Hacking The Honda

We recently bought a Honda Odessey minivan (more on that in a moment) with a Honda Navigation system installed. I’ve been highly impressed with the system – the user interface, the accuracy, and the speed are all top-notch. While the system is close to perfect, the hacker in me can’t resist wondering what else could be done with it.

I did some searches and sure enough, there are tools out there that can modify the software. Tricks that can be done include putting new “skins” on the display, getting rid of the “nag screen” at startup, and changing the background image to any picture you’d like. Pretty cool in itself, but what if you want more? The system runs Windows CE on a SH-4 processor, just like the Sega Dreamcast. Linux has been ported to the Dreamcast, and I own one of them. Theoretically, I have all the tools I need to port Linux to the navigation system!

Why would I, you ask? Potential uses would be to create a navigation app more tailored to my needs – there are a few good Linux-based map tools out there. I could get a better handle on the data the GPS is sending: more detailed travel statistics than I currently have. Other, more entertaining uses would be to put an MPEG4 or MPEG2 player on the system – allowing you to watch video on the dashboard console. The only limit is the hardware itself – how many ports are available, how much memory is installed, etc. And if I decide to go back to the original software, its easy to reset things back to the default software.

I’m not ready to muck around with our newly-purchased car just yet, but I’m sure having fun thinking about it!

Pirates Attack

Some people think that the days of pirates are long gone. The truth is that they’re alive and well, armed with the latest modern technology and weapons. There are plenty of rogue states from which they can operate, and plenty of harbors in which to hide. The seas aren’t as tame as one might think.

Just this week, one such attack too place off the coast of Somalia. Pirates in speedboats attacked a Carnival cruise ship 100 miles offshore, firing machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. After a tense, 90 minute battle, the ship escaped by blasting the pirates with a sonic weapon.

During my Navy days, we transited the Malaccan Strait near Singapore. The Malaccan Strait connects the Pacific ocean to the Indian ocean. It’s one of the busiest waterways on the planet, and chock full of pirates. We were wary of other ships as we transited, though any pirate bold enough to attack a U.S. Navy destroyer deserves what he gets. Vessels without the benefit of 5 inch guns or Harpoon missiles are vulnerable to robbery, kidnapping, or death at the hands of pirates. There aren’t a lot of options when you find yourself between an AK-47 and the ocean.

We didn’t meet any pirates on that cruise, but we did rescue a boatload of Vietnamese refugees who had been attacked by pirates. The 47 men, women, and children were robbed of their food and valuables and the gas lines to their engine were severed. Fortunately for them, they were stranded near busy shipping lanes. It made me think that even in the days of GPS, satellite phones, and radar, no one is safe from pirate attacks.

Sony Shoots Itself In The Foot With DRM Spyware

One day not long ago, a man named Mark Russinovich popped a CD he purchased from Sony Music into his PC. Russinovich isn’t your typical PC user – he arguably knows more about Microsoft Windows than anyone outside of Redmond. Russinovich founded Winternals, a company that makes sophisticated utilities for Windows.

While testing a rootkit detector he was writing, Russinovich was surprised to discover that his Sony CD had secretly installed spyware on his machine, destablizing it and compromising its security. It took Russinovich’s considerable skills to cleanly remove this rootkit. What really infuriated Russinovich was Sony’s refusal to own up to the spyware.

Fortunately, Mark documented the whole procedure on his blog. Word spread around the blogosphere to sites like BoingBoing and Slashdot. Now the mainstream news media like USA Today and the BBC are exposing Sony’s dishonest tactic.

Help spread the word that Sony spies on its customers and takes over their computers. Spend your money on companies that don’t treat their customers like crooks. Until Sony reverses course on this, I won’t be buying any Sony product.

Pack Back On Track

I spent Saturday afternoon hanging with my brother at our buddy Scott‘s house. We were on the edge of our seats watching N.C. State play at Florida State.

Fortunately, this one had a happy ending for Wolfpack fans. We were reminded of being there when the Wolfpack became the first ACC team to leave Tallahassee with a win.

Kudos to our team for a gritty, if not always pretty, win. Kudos also to Chuck and his coaches as they took what they had and they made it work. Let’s work hard and take this momentum to a bowl!

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MT.Net Back After Brief Outage

I went to check email this morning and was puzzled when things didn’t work right. Seems that at that moment Maestro, the server hosting MT.Net decided to give up the ghost. The likely cause is an overheated CPU.

I didn’t sweat it, though. The family and I went out to catch a ride on the New Hope Valley Railway. It was a beautiful day for an open-air train ride through a woods filled with changing foilage. It was also T’s first train ride and he took it in stride. He even did the baby sign for “train” for the very first time! We were amazed, and so proud.

After lunch and naps for the kids, I wrestled again with Maestro, fetching a new power supply to put into it. When that didn’t work, I got the idea to switch out its CPU with one of another machine that’s not currently being used. I did that about ten minutes ago and it seems to have done the trick.

I’ll be moving the MT.Net universe over to a new, hosted server soon. I’ll just chalk up today’s troubles as a good dress rehearsal.

ENUM: Nameservice For Phone Numbers

The more Asterisk installations I do, the more I begin to realize how dumb it is to funnel each one’s calls out to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). As the number of VoIP phone systems grows, it makes sense to tie them together directly, rather than send them through the hundred-year-old technology which is the traditional telephone system. The glue that will bind all this together is called ENUM. ENUM is described in RFC-2916 as a way of including phone numbers in DNS records.

On a traditional PBX, the number an internal user dials is compared to a dialplan, parsed to determine if its a long-distance, local, or international call, and is then sent off appropriately. The call goes out through an expensive analog or digital T1 trunk to get where it is going, from originating PBX to the PSTN to the terminating PBX.

On an ENUM-enabled PBX, the dialplan first checks to see if the number can be looked up in DNS. If so, it uses the resulting IP address to send the call to the termination point over the Internet for free! The ENUM-enabled call goes from the originating PBX directly to the terminating PBX! No expensive trunks, no long-distance charges.

ENUM is not just for routing around expensive phone charges, however. It can be used to link a phone number to an email address, a website, instant messages. You name it! It opens the door to whole new ways of communication. Instead of dumbing down a sophisticated VoIP system to fit the creaky, century-old paradigm, ENUM sets it free.

I’m definitely going to learn more about this exciting new service.

Free Labor – The Job Interview

An email I just read had me convinced I would be interviewing a job candidate in the five minutes. I was busy with another project, which got me thinking…

One of the best ways I know to evaluate a prospective employee’s performance is to give them a problem to solve and see how they do. Lots of people can talk a good game but when its time to roll up their sleeves, who’s in and who’s out?

This could lead to some interesting abuse, however. If you’re a cheap, Scrooge-type bastard, you could schedule all-day interviews with a string of job candidates. Give them some of the work you’d otherwise have to do, telling them you’re “evaluating their performance.” At the end of the day, you’ve gotten your work done for free!

Profit!!!11!1!
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A Smarter Cup Of Coffee

I just replaced the second set of decanters for the office coffee maker. Yesterday, some clueless individual left less than a cup of coffee in my new decanter. It was starting to burn, but not as much as I did when I realized someone almost destroyed my new decanter.

This reminded me of a way I came up with to save decanters: make the burner weight-sensitive. Put it on a spring where the filament doesn’t make contact below a certain weight. That weight would be the equivalent of one cup of coffee plus the decanter. No decanters would ever break. No fires would start. Problem solved.

A better approach is to do away with the glass decanter completely. Thermal decanters keep coffee fresh all day long, where coffee that cooks in a glass decanter goes bad in an hour or two. Thermal decanter coffee makers are also more energy-efficient: they’re on only when they’re brewing. You don’t have to worry about them starting fires.

But maybe I just have too much time on my hands.

Martha Stewart Would Be Horrified, But In A Good Way

I hoped to post some pictures of the floating ghost effect I created for Halloween. Unfortunately, I can’t find the pictures I took showing how it was set up. Luckily, Kelly did take a few shots of the ghost in action, as you can see by this picture and these.

The ghost was only visible from a spot right in front of the door. Often the kids missed it in their rush to collect their sugary loot. Only after I augmented it with a ghostly moan did it really start to attract attention.

The parts:

  • One flourescent light fixture. Lowe’s, $8 ea
  • Two blacklight bulbs. Lowe’s, $12 ea
  • 24×36″ Poster frame. A.C. Moore, $6.60 (on sale).
  • One bag of poly fill (for ghost). A.C. Moore, $2
  • Roll of 24 gauge hanging wire. A.C. Moore, $1.50
  • Spot of spray paint. Free.
  • Comforter cover. Free.
  • Speakers, etc. Free.

Total cost: $42. Total time: about an hour.

I spread the comforter cover out behind our porch swing, pinning it up on the back of the swing to provide a shield from the ghost. The ghost was placed on top of the comforter facing up. The black light was hung from the back of the swing, illuminating the floor below it.

To reflect the image of the ghost below, I drilled holes in the plastic sheet from the poster frame and hung it at a 45 degree angle from the bolts holding the swing. Originally I was afraid the plastic wouldn’t be reflective enough, but the sheet from the poster frame turned out to be perfect. It was light and thin, which made it bow a bit once I hung it. This uneven surface gave the impression of movement as one looked at one the way to the door.

The effect is that of a translucent ghost, hanging in air. The neighborhood kids were impressed. At least, the ones who looked up were impressed!

Hallie was so excited to help me put it together. She kept asking “Daddy, is it lit up yet?” Once it was lit up, she was still a little spooked by it, even though she helped me assemble it. I was amused.

Still, it wasn’t all perfect. I had hoped it would be visible from the street, but this turned out not to be the case. The neighbor’s porch light shone through it at a certain angle, washing it out. Pointing it towards the street would’ve also helped. I would have also liked the reflecting surface to be bigger. Maybe next year.

All in all, it was a great project. Now, what to do for an encore!