phone

116 Articles

FEMA Phone System Hacked

August 21, 2008 by 15 Comments


Over the weekend, a hacker broke into FEMA’s new PBX voicemail system, made over 400 overseas phone calls to Asia and the Middle East, and ran up a $12,000 bill. The low tech hack took advantage of a “hole” that was not covered when a contractor upgraded the voicemail system. FEMA is currently conducting its own internal investigation, but FEMA spokesman [Tom Olshanski] did not have any information about the contractor responsible or what specific hole was the cause of the breach. Ironically, Homeland Security, of which FEMA is a part, had issued a warning in 2003 about the very same vulnerability.

[photo: silas216]

Engadget Goes In Depth With The IPhone 3G

July 11, 2008 by 7 Comments


Over at Engadget, they’ve taken some time to completely review the iPhone 3G. Take a few moments to stop reading about all the trouble activating them and read about the phone itself.

In short, they hit the following points:

  • The case feels thinner than it is.
  • The shape of the case makes it wobble on a hard surface.
  • Call quality is greatly improved.
  • Speeds are greatly increased.
  • Battery life is underwhelming.

They seem positive in their conclusion, we’ll have to wait and see how they feel after a little more time with it.

Neo FreeRunner Software Review

July 10, 2008 by 3 Comments


A first look from Ars Technica at the newly released Neo FreeRunner phone by OpenMoko reveals some interesting information. There are three different software stacks available to use; the Neo FreeRunner will ship with the GTK-based stack, referred to as om2007.2. It offers conventional smartphone applications, but most importantly, it includes “full root access to a Busybox shell with all of the standard scripting tools like sed and awk”. The ASU stack is what OpenMoko developers are currently working on; there are promises of a more user-friendly experience. The FSO stack, also currently in development, aims to resolve the issues brought up by having different software stacks for the same phone. Since none of the stacks are considered “fully functional”, OpenMoko may have a difficult time attracting a mainstream audience. Hackers may be hampered by the lack of available documentation, although there are resources for OpenMoko enthusiasts, if you just search hard enough. The final conclusion? While OpenMoko may be difficult to use, it compares favorably to competitors such as Google’s Android platform, which is less flexible.

Openmoko FreeRunner Now Available

June 25, 2008 by 6 Comments

Openmoko began selling Neo 1973 phones direct to developers last July. The phone is an open source project designed to ease development on mobile platforms. The Neo 1973 has since sold out, but a new Linux phone intended for the mass market has been released, the FreeRunner for ~$399. The screen is 640×480 with 3D acceleration and a 500MHz Samsung processor. The new phone has WiFi and 2.5G GSM support. It has some truly unique features like USB host mode support. You can find the differences between the two phones here. This new phone release should help strengthen the community since average users were discouraged from purchasing the original. Pictures of the phone’s internals and a component diagram can be found on the Openmoko wiki. We wish more manufacturers would explicitly tell us how to get console access.

[via Slashdot]