The antennas are back! Wardriving in a Tesla.

antennas on tesla
This project was cannibalized over a year ago.  With Raspberry Pi as difficult to get ahold of as they’ve been, i thought this project might never come back to life.  I launched a number of pi liberating ideas with some success.  I now have enough for both fun personal projects and to get my work done.  I felt i should explain the name wardriving.  It is a variation on wardialing.   Wardialing was trying phone numbers, looking for interesting things on the phone.  Wardriving is similarly driving around looking for interesting things in the air.

pi family

My wardriver is not pictured above, but these Pi are ready for whatever comes next.  I’ve recovered an assortment of different Pi from original B+ (pi-hole) to a 2GB Pi 4 (broken helium miner).  One of the best parts of this setup is the early Pi 3 (not B+).  This was a lucky find as it consumes less energy and produces much less heat.  With only 6 radios running (including GPS) the lower performance hasn’t been an issue, but the reduced power has been incredible.  Early testing has me getting an additional 20-40% battery life vs the original pi 4 configuration.  my cable management has also improved with this iteration.  The setup fits in a small box in my trunk instead of a tangled mass of wires in a large bin (prototyping is fun).  The reason power is so important because, believe it or not, the amperage you can pull out of a Tesla for accessories is limited.  Without an alternator dumping piles of unclean energy i am forced to resort to BYOB (bring your own battery).  I got a monster battery to power the Pi 4 and even more radios and accessories of the original prototype.

war driver pi in a box

It is fun using the ADSB live tracker in Los Angeles as there are always planes above.  Next step will be DJI drone tracking and some sort of dashboard indicator/control.  I started a WiGLE account, it’s off to a pretty good start.  i found a few APs, but i’m still figuring out how to share BT.  maybe i’ll join the #HardHatBrigade group.

war driver kismet data sourceswar driver kismet screen
be3n wigle stats
Kismet Live ADSB tracking in Malibu

Flipper software is coming along nicely!

Flipper with wifi-dev board scanning APs

Thanks to the exceptional work by justcallmekoko, RogueMaster, and many others there is now native flipper support for the unofficial Marauder firmware for the Flipper dev-board.  Marauder is firmware for the ESP-32 chipset full of security tools for bluetooth and wifi. The Flipper dev board doesn’t support bluetooth, but the wifi tools work and are usable from the flipper itself.  I cannot wait to see what comes next.

Flipper Marauder Demo

acme.sh is the ultimate DNS/SSL toolset! i have wasted my life!

I’ve been automating SSL renewals for almost as long as i’ve been deploying them.  for the most part, it is very smooth and easy to do.  (thanks mostly to certbot and the hard work over at let’s encrypt)  The trouble comes up with non publicly addressable servers and other custom setups. cough cough. . . Unifi. . . cough cough.

I recently discovered a tool that makes all those complicated setups as easy as the original certbot installs. acme.sh is that tool.  two lines!  not since screen have i regret any time i spent not using such a tool.

./acme.sh –renew -d “unifi.domain.com”

./acme.sh –deploy -d “unifi.domain.com” –deploy-hook unifi

What is old is new again! XP on an M1!

I’m doing experiments with UTM to create a single purpose XP system with zero network access. in this picture, i am trying to fix a damaged system while simultaneously installing a fresh one. eventually got it working like a champ, and now it’s almost as portable as an app.  Huge thanks to 4PCTechs for your insights and archive of ancient drivers!

Status update:

Big Sur install on desktop

I’ve played with Big Sur, but i’ve had serious reservations about running it on one of my primary machines. Apple backpedaled a bit on some of their decisions and i decided i didn’t have enough problems in my life. So tonight i’m jumping in with both feet to see how it goes and what breaks.  This may turn out to be a huge mistake.  We’ll soon see.

big sur beach ball

Not off to a great start so far.  Upgrades beget upgrades.  After a few rounds of up updating my 3rd party software my system is humming even better than before.  Finder is still clunky and has a tendency to hang in the most annoying ways, but they’ve added a few new tricks and an updated look.  Am i the only one who misses the brushed metal phase of UI?

Pro Tools users struggling with plugin licenses after activation try this. . .

Antares Auto-Tune screen

Users of Antares plugins, or others using Codemeter license manger may be locked out of their licences in Pro-Tools.  The licenses show up in the various license managers, but Pro-Tools says NO. This is due to added file system security of Mojave.  Add Pro Tools to the “Full Disk Access” list in Security & Privacy System Preference. That should solve the problem.  good luck.

@defcon just retweeted me!

In a tweet by @todayininfosec we were all reminded of this day in 1999 when @Dildog and the cDc crew presented Back Orifice 2000 (BO2K) to a delighted crowd at Defcon 7.  It was quite a show complete with music, projectors, lights, lasers, and even a Speak-n-Spell.  It was a lot of fun, and i was elated to be there. i replied early with my memories, but then i remembered that i had found some photos while cleaning. . .so i posted them. These were film prints from an instamatic (as was the style at the time), so they didn’t come out great!  they do offer a tiny keyhole through which we may peer into the past.  i am glad it is bringing joy.  Then @defcon (the official conference account) retweeted. *blush*

Defcon Retweets Me