I have hit a roadblock of sorts at the moment. The app that is currently working, doesn’t update how I want but at the moment it “works”. Right now, even though it can detect the MAC addresses around it, I can’t figure out how to have it send that information. I’m sure it is rather easy and I’m just over thinking it, but it has been a long time since I programmed anything like this. So hopefully if I just stop working on it for a bit, I’ll come back to it with a fresh mind. Here is a screenshot of the app, I would show a video but I can’t find my firewire cable and the other cameras all make the icons blurry. It is the cool looking map one.

After working all night on getting xCode and the iPhone toolchain to work correctly. I managed to get a wifi scanning app working at about 3am. It is very basic, and all it will do is show the MAC address and the SSID. It’s nothing special, but it is one of the first steps I needed to complete for this app to be useful.

Now that I have if spitting out MAC addresses, I need it to contact my database of known MAC addresses to GPS coordinates. I don’t really know how I’m gonna do this but I hope to have something semi working soon. After I get to this point, I’ll be almost half way done. I will need to design an easy to use interface, because all iPhone apps need to be easy to use and since I suck at design, how about someone send me some mock ups? Thanks.

Here is a screen shot of the wifi scanning in action. It’s basically just a wifi scanning utility at the moment.

I was bored last night and started working on some code that would update my location on the site again just like it used to. The only difference is before it would get updated by a GPS phone that had internet using the Mologogo software. So the way that this is different is that it will currently use the IP of the location that is in a list of known IPs and GPS coordinates. This works on a non-jailbroken iPhone as well, since it is only a lookup by IP and not a MAC address or anything like that.

The first version was written in shell code and would have to be ran from the iPhone, and everyone that wanted to use it would have to install it to the phone. It didn’t take me too long to get it working and tested. It was ugly, it needed a jailbroken iPhone, but it worked. I then decided that it wasn’t practical to have the iPhone store the code, when all it would have to do is connect to a server with the code and update from there. So I set off to make a PHP version of the code and host it on my server.

I got the code on the server, and decided that, the best way to make it iPhone friendly was to use the iPhone web app template at located here. I still have a few things to add to the template and a few other feature I need to add to the code. But this is app will work on a non-jailbroken iPhone as all it needs is an active wifi connection. It needs wifi because the IP from the Edge network wouldn’t work for the type of lookup we are doing.

I don’t want to do an IP lookup and match it to known GPS coordinates, but currently that is the only way I know of to do it on a non-jailbroken iPhone. So now, I am working on a native iPhone app, that will do the GPS lookup by IP, MAC address of the router, and hopefully cell tower triangulation. The 3rd part I am not really sure how I will pull that off, but I know it is possible because of the other apps out there. The two big differences between my program and the other one, is that mine will be free, and will let you update your location on your own website like what I do here. The nice thing about the native app, is that you won’t need a wifi connection as long as you have Edge service. Also I know that the new iPhone firmware 1.1.3, is suppose to have the triangulation built into google maps. But I doubt it will let you use that information to update your site location on a blog or such. Also I know many people won’t be updating to that version as they like to use native apps and updating to 1.1.3 will break all apps again.

The main goal after I get the native app in a semi-beta build. Is to allow users of the native app to go out and find access points and IPs, and update the database so that users of the web based version, will get better and more results. This will be nice for users that don’t want to jailbreak their phones for whatever reason, but still get to use an awesome app such as this.

Depending on how far I get with the coding in the next few days will decide if I present my application at the Chicago 2600 meeting or not. I am fairly confident that I will at least get enough done to show off the complete web app. The native app will be a bit tougher but if I run into any problems I’m sure someone there would have an idea on what I could do. It would also be great to get suggestions and comments from others on what they would like to see. I should also note, that since the web app, is a web based app, it can be used with any device capable of connecting to the net. So this won’t just help iPhone users, but anyone with a wifi card can get GPS coordinates from their web browser.

Here are some pictures of the work in progress on the web app.

So, I know many many people have already blogged about this. I am not going to take up a lot of your time with what I have to say about the whole thing. Just that Michelle Madigan, does not like me. I asked for her badge like 3 times and she never gave it to me. That make’s me sad. Oh well.

Just incase you haven’t heard anything about this… Dateline sends an undercover reporter (Michelle Madigan) to Defcon with a camera. She refuses to get a press badge when told by Defcon officials. So she gets tricked to attend an event to out a FBI agent, or something like that. Only instead of a FBI agent, they let the room know about an undercover reporter. So basically people go crazy, she runs out of the room, people with cameras follow. I see people running, so I grab my camera and follow.

Theres the crappy looking YouTube video I shot. If you want to get the uncompressed video you can download it here as well.
HD Undercover Reporter at Defcon 250MB

Also I guess I was in a lot of pictures online on sites like PCWorld, Smugmug, Wired, Chicago2600, and many others.

If you haven’t read Day 1 or Day 2 yet. Do that first!

Day 3, started like any other normal day. Me, waking up. I guess when I slept that night, Maniac tried to get into the hotel room but I never woke up from all the knocks. I hope he wasn’t to mad. So let’s see, I don’t remember when I woke up, but it was kinda early. So me and Jeff went to “The Wynn” and ate at the buffet. Champaign, organge juice, sushi, pizza, meat, ice cream, water that tastes like salt, cake, what else could you want at a buffet?

So after that we head back to Defcon. Not much happening that day, we really didn’t have anything planned and no mystery box anymore so we just walked around and what not. We talked to Lost about the mystery box and what not, and then found Leigh and Jolly. A little bit after running into them is when Leigh formatted her memory card by mistake. So I think it was like 2:30 or something around that time, so me and Jeff headed back to our hotel. We just chilled in the room for a while until we had to goto the airport to catch our flight.

We get to the airport later than I wanted to, but it wasn’t a bad thing. We didn’t have a hard time getting past secuity even with the awesome defcon badges. So then we get to our gate, and just wait to board. Both of us spent most of the flight reading PDFs of the presentationstalks that we didn’t get to. So while I didn’t get to see a lot of talks, I read most of them, and can’t wait to see the videos from the DVDs.

End of Day 3.

Read Day 1 before reading this!

After we receive the box, we decide to take it to Jolly and Leighs room. We are un-able to tilt the box or the sensor will trip and the alarm will go off. We get all the way to the elevators in the hotel when security stops us. After about 5 minutes of them asking what it is and us telling them we have no idea, but that it isn’t harmful they let us go. We get up to the room and decide that we should pick the locks instead of drilling. If only it was that easy.

After some trying with picking the locks, we find ways to deactivate the tilt sensor. We did one test tilt, as the screen went out, and we thought maybe it went to “sleep”. NOPE. So after the test tilt, we deactivate the tilt sensor and try to pick the lock from a better angle. 8 hours later, we opened the locks….with a drill. We get all 3 locks off after about 30 minutes and open the box. Inside we find more paper with clues, a pirate sword, compass ring that doesn’t work, an alien, and a breadboard with an earpiece and circuit diagram. We all break for breakfast.

We spilt into 2 groups for breakfast, Leigh, Jolly, Jeff and I in one group. Maniac, Jesus, Strange guy, and Tom (I think) in another. I hax my breakfast, I hope to have pictures but Leigh has them and she might have formatted her memory card . I still needed to get my video footage of the undercover reporter to a few people that kept calling and asking me for it. So after getting it to Bob of Kenshoto, and Freshman the Goon, I get invited to the Kenshoto party.

After some time has passed and everyone refreshes their minds we all plan meet back up by the box. As we were passing though the halls, Mouse from one of the other teams let’s us know that they won. BOOOO!

By the time we get to back to our room, Jesus had already completed the circuit. We then attempt to get the secret out of the board. The way we actually had the circuit built we didn’t even need to do this step. But we had no idea until we finished. With the rest of the puzzle. After finally cracking it, we all run down to the contest area again and use our circuit to get one of the final clues. After a few attempts I hear the message perfectly. It was another puzzle in the message but it wasn’t to hard and so within 10 minutes we had completed the challenage. I think we came in 7th place. Even though we didn’t come in first or close to first, we all felt great because we completed it and we could then enjoy the rest of the con.

We completed at about 4:20PM I think. So a little over 24 hours. After the challenege I don’t really remember doing much, I think we all exhausted our minds and just went seperate ways for a bit and checked out the con more. Nothing to exciting happened till later.

At around 9, Jeff and I go to the TCP/IP drinking game, and then after that we check out Hacker Jeopardy. Run into a drunk goon, who tries to tell us a joke but just get’s confused and walks away. After that event we decide to goto the the party Kenshoto was was having. Getting in at first was a problem because the guys at the door didn’t believe me, but after 2 minutes Bob showed up and got us in. I also got a sword on the way to the party, details on how I got the sword are not important.

I got to talk to a lot of cool people there, including one of the guys that sets up the “Wall of Sheep”. I asked him a few things about it and found out that all of the usernamepasswords that they put up are placed there by hand. So no evil hackers can try and exploit the wall with any code or whatever the might try to pass to it.

After that it is off to the hotel to crash for the night. I actually got more than 3 hours of sleep this time!

End of Day 2.

I flew into Vegas on Thursday night. It was to late to get badges for Defcon that night. We were told that they had a limited supply, so me and Jeff just stayed up all night. We met up with a friend of his, and did some BlackJack for a bit. I got 3 blackjacks in a row at one point in the night, I count that as a hax.

At about 6 we decide that we should go back to our hotel area and get food to keep from falling asleep. We tried resting at Denny’s while waiting for food, but that didn’t work to well. After eating, we end to the hotel to wait for a while longer. We go to where they were selling badges last year, and there was only one other person waiting. So we sit and talk with him for a bit and talk about ghosts and other random stuff. We tried to kill a Goon for his badge when he went into the bathroom, but by the time we had our plan ready he was already out.

We find out about 20 minutes after sitting there, that the badges are being sold else where. So we run to where they are at, and only about 8 people are standing around. PHEW. So we wait like an hour or whatever, and they finally open up to sell them. After me and Jeff get our badges we follow the line to the end. Holy crap, was it long. Like tons of people streching forever. It started by the registration desk (duh) and ended all the way past the pool and elevators. I tried to find a map that had that part but couldn’t, those of you who have been to the Rivera might know what I’m talking about.

After that we head to our hotel. Maniac and Jesus are just waking up, so me and Jeff get to sleep. So we sleep from about 9:30am to noon. Maniac comes into the room to wake us up intime for the Mystery Box Challenge. After everyone in the challege is checked in, we all get our box. This is only the first part of the contest.

All teams run to different areas around the con and break open their box. Inside we have 25 pieces of round paper with a book and letter of the alphabet on it. All letters are represented except for “E”. Then we have a memopad with 60 sheets of paper, but only the 1st one is used. It has “1×21″ written on it. Then the last part if an image of “Charlie Chaplin and the Kid” as well as a encrypted message. I will try to get pictures of the objects up soon.

I will not be posting any solutions or anything more specfic about the mystery box just incase someone stumbles upon this blog and is actually trying to complete the challenege.

Also that whole undercover reporter thing happened around this time, but that’s for another post.

So we work on it for many many hours, trying as many things as possible. Thanks to Jeffs awesome ruby programming skills, we decrypt the message. So now it is time to collect the real box. We try to use the elevator but it is impossible as it is out of order now. Me and Maniac run down 27 flights of stairs to get back to Defcon. When we got down the stairs and outside, we have two possible paths to take. I take the more direct straight line path, Maniac takes the walk around the fence and bushes and tress and cars and steet path. After hopping to fences and running around tress and bushes and dodging some cars I make it to the competition area, before everyone else. I present what we got, only to be told we need another part. When the rest of the team arrives, we all work on the last part and get it in about 3 minutes. So, after that we get taken into a dark spot and are told details about our box.

End of Day 1.

Sorry, I’ve actually be out doing stuff. So this might be a long post, so I’ll do one of those nifty tag things so that you’ll have to click something else to finish reading everything and then my site will get more traffic from that.

So let’s go back to about the 5th of July.

July 5th, 2600 Meeting

90% of the meeting was spent outside! Ok, well, some people decided to stay outside for most of it. I did, as well as many others. It was a nice night, and it was just fun to get away from the wifi and just talk. Steve had an intresting presentation on something.. just kidding. It was good, but during it someone kept making his MacBook go into FrontRow ^_^, HAX BY JAKU #1 of the night.

Now, Josh bought a MacBookPro that day as well, and while he was out. I messed around with his terminal, and set a wall paper on it. On the wall paper it was all white, like the background but at the end of the line where you begin to type it said "hax by jaku", soooo HAX BY JAKU #2. I wish I had a picture of it, it would make more sense. I think it might still be on his computer so I shall just ask him for it later.

After the meet, nothing really important.


(continue reading…)

Hey, look an update. Alright so I’ve been busy. I bought a car. A new VW Jetta 2007 Wolfsburg edition. I just bought a car charger for the USB phone, so from now on, the phone will always be ON and in the car. I’m usually never too far from the car anyways.

I have a few new projects I plan on doing as well. Again a secret until I get some sort of prototype working. I will be using it for my car, but it has many other uses as well. So maybe if I get extra time it will be a 2-for-1 type project.

I want to get back into filming things over the summer, so I might post some of my stuff up here as well. But don’t count on it, unless it turns out really well. If I do get into filming again, I’ll have to figure out a way to pull the content I post from Revver, MetaCafe, and YouTube to the site. That shouldn’t be to hard, and would make the site a bit more interesting with more aggregated data. Although I should really start using the services I already got working with the site before I go adding new stuff. Oh well.

Oh and the picture thing on the right is broken, because Leopard (beta) doesn’t work will with the software I used to get it working. I’ll fix it another time or just go back to Tiger. Which ever I have more time for first I guess.

And I didn’t have anything to do with it!