made over the last few hours trying to get yaptest running

after downloading yaptest from pentestmonkey.net
untar etc
and get that made and installed

next you need to get postgres up and running
so you need to be root
apt-get install postgresql

dont forget to start it /etc/init.d/postgres start

You also need a bunch of perl modules
apt-get install libdbd-pg-perl
apt-get install libparallel-forkmanager-perl
apt-get install libdigest-md4-perl
apt-get install libxml-simple-perl

change the pg_hba_conf file too for postgres

change the following lines at the bottom of the file
(/etc/postgresql/9.1/main/pg_hba.conf)
# "local" is for Unix domain socket connections only
local   all         all                               trust
# IPv4 local connections:
host    all         all         127.0.0.1/32          trust
# IPv6 local connections:
host    all         all         ::1/128               trust

Remember to restart your postgres server ;)

apt-get install pgadmin3
you will need to use this connect to the 127.0.0.1 database, find the yaptest_user under the login roles and give them create db privilages.

you can now run yaptest-wizard.pl to create the database and run yaptest as normal.

ldapsearch is provided by ldap-utils in ubuntu

Does freezing a laptop battery give it a longer life...(answer no)

So battery on this Dell Mini 9 I got the other day has a terrible battery life, about 2 hours, I decided to do an experiement to see if sticking the battery in the freezer ACTUALLY does something useful

li-ion battery
all testing done with no interaction of the laptop

-- day 1 --
Day one was basically starting from 0% battery to full charge and then letting it run down back to 0% and repeating this several times


Charging from 0% to 100% took 2 hours
Discharging from 100% to 0% was also 2 hours


-- day 2 --
08:30 battery placed in freezer in two bags as per guides on the internet

-- day 3 --
12:00 Battery is removed after 27 hours in the freezer and given two hours to get back to room temperature.

Charging from 0% to 100% takes 2 hours
Discharge from 100% to 0% also takes 2 hours

-- Results --
Freezing the battery has done nothing what so ever to the battery!

-- addendum --
Some people have said that I need to cycle the battery at least 4 times to see an effect, this is currently being done and the results will be posted later on. I dont think it will work...

Dell Mini 9 Linux wifi broadcom drivers (solved) (updated!)

OK so most of this weekend I have spent fucking about trying to find a lightweight linux OS that worked with the broadcom wifi built in.... here are the results

Crunchbang - doesn't install from USB (using unetbootin)
Ubuntu 12.04 beta - didn't work out the box
Ubuntu 10.04 - worked but way way too heavy
Ubuntu 11.10 - too heavy hate gnome3 and unity
Arch - argghhhh just NO
Xubuntu - lightweight but didn't work out the box
Linux mint debian xfce - didn't work out the box
Linux mint 12 - Live CD worked fine - useable but installed didn't work and needed a wired connection

So what have I gone for? Linux Mint 12, set up with a wired connection to install the bcm-kernal-sources which i am hoping to move over to xfce.

** update **

So i have finally found a perfect solution on getting the dell mini 9 to play nice!


first add this to your software repository (using synaptic for example)
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free

then do the rest in a root termin (sudo -s)


apt-get update
apt-get install module-assistant wireless-tools
m-a a-i broadcom-sta
echo blacklist brcm80211 >> /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf
update-initramfs -u -k $(uname -r)
modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcm80211
modprobe wl


should be done :D

Network Thumbnails in Ubuntu

Just found this out as a cure for a little annoyance of mine, not seeing thumbnails of images/files over network shares.

goto Nautilus > edit > preferences > preview
and change thumbnails to Always rather than Local Only.

Another small problem in life fixed!

3d Rep-rap printer build (phase 2)

Thought I would share the current state of the 3d Rep-rap printer I am building... z-motors installed along with Z-guides, the Y axis wood bed (the Z motor wires are sitting on it) is also installed now and everything is now tightened up and secure - the weight has pretty much trebled too!

ATM card skimmer (real)

Well as I am being all photographic today, I thought I should get some photos up of the ATM I aquired from some friends who found it on an ATM machine in Oxford Street London (they contacted the police but they didnt seem to care - nice!) So after some months I have it and here it is in its full glory.

Now to try to figure out how it works and get into some proper hardware reverse engineering!

Shop anti theft tag (non dye version) taken apart.

Did this a while ago and never got round to blogging it.


This is the type im on about. (it was very damaged from removal by monkeys)

Here we see the damaged tag taken apart, you can (hopefully) see the RFID security part in the long area, and the pin (on the right top) and the black part on the left top is the pin retainer.

 Here you can see the RFID disassembled on the left, and the pin+ retainer on the right top, using a magnet you pop the pin retainer off and the pin comes free.

I leave it to the reader as an excersise on where to place a rare-earth magnet to dislocate the pin retainer.

Motorola Xoom Android Honeycomb non-mobile web browser setting (fixed)

So since buying a Xoom when it was launched one thing has bugged me from the start, its browser would be detected as a mobile device and websites would redirect me to their mobile version - which sucked specially for sites not offering a way to move back to the full site.

It seems alot of people have had this issue so here is the solution.

open the browser and close all the tabs so the browser shuts off, reopen it and click the url bar and type about:debug now click the icon in the top right and goto settings then debug then UAString and select Desktop.

you can now browse like normal people!

ubuntu unity launcher hiding behind windows (solved)

OK an annoying but that happened a few times now is the launcher and tab-switcher like to hide behind any other window so i cant see them...this is a bug and not the set up behaviour..

so how to solve this without fucking everything your doing up? easy

open a terminal and write

unity&disown

then hit enter and a few screen flicks later - your back in business with nothing lost - AWESOME!!

ubuntu 11.10 upgrade black screen, cant login, wifi button blinking (all solved!)

So today was full of fail for the new ubuntu 11.10 upgrade....

first snort failed to upgrade and because it was doign an upgrade i had no wifi to send the report which killed the upgrade.....cunts - that was just hte start of problems.

Eventually I got the thing upgraded and was presented with the five dots screen, then a black screen.....nothing...no matter what i did helped.

(solution)
ctrl+alt+1
login
sudo -i
mkdir -p /run /run/lock
rm -rf /var/run /var/lock
ln -s /run /var
ln -s /run/lock /var
reboot

so that fixed the black screen error.....but now i couldnt log in under gui except as guest which to be honest fucking sucked donkey cock!

(solution)
ctrl+alt+1
login
sudo rm ~/.Xauthority
go back to your gui (ctrl+alt+7) and login

so now ive fixed that....next problem!!

I have a HP elitebook 8440p which has an intel wifi, it has a nice touch button/indicator above the keyboard to turn the wifi on and off and also as an indicator (orange off/blue on) but since the upgrade it now blinks when wifi data is sent (all the time...and so its fucking annoying) so how to fix this new feature?

(solution)
echo 'options iwlagn led_mode=1' >> /etc/modprobe.d/wlan.conf
modprobe -r iwlagn && modprobe iwlagn

now im all sorted :)

Installing and getting CUDA to work under ubuntu 11.04 x64 bit

So I want to play with CUDA in the coming months, getting it to work under ubuntu 11.04 was a challenge in itself specially running x64bit!

so here is how I got it working..

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:aaron-haviland/cuda-4.0
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

64-bit :
sudo apt-get install nvidia-cuda-gdb nvidia-cuda-toolkit nvidia-compute-profiler libnpp4 nvidia-cuda-doc libcudart4 libcublas4 libcufft4 libcusparse4 libcurand4 nvidia-current nvidia-opencl-dev nvidia-current-dev nvidia-cuda-dev opencl-headers

32-bit :
sudo apt-get install nvidia-cuda-gdb nvidia-cuda-toolkit nvidia-compute-profiler lib32npp4 nvidia-cuda-doc lib32cudart4 lib32cublas4 lib32cufft4 lib32cusparse4 lib32curand4 nvidia-current nvidia-opencl-dev nvidia-current-dev nvidia-cuda-dev opencl-headers

this is really important, if you didnt have nvida drivers already installed, you have to run this
sudo nvidia-xconfig

the next thing to do even if you skipped the last line is to REBOOT - you MUST do this!!

CUDA should now be working :)

-- to get compiling working is another ball ache!
in somewhere like your home folder do the following

mkdir gcc44
cd gcc4
ln -s /usr/bin/cpp-4.4 cpp
ln -s /usr/bin/gcc-4.4 gcc
ln -s /usr/bin/g++-4.4 g++


edit /etc/nvcc.profile to look in the gcc44 directory (give it the full path)

compiler-bindir =/home/xxx/gcc44

now your ready to compile stuff - here is an example
nvcc -c yourprog.cu

that should give you a .o file then run the next
g++-4.4 -lcudart yourprog.o

that should give you a a.out file - just run it as ./a.out