A Nifty Little Hacking Machine

   

Two months on, my Raspberry Pi 2 Model B (about Php1,600.00) is proving to be a tinkerer's delight. Being an ARM CPU-based "computer", it is capable of running a variety of distros optimized for the RPi2 hardware. Like most noobs, I opted for the Raspbian Debian "Wheezy", which I've managed to break and un-break several times in a sort of getting-to-know-you way. Getting the Wheezy from the Raspberry Pi Website into my RPi2 involves quite a few things: formatting a compatible SD card ("SDFormatter" is recommended) and burning the Wheezy image into it (I prefer the "Apple Pi Baker"), booting up and configuring the RPi2 proved to be quite an involved process. Looking for software to do the formatting and image burning by itself was quite a tedious process because I have to find and test each one to find out what works on my MacBook circa 2007. And as I am wont to do, I went through the install/configure/install process several times just for the sheer pleasure (or pain) of it. And picking up bits and pieces of tech voodoo along the way.

    On its first boot I plugged the RPi2 to an Ethernet, an old Apple aluminum keyboard and a 40-inch Sony flat screen TV and watched the gobbledygook scroll up the screen. Truly boring stuff-- much like watching paint dry, so in the meanwhile I pinged (using "Fing" on my iPhone) my router and zeroed in on the RPi2's IP address. With that info I moseyed over to my trusty old MacBook and SSHed to the RPi which surprisingly just worked without further configuration. I unplugged the TV and the keyboard and proceeded with the rest of the update/upgrade/configuration headless.

   Going all out portable on the RPi2 I dug up my Edimax nano WiFi adapter (Php650.00) and a power bank with a 5V/2A output a friend gave me (I used it as a back-up power for my MacBook). To my surprise the Edimax is plug and play and the power bank supplied ample power.

    Last week, I got a 2.8TFT capacitive touch screen (Php2,300.00) and got it to work on the RPi2 with a kernel patch. Though the touch screen works fine for finger input, it's more for show than for practical use. I intend to get a mini keyboard later on (Rii mini keyboard-- about Php850.00). In the meantime, I'll be using my full Apple keyboard-- which needless to state, is an anti-thesis to the concept of portability.

    With the prospect of a cheap portable throw-away hacking machine all it needs now is some decent hacking tools. And so I installed the Kali-Linux. I imagine myself sitting in Starbucks and wardriving the unwary tech-savvy posers-- something I used to do in the early days of WiFi before things got complicated and posers became somewhat smarter.

    Installing Kali Linux was a breeze. Getting the 2.8 TFT screen to work took some time to figure out (--basically using a kernel patch) but what really got me stuck was getting the RPi2 into the air-- I just could not make the Edimax nano WiFi adapter (EW-7811Un) to work (which, by the way, is plug-and-play in Wheezy). I knew and have confirmed that Kali Linux recognizes the Edimax with a "root@kali:~# dmesg". Running "root@kali:~# lsusb" likewise shows the same thing. But after trying all the work-arounds to make it work, it was a no go.

    After much head scratching and googling, I stumbled upon the information that since kernel version 3.0 of Kali, a driver (rtl8192cu)-- which supports the RTL8188CUS chipset of the EW-7811Un, is buried deep within the Kali distro. But, unlike in Wheezy, Kali doesn't auto-load the driver upon boot up. I should say that it was just plain stupid of me to try to make the WiFi adapter to work without first checking if a driver for it had been loaded in the first place. There's a lesson to be learned here but who cares if you're having so much fun-- as in life, the problem with being on the wrong side of the street is that it's so much fun.

    A "root@kali:~# find/ -name **8192** -print" showed that indeed there is such a module. Obviously, it wasn't loaded by default. Thus, I loaded it manually:-- "root@kali:~# mod probe 8192cu". A "root@kali:~# lsmod" confirmed that it is now loaded. A "root@kali:~# ifconfig wlan0" show that the Edimax is up and running. I opted the easy way out and invoked the built-in graphical WiFi manager of Kali to configure it.

    I had some success using this nifty little WiFi penetrating machine to hack into my MacBook wireless connection. Yesterday, I  took the RPi2 for a test war drive. It's my idea of a lazy Sunday morning-- sitting in a coffee shop that offers WiFi, sipping latte while scooping up data from the wireless packets in the air (this morning I used airodump-ng). As I sit there totally engrossed with mischief some friends happened to come by. It didn't take them long to figure out that I'm up to no good but when they saw the RPi2 it scared them probably realizing how an attacker could wreck havoc with a simple pen-testing machine (less than Php5,000.00) that could easily be carried around or stowed in a table drawer or hidden in a suspended ceiling to eavesdrop on an office network.

A Byte of Raspberry Pi

    I've written before that I consider myself a hanger-on to the first home-computing revolution, a revolution which swept across the United States of America in the early 1980s and eventually spilled over to our shores in the late 1980s when pre-owned, refurbished and/or cobbled together remnants of the first personal computers were dumped here. You could see tons of these machines piled on top of each other in every other store in Greenhills. Somehow I got my hands on a pre-owned Commodore 64-- the C64, as it came to be known. It looked like a breadbox with a keyboard on top. To get it going you plug it into a television-- I had my C64 plugged into an banged up Philips portable B&W TV. And that was how I started to learn to code.

    Back then when you turn on a computer, you are greeted by a solitary cursor blinking on the upper left corner of an otherwise blank screen. If you want to play a game, you have to "load" it up first and coax the game out from the void by typing a few indecipherable text on the uninviting blank screen. As crude as it was the C64 could be used both to play games and create games and other software. This, I think, made all the difference. Basic programming was made accessible to the average user. With a C64 one could learn to program if he chooses to; and if he opted not to he can still use the C64 as a game console. It was a computer and a game console in one machine. Somehow someone figured that most people are too dumb or maybe would prefer something simpler and thus the blinking cursor was masked over by a graphical user interface. The C64 and others like it thus gave way to dedicated game consoles and home computers that could be run with pointers and clicks. Self proclaimed "computer literate" users who have owned and used PCs for years have never typed a command on the terminal and probably never even knew that a terminal existed within the OS of their PCs. The chance to be intrigued, challenged and to learn programming was put out of reach of the average user.

    Thus I welcome the coming of the Raspberry Pi. I've read about the US$35 (about Php 1,500.00) credit-sized computer that runs on stripped down Linux distributions and the fantastic things hackers, makers and just about every tinkerer are doing with it. And when the second generation Raspberry Pi came out last February 2015-- with a faster 900MHZ quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU and a 1GB RAM, I got one as soon as it was available here in the Philippines.

    The Raspberry Pi 2 features three upgrades-- it replaces the single-core, 700MHZ ARM11 processor; it doubles the available RAM; and it packs four full USB ports, twice the number of the original. It also now have a jack for combined 3.5mm audio and composite video. But, I think what tinkerers will highly appreciate is the 40 GPIO pins (the original only had 24), CSI and DSI connectors for direct connections to expansion boards, displays and more. Collectively, the upgrades give the Raspberry Pi 2 a speed boost and almost doubles the fun of connecting to it whatever a tinkerer could imagine.

    As soon as I got my Raspberry Pi, I loaded it up with the recommended Linux-based Raspbian OS. I must say that the installer is well laid-out and will get you up and running in no time. I opted to boot up sans the LXDE graphical desktop and as the Raspbian OS finished its booting sequence, I looked up at the screen and saw an old friend-- the blinking cursor.

   

   

An LRT story

    The LRT crawls southward along its elevated track; it judders past warehouses and gleaming stainless steel water tanks precariously perched on run-down rooftops, past bridges and half-finished structures, past derelict tenement buildings, their windows plastered with yellowed newspapers ostensibly to keep the sun out, more likely to prevent prying eyes from looking in or maybe to prevent the occupants from looking out.

    Hanging by my wrist on a handrail as the coach rock from side to side and back and forth, I watch the buildings roll past me like a tracking shot in a movie. My mind wanders to the days when I had to take the trains to go to work; twice a day I am offered a passing glimpse into other people's lives. I always take the middle coach of the three-car train. Getting in thru the last or the next-to-last door depending on which had less people pushing in. From there I make my way to the middle of the coach and take my place on the pivot section of the train. At that time, there was no air-conditioning yet. It could become quite stuffy inside the coaches and sometimes it smelt like you got a sock-- drenched in sweat, stuffed in your nose. It wasn't always that bad though. Sometimes the weather was pleasant enough. The opened upper window helped. It let in a steady stream of air. Not fresh but it would do.

    Out of habit, I got in the next-to-last door. These days I seldom take the train, but when I have to go to Manila, particularly in the Sta. Cruz area I'd rather take the train than take my car. Parking the car and leaving it on the side of the street makes me anxious. The LRT trains are different now. The coaches are bigger and they're air-conditioned. They are still packed most of the time but somehow it is generally a more pleasant ride than before.

    It was already early evening when I took the train back to Makati. The weather was agreeable and there was a cool breeze. It was still rush hour and so the trains are packed. It would be uncomfortable I know but it would still be faster than taking a taxi. Traffic was horrendous at this hour.

    Two-thirds into my commute the train made an unscheduled stop; pushing away the cobwebs of stupor that commuters sank into as a shield against the drudgery of public transport I realized that the train was stranded between two stations. It wasn't unusual. The train is old and poorly maintained. Lately, there were more and more of these stops. It's all over the news. Settling back into stupor my eyes were lured into the window of a crumbling two-story house. The house looked pre-WWII. It is mostly in ruins. Darkness envelops the structure. I welcomed the distraction. My eyes scanned the ornate cornices and moldings, picking out more and more details as errant streaks of light danced through the facade. Gazing onto the blackness of the window directly in my line of sight I could faintly discern the shape of what looks like a portrait hanging on the drywall opposite the window. Soon enough a stray stream of light cut through the darkness. It was a portrait of a woman-- I think.

    The train stirred and jerked an inch forward. After a few seconds more the train purred back to life. Somehow my attention was drawn to a finger on my left hand. I caught a splinter in it a few days ago and the Band-Aid I wound up around it now looks like a dirty sock. I pull the soggy Band-Aid off the end of my pinky and look at the pale, wrinkled, pulpy flesh beneath, blood caked between the finger nail and the dead-looking bloated flesh-- a zombie finger. When I looked again the train had pulled up to the next station. I looked at the white metal plate that flashed before me. I took a mental note of the station indicated. My mind floated back to the image of the woman. The woman on the painting-- or was it a photograph, was holding up two fingers in what looks like a peace sign. Her eye close to the forefinger is captured in what looked like wink. A corner of her lips curled up in some kind of a naughty half-smile. Or so I think. It was like a mirage. And maybe as the image melts away from memory I imagine more than what I actually saw.

    I took the train again the following week and as the train was passing through the area where I remember the intriguing structure was, I looked for it but somehow missed it. It was mid-afternoon still. Maybe the harsh light somehow affected the way I perceived things. I let it pass.

    It was early evening when I passed the area again. I wasn't actually looking out for the building but there it was. And as the train passed by it I looked through the window and there was that painting again. This time I took note of the surrounding landmarks and without further thought got down at the next station. This is crazy. I do know what seized me but as my foot hit the pavement I stopped. For a moment I stood there-- and then reason drained out from my body. Before I knew it I was walking towards the house.

    And there it was. I actually couldn't see the house from where I am even if I stand on my toes.  A line of galvanized iron roofing sheets surrounded the house. The overgrown plants on the yard conspiring to cover it up even more. I was about to turn away when I noticed that a section of the galvanized fortification was hanging slightly askew on a hinge. Probably a workmen's ingress. Metal scraped concrete as I pushed on the makeshift door. Stray cats scampered away. "Tao po…" No answer. I walked up the driveway.

    I walked through the main door-- or what's left of it. The roof is gone too. Moonlight gave the place an eerie glow. I walked up to the main staircase. It was banged up but the concrete structure held. I walked up and stood at the landing to get my bearings. I made my way to the room. It was a bit tricky but I made it to the door. I pushed. Surprisingly it opened with nary a squeak. There was a gaping hole on the floor and so I carefully inched my way inside just enough to see "The Woman".  I blinked and waited a second or two for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. It wasn't a painting. Neither was it a portrait. It was a mirror. I began to turn around to see… and then it hit me. It was sharp. There was a moment of pain. I was dead even before I hit the floor.

    Days had passed when they discovered the twisted body. It was a murder-- stabbed in the heart, probably as he was turning around. Curiously, the dead man seems to be reaching for something. Indeed, just out of his reach is a portrait-- or was it a painting... of a woman. She was holding up three of her fingers-- like a boy scout.

   

My constipated Brain

    There is this trick I do in High School where I would browse thru the pages of a magazine then I'd ask somebody to pick a page. I would then describe the randomly picked page. It's not a word for word thing though, I would only point out, for example, that there is a picture of a girl on the right side of the page or that there is a soft drink ad on the left and so forth. It required no effort at all. Sometimes I could see the "pages" in my mind and I could even "flip" thru them to get to the one I need. It was more of a visual thing-- I could only recall the pictures and I forget them after a day or two. I could not recall text. Well, sometimes I can but not every time. It was a hit-and-miss.

    If there's one thing that can be said about the study of the human brain -- and especially in the field of memory -- it's that even today, it's notable less for what is known than for how much is not known. The workings of our brain remain, for the most part, a mystery. But if there are areas of consensus in the field of neurology, one of them is that the notion of "photographic memory," in which a person can take mental snapshots and recall every detail at a later time, has never been proved to exist. Scientists say it could be a version of "eidetic memory," which is, essentially, the medical term for crazy, crazy freakish recall.

    Am I making this up? Fat chance. My schoolmates would have figured it out on day one. It's something everybody talks about every time we have class reunions. Photographic memory or not one thing is for sure. Whatever it is it had served me well in school and in my profession as well. I had a leg up when examinations week comes up. And for the longest time I did not carry a datebook but remembered all my appointments. It was all good until I hit middle age. By that time I have been accumulating memories since I was maybe two or three years old. I should say that it isn't as if I have a day to day recording of everything that happened in my life. I only retain life events that made an impact on me and only those I personally experienced. Like there's this piece of memory that I vividly recall waking up a day after a flood and seeing millions (no, not really millions, but there was a lot) of hito on the yard of our host in Legaspi City. It's fragmented and I can't really connect it to other events but I do recall all the people I interacted with on that particular day. But as memories piled up-- the good as well as the bad, the ability for recall became more of a curse rather than a blessing. When an entire life is perpetually available, that life exists, in a sense, forever in present tense. And sifting through a perpetual and onrushing flood of memories is less fun than it sounds. It's hard, after all, to erase bad memories when you can't erase any memory at all.

    And that's the rub, I suspect that all these years I may have been suffering from depression stemming from the inability to forget unpleasant memories and experiences from the past. Particularly memories that had caused me so much pain. I think that this thing is likely the result of obsessive-compulsive thoughts rather than "photographic memory". I'll leave it to the experts. As far as I'm concerned I look forward to old age and the day I, hopefully, will be able to forget most if not unload all these "bad" memories that have clogged up my constipated brain all these years.

Johnny de Leon, Ngo-ngo and a deck of cards

   
    Grandmother calls out my name. I stood up, dropped whatever I was doing and raced into the house. By the time I ran up the stairs darkness has already crept into the house. Grandmother had gone back to the kitchen. Only the light in the kitchen is on. I would usually flop down on the floor near the kitchen doorway. From under the glass cabinet-- where grandmother kept her best china, I'd pulled out my stash of green army men then line them up for a make-believe reconnaissance mission.

     The AM radio is on, tuned in to the station of Johnny de Leon's program. It was actually the only radio station Grandmother listened to and Johnny de Leon was the king of the airwaves at that time. You could hear his voice early in the morning and again just before the day ends. He would do the news, commentaries and even dish out advices on relationships. On Friday nights there was "24 Oras" where he voices the character that would give resolution or a twist to a story that, you guessed it, happened all in one day.

    At six o'clock Johnny de Leon would break for evening prayers. He'd play a recording of the Angelus-- three Biblical verses describing the mysteries are recited as versicle and responses alternated with the "Hail Mary". After a short pause, a narration of the story of the "deck of cards" would follow. It's about a "soldier boy" who got into trouble when he was caught spreading a deck of cards during church service. He would be brought before the Provost Marshall where he would explain the meaning of each card. He would start with "You see Sir…" something I would mimic later in life whenever I was asked to explain. I would learn many years later that the narrator was the then popular actor/singer Tex Ritter--father of the late actor/comedian John "Three's Company" Ritter.

    Johnny de Leon would come back with his spiels then smoothly segue to one of many commercial breaks where Ngo-ngo-- Johnny de Leon's cleft-lipped sidekick, would do his "Bataan Matamis"  thing. It's interesting to note that in an industry where one's voice is the ticket to success, a novelty like Ngo-ngo could survive. Today where political correctness has gone overboard Ngo-ngo wouldn't even be on radio much less doing a cigarette ad. Ironically still, Ngo-ngo even recorded a song ("Hernando's Hideaway") and even made TV appearances later on. I remember Ngo-ngo as dark-skinned, slick black hair, short in stature, skinny and stands with a slight forward angle-- not exactly TV material either.

    There was no television then. No video games. Grandmother didn't even have a refrigerator. Instead she had this cabinet with screened doors where leftover food was stored precariously perched on a drinking glass standing on a saucer filled with water-- a precaution against ants, she would later tell me. No, there were no cockroaches. Never saw one. No mice or rats either. Grandmother told me that is so because she kept a sawa on the rafters. And, the resident tuko took care of the rest.

   Sometimes I would lie on my back and stare at the ceiling hoping to get a glimpse of the sawa. Nope, I never saw it. The tuko, on the other hand, guards its turf on the southwestern side of the house. You know it's there because he belts out, without fail, a guttural mating call right after the Angelus.



    

My Tower of Babel

I was maybe fifteen when I first became aware of a faint ringing inside my ear and head. At first I thought it's in the environment and that everybody else hears it; but when I started to complain and asked people if they also hear the sound. They looked quizzically at me and said I was crazy. I shared it with a sister; she said I should get help-- a mental institution kind of help, with these "voices" that I hear. It was only then that I understood that it's a highly personal sonic phenomenon that's inaudible and unintelligible to others. It's like a sonic mirage: a sound that doesn't exists but is heard and experienced by me alone. I later learned to suppress it by deliberately avoiding to pay attention to it. It was that or I could have gone mad. It is like being held prisoner inside your own head; a party that doesn't stop and you're not invited. It has since worsened. The disturbing and persistent sound had become louder and has increased in pitch.

It's Tinnitus.

It is quite common, the doctor reassured me. There is, however, no cure nor even a remedy to alleviate the condition. I was made to understand too that the condition could not be measured objectively by any existing medical tests. It's a false subjective phenomenon. Thus, the condition is rated by, who else, but the sufferer himself, on a simple scale from slight to catastrophic according to the difficulties it imposes-- such as interference with sleep, quiet activities. I rate mine as "troubling".

More than once, this internal hubbub had driven me to deliberately seek out "noisy places" to drown it out. I once walked out from an important meeting to stand on the sidewalk for a good fifteen minutes until I could "hear" myself think again amidst my inner din. There had also been several instances when I was roused from sleep in the middle of the night by the ruckus.

I would describe the inner phantom sound I perceive as a continuous steady whining buzz much like the "sound of the night" of my childhood but in a slightly higher pitch. Annoyingly, I could hear the buzzing even over loud external sounds. The problem is involuntary; I simply could not override or ignore the sound.

It is one of those things in life that I have learned to cope with. It made me wonder though that in the event I go deaf, would I still "hear" the buzzing inside my head; and, if I go mad because of it, will the sound continue to bother me or will it be drowned out in the madness.


... and the band played on.

Remon

I ran as fast as my spindly legs could take me. When I got to the public health clinic, I was not allowed in and so I ran around the back and peered into a window. It was Remon alright. He was splattered on a table like a broken rag doll, writhing in pain as three people were pulling on his arm. They were hurting him. Something didn’t look right, too-- Remon’s elbow is on the wrong side. I shouted something. I don’t remember exactly what. I don’t remember much after that. But I remember running one more time, this time to our apartment-- maybe more than six city blocks away from where we were. My lungs have shut down by the time I reached it. Out of breath and blue in the face, I tried to tell mother what had happened. But, no words came out. I was gasping but was not taking in enough air to fill my lungs. Laughably, mother first thought it was me who was in trouble-- like I was having a heart attack or something. It was just my asthma acting up again. Later that night, I still had a hard time breathing; I slept sitting on a chair with my head on the dining table.

I later learned that Remon was playing basketball, as he usually did after school, when it happened. Somebody deliberately went under him as he jumped to make him fall in a bad way. Unlike me, Remon was quite good at playing basketball and maybe for some it was enough reason to hurt him. An elder brother was good at it, too. I guess the talent and ability to play good basketball skipped passed me. If there is anything I was good at it's catching cold along with other air borne viruses.

I was actually surprised Remon was hurt in the first place. I genuinely believed then that Remon was impervious to pain. He was built like a tank with a body mass twice as mine. When we are together, people insisted I was the younger sibling. I was actually a year older. I was maybe eight then-- but I looked like a scrawny six-year old.

I remember the times I was asked to serve, as an altar boy, in early morning Church services. Our parish priest, the Rev. Fr. Kutcher, SVD, required that an older brother should accompany me. I brought Remon along-- who, by the way, never complained even if it meant waking up at the break of dawn. After each Mass, we shared snacks-- which the shops fronting the Church: the Frisco Bakery or the Mandolin Variety Store, provided for free. Of course, I was entitled only to one snack-- a bottle of Choco Vim and a piece of cake or pastry, from either of the two shops. But, I was so sure then that nobody would mind if I get a set of snack from each of the two shops. After all, I have “Kuya” Remon with me. And, he definitely deserved a snack, too.

We took different paths as we grew older-- maybe even grew apart, but I know that even as we seldom shared snacks as we did when we were young boys a long, long time ago, Remon, had stood up and spoken for me in times when everyone, everything was against me. Remon stood tall as my “Kuya” whenever I needed one. Yes, even if it’s not a Sunday.

Salamat Remon.