Today was pure shit so I decided to hit the subway and grab some KFC and find some alligator clips to mess with our demarkation box in our “bunker” (temporary apartment until ours is painted).

Got some clips and went one by one down the trunk until I found a loop with battery and 411 service – thank god no one heard me on their phone!  Here’s a pic demonstrating tonights madness :

For some ridiculous reason I started from the bottom of the trunk… anyway the third last available selection happened to carry a DSL signal – Woohoo!  Anyway I am celebrating my accomplishment with rum and a mess of downloads – hope you all enjoy your night, cheers!

PS : I am now enjoying  unlimited bandwidth (avec MLPPP) at about 760 KB/s via usenet – Rod stewart playing all night!

A Quick Briefing : cURL is used to send / receive data to and from other computers via command line.  Since I know PHP quite well I decided to install the php-curl module and instantly got an automated spambox, data grabber, post submitter and whatever else one can do with a normal browser – the best part is I only have to set it up once.

I now have a crontab installed to spoof a web server into thinking I am being referred from an affiliate link, in which it then sends my information as well as some hidden values and instantly generates a report (which is emailed to me).  I know this is shady business however the last thing I won was a Nevada pull ticket when I was 8 and I couldn’t claim the winnings – fuck you world LOL.

Here is just a taste of something you can set up yourself – should be quite simple to modify to your needs.


#!/usr/bin/php
$name = "Gregory";
$email = array("email1@gmail.com", "email2@yahoo.com", "email3@slopsbox.com");
$zip_code = "90210";
$url = 'http://the-url-to-post-to.com';
$user_agent = "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)";
$referer = 'http://crappy-affiliate-program.com/index.php?affiliate=poor_sucker";
foreach ($email as $mail) {
$params = "name=$name&email=$mail&zip_code=$zip_code&hidden_value1=someValue";
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, $referer);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST,1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,$params);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $user_agent);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
$result=curl_exec ($ch);
curl_close ($ch);
}
?>


Really all you have to do is investigate the <form…> on the page you are attempting to post to – examine all text inputs, textareas, checkboxes, radio buttons and hidden values. You should be able to form the POST data string, similar to JSON (key=>value pairs).

As for captcha, just hope your target is either lazy or stupid – most of those things are a pain in the rear end.

Enjoy!

After seeing almost every possible error code in the book, I can honestly say that I have never bricked a system (though have come very close). The one thing I have found to work beautifully over the years is hard drive hot-swapping. I know this is not the most elegant solution however if you have destroyed your dash (and can’t boot a disc), or want to install a larger hard drive – this is the method for you.

I will walk you through my typical modding dilemmas and explain how I was able to fix them.  It really helps if you already have a modded system to transfer a savegame however if you do not a cable is VERY easy to make.

What You Need : 

• USB Female (usually known as extension)
• Spare Controller
• Electrical Tape
• Supported USB stick
• XBOX HDM (torrent)
• Save Game (google : xbins auto installer)
• Splinter Cell (Original Version ~ $5.00 @ EB)
• Torx #20

Now that you have everything you need lets get going.  First you need to get that save game on either an XBOX memory card or onto your USB stick.  To create your own XBOX -> USB  adapter cable simply cut both cables and match the colors, disregard the colors that do not match.

Plug in your cable and USB stick and boot your unmodded XBOX dash – under memory, select “erase” (if your thumb drive is recognized everything should go very smoothly).  Next you need to get that save game on there, there is a Windows application to do this however I suggest finding someone with an already modded box to transfer the save (I am not going to go in depth with this because I have did not have success with the Windows App).  We can now transfer our save game to the XBOX hard drive through the memory menu. 

Now we need to boot our Splinter Cell Game and load our hacked Save, this will cause the system to “Kernel Panic” and allow us FTP access as well as install the modification.  By default the FTP username / pass is xbox / xbox.

Using the auto installer follow the on screen instructions and BACK UP your eeprom – it generally saves to /E/backup/eeprom.bin.  FTP to your system immediately and copy this file to your desktop, make a backup of your C and E drives as well (we will need them later).

We now have a modified system that will play backup copies of your games as well as allow us to run unsigned code (such as XBMC).  At this point you can go ahead and download “t3ch XBMC” (Google it) – follow XBMC instructions for installation. 

Now lets say you followed the instructions however now when you boot your system you get an error code – no problem, this happens to me all of the time.

We will now use our XBOXHDM application to generate an ISO file complete with our EEPROM as well as backup C and E drives.  Extract your HDM zip and place C, E ,and eeprom.bin accordingly (inspect the README). The whole reason we are doing this is simple : the XBOX hard drive locks and unlocks itself at certain points using a specific key unique to your system.  This means you can not just duplicate hard drives on your computer that will work on your XBOX, they need to be unlocked, copied and relocked with using your key.

So this is how I hot swap my hard drive EVERY TIME without question.

1. Remove the cover of XBOX and place the system close to a computer.
2. Turn on your computer with the XBOXHDM disc in the CD ROM drive
3. Press “Pause Break” immediately after the system POSTS (beeps)
4. Turn on your XBOX and place your ear on the hard drive (yes – put your head against the system).
5. The system will thrash four times – long – long – short – short
6. Pull the IDE ribbon from the back of the hard drive between the third and fourth thrash (clicking sound)
7. Plug your computer IDE ribbon and press any key.
8. Your CD should boot – select 1 and you will then be able to run xboxhd

The key to this is timing, here are some “not to do’s” :

• Pause break is mandatory – you will not successfully boot into XBOXHD without this.
• Do not disconnect power to your XBOX whilst the hard drive is unplugged – you will regret it.

Additional tips

• Hard drive should be on your primary IDE channel (master – do not change jumpers)
• CD ROM should be on Secondary channel
• Don’t give up, you will get it (I spent four hours on this once)

I kind of went out of scope for this article however I think I got idea across, leave comments if you need any help (or if you think I missed something).

I ended up wasting an entire day trying to find a solution for my bricked box, eventually I found a linux Live CD called XBOX HDM that looked promising. I followed the hotswap steps and after about 4 hours attempting to swap the drive at the right moment I figured it out and once again had a running box with XBMC default dash. All was well except this specific SVN release was buggy (Nov 2007). I stuck with it for an entire year until I couldn’t take it any longer and a few days ago attempted to upgrade  XBMC.

Turns out the XBOX HDM version I was using (which was some horrible auto installer) put files all over the place and I ended up overwriting a lot of things I shouldn’t have.  I did not have a backed up eeprom, I did not have FTP access, but I did have an XBOX that would reboot immediately after “Microsoft” would appear. Another 4 hours of hotswapping (I got it down pat now) and I get a result, not a good one but at least something changed. Error Code 5, then 6, then 13 then 21 and finally I got the idea to try booting a game.

Not to my surprise my backup copy would not boot, and occasionally I could get Halo 2 (retail) to load the splash screen. At this point I was VERY worried. Luckily I remembered I bought Splinter Cell when I bought my original XBOX so I tore through the closet and found it.  It eventually booted (POS Samsung) and I was shocked to see there was a hacked savegame still in the UDATA folder!  I was saved!  UnleashX booted right up and I immediately backed up my eeprom to three different locations.  I then continued to install the softmod and UnleashX.  Rebooted and everything was good.

Afterwards feeling so proud of myself for cheating death, I decided to attempt a hard drive upgrade, or at least create an additional drive if anything messes up again.  I grabbed the original (not shitty auto installer) copy of XBOX HDM and built an ISO with my eeprom, C and E drives.  I then went ahead and popped my 320 GB in my computer and built a drive from scratch, locked it and tried it out.  Everything worked great and I learned a lot – especially to not offer free softmods to people you really do not care for much in the first place.

Anyway here are a few tips for those of you who currently  / want to run a softmodded XBOX.

• Create yourself an XBOX HDM disc as soon as you backup C, E and your eeprom.
• Read instructions carefully and slowly, even several times over even if you think you got it.
• Be very nice to people using IRC even if they call you a cheapass for not buying a mod chip, they are full of great pointers (and sarcasm).
• Nine times out of ten, all is not lost – think of alternate ways to access your data and be creative (I once used an external USB hard drive enclosure with a (128MB) CF-IDE adapter as a memory card!)
• Avoid hotswapping as much as possible, it should be a last resort!

I think I will play some Battletoads in my XBOX neogenesis emulator now, have fun.

Instead of tearing my nice tomato configuration a new one, I decided it would be more fun to go through my junk and construct a router / firewall – plus get a chance to step away from the keyboards for a few.

So I started with a busted old 12 port switch chassis we pulled out of the dump last year – I salvaged the optic modules and gutted the rest, I wanted to have a slick 1U chassis for my new “appliance”.  I also decided to use a 17 Port (24 port, most do not work) D-Link hub that has been waiting to see a hammer for months.

I call them the dynamic Duo

An Asterisk box I had set up for a client with ~ 10 extensions was compromised this morning at about 12 AM… and they really did a number on it.  I apologize if you were a victim of this attack however there was really no way of telling it was happening until it was too late.

Over 2000 “phishing” calls were placed over the past 20 hours, majority of them during extremely late hours and to only a small group of numbers – meaning a lot of repeat calls…  My inbox quickly filled with pissed off voicemails from Texas residents – once the server was taken down.

Now a DDOS attack is bad, but can generally be fixed – A web site’s content being compromised is worse – but when hundreds of people are being called late a night asking for their VISA card numbers : That’s a tragedy!

I have taken down the server and have a feeling it was compromised via the Flash Operator Panel which no one ever uses, but the last logs were not cleared and the bash history looked like mine – so it must have been some type of web based attack.  I am downloading the VM to test locally so I can figure out exactly what happened and why, so it will never happen again.

A word of warning to people hosting any type of streaming application / telephony service – LOCK DOWN your shit to the max! A website is visited by choice – a phone call while you are asleep is intrusion, BE CAREFUL!

On a positive note – VoipYourLife is a super wicked VoIP provider for home / business – they had no problem shelling out 2000 calls in < 20 hours – I strongly recommend them!

I added a form to the code because it was basic and only accepted phone numbers from the GET  string however it pretty much works perfectly out of the box.  What it does is allow you to enter a phone number in a input box and passes it to a custom extension that calls the number with a dial tone.

With any free incoming cell phone plan, you can imagine how much money you can save – especially with long distance!

Link to original code. 

Very cool!

I thought about how much I love my Powerbook G4 and decided I’d take another stab at installing hackint0sh on my Toshiba using leo4all.

The ISO downloaded in < 2 hours at around 700 KBs, thanks to all of the generous seeders. I got leo4all Version 2 from thepiratebay which weighed about 3.4 GB and was well documented.

Installation was a snap, just like a real Mac, unfortunately I deliberated over kernels for a while and ended up choosing the wrong one. Once installation was complete it rebooted to a black screen.

I figured messing around customizing options before installing was a bad idea so I decided to leave everything default and it worked great, so I just left the customization for later.

I only have a few complaints about this build.