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I was thinking about writing a nice little page on stea… usin…. researching Wifi and how it works. So why not a better place to blab down some ideas then on my blog.

Just like most of the articles on this blog eventually the plan is to sketch it down on here then port it over to my website for a little more formal document. This is not the most technical of documents but will give a good general overview of what wireless is, how it affects you and some terms and all that fun stuff.

What is Wifi

To keep things simple wifi is basicly a wireless network someone sets up in their home or business so there wireless devices can all nicely talk to eachother. To keep things simple there is really 2 types of wireless connections. Ad-hoc and AP. Ad-hoc is a client to client model which one wireless client would setup a connection to another wireless connection avoiding a AP all together. The most popular is AP based. Meaning you need a nice embedded device (or computer) setup to handle all the wireless clients and let them talk to eachother. Most people only ever use the AP model because they want wireless to connect to the internet and this is by far the easiest method. With wireless AP devices so popular and cheap when it comes to buying a home router or any networking gear it’s almost cheaper to just get the wireless model of your favorite router to it’s old non-wifi partner.

What does this mean to me ?

This means when you sit down somewhere you have a much higher chance of seeing a wireless network around you that’s probably capable of access to the internet. Alot of people don’t secure their wireless network which sends all your traffic in the open but allows you to connect with ease. Like all things it’s never that easy. When you connect to a wireless network that does not support encryption you could be really connecting to anything, and it could take you anywhere. Plus for some reason people tend to think that no one can see what they are doing and everything they do is safe. This is really not the issue, when your connecting to an open wifi network everyone can see every single packet that your transmitting and even twist some of these packets to take you places you don’t want to go or manipulate some of this data and send it back. This is what I call an “untrusted” source. When it comes to the internet don’t trust anyone or anything you have not personally setup yourself.

Wireless works on 2.4ish GHz. There is multiple channels but to keep things simple it only works on 2.4GHz. If you have a wireless network in your home chances are your going to have to get rid of your 2.4 GHz phone and anything else that uses that spectrum because the wifi is very fussy when it comes to other radio noise.

Nifty Wireless Terms

When most people see wireless networks they only see the “SSID” this is the name of the wireless network your connecting too. Really this is just a frontend to keep things simple from our end. Your computer only see’s the “BSSID” which is the mac address of the AP your connecting too. For example:

SSID: Linksys

BSSID: 00:03:B4:05:C6

We would see the SSID … but your computers and devices only really care about the BSSID. This is handy to know if your in an area that has alot of multiple names, or you plan to dig a little deeper into this wireless network. Lets say for example we wanted to find some more information about that “Linksys” network. For example … the MAC address I choose is actually a 3com mac. 00:03 is a 3com OUI (and it’s actually the mac address of my old cable modem).

http://standards.ieee.org/regauth/oui/index.shtml

A quick search of that MAC address on this website proves so very quickly. This is nice to know if your looking to see what company makes the wireless router. Most people tend to keep things on default settings or change very little so this can help troubleshoot some connection issues i’ll talk about later. 

Ok so now your computer is connected to the network “Linksys” with the BSSID of “00:03:B4:05:C6″. It won’t just work from there. You got the 802.11 part taken care of (your connected to the network) now you need things like an IP address and DNS servers etc etc.This is usually given to you by DHCP. 99.9% of people run DHCP esp if they have an open network. Believe it or not you can pretty much get away with securing your setup from about 85% of people by just disabling DHCP. If you don’t give them an address not alot of people can figure out what the default addressing is for the model of router they have. This is where the BSSID comes in handy and the OUI. With this information you can find out the default addressing and manually set it. Like most computers and networks these days they are mostly hidden behind NAT (Network Address Translation) which lets you connect more then one device to a single WAN IP (Wan=Wide Area Network). Residental routers and such usually use a Class C network with a Class C address Range. The private Class C range is 192.168.x.x with a subnet of 255.255.255.0. This basicly keeps your client amounts restricted to 254 devices. An example would be a linksys network. Linksys default sets your clients up on 192.168.1.x @255.255.255.0 this keeps broadcasts to only clients on 192.168.1.1 -> 192.168.1.254. You can’t use 192.168.1.255 because this is a default broadcast address. Thanks to your lovely MAC address you can find out who the manufacturer of the router is and assuming that the AP is using mostly stock settings you could assign your self your own address. This is alot safer because most router models only display the DHCP clients and not all the wireless clients.

So ?

Well … so far I went through the basics. What a wireless network is and how to look a little deeper into it without even really doing anything. Im going to deepend this up for sure in the future with my article on how to actually capture this data in rfmon mode (monitor mode) and then use this data to get information your looking for. On open networks this means you will be able to see any unencrypted data in the open. For encrypted networks it means you’ll get closer to being able to break the keys.

There is so much to go through on this topic it’s definitely a multiple article type deal … keep tuned i’ll release more and then hopefully eventually make a nice official page on my site with all this information all nicely cleaned up. As of now it’s simply a place to blab down some ideas.

Chris

Watching commercial satellite services without a subscription isn’t hard at all. It does require a level of understanding that it can go down at any time for any length of time. Depending on the week it can go down almost every day to working perfectly fine for a week. Because no one fully inderstands “full emulation” we are unable to simply hop on the stream and get all the ECM’s. The coders are close and have brought the providers to swap cards. Like most things it won’t take long for the coders to figure it out and have things up and running. A PVR reciever lets you record the TV when it works so getting somthing with this capablity is usually recommended.

To keep things very simple i’ll discuss the 3 most popular methods to recieving this free TV

• ROM Card/Atmega
• DVB-S
• FTA

Of course I could get into aux sharing and IKS and such but really most people choose one of these methods to recieve the TV

ROM Card/Atmega

This method requires that you have an actual Dish/Bell reciever lying around. The atmega is a card that trys to “emulate” the actual plastic and can be updated via serial or USB depending on the model. This method is probably the most reliable and cheapest method to getting TV. Because of it’s close nature to an actual card it usually gets fixed before anything else. This requires a basic amount of knowlege and a j-tag cable to flash the reciever.

With a card writer and unblocker you can hack some models of the actual Dish/Bell card. This method is probably the most expensive and risky because sometimes the provider can “zap” these cards turning them into expensive ice scrapers. Aux cards are similar to atmegas in the update process but require a card writer to write the data to the card. You usually have 2 options. To go on the stream or manually enter keys. Manually entering keys is almost 100% foolproof and won’t cause you to loop your card. Actually letting your card “run” on the stream and get the updates from the provider can loop it easily. When the provider sends down a new ECM it can put a “virus” in and get the card to run it. This pretty much cooks the card making it useless. From what I hear people running these cards on the autoroll almost NEVER go down. Lasting months instead of days and weeks. Just like the atmega the card method requires alot of reading and understanding of how it all works.

DVB-S

This method is my favorite. It allows you the most control with your media and thanks to a great support team gets updates very quickly and lasts along time.  DVB-S is basicly a PCI/USB device that you plug into your computer and lets you recieve the digital satellite signal. The picture quality is great and using your PC lets you choose more elements to how it’s displayed (ie what codec for sound or video). This method is also cheaper then the other two because of the simplicity to get HD content around on your computer. HD FTA/Bell and Dish Recievers are very expensive and don’t come free. $30 DVB-S card and a fast computer your possiblities are endless. This method isn’t very easy to get going and requires knowlege in codecs and software. As much as I like it, it does not give the same experience a FTA reciever does (ie turn it on it works or it doesn’t).

FTA

FTA stands for “Free to Air” reciever, sold as boxes that can only watch “free” channels in the sky where quickly hacked to display encrypted content too. This made getting free satellite very easy and became very popular. Now, during ECM’s most FTA sites are almost impossible to login to because of the amount of people using it. This also causes the provider to target these machines. In the last 2 months FTA uptimes went from ~ 1 month to almost less then a week. It’s not often both providers stay wide open for more then a week without a ECM anymore. This makes the FTA very inconvienent. The nice thing about them is the easy method of flashing. Put the file on your USB key … open it on the reciever … and 30 seconds later you have the latest version. Some recievers went as far as using the internet to share keys. This is called “IKS” and is uses mostly on the nfusion. This lets updates happen instantly right from a legit card causing almost 0 downtime. The downside is you have to connect to a server and send out this information, which can provide to be a security issue.

Basicly, with one or more of these 3 methods your well on your way to getting free TV. This article never got deep into it but is a great starter place if your intrested in this “free” TV. Mind you it’s not just free TV it has to become a hobby or you will find yourself more annoyed at the downtimes then the enjoyment of fixing your stuff back up.

http://www.solosoft.org/projects/satellite - My page on my satellite setup in my home

Remember … it’s just testing … don’t get rid of your sub … you’ll be sorry in the end. Enjoy the TV while it works when it works.

This is what happens when you drink and play with a old microwave.

Sonic Boom in the Microwave

Sonic Boom in the Same Microwave Again
Foil in a Jar in the Microwave

Screw in Jar in the Microwave

Some Random Crap put inside beer bottles … then put in the Microwave

Trust me … there is alot more … the next microwave we blew up included a birdhouse in it … and napalm

Im sure if any of you reading have a Free To Air reciever capable of decrypting Beverly (Bell) and Charlie (Dish) you noticed that your channels don’t work. At this time the only channels left are some Dish Network locals found on 110w/119w and Bell (91w) is completely down.

Normally when there is a downtime a bin comes out in less then 48 hours and it’s fixed for weeks to come. For the first time in along time fixes don’t work. They put out a fix and it’s broken almost instantly from release. This is due to the providers using new timing schemes. What they are doing is asking for a bunch of numbers only a carded sub could answer. This basicly means your FTA box needs to be able to do these simple calculations to get a video signal. You might think that’s easy to fix right … well it’s not this dynamic code is hidden very well and requires reverse engineering to solve it. So now what is required, the FTA recievers need to emulate more of the nagra code. Not all recievers have the capacity to handle such complex work. After this ECM you will see alot of older boxes retiring from the lively decryption scene and become a true FTA reciever.

So don’t expect fully working fixes for quite awhile. There might be a few fixes for a bit but they will all get zapped right away. Right now the emulation scene on the computer works great for both providers. It’s just to get all that complexity into a simple FTA box.

Good Luck is all I have to say … for now i’ll watch my TV on my computer or the locals on my viewsat as long as they work.

I’ll post more when there is more updates. This isn’t very technical at all but it basicly explains what’s happening and why there isn’t any fixes yet. I don’t think FTA will die completely because there is WAY too much money sunk into it to just go down like that. Top recievers will definitely have a fix with the smaller ones later (when the coders figure out what the big guys are doing).

At one time it was cool to have 400 DVD-R’s burnt with one movie a DVD-R. Download 4.7gb DVD ISO’s for each movie. Eventually tho I knew I would have to change my system for distributing movies in my house. I am hitting the point where I want more movies then the hardware in my house will allow. Even a 500gb RAID (2x 250gb) fills up faster then you can keep up doing this. What I want to do is pickup 3 500gb drives and RAID them together then buy cheap xboxes and hack them to run Xbox Media Center. Sure this isn’t a high definition solution but it is a cheap way to get my movies around without having to burn them. Also a DivX compatable DVD player would work cause you can get like 6 movies a disk convienently on it.

The question is which one is more efficient. Keeping a hard copy or keeping a live 1tb file system. The large file system would let me get way more movies but also cause alot more fussle making sure the filesystem is intact and the network is working. I think AVI’s on DVD’s would be the best cause there is no limit. Ive seen people with 10-15 500gb drives all nicely put together and they still fill it up. This probably has more cost then what it’s worth.

DVD is showing it’s age. Compressed with Mpeg2 and only capable of a 480P resolution  it’s not the best system for distributing movies over the internet. Sure you can download the 600mb AVI then convert it to mpeg2 for the DVD and make fancy menus but it does take an hour or so to convert such movies and they do take alot of power/heat to convert.

So I am still deciding on which way to go. Throw some 500gb HDD’s in my P3   450MHz or buy a DivX compatable DVD player.

chris

Yes … you read right I actually designed a new page in my projects being a more formal copy of all my jitter jattering on my blogs.

http://www.solosoft.org/projects/satellite 

This page here gives some ideas for anyone looking to setup a satellite system                   capable of handling all the TV’s in the house. Maybe I can keep up this good                  trend and make more I have a TON of projects to do just little time to document them.

It’s been a very long time but I finally almost have my setup complete. There is only 3 more rooms to run coax in the house. These last 3 rooms are the most difficult and should be completed soon.

I have a whole slew of pictures of my setup @ http://www.solosoft.org/gallery/v/satellite . As you can see I was unable to go a simple one dish, 4 LNB style. It would have been alot more convienent and required alot less coax but due to the huge trees to the south of my property it’s not quite possible. B3V’s Nimiq 1,3 (91w) and Nimiq 2 (82w) are fine pointing from my house.

Not all satellites are this easy to mount. Without cutting down giant 25 year old tree’s I decided to mount my Dishnetwork (119/110w) satellite in the back behind these tree’s. This requires alot more coax and setting up a dish on a tree. In bad weather the dishnetwork satellite suffers from wind fade but usually keeps pretty watchable. All in all this dish works fine. In the fall those trees are supposed to go letting me mount this second dish onto my house. Or expand into a quad LNB setup.

 This is my dish mounted to a tree. With some minor adjustments to some branches I was able to get high 70’s in signal. Only in the extreme wind do I notice any kind of fade and it’s usually just a few blips and bips here and there.

 

 

Running the cable proved to be alot more work then I expected. Having to run about 50′ of cable underground right beside giant trees was not fun. Running into roots every 5′ was a pain in the ass. The axe took care of those tho.

Wanting to have more then 4 recievers I decided to go the Dish Pro method.  It’s a little more expensive to implement but lets expansion upto 12 recievers, each watching their own thing on any 3 dishes. Sure there is a DP-44 that allows all 4 satellite feeds but it costs over 150 bucks. I only paid 35 dollars for 2 DP-34’s. That gives me 3 satellites and 8 feeds. This is expandable to 12 if I got another DP-34.

 It looks alot more complex then it really is.

I have 5 Feeds Coming In -

 

•  91w
• 82w
• 110w
• 119w
• 82w

There is 2 82w because the DP-34 only has support for 3 satellites. I chose the more popular ones for my main setup and using that SW21 I am able to split between 82 and the DP system. This is not officially supported and does cause alot of signal drop but does work. I am going to get the actual DP21 to split all this but 82 is not that important right now.

3 Feeds go into the DP34. Port one has 119w, port 2 has 110w and port 3 has 91w. From there it’s as easy as setting up the recievers with the right values. At first I was having alot of issues with switching so I decided to ground my setup. The setup is grounded to the light switch. This is not nearly enough grounding for lightning so putting up AWG6 ground wire on the dishes isn’t a bad idea. Even after grounding the switches I still had issues. That’s where that Bell reciever up above the setup is there for. Viewsat’s only push out 450mA and a DP setup like mine requires > 800mA to even think about working. Even with 2 Viewsats powering the setup it’s just not enough. That Bell 3100 sits there and provides power only. I could get a DP-44 or a power inserter but im way too cheap and that works way to well.

That’s about it, plug more recievers as I need into it and if for some stupid reason I ever get more then 8 recievers I could expand it another 4 more.

 

It’s a simple setup ;) but it works.

 

I believe I got it figured out finally for my Satellite setup. I wanted to have 4x recievers reading 2 Dual Bell Dish’s. Thanks to my friend mr Ebay and some carefull reading I think I got a final solution.

Using DishPro LNB’s i’ll be able to plug them into a DishPro DP34

This switch lets me put 3 lines in and have 4x recievers coming out and supports the expansion of another switch (I have 2x of them so im able to run upto 8 recievers if required). Because a DP44 is so expensive I have opted to buy the DP34 cheaply and use a SW21 to add my Nimiq 2 (82w) to my main reciever in the basement. I don’t really watch 82 and there is nothing but high definition channels I can’t watch on there. Mind you there are some cool Much channels and some of the specialty channels you can’t normally get but my one reciever will have it.

I bought 1000′ of underground coax off ebay and 50 F-type compression connectors for the coax. I need to run 2x 50′ boots to my dish at the far south of my yard. I got huge trees in the way of 119w (Dishnetworks Primary Satellite). Shooting from my house isn’t exactly possible without cutting the trees so if you can’t move them mas well move the satellite there. My Bell dish is cozy beside the house and I can get both 82 and 91 there with very good signal.

This setup is a little more complex then I origionally planned but it should do fine and be expandable for the future. Sure buying 3x $150 recievers is a little steep but in time they pay for themselves. I want to run all 8 lines to the house and put the little walljacks in each room. I got the coax right

Just some thoughts but I think that’s how im going to do my final satellite setup. This solution seems the most dependable and efficient. Any other route I look into
requires alot of coax to be ran to my DishNetwork satellite and I don’t feel like wasting
50′x4 for one satellite hookup.

Network Picture

Here is a picture of my network and i’ll explain it in a little more detail.

It pretty much works like a web, every device has it’s own connection and can connect to everything along the line. Because my network is so small it’s very pointless to run redundancy (like a web) but as long as my networking devices are working then the network should be able to talk to every device that’s on.

The top of the diagram is a cloud, like on most diagrams represents the “internet” it comes in on a cable line because my internet comes from cable. Because of the nature of ISP’s and the amount of IP (Internet Protocol) address’s on the internet unless I pay a 10 dollar fee (per device) im stuck to
one IP. Lucky me there are networking devices (Routers) which can turn one IP into many (254 to be exact).

That’s a picture of my Cable Modem and my Hub. The Cable
comes into the cable modem and out to the hub which splits it into 2 cables. One cable goes into a ethernet card on my P3 and the other goes into the router which splits it off to my clients. That part of my network is really not needed
but I wanted a direct connection to my cable modem to my
P3 so I can sniff for network traffic from outside my LAN.
From the router I split it off to all my computers and switches. This lets them all communicate with eachother and the internet.

So such a complex photo is really quite simple … everything goes down the line and can talk to one another.

Just boredum I guess explaining this …

chris

I was thinking the other day and I kinda think I got somthing going on here …

Okay right … people still buy CD’s and DVD’s and even buy music off those silly pay sites like itunes and napster. Why ? I love paying money for a 128kbit DRM’ed copy of my song I can’t do anything with. I love paying money for a CSS encrypted DVD that they “try” to make hard to copy to my ipod. I love paying money for a DRM’ed CD that can’t even keep to red book standards and won’t let me copy. Are you starting to see a trend here. They are making it hard to shift your media from one standard to another. Each scheme they do gets broken within weeks but still it’s the entire point. If I ever bought a CD and it wouldn’t let me copy it to my ipod what good is it ?

This is all for what ? To simply piss people off … oh because people like having troubles copying these disks to other formats. Sure people can copy them for a friend or whatever but piracy doesn’t work that way. Most of the piracy is on the internet.

Remember napster and how worried the RIAA got on it but realisticly the CD sales went UP because of it. So what do they do … they lock down the CD’s and offer “pay” services which lock your songs down to certain players. Im sure that’s going to stop people from downloading music illegally.

The music you get from itunes is only encoded at 128kbit … 128kbit is NOT fucking CD quality I don’t know where people got this number from but nothing in a lossy format is CD quality. The only formats which are CD quality are wavs,flacs, or apples lossless (im sure there are more but those are the most popular. Flacs only get CD’s down to about half the size so a 800mb CD is ~ 400mb give or take. Sure this is inefficient but if you want a sweet sounding CD that’s the way to do it. Do these services offer .flacs and such of course not because you can’t lock them down.

With bittorrent and the internet you can download more music then a record store in hours all nicely labeld albums and 192kbit HQ mp3’s (sure it’s not CD quality but damn good enough for most people). Why would you buy a CD ? everytime you buy a CD or “pay” to download music from one of those sites you are supporting the RIAA.

You know what I say to that ?

Fuck the RIAA and don’t buy CD’s … download it all
isohunt.com
piratebay.org
mininova.org

get a client @ utorrent.com (Windows only) and download away.

Just a thought