Sunday, May 18, 2003

All is quiet..... .... before the storm. I have big news (big for me, anyway), but it will have to wait a day or two. It should explain my recent relative silence. TiVo recently upgraded the system software to support USB<->Ethernet bridges (including 802.11). This is to support the Home Media Option. However, you do not have to buy HMO to enable the networking support; it just works. Since I already have an active 802.11 network at home, I picked up a Linksys WUSB11 USB<->802.11 bridge in hopes that it would solve the lightning induced melted modem problem that my TiVo is currently suffering from. As I really wanted to solve the problem before today, I couldn't order said adaptor from some place cheap (like Amazon). Instead, I was going to resort to picking up said device at CompUSA. However, CompUSA had the WUSB11 for $80! That is considerably more -- $30 more-- than I was expecting to have to pay over mail order. At random, I decided to give Wal-Mart (wusb11 not listed in online store) a try. Not only did they have the WUSB11, but it was priced at $60 -- $10 more than amazon, without including shipping. While Wal-Mart has considerably less selection than CompUSA, they have the most important items (networking, upgrades, printers, etc) and their prices are generally better. In any case, installation was elegantly painless. plug in usb cable to TiVo and adaptor TiVo adds "New/unread message" notification to main menu Message reads: New network adaptor detected, go to ### to configure Go to ###, select "Configure Network" Select equivalent of "use wireless network adaptor" Select my home wireless LAN (by name) Done! It just works -- my TiVo now downloads scheduling information via my broadband connection. Cool. nmap reveals that there are a couple of ports open; look to be the basis for the Home Media Option implementation. I haven't explored further. Speaking of nmap, I saw Matrix: Reloaded on Wednesday evening. Awesome flick -- just see the first one before you see reloaded. I would say that it isn't as strong a movie as the first Matrix, but that may be largely because it doesn't have the "Oh Wow! THIS is totally NEW!" impact of the first. In one scene, Trinity does a bit of hacking. As she pulls up to the terminal, I was not going to be surprised-- disappointed, yes-- to see the classic Apple ][ assembly listing go whizzing by. But, no, seems that someone actually consulted with a real sys-admin/geek/developer/techie. End result; the Wachowski brothers deserve an oscar for creating the first believable hack scene to come out of Hollywood. Trinity whips off a bit of nmap magic to find a host on the net, then leverages the CRC32 SSH exploit that made the rounds last year, and ssh's into the target machine. Insecure .org has an excellent write-up with screen shots. 1:23:57 PM  pontificate