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Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]

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Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]

#51

Has anyone does this for VIZIO app that controls among other things their soundbars (circa 2019) I moved to a different country and the app is not on google play store in the new geography. Even when it is installed somehow it is absolutely unreliable in pairing or controlling the device. Wish I had time to go on a quest and reverse engineer and build my own better controller.

Might be worth taking a weekend day and letting claude code reverse engineer the apk (just download the apk off google) and then build an open source app with the functions you need

Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]

#52
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're going to the bathroom at an airport? You pee in a urinal you can't even take home. YOU OWN NOTHING

Before 1984 "take a taxi" meant you could actually take the taxi.

Apparently Taxis in New York used to all be ex-cop cars, and cop cars all had the same key, so one key would get you any taxi.

Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]

#53
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I experimented with disassembling 6502 from the c64 California Games. Claude was very prone to bullshit.

For RE cases where I know the original compiler used (a bit harder on C compilers due to huge number of obscure optimization flags), I give it a feedback loop to write a function that compiles to the original machine code.

Yeah, I had perfect disassembly, since that's a purely mechanical process. I used da65, which worked reasonably well.

But you don't get any function names that way, obviously. Claude would claim some random function were applying friction based on just a subtraction. And a variable that had 2 possible states was named player_id, when the game supports 1-8 players.

It was a bit better when the memory addresses were known IO registers, but not by much.

Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]

#54
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're going to the bathroom at an airport? You pee in a urinal you can't even take home. YOU OWN NOTHING

You're not taking all your shits in other people's bathrooms but soil your own instead? What a chump, lmao.

"My boss makes a dollar, I make a dime. That's why I shit on company time."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gQgx-XX7yw

Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]

#55
post #48

Makes sense for an apk to be a zip file. Apps were supposed to be written in Java and that has always shipped binaries in zip files (jar or war).

There are many "file formats" that are just relabelled zips - the hard part is always reconstructing it after making a change.

Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]

#56
post #10

What a coincidence, I just got an email announcing that Breville intend to orphan my Joule sous vide stick: the existing app will stop working, the new app is only available the US and Canada and in parts of Europe. Live in another country? You're s.o.l., it wasn't officially sold there. You need a new account as well, hope you like the TOS. All of this for a device whose core functionality -- setting a target temper…

"With Breville+ Cooking, you’ll get: ... The ability to cook with or without WiFi anywhere, anytime." What has gone wrong with humanity, that we need to advertise that as a feature if you download a new app?

On the one hand, every time I read an article like this I'm vindicated against astroturfed bots claiming that nothing ever happens and this isn't where we're headed.

On the other hand, I don't want to be vindicated.

Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]

#57
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait till people discover file(1)!

Even better, wait until people discover 7zip's 'parser mode' on Windows (especially). Right click a file -> 7zip -> Open archive -> #:e mode. Really fun way to quickly carve out files and snoop around. I use it like a poor man's binwalk to extract firmware files and updates and etc out of things to usual success. (#:e Parser mode, ignoring full archives, and checks every single byte position of a file for 'start of a…

That's helpful. I always wondered what the * and # modes were for and why some sometimes only one of them worked.

Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not cooking with WiFi, you need more key-down transmit power. I'm currently full QRO on the 13cm band with something around 1600W EIRP CW, and will be for several minutes until the curry base defrosts.

>WiFi >1600W EIRP Your local regulatory authority would like a word with you.

I hold a licence that allows me to transmit on pretty much whatever frequency I like with as much power as I like, wherever I like.

Someone has to test the transmitter before you hand it off to the customer.

Also, I'm in the UK, where it's hard enough to get the regulatory authorities to do anything about people causing interferenced to licensed chunks of band. You can wipe out the whole of 2.4GHz if you like, you literally could not pay them to take an interest.

Edit: also you have probably done the same a couple of times today too.

Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]

#59
post #10

What a coincidence, I just got an email announcing that Breville intend to orphan my Joule sous vide stick: the existing app will stop working, the new app is only available the US and Canada and in parts of Europe. Live in another country? You're s.o.l., it wasn't officially sold there. You need a new account as well, hope you like the TOS. All of this for a device whose core functionality -- setting a target temper…

This reads like satire: The ability to cook with or without WiFi anywhere, anytime.

Jack Donaghy would ride this pitch right up to the C Suite.

“Ambition is the willingness to kill the things you love and eat them to survive”

Re: Hacking old hardware by renaming to .zip [video]

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>WiFi >1600W EIRP Your local regulatory authority would like a word with you.

I hold a licence that allows me to transmit on pretty much whatever frequency I like with as much power as I like, wherever I like. Someone has to test the transmitter before you hand it off to the customer. Also, I'm in the UK, where it's hard enough to get the regulatory authorities to do anything about people causing interferenced to licensed chunks of band. You can wipe out the whole of 2.4GHz if you like, you li…

So I thought your initial comment was a (pretty good) joke about using a microwave oven, but now I’m not sure. Is this testing license you reference a continuation of the joke or a real thing?
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