Microsoft HotSpot in Forbes Magazine Firmware Lifting “Hack”
You may have heard about the free Wi-Fi hotspot that Microsoft pushed out in random Forbes magazines… This device comes with a T-Mobile GSM SIM card with the data service that lasts for only 15 days . I was curious as to what was making this tick, so I decided that it would be a fun experiment to lift the contents of this Linux OS off of the device.
The device has the following chips:
United-Tek H1602PR
Ralink RT5350F
Etron Tech EM63A165TS
These chips should be fairly obvious as to what purpose they serve, if not with a quick Google search.
The device has the following ports open with services started on by default: 80, 23, and 5820. That last one hosts a redirect site for a supposed login (or that’s what my phone seemed to think) in order to initiate the T-Mobile service? Maybe accessing that page triggers the “activation”. Please correct me either way.
Anyway, without further adieu, here are the steps I had to take in order to get the filesystem off of the device.
1. Plug device into computer via microusb and connect battery (this will keep the battery charged)
2. Wait for AP to startup, and connect to the SSID: Microsoft_Office365 with the password Office365
3. Visit 192.168.100.1:80 and login as admin/admin
4. Do whatever you want on this web interface regarding the router’s settings
4a. The FTP setting in here does not actually work, we need to do this via telnet (23)
5. telnet 192.168.100.1
6. Login as username: admin password: admin
7. cd /bin
8. vi new.conf
9. Paste this in vi:
ServerName test
DefaultAddress 127.0.0.1
ServerType standalone
DefaultServer on
AuthUserFile /etc/passwd
Port 21
Umask 022
MaxInstances 10
User admin
Group admin
DefaultRoot /
UseReverseDNS off
IdentLookups off
RootLogin on
DelayEngine off
10. We are changing the DefaultRoot to be the root directory, instead of /media/
11. In the same directory, type: proftpd -c new.conf
12. This will take our new conf and run it with our FTPD
13. Login as admin/admin on 192.168.100.1 via FTP, 21
14. Copy whatever you want off of the device. Enjoy!
Side note: I believe that you could simply copy off the device block and have it all neatly within a single file by performing the following, then copying it off via our FTP server:
cp /dev/mtdblock0 /tmp/rootfs
In case you don’t want to go through all of that, here are the files extracted: Ralink FileSystem
Cheers!
6 Years
My site has graced the Internet with its presence for 6 years. Six whole years. That’s a lot of bandwidth consumption. I hope all of you have enjoyed it!
No Root for You — Republished
Even though my publisher went belly-up, never fear. I have republished my book and it is still available online. Check to the side panel for a copy of my book, or search on Amazon and the like.
Site Redesigned!
Hi all,
The site has been fully redesigned! Please let me know your thoughts as I wish to constantly improve this site.
Proxify all the apps! Widecap+Tor+Vidalia = Anonymous Everything
Hi all,
Long time, no post. So, you want to anonymize not only your browsing experience but all of your applications as well without paying for a VPN… or wish to diversify what applications use what proxy? Well, look no further. Acquire the following:
Down to business. Install those applications.
- Run Widecap, create a new proxy with the following: Server:Port: 127.0.0.1:9050 and select a Chain (e.g. Unused)
- Select New Rule: name the rule, choose the Proxy chain to be used under the Chain tab (e.g. Unused), click OK
- Drag and drop the PuTTY application into the main white box of “Programs” under View programs, select Proxify only this program, make sure the box is checked next to the application that you dragged in, and that the rule name has been applied
- Have Vidalia running with a Tor node selected and running
- After everything has been applied, run PuTTY
- Enjoy.
This method works on all applications. Test it out on your own boxes and view the logs to see what IP appears as the connecting client.
Best of luck!
