bamed.org

• Writing code and grilling burgers: it’s a good day #
• Lunch meeting: aka free f00d #
• http://twitpic.com/f8j13 New server is finally here #
• http://woofertime.com for those who have something more than 140 char to say #
• http://twitpic.com/f9ja7 Grandparents went home today; I actually get 2 hold my little girl tonighy #
• rt @securitystuff: Full Disclosure: Re: DD: WPA attack improved to 1min, MITM http://bit.ly/42hkm Full http://bit.ly/BRZTH #
• rt @darkuncle: fundamental flaw in GSM crypto allows eavesdropping on calls and SMS by virtually anyone: http://is.gd/2A7js #
• http://twitpic.com/fdzh7 Took the family 2 Red, Hot, & Blue tonight #
• http://twitpic.com/fe1x8 Joe’s sandwich is bigger than his head #
• rt darkuncle: the new linux-based phone/tablet/handheld from Nokia (N900) looks pretty awesome … http://is.gd/2ClBE
  I’ll take one #
• http://twitpic.com/fk5km poorch while we were gaming last night, I suppose a D20 is easier 2 see with night vision? #
• We’re using Google voice for audience interaction today at #chcc #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• NetWars begins today: follow the scoring at @sansnetwars #
• One meeting down, 2 to go #
• rt fizleglitz: I am trying to win a Kindle from author @clrsimple2 by tweeting #perseverance. for more info http://ow.ly/kqw7 please RT #
• http://twitpic.com/el1ll Back to school for Carissa #
• Running cable today… What fun! #
• More RAM and switching off wireless made a world of difference for checkin, Lois had a smile on her face this morning #
• My 4 year old just told me I need 2 clean my office #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• http://twitpic.com/db9cn Lazy Sunday afternoon #
• n00b boyfriend getz pwned: http://bit.ly/5s8rL #
• http://twitpic.com/dmmbf Location of today’s staff retreat #
• My child producing days are now completely over #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• http://twitpic.com/cipwd Bella dressed up for her first day at church #
• Back to work after a week off #
• it’s been too long since I’ve been in a rootwar; there’s just nobody around here to participate… #
• The 3-5 hours of sleep I’ve been getting since baby was born is starting to wear me down #
• http://twitpic.com/cwv6w Carissa loves Mucho Mexico #
• twitter and facebook attack was targetted against a single user http://bit.ly/236Pa #
• Touchable holography… it’s about time: http://bit.ly/akq7V #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

I’m sure everyone knows by now that Twitter and Facebook both suffered from a Denial of Service (DoS) attack yesterday.  For those who don’t know what that means, a DoS attack is any kind of malicious attack against a server or service that causes that server to become unavailable.  In it’s simplest form a DoS will make so many page requests on a web server that the server can’t handle them all.  It would be like a web server that could handl 100,000 users at once suddenly got hit by 1,000,000 users.  The web server can’t handle that much traffic so it slows down to a halt.  There are other methods of initiating a DoS depending on the target service you are attacking, but you should get the point.

Now concerning yesterday’s attack, today it is being reported that it was not a general DoS attack against Twitter and Facebook, but a specific target against a single user.  The user known as ‘Cyxymu’ is a well-known anti-Russion Georgian political blogger.  It appears the attacks yesterday were targetted against this user and his various online methods of being heard.  His Twitter, Facebook, and LiveJournal accounts were all the the targets for this attack.  The goal was to prevent this one person’s voice from being heard.  The result of the attack was to either shutdown or seriously hamper these services for everyone.

Now that all this is known, I think the attack, if its goal was to silence Cyxymu’s voice, has been counterproductive.  Now that every news site on the Internet is reporting the attack was against Cyxymu, I expect followers of this user to increase significantly.

Honestly, if I were a political activist and I wanted to get my message out, I might plan an attack against myself for this very reason.  So who’s really behind this attack?  I guess we’ll find out eventually.

• Took the kids to Pizza Hut today, all 4 of them. Bella didn’t have much pizza though #
• http://twitpic.com/caepn Bella on her first outing. Doctor’s office, pizza hut and Wal-Mart #
• #hotmail users: watch for email with JPEGs attached: http://bit.ly/TykzE #
• Reverse Engineering by Crayon from #BlackHat: http://bit.ly/alYQz #
• Leaked signal in PS/2 electrical ground can allow keylogging from nearby electrical outlet: #Blackhat presentation: http://bit.ly/11fLuF #
• bamedNew blog post: My #BoostBerry: Boost Mobile on a BlackBerry, with Browser and MMS working http://bit.ly/1gsrv4 #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Being budget-minded (read tightwad) I was excited to hear about Boost Mobile’s $50 unlimited plan.  That’s unlimited voice, data, and text for $50/month.  The only drawback is that it is slow, using Nextel’s IDEN network, and not the more modern 3G, but it’s definetly usable.

Most of the phones available through Boost aren’t that great, but Boost is basically Nextel, and any Nextel phone can be used with Boost by only switching the SIM card.  So I got my hands on the Blackberry Curve 8350i.

Out of the box, you can make phone calls, but no data and no texting without a little work.  The iDEN network does not out of the box support texting, but Motorola has it’s own proprietary MMS protocol that works with their phones.  As far as data goes, Boost does not offer a Blackberry plan, so BIS and BES are out of the question; however, TCP works, so if you can get Opera mini installed and other apps that use a TCP connection and does not rely on BIS/BES than you’re fine.  But this means the Blackberry Browser does not work, and OTA downloads, even from Opera mini or the Bolt browser still need the Blackberry Browser to download and install.

The other feature that Blackberries are known for is their push email service.  Since BIS/BES don’t work, this also doesn’t work out of the box.

The answer to these problems is by using certain service books that have been hacked to allow the used of the Blackberry Browser either over Wifi or over the TCP network.  There’s also some service books available that fix the MMS problem.  Finally, ShangMail provides a free push email service that works with the Blackberry.

I’ve collected several service books that had all the hacks I needed to work and combined them into a single file located here.  In order to isntall it, download and unzip it first.  Then from your Blackberry go to Options->Advanced Options->Service Book.  Know hold down the Alt key and type S-B-E-B.  If you did this right you will get the message, “Legacy SB Restore Enabled.”  Now go the Blackberry Desktop Manager and go to Backup/Restore, then Advanced.  I would suggest doing a full backup before continuing.  I would also suggest you backup your service books seperately in case something goes wrong you can at least get back to where you were quickly.  Now open the file you extracted and install it to the Blackberry.  You may need to do a battery pull, but after that you should be able to use the Blackberry Browser and MMS should be working.  You may have to switch between the HotSpot Broswer and Browser inside the Browser settings as needed.

For Shangmail go to http://en.shangmail.com/ and sign up for a free account, then install their free software.  Now login to your new account and add up to 5 existing email accounts to have them pushed to your Boostberry.

That should be it.  Download whatever other apps you might want, either OTA or from your desktop.  I suggest the BOLT browser, WeatherEye, Google Maps, the MobiPocket E-Book Reader, and the Bible software from http://www.youversion.com.

Have fun!