This will be my last post about the Google Nexus S since I just purchased (and received) my Nexus 4. That said, I really wanted to give one last update on the Nexus S since it looks like things have changed quite a bit with the update process. While it looks more complicated at first, it’s actually a lot more flexible now. Here is how to upgrade your Nexus S manually to a full 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, even if you have not received it yet/are in a country where the updates are not coming in, or are on a carrier which is not pushing OTA updates.
Now, you have one of four choices for sections, based on your phone:
If you have the (MOST POPULAR) T-Mobile or ATT (GSM) version of the Nexus S, go to: “Factory Images “soju” for Nexus S (worldwide version, i9020t and i9023)”
If you have the Sprint (4G) version, go to: “Factory Images “sojus” for Nexus S 4G (d720)”
If you have the Korean version (VERY RARE), go to: “Factory Images “sojuk” for Nexus S (Korea version, m200)”
If you have the NON-1Ghz (STILL RARE) version, go to: “Factory Images “sojua” for Nexus S (850MHz version, i9020a)”
Let’s assume you have the T-Mobile/ATT one since most people have that.
You will want the “4.1.2 (JZO54K)” image, which you can download from their official link:
Google has released ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich) – the next version of the Nexus S OS (ICS 4.0.3- IML74K), and once again, I am posting it directly here — mostly for people who have not received it yet, people who are using a jailbroken phone, or people outside of the US who do not get the updates.
If you are on GRK39F (2.3.6), you can apply only the small update:
Please note that the above update is the ~128 MB update, and will only work if you are on 2.3.6 GRK39F. This is NOT for people who are running jailbroken/custom roms.
If the above doesn’t work, OR if you are using a jailbroken/custom rom, of if you have another version before 2.3.6, then I suggest doing the full 4.0.3 (IML74K) flash:
This is the ~161 MB image. You can use the same 7 steps from the link above.
If you are having problems with the update above, this is the full factory restore and it should work without any problems.
Please post comments if you have any problems, or if you just want to post that it works!
Google has released the next version of the Nexus S OS (Gingerbread 2.3.6 – GRK39F), and once again, I am posting it directly here — mostly for people who have not received it yet, people who are using a jailbroken phone, or people outside of the US who do not get the updates.
If you are on GRJ22 (2.3.4), you can apply only the small update:
Please note that the above update is the ~18MB update, and it will only work if you are on 2.3.4 GRJ22. This is NOT for people who are running jailbroken/custom roms.
If the above doesn’t work, OR if you are using a jailbroken/custom rom, then I suggest doing the full 2.3.6 (GRK39F) flash:
This is the ~98 MB image. You can use the same 7 steps from the link above, OR you can use any custom installer (including ClockWork).
If you are having problems with the update above, this is the full factory restore and it should work without any problems.
Please post comments if you have any problems, or if you just want to post that it works!
UPDATE: Please check out latest version from my git repo: http://git.vpetkov.net/projects – project name: “pandora”
It seems that Pandora is not putting too much time or thought into how they provide and access music online through their website. I really hope they fix this since it’s irresponsible as far as the the DMCA is concerned. Each song is simply an encoded token, and it’s pulled down directly from, presumably, one of their proxy server. If you look at the stream while playing songs on pandora.com, you will notice something like this (ex: not real):
Some assumptions: the “version=4” is high quality or what used to be CD quality (192 kbps). The “lid=#####” is the “login id”, or your unique user number. The “token=…” is the actual song, encoded. By finding the host of these requests, and putting it all together, where the lid is completely optional, you will have a full request URL to a song.
Imagine putting it together like this: (example as a POC, like this)
"http.request.uri contains token and http.host contains pandora"|./worker.pl
Then having something that parses this “buffer”:
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#!/usr/bin/perl
useTie::File;
useWWW::Mechanize;
my$tokensdb='.tokens.db';my$songsdb='.songs';
unless(-e$tokensdb){`touch$tokensdb`;}
unless(-d$songsdb){mkdir$songsdbordie;}
tieour@tokens,'Tie::File',$tokensdb;
my$mech=WWW::Mechanize->new();
$mech->timeout(5);
$mech->quiet(1);
$mech->agent_alias('Mac Safari');
while(<STDIN>){
my($host,$token)=split(/,/,$_);
$token=~s/&lid=(\d*)//g;chomp($token);
my$url="http://$host"."$token";
if(grep{"$_"eq"$token"}@tokens){
print"Token Already Seen...\n";
}
else{
push(@tokens,$token);
print">> New Token Added!\n";
$file=time;
# Code removed in order to prevent Abuse!
}
}
One way for them to fix this would be to session encode the requests. You should not be able to make requests that originate from outside of pandora.com directly to the servers. Also, the requests should be authenticated. As an addition, they could potentially be checked against what is “played” and controlled for streaming mechanisms. I really hope this fix this as soon as possible.
This post is a bit different, but I think some people will find it very interesting. What got me to write this was an interesting article posted by Kevin Mitnick via his twitter account: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20077732-245/kevin-mitnick-shows-how-easy-it-is-to-hack-a-phone/?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=News-Security. Kevin’s claim is that “Any 15-year-old that knows how to write a simple script can find a VoIP provider that spoofs caller ID and set this up in about 30 minutes”, and my only question is: what will you do with the other 25 minutes?
START OF NOTE AND WARNING! Spoofing your Caller ID is legal in the US only if done via VOIP services for legal and legitimate uses, or to block sending your caller ID, but again, only if it is used for legal purposes. An example of a legitimate use is spoofing your own home/cell phone number when making outbound calls via VOIP/SIP. Another example would be spoofing an outgoing number (a bit like NATing) when sitting at a private (let’s say for example 2,3,4, or 5 digit) extension. There are many scenarios where this is absolutely needed — like offices, enterprises, remote employees/road warriors, and phone support.
Spoofing your Caller ID is not legal for false identity, threatening/harassing someone, pranking, lying, or other such negative and immoral actions. If you are interested in some more information, you can find some here: http://www.gordostuff.com/2011/06/fcc-ups-caller-id-spoofing-penalties.html, and here: http://www.gordostuff.com/2011/02/is-faking-caller-id-legal-in-united.html. This said, I am providing this information for anyone who wants to learn about how this is done, or/and is interested in setting it up for their business or personal use, but ONLY for legal and legitimate uses. I am in no way responsible if you do something stupid or illegal. Here is a good background/history and more information on Caller ID Spoofing: http://www.calleridspoofing.info/ END OF NOTE AND WARNING!
The assumption here is that you have some things already setup and working. The article is titled “Spoofing Caller ID on the fly from any phone” and not “how to spoof your Caller ID”. I am assuming that you have: a sip trunk provider with an outgoing plan, a DID, a SIP server with some advanced features (Asterisk and OpenPBX, or something like TrixBox), and most of all — a working setup. The first step is getting DISA (Direct Inward System Access – http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+cmd+DISA). The idea is that you will dial your DID phone number, and the sip trunk provider will route it to your IP address. From there, your server will handle the call and connect you inside your system. I absolutely suggest setting up a DISA password/passcode, otherwise, you leave yourself open to abuse and other people will be able to potentially make calls and use your sip account. It is also important to note that generally, you can simply set a from name and number right here in the DISA outbound options. But again, the idea is to make this dynamic. Ones you dial into your system, the next step is to setup an extension that will handle the rest of this. Leave your context “from-internal” if you want to be able to make external calls by default — necessary in order to bridge the active call to your destination. If you are using Asterisk or TrixBox, go to /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, and enter something like this:
Now here’s what’s happening: When you get your DID, you get the DISA context. From there, after you authenticate yourself with a pin and now you are in your system. At this point, you would hook in your custom context, in this case called “proof-of-concept-custom”. Make sure that the word “custom” is present somewhere. At this point, your recipe will be executed. The first thing you want to do is answer. You can look up each of these commands at the voip-info.org website. For example, Answer: http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+cmd+Answer. The next step is to wait 2 seconds. Then you will speak out the current caller ID. This is really just so you know where you are coming from – it is not neccessary. The play (mp3/wav/etc…) play is not really necessary either, but it can be used to queue up different actions. If you will play something, the suggestion is to Answer the channel before hand, and pause/wait for a bit. The next step is to read 10 digits into the “digito” variable. For good measure, and to prevent a mistake, you can speak out the digits again, and then set them as the current Caller ID (the spoofing part). At this point, you can play another sound to queue up the next action. As an extra precaution/security-by-obscurity step, you can prompt for another pin. In this case, it’s “98765”. After the pin has been successfully entered, you can signal via a sound, and then dial and bridge the call to the same number that you set as your Caller ID (impractical, but just for the purpose of a proof of concept). You can very easily modify this to ask for a destination number and call that destination number instead. Please note that this will charge you a twice from the point that you dial the call and bridge it — once for the current/already active call, and once for the new call that you are making to your destination.
Again, there are many legitimate and absolutely necessary cases for this. If you work in any company, most of the time they will not disclose private numbers. If the company is very large, they might simply not have/want to buy individual “routable” phone numbers. Your desk extension of “1234” can be masked behind a general number which routes to “directory/support” when called back. Another great case is someone who works from remote. Say that you work from home and are part of a support group. A customer calls you and reports a problem. Now you want to call the customer back, but you don’t want him to have your personal home number/cellphone – you can spoof your support number and call the customer back.
Something interesting to note is that VOIP/SIP system can choose to not respect Caller ID (cid) blocking/spoofing, and and 1-800/other TOLL-FREE numbers simply do not respect it.
The only point of this article is to demonstrate how easy it is to achieve this dynamically. Again, this is something that you can very easily set statically in the extension or DISA settings. This is not something new or mind blowing. You could have done this over 10 years ago. The point is that you can have a setup which can be activated from any phone and within 30 seconds or less, you can have a dynamically spoofed Caller ID number.
Let’s start with the problem – I can’t stand unlocking my phone every 10-15 minutes when I decide to look at the screen either because I heard a beep, or because I want to check for a work email/SMS. The obvious solution: get rid of the lock screen. The new problem: now my phone is not secure. I need something to toggle this functionality on a “need basis”. Solution: use Tasker to create a task which will be created into a widget.
Here’s the logic:
0.) Set a default icon (used key in this case)
1.) Keyguard – toggle
2.) Notify – KEYGUARD IS OFF, if %KEYG is off
3.) Notify – KEYGUARD IS ON, if %KEYG is on
4.) Wait – 1 second
5.) Notify Cancel – KEYGUARD IS OFF, if %KEYG is off
6.) Notify Cancel – KEYGUARD IS ON, if %KEYG is on
7.) Set Widget Icon – Unlocked Lock, if %KEYG is off
8.) Set Widget Icon – Locked Lock, if %KEYG is on
Download Takser task: Keyguard.tsk.xml.zip (md5: 0e2f2fd8cdaa5ff71a1fd5b0329bdfe6)
Please unzip it, copy it to your device, and then import it into Tasker.
Make it into a widget, press it, the icon will change to an unlocked keylock, and your lock screen goes away. Hit power, check to see that when you hit power again, your lock screen is not there. The volume keys will turn on the screen too. If you press the widget again, the icon will change to a locked keylock, and now you will have your lock screen. What I personally do is use the pin lock screen, and then toggle it this way while I am at work. As soon as I step out or anything like this, I toggle my lock back on.
Since it seems like people are really interested in this information (especially those out side of the US where updates are not pushed out), I will continue with the updates regarding the Nexus S. Here’s the next (no pun) operating system update: 2.3.4:
Please note that the update WILL work if you are running “GRI40” (build number in Settings -> About Phone)
The biggest update when it comes to new features seems to be that Google Talk has voice chat! There are a lot of bug fixes.
For the bug fixes, check out: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=3812c1acf93b482f
Note: I personally couldn’t update just the radio update from 2.3.3 (with GRI40) – kept getting the status 7 signature verification, so I used the 2.3.4 update to get the radio patches. I’ve seen people who have been able to apply the radio update to 2.3.3 without any problems.
I decided to contribute back, mention a few vital steps, and provide a few important files now that I solved this — in order for someone to go from 2.3(.0) to 2.3.3
This assumes that you have not rooted your phone. If you have, you need to un-root it and go back to either 2.3.0, 2.3.1, or 2.3.2,
First of all, if you use the built-in “update” method, the updates need to be consecutive. For this, they are very small.
Let’s assume you just bought your Google Nexus S. It came with 2.3 (or 2.3.0 in reality). The first step is to apply the 2.3.1 update. I’ve called this:
0.) Put the file into the /sdcard directory.
1.) Turn off your phone
2.) Hold Power and Volume-Up until you see the recovery menu (lots of colors and 4 options).
3.) Use the Volume-Down key to scroll down and select “Recovery” by pushing the Power key.
4.) Wait for the triangle with the exclamation point. Push the Power key and while holding it, tap the Volume-Up key.
5.) Now you can use the the Volume keys to go to “apply update from /sdcard” and then the Power key to select it.
6.) Select the appropriate ZIP file, and then use the Power key to apply it.
7.) When everything is done, go to the Reboot option with the Volume keys and then use the Power Key to select it.
Now, that said, after you apply the first update, you go from 2.3.0 to 2.3.1. Now, apply the 2.3.2 update. I’ve called this:
Same as before. After you go through the steps and reboot, you will be at 2.3.2. Here is where things get interesting. It seems that you need another update. Its for people who get the “Status 7” error.
This is mostly due to a firmware (those who have: GRH78C or GRH78). Here you will need to apply the LAST UPDATE, the same way you applied update1 and update2:
For GRH78C (md5: 3923f98754f756a83b3ecc44e42a2902)
or
Only for GRH78 (md5: 919d7f2c9e06bb03a2ff74081028bf0a)
At last, reboot, and you are on 2.3.3
Please note that *ALL* of these files have been taken from google and are official. For that exact reason, I have provided the md5 checksums, so that you can verify them before you use them.
Hope this helps.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND FILES (If above did not work — very rare):
Some people (very very rare) might still get an error. This is if you have a different radio version. Check: “Settings -> About Phone -> Baseband Version”. You should have either something that ends in “XXKB1” or something that ends in “XXKB3”. Here are the two radios. Apply this the same way as the items above. You might need this BEFORE the GRH78C (or GRH78) updates.
WikiLeaks is a “whistle blowing” website. A quick search about it brings you to:
Wikileaks was a website that published anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive governmental, corporate, organizational, or religious documents, while attempting to preserve the anonymity and untraceability of its contributors.
This week WikiLeaks released some sensitive US documents:
The classified diplomatic cables released by online whistleblower WikiLeaks and reported on by news organizations in the United States and Europe provided often unflattering assessments of foreign leaders, including those of Germany and Italy.
The cables also contained revelations about long-simmering nuclear trouble spots, detailing U.S., Israeli and Arab fears of Iran’s growing nuclear program; U.S. concerns about Pakistan’s atomic arsenal; and U.S. discussions about a united Korean peninsula as a long-term solution to North Korean aggression.
There are also U.S. memos encouraging U.S. diplomats at the United Nations to collect detailed data about the UN secretary-general, his team and foreign diplomats ― going beyond what is considered the normal run of information-gathering expected in diplomatic circles.
None of the revelations is particularly explosive, but their publication could prove problematic for the officials concerned.
The short version of what happened is that WikiLeaks was the target of many DDoS attacks. Eventually, the website was shut down. They decided to change their hosting provider and use Amazon’s AWS (Public Cloud Service). After a few days, Amazon shut down their website claiming that it violated their terms of service. They brought the site in another location, and then their DNS provider decided to shut them down.
The reality is that WikiLeaks is exercising their right of freedom of speech. The problem is that they have some very sensitive information, and this makes political high profile figures nervous. However, when you move past the details of what happened, you come to the realization and real concern — Public Cloud Censorship.
This is the perfect example of why companies are afraid of using Public Clouds (outsourcing your infrastructure to someone else). As you can see from this example, your entire business can be shut down in a matter of minutes, just because someone has a different opinion than yours. This brings massive concern and rightfully so. I really think that the long term solution is private clouds. Take this great technology and deploy it within your own datacenter. When you look at this from the top, it looks a lot like web hosting — you can either outsource your web hosting to a company like DreamHost and BlueHost, or you can do it yourself. There are benefits to both, but at the end, it comes down to your concern for privacy and freedom.
Along with many other people, I personally think that Amazon had the chance to do something great, and as the Guardian and EFF pointed out: “Instead, Amazon ran away with its tail between its legs.”
I have a Twitter Dilema, and I am very curious what people think. Here’s the problem:
If you make your tweets private (which is what I have done right now), you are not forcefully followed by spammers, BUT when you add friends, if they don’t add you back, they will not see your replies.
If you make your tweets public, you are force to deal with the 13 year olds which are trying to get 50,000 followers and 2 million tweets.
I personally think that this is a bug with twitter. If you have protected tweets, and think that someone is ‘safe enough’ to follow, twitter should automatically allow that individual to see your tweets, even though they are protected. This only makes sense. Heck, enable an option to toggle this.