Adventures in Tech

If you've ever set up a server at home, you'll know what I'm talking about. I've done this a couple of ways over the years. Of course, you can use dynamic DNS (DDNS) services (I have), but some of them require special applications. Before I knew about DDNS services, I once wrote a rule for my mail client that would watch for specially crafted emails so that I could send emails to myself asking for my IP. The mail client would then run a script which would fetch my current IP and dump it in a file which would get attached to an email that got sent to my email account. I could then simply wait and watch for my email to come in. Syncthing + cron (in Linux) Most recently, I decided to use Syncthing and cron jobs in Linux to accomplish this task. Syncthing is a P2P file syncing service. Basically, you can create a folder on your computer and share it with other computers that are also running Syncthing. When a file gets added, changed, or removed in one system, thes...

The PirateBox forums previously said it couldn't be done. The PirateBox hardware page used to say that PirateBox won't run on the TP-Link TL-WR703N v1.7. I wasn't going to let that stop me. With time, TP-Link has made it progressively harder to install custom firmware on the TL-WR703N router, but it's not impossible. This blog documents the process I took to get PirateBox running on my TL-WR703N v1.7. Update (2019-10-15) If you have the right tools, and the PirateBox firmware, you can flash the firmware directly to the flash chip on the router motherboard and then skip steps 1-5 in the section titled The process . Overview In a previous post , I covered the process for dumping firmware off of this little gem, and flashing firmware via the serial console. The portion where I talk about flashing custom firmware is what's applicable here. Basically, the custom firmware we want to flash is the firmware that PirateBox makes available . Once we flash that via t...

I've posted on the TL-WR703N about dumping and flashing firmware. However, to perform such a task, you have to be able to open up the case and get at the router board. If you're going to flash, you also need to set up a serial connection. Since I'm working on another post that involves flashing the TL-WR703N, I figured I would make a dedicated post about opening the case and setting up the serial connection. I'm working from a Linux environment, but the only software I'll be referencing in this post is PuTTY, which is available for Linux and Windows. Sorry Apple folks, you'll have to figure something else out. Check List Here's what you'll need to get going: A TL-WR703N router (Any version -- I have 1.7) A male USB to male USB micro cable to power the router (like you would use to charge a cell phone) Some guitar picks (I'm using a 0.71mm and a .81mm guitar pick) A couple of alligator clips (on the smaller side) Some jumper wires Some el...

This is a follow-up post to my first post about a DIY fingerprint reader . I wanted something smaller, small enough to put on a key chain. In my previous post, I said I was going to try to cram one of my extra laptop fingerprint readers into a dead thumb drive. As it turns out, I had another device just that's slightly larger and fits the reader better. The devices I was digging through a drawer of stuff and came across a USB 3G modem. Being slightly larger than a thumb drive, the housing of the device is better suited to the fingerprint reader I purchased. USB 3G Modem (Huawei EC1260) Fingerprint Reader (Lenovo X60/X60S fingerprint reader) This is the same device as the one that I used when I put a fingerprint reader in a USB hub, so everything I learned there carried over. One word of warning with this fingerprint reader is that the order of the data lines is swapped. Viewing from the front, the traces coming out in the connector are ordered from left to right as f...

Introduction If you've ever bricked a router with a bad firmware update and had to reload the firmware over a serial connection, then you may be familiar with much of what I cover here. If you don't even know what firmware is, this post is probably not for you. If you know what firmware is but don't know what I'm talking about with serial connections, keep reading; you may find this interesting. In my particular case, I did not brick a router. The router in question was working exactly as intended by the manufacturer. No, I wanted to put custom firmware on it, and the manufacturer had locked the device down to prevent such modifications. That didn't stop others from exploiting a security hole in the parental control pages to run arbitrary code. Alas, my router had been upgraded with a version of firmware that patched that gaping hole. In addition to these complications, I didn't have the custom firmware file that I needed for flashing. You see, the fi...

The Project Fingerprint readers are not the best form of security out there. Your fingerprints are literally everywhere. I wasn't going to let that stop me though. I've never had a computer with a fingerprint scanner on it, and I've always been too cheap to buy one. Then I saw a post on hackaday mentioning that many of the fingerprint scanners in laptops are USB devices. Surely, I could make my own, I thought. Let me apologize now for not taking pictures as I put this little project together. I looked up replacement fingerprint readers on taobao.com (I live in China), and found some. The only other thing I needed was a USB chord to connect to it. Then I realized I had something better, a 4-port USB hub. Parts (approx. $5) ThinkPad X60/X60S fingerprint scanner 1x Lenovo ThinkPad X60/X60S fingerprint scanner 1x 4-port USB hub I ordered four of the fingerprint readers from taobao (link may not open outside China) for 30RMB, including delivery. The USB hu...