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Wednesday
Aug182010

A case? a book? artwork? Yes to all, it's the BookBook for the iPad!

by AuthorWojo on DateWednesday, August 18, 2010 at 9:31PM in , , tagged , , ,

 

I just received my BookBook for the iPad (Vibrant Red model) from Twelve South today, and here’s my quick review and what I think so far.

So I must start by saying I also own a BookBook for my MacBook Pro 13”, so I’m no stranger to Twelve South nor their products. In fact, I’m typing this on my couch with that exact configuration. I love my BookBook for the laptop and when I received an email from Twelve South I jumped at the chance to order one for my iPad.

Packaging, Fit and Finish

When the package came in today I was very happy about how it was packaged up. The BookBook comes in a soft pouch with a strap and the only other thing was a thin product wrapper around the case. No full box or other packing materials, yet still very slick.

 

Out of the bag you can just tell the BookBook is quality. The BookBook looks great, with each one uniquely worn and aged, but also feels great. On the outside the leather feels smooth and hard, and once you open it up you are greeted with a soft interior that protects the iPad. The leather, stitching, padding are all assembled very carefully and looks built to last.

After I placed the iPad in the BookBook, I began testing a few different configurations with it. However, the first thing I noticed was a bit of bending on the BookBook’s back cover after I placed the iPad in its new home. Uh oh. Here are some pictures of what I’m talking about:

 

This seems to be due to the two leather pockets at the bottom where the iPad slides into, then is kept in with a strap on the top. The leather pockets just seem too tight — they force the edge of the iPad down and that fights the strap at the top. Now, I just placed the iPad in the BookBook, so I’ll let it sit there for a few days and see how it stretches. It is leather after all and it may take a few days in the case before it forms to my iPad.

I also plan on emailing Twelve South about this and I know they will take care of me. How do I know? Last time I emailed them on my other BookBook, it was handled directly by the BookBook designer who is also a Twelve South co-founder. It ended up being a non-issue (I thought the BookBook zipper could have been scratching my MacBook) but the support I received was top-notch.

Update 8/19/2010: As I suspected, this is normal and should sort itself out in a few days. To quote their FAQ:

“When I first install my iPad into BookBook, the corners seem to warp and bend a bit. Is that normal? Yes. The bottom leather supports are quite tight when you first receive your new BookBook. Like any leather, it stretches out over time and will provide a nice snug fit for the life of the product. The slight bending of the corners of the covers is not permanent and will straighten out in a few short days.”

Size and Feel

Anyway, so once the iPad is placed in the BookBook is definitely adds to the size quite a bit. Where I noticed it the most was the thickness which could be an issue if space is limited in a bag while traveling, for example. Otherwise holding it during normal usage make it feel more like a book, larger and not as cold. The iPad is metal and glass, not the most comfortable tactile experience. When I pick up something to read I expect it to be paper and feel like it, too. This wraps the iPad in very natural feeling materials and is quite welcome. Is it too much? We’ll see I start craving a naked iPad in a few weeks.

Other Features

 

In the pictures you can see the little rope that is attached on the back under the iPad is used to help prop up the BookBook in a display configuration as an A-frame. You take the rope and route it to the other side and wrap it around a little leather, um, button. Being a string allows an infinite amount of flexibility in the length and thus the angle, which is really cool. When not in use I shove the rope into the top of the case behind the iPad, and it seems to stay out of the way pretty well. If you never plan on using it you can just completely shove it behind the iPad and forget about it.

If you ever need to take the iPad out is is a very easy process. Just take off the top strap and slide her out. Putting it back in is just as easy. I really don’t expect to ever take it out, but again we will see as time passes.

Protection

When zipped shut the iPad is very secure. The dual zippers hold it in and the thick leather case really will protect the iPad not only from scratches and dings, but should help even with drops and other bad situations due to the padding, rigid spine and stiff edges. My MacBook has been in one of these for months and I really do trust it to take a beating.

Overview

Overall I am very impressed with the BookBook for the iPad. As long as the bottom straps lossen up a bit, I’ll be extremely happy. For nearly $70, it isn’t the cheapest iPad case, but I would venture to say it is definitely the most stylish I’ve come across!

If you want one head on over to the BookBook for the iPad page. I also have more pictures in my BookBook for iPad gallery which has some other angles, closeups and comparisons with the MacBook Pro model.

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Thursday
Aug122010

Locking down the Clear iSpot

by AuthorWojo on DateThursday, August 12, 2010 at 10:44PM in tagged , ,

If you’ve rooted your iSpot you’ll want to make sure you lock it down. If you used a pre-made configuration, make sure it disable OTA updates.

UPDATE: I’ve removed my original instructions that said to set the ENABLE_INB_* settings to YES. That was incorrect, sorry! The title in nat.conf was misleading and I jumped the gun. Revert those changes if you already set them to YES.

Also, it may also be possible to prevent or alter how the factory reset is done. This could help protect from inadvertent resets while in a bag, for example.

There’s a lot of interesting binaries and scripts on the devices, such as /bin/fota (Firmware Over The Air flashing I think), a serial console that dumps you into a shell without any login (see the inittab), flashing programs, the two management apps launched via inetd, etc. Lots going on.

Cracking open the case reveals what could be a serial/JTAG port, two unused antenna ports, and some other goodies.

But back to the point… can anyone else see another way for updates to be pushed down?

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Tuesday
Aug102010

Clear iSpot was a little too easy to crack

by AuthorWojo on DateTuesday, August 10, 2010 at 9:57PM in tagged , ,

Disclaimer: Whenever you “jailbreak” a device like this you risk bricking it and getting into some trouble. Be nice and be fair! Do this to learn, gain access on devices that aren’t working correctly (which a lot of people are running into right now), extend the capabilities by installing extra software, etc.

Warning: If you are not familiar with the Linux command line and various tools listed below then see my follow-up about using the pre-made configs from jaku.

This is a follow up to my original post which gives some of the background on the iSpot. Have fun!

To get root access:

  1. Download your configuration and extract it
  2. Add a line to lan.conf to add a new user with no password to your /etc/passwd
    1. For example: echo “wojo::0:0:root:/root:/bin/sh” >> /etc/passwd
  3. Tar up the config and upload it
  4. When the iSpot comes back up, go into super user mode (/super via HTTP, u: super, p: super), Tools -> Admin and enable Telnet at the bottom under “Save Telent and Log Configuration” (there are so many typos on this device!)
  5. Telnet to 192.168.1.1 and enter the username from above (e.g. wojo)
  6. Enjoy root
  7. Remove the addition to the /etc/lan.conf on the device so it stops adding the user on every reboot

Want to disable the MAC address restrictions?

  1. Edit /system/wimax/tree.xml in your favorite text editor (vi is on the box)
  2. Search for “RestrictedUse” and set the value to “false” in the node below
  3. Save the file and reboot

How about enable RNDIS so you don’t have to use WiFi?

  1. From either your local configuration files or via a shell, edit board.conf
  2. Change ENABLE_RNDIS to a value of 1
  3. Go to http://192.168.1.1/html/rndis.html
  4. Set your preference on WiFi enabled during USB tethering
  5. For Windows only: download the driver

Lastly, if you don’t want configs and firmware pushed down, you probably want to at minimum:

  • Disable auto-upgrading in upgrade.conf (ENABLE_AUTO_UPGRADE=”NO”),
  • disable OMA-DM in super user mode under WiMAX -> OMA-DM to prevent OTA updates, and
  • never do a factory reset with a signal as the device could pull down new configs and do a firmware upgrade.

Thanks to Jon at methodicjon.com for a reminder to close up as much as possible in terms of OTA automatic updates.

Now what cool things can the iSpot be extended to do now I wonder?

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Tuesday
Aug102010

Initial Clear iSpot hacking

by AuthorWojo on DateTuesday, August 10, 2010 at 1:27PM in tagged , ,

I picked up a Clear iSpot the other day during their $29 deal, and so far so good. Been getting okay signal and speeds throughout Midtown and Buckhead in Atlanta as long as I am near a window, but indoors it’s been very hard to get a signal. Oh well.

The iSpot is manufactured by Infomark and the model number is IMW-C615W. It seems the generic model sold by Infomark is IMW-C600W and the Clear Spot (not limited to Apple devices) is IMW-C610W. Hardware seems to be identical between all models, it’s just the firmware that changes.

One of the big drawbacks to the iSpot is the MAC address limiting to Apple portable devices, namely the iPod, iPhone and iPads. That being said, I actually have been able to connect with my newer MacBook Pro 13” without any MAC spoofing because it is on the whitelist already. My older MacBook Pro 17” doesn’t work, however, and spoofing the MAC address via the standard disassociate/spoof (‘airport -z’ then ‘ifconfig eth1 ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx’) trick doesn’t work.

This started me down the route of finding out how to expand or disable the MAC address whitelist. 

The latest firmware (1786 as of this time) contains a lot of interesting nuggets in it. Just by analyzing the firmware it you can see that the device is based off of Linux and uses busybox to save space for user-mode tools. My guess is that it uses iptables to redirect non-authorized MACs to the clear.com unsupported device page.

But first I decided to start attacking via the saved configuration files instead. It seems like a much easier attack vector than the firmware. It’s simply a tar’d directory structure that contains configuration files and executables. The last part sounds fun, doesn’t it?

To get the configuration file go into the iSpot’s web interface to Tools -> Admin and hit “Save Device Configuration to File”. This will produce a .bin file that you’ll save. Extract this file with tar and it’ll produce a directory structure starting at ‘tmp’ with the files we’re interested in.

A few interesting things you can see and/or edit (I’ll add details on these later when I can):

  1. It’s easy to enable NDIS support over USB making the iSpot act like an Ethernet card. On Mac OS X there is nothing to do for this to work, but if run Windows you need the driver from http://192.168.1.1/html/rndis.html. You can also modify the setting to disable WiFi when tethered via USB from here, too.
  2. Auto-updating can be disabled. Probably a good idea if you want these changes to stick around.
  3. There’s an executable file in ppp/if-up that could be used to execute code, as long as it runs on connection initiation. Does Clear use PPP for their WiMax?

Obviously #3 could be a great way to run our own code, or possibly even through the configuration files as they could be sourced from shell scripts. It may be possible to extract files into other areas of the filesystem, too.

I didn’t have much time, but I tried a few things such as clearing/adding iptables rules, writing out to the wwwroot and using netcat to communicate with an external box in the if-up script to no avail. I’m not sure if the script is even executing or if I’m not launching the tools correctly through the symlinks and via busybox directly.

Once I’m able to execute whatever I want, I wonder what will be the best way to disable the MAC address filtering. It should be possible to change the WiMax configurations such as:

[OMA] ./WiMAXSupp/Operator/clear/Apps/RestrictedUse/Enabled=true

Lastly, if you log into the super user interface at http://192.168.1.1/super (u: super, p: super) you can play with a few more settings. Telnet was disabled on my device until I went there and played with a setting related to telnet. That could be useful if we can extract the password from the firmware.

That’s where I left off because I ran out of time. I’ll play with the device a little more soon and post any updates.

Also check out David Zatz’s blog post and comments at http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2010-08/more-ispot-speeds-mac-spoofing where there is some work already started. This should be cracked soon :)

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