Entries Tagged 'Cellphone' ↓

A class 0 SMS (or Flash SMS) is an SMS that is automatically opened and displayed on the recipient’s phone without being saved in the inbox. On Nokia phones and Blackberries there are usually an option to save a received flash SMS, but on iPhones there are only a big “Dismiss” button and best of all the sender’s number is not displayed! This means you can use this technique for much mischief…

On the left is an example of a Flash SMS received on an iPhone. As you can see there is no option to save it or view the sender’s number. On other phones the sender’s number is displayed.

You need a jailbroken iPhone for this to work. First read the page here:http://xsellize.com/topic/25209-flash-sms-on-iphone/
It shows you how to install Minicom from cydia and configure it to connect to /dev/tty.debug .
The post is informative but lacks three important pieces of information.

1. First step: mkdir /usr/etc
2. Before entering “at”, first press down and hold in spacebar until the cursor starts moving. You need to do this to “get the attention” of the /dev/tty.debug modem otherwise it’s just going to ignore everything you send it.
3. When crafting your Flash SMS using http://rednaxela.net/pdu.php , SMSC should be 0 and Receiver is the number of the person you’re sending the message to. Remember to set message class to 0.

Once the modem is responding to your commands in Minicom, simply enter the following:
AT+CMGF=0
AT+CMGS=(number from the site in the “Hex PDU message” column)
> (Paste the characters from the pdu site but do not press enter)
Press Ctrl+Z

That’s it. Enjoy!

If you don’t know what RICA is, don’t worry, not very many people aside from the internet community actually knows about it. Have a look at http://www.vodacom.co.za/rica/index.jsp. Basically, it means you have to register your name, surname, ID number and home address to your cellphone number by the end of 2010, otherwise you will get disconnected.

Now there are already hundreds of posts and comments about how this is a totally unfeasible initiative, how it’s childish to think it would do anything to help fight crime, and how the idiot that thought it would be a good idea should be fired immediately, but I haven’t seen anybody make the most obvious argument against it yet, which is this:

There is no way for an operator to distinguish between a prepaid user living in a home with access to TV/newspapers/the internet and a prepaid user living in a shack in the middle of nowhere. FICA worked because it involves money, if you don’t have money you don’t have to worry about it. RICA on the other hand affects -all- people, and you can’t make arbitrary rules like “people in rural and informal settlements don’t have to comply” or “people in informal settlements can provide the address of the nearest school/church instead” (yes, RICA actually says that), because you physically can’t tell who is who.

Statement one: It is impossible to force at least one user on your network to register his address.
Statement two: One user is indistinguishable from another (All users are the same).
Conclusion: It is impossible to force any user on your network to register his address.

If you can’t get the people with no permanent home address to comply, and you cannot distinguish them from people with permanent residence, it is impossible to force anyone to comply. The only alternative is to disconnect -all- users. Let’s see how well that turns out if that happens…

The solution: Just don’t comply. You still have about 17 months anyway, so rather wait and see how it plays out.

Spoiler alert: fairplayd is required by some apps to run, including “xe”, “tap defense” and others.

So I ssh’ed into my iPhone after jailbreaking it and checked the output of ps aux to see what’s running on it. One of the process names that stood out was “fairplayd” located at /usr/sbin/fairplayd .

Googling around indicates that it is used to handle DRM on the iPhone, and since I won’t be needing that I tried to kill it. It just started itself right up, so I searched and found this post on how to remove it: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1182858.html

launch control was trying to restart fairplayd constantly, but I found a way to turn it off properly.

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.fairplayd.plist

I them moved /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.fairplayd.plist to /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/Archive/com.apple.fairplayd.plist

And now I’m without fairplay .

At first I had no issues, iPod still played music and everything seemed to work. But later I discovered that some apps would crash “springboard” when starting up, which required a reload.

So bottom-line, if you are wondering whether to remove fairplayd or not, don’t. Some apps use it.

Since I will probably be spending a lot of time playing around with the iPhone in the near future, I started an iphone blog to share some tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your iPhone in South Africa. I will be writing about things like setting up a development environment on a non-MAC PC, how to get free and payed apps from the US iTunes store and jailbreaking the phone the way god intended. Link: iphone.iblog.co.za

Please post a comment if you find this post helpful (or not), or to ask any question.
Update: A lot of people are asking me to send the GPRS settings to their phone so they can use it to browse. If you are with Vodacom, just dial *111# , select “Device Setup” and follow the instructions. Easy. MTN Users dial 082 173 for GPRS settings and Cell-C users dial 084 140 to speak to an operator to set up their GPRS. Virgin Mobile sims are preloaded with their GPRS settings.

List of network GPRS details:

Notes:
1. Try leaving out DNS addresses first. DNS servers are usually assigned automatically to your device on connect.
2. If you are using Vodacom and GPRS does not want to work, first call customer support and make sure your sim is activated for the “internet” APN.

For windows:
1. Go to Control Panel->Phone and Modem options->Modems tab->Select the correct bluetooth modem->click properties->Select advanced Tab. In the field “Extra Initialization Commands”, enter: AT+cgdcont=1,”IP”,”internet” . Replace “internet” with the correct APN name from the table above.
2. Create a new dialup connection. Dialup number is *99# , and leave username and password fields blank.

For Linux:
You can follow my guide below, but first take a look at GPRS Easy Connect: http://easyconnect.linuxuser.hu/modules/index/
If you can’t get that to work for you, try following this guide:
http://www.iki.fi/mikko.rapeli/linux_gprs.html

I had to make some minor changes:
1. Select bluetooth(/dev/rfcomm0) instead of usb connection to phone
2. Select gprs-connect-chat script instead of wvdial.conf (connect /etc/ppp/peers/gprs-connect-chat)
3. Increased a timeout in gprs-connect-chat since vodacom takes a bit longer to connect.

Make sure to edit the following line correctly according to the table above, replacing “internet” with the correct APN name for your network:
‘AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”internet”,”",0,0′

Here is my config files from /etc/ppp/peers, tested and working with Vodacom&MTN and a Nokia 6600 via bluetooth:
gprs
gprs-connect-chat
gprs-disconnect-chat

Now get your phone’s HW address: hcitool scan.
Bind your phone’s HW address: sudo rfcomm bind 0 (phone 's HW address)
Dial up: sudo pppd call gprs

!!GPRS SETUP GUIDE MOVED!! This post has been updated recently. For the GPRS setup guide, see: http://psichron.za.net/wordpress/?p=10 Cell Phone Network Operator Review: This is a review of my experience with Vodacom, MTN and Virgin Mobile’s prepaid GPRS options. Includes comparison of cost, reliability, ease of use, marketing, support, and overall impression.

Cost:
+1 Vodacom: About R5 for the sim, including no airtime. Data @ R2/Mb
+2 MTN: About R4 for the sim, received R10 free airtime. Data @ R2/Mb
+3 Virgin: R55 for the sim and starter pack, including R50 airtime. Data @ 50c/Mb

Reliability:
+1 Vodacom: Poor. Sometimes difficulty connecting, especially in certain areas. Frequent Disconnects.
+2 Virgin: Inconsistent. Would work fine one day, serious difficulty connecting the next. Sometimes suffer from domain name lookup issues. Occasional disconnects, some days worse than others.
+3 MTN: Excellent. Admittedly I only tested it before their last systems upgrade. Always connects, always on. Disconnects rare.

Ease of use:
+1 Vodacom: You need to call an operator to have your sim activated for GPRS. Dial *111# ,select “MMS settings” and follow the prompts for vodacom to send you the correct configuration settings.
+2 MTN: Call *123* to get the correct settings for your phone. GPRS works out the box.
+3 Virgin: GPRS works out the box, settings automatically sent to phone.

Support:
+1 for all. All three networks have representatives on myadsl.co.za.

Marketing:
-666. Vodacom: If it was not for that meerkat, they wouldn’t have lost any points. Their ads used to be witty, but the sheer retardedness of its current campaign makes me choke on my own bile every time I see an ad. That meerkat should burn in hell.
-100. Virgin: All I can say is “What a joke.”. Are we all mentally handicapped that their advertisement team decided to write everything as if for primary school kiddies? I guess you can’t do any better if you have a sub-100 IQ yourself, or maybe it’s their American Mentality. Their website is horrible.
0. MTN: “Y’ellow summer”. Irretating ads and severely challenged slogans, but they do much for promotion. Cancels out.
1. CellC: I just put this in here to show that not all ZA’s operators have 3rd rate morons in their marketing dept. Ads range from OKish to brilliant.

Connection type:
All GPRS users connect from behind a single gateway IP address. There is no way you will get your own IP for GPRS. Unless you know some important people, you are stuck behind NAT. (There is cases of 3G users with unique IPs on some networks.)

Overall:
If you leave out marketing the totals are as follows:
4. Vodacom: (YOU FAIL!) Vodacom’s reliability issues might be due to oversubscription.They should definately lower data costs. They have some cool extra features though.
8. MTN: (THINKOFTHECHILDREN!) Reliable, but should also definitely look at their data pricing.
9. Virgin: (LOZL!) After being with Vodacom, there is nothing like checking your balance and seeing you still have airtime left.

Winner: VIRGIN MOBILE. The other two network are just way too expensive.

Of course I can rant about the insane cost of telco’s in South Africa, and with justification, but that wouldn’t bring us anywhere.

So I’d like to introduce Vodacom subscribers to def’s website and his WAP page that allows you to use Vodacom’s free online-SMS service from your mobile phone, at a fraction of the rate it would have cost to send the actual SMS. You get 20 free SMSes per day. This is the link to the WAP site: http://wap.defza.com

Def, like myself, is also a Student at Stellenbosch University.