Fun with Flipper Zero

I’m trying to play around more with my Flipper Zero, especially since I came across info on custom firmware to unlock some extra features with the device. The install was extremely simple, just using the qFlipper application to flash the CFW: GitHub: RogueMaster / flipperzero-firmware-wPlugins.

There were a few extra steps to take after flashing, but as long as you read the instructions provided, it should work fine. I still have to play around with it a bit & see what else I can do with it, but I will definitely be reading \ loading most of what’s available through RogueMaster‘s awesome-flipperzero-withModules GitHub repo.

I haven’t actually played any of the included games or used the Game Mode, but since I’ve seen some questions in the Discord asking how to disable it (despite it being in the instructions πŸ˜‰ ) I figured I would also include it here for reference: UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT CENTER LEFT CENTER
That looks somewhat familiar πŸ˜‰

EDIT20220715-1913: SMc: Also want to make note of this:
/r/FlipperZero: WiFi Dev Board with Marauder firmware

Xbox App: “Administrator approval required for installation.”

So I got a new gaming computer last year, & as usual when I’m running Windows, I don’t login with a user account that has administrator rights. Instead, I login with a regular user account, & if I need to do something as admin, I’m either prompted (i.e.: Installing MSI’s) or I can “Run as administrator” through the context menu. Well it looks like that plan has a hole when trying to use the native win10\win11 Xbox app, & to install at least some games, the two I’m finding now are Halo Infinite & Halo: The Master Chief collection.

Halo Infinite: Administrator approval required for installation.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection

So I have a feeling I’m at least going to temporarily give my regular account admin rights to install the games, then I can remove, but it’s ridiculous that Microsoft can’t account for this. It’s not just the Xbox app either. It’s all the bundled “Metro” apps that are installed & updated through the Windows Store. If you try to run Windows Terminal as a different user, that user needs to have it installed. Apps are installed per-user, not for the system, so it’s just one more reason to continue using MSI \ installer EXE’s until this can be done a better way.

Fun Projects: Ubuntu Touch & LuneOS

Two things I’m currently working on:
Ubuntu Touch on my old Nexus 6P, just to see how it’s coming along. I did need to reference this comment in order to get mine booting properly.
LuneOS on my old HP TouchPad… Which is giving me some problems. It started off rough because I was trying to find some files that were released between 2011-2014, & then trying to get them running… Then once I finally got that done, I still wasn’t able to get LuneOS to boot. Here are some of the files I collected while working on this:

➜  webOS ls -lah
total 4503576
drwxr-xr-x  17 smc  staff   544B Aug 25 21:43 .
drwx------+  7 smc  staff   224B Aug 25 22:00 ..
-rw-r--r--@  1 smc  staff   6.0K Aug 25 21:43 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r--@  1 smc  staff   268M Aug 23 22:17 HP_webOS_SDK-Win-3.0.5-676-x64.exe
-rw-r--r--@  1 smc  staff   264M Aug 23 22:18 HP_webOS_SDK-Win-3.0.5-676-x86.exe
-rw-rw-rw-@  1 smc  staff   224K Aug 25 18:11 UniversalNovacomInstaller-1.3.jar
-rw-r--r--@  1 smc  staff   354M Aug 25 21:42 luneos-dev-image-tenderloin-20170430092844-stable-050-86.rootfs.tar.gz
-rw-r--r--@  1 smc  staff   354M Aug 25 21:43 luneos-dev-image-tenderloin.tar.gz
-rw-r--r--@  1 smc  staff   369M Aug 25 21:39 luneos-dev-package-grouper-20170430100826-stable-050-307.zip
drwxr-xr-x@  4 smc  staff   128B Aug 24 19:39 moboot_038-tenderloin
-rw-r--r--@  1 smc  staff   185K Aug 24 19:38 moboot_038-tenderloin.zip
-rw-r--r--@  1 smc  staff    60K Aug 25 18:34 novacom-macos.zip
-rw-r--r--@  1 smc  staff    11M Aug 23 22:06 palm-novacom_all-platforms.zip
-rw-r--r--@  1 smc  staff   341M Aug 23 22:19 palm-sdk_3.0.5-svn528736-pho676_i386.deb
-rw-r--r--@  1 smc  staff   6.4M Aug 25 21:40 uImage--3.0.101-20161117-94-r0-tenderloin-20170430092844-stable-050-86.bin
-rw-r--r--@  1 smc  staff   9.2M Aug 24 19:39 uImage.LuneOS
-rw-r--r--@  1 smc  staff   223M Mar  8  2012 webosdoctorp305hstnhwifi.jar
➜  webOS

webOS Resources

Just making note of some webOS tools \ resources that could be useful as I start playing with my HP TouchPad (Tenderloin) again. Specifically, I want to install LuneOS on my device.

➜  webOS ls -lah
total 744704
drwxr-xr-x  5 smc  staff   160B Aug  9 22:53 .
drwx------+ 8 smc  staff   256B Aug  9 22:53 ..
-rw-r--r--@ 1 smc  staff   352M Aug  5 11:11 Palm_webOS_SDK.3.0.5.676.dmg
-rw-r--r--@ 1 smc  staff    12M Aug  5 12:09 WebOSQuickInstall-4.6.0.jar
-rw-r--r--@ 1 smc  staff    78K Aug  5 11:27 org.webosinternals.tailor_0.3.1_all.ipk.zip
➜  webOS sha256 *
SHA256(Palm_webOS_SDK.3.0.5.676.dmg)= c2cd8346fd8e92e7090766652160879b0416ee1d4922d4942159c8c33442464f
SHA256(WebOSQuickInstall-4.6.0.jar)= 3dec2ca6b724a763a69019c6e0ed1803f4a12e8809bbe79eb80595b7819d5d00
SHA256(org.webosinternals.tailor_0.3.1_all.ipk.zip)= 9cdbef200daf21ea33fff883ac42809c80a204d7d562aa5ec6126b3fbaa728fd
➜  webOS

org.webosinternals.tailor_0.3.1_all.ipk.zip: Needed this version because it has options included for LuneOS.
Palm_webOS_SDK.3.0.5.676.dmg
WebOSQuickInstall-4.6.0.jar: I didn’t actually need this, but downloaded it because I was nostalgic.

So WordPress is giving me an issue when I try to actually upload a ZIP of the above (I can appreciate them not wanting me to upload DMG or JAR files), but I keep just getting a generic error when I upload the ZIP. This is mainly for my own reference anyway, but if anyone else is reading this, feel free to reach out & I can send you what I have.

EDIT: 20210810-1019: Just making note of some helpful links, that are currently still active right now (one with SSL errors, but the site still works):
– GitHub: WebOS Internals
WebOS Internals

Malwarebytes Labs: Relax. Internet password books are OK

Source: Malwarebytes Labs: Relax. Internet password books are OK

So this was posted on April Fools’ Day, but I do believe it’s a serious post & I agree with the content. The author brings up the point early: Whether using a physical password book is a good thing depends on your threat model & risk. If you are not good with computers & can’t figure out how to use a password manager (see some of my other posts about passwords: Don’t Change that Pa$$w0rd, FINALLY: A Good Password Management Article, & ANOTHER GOOD article about passwords) & you don’t have to worry about someone you live with abusing access to the book, then this is a great way to store passwords without remembering them or re-using the same one over & over. Having the details saved in a book that’s kept in a drawer at your desk is a good way for some people to store different passwords. And it would obviously stay safer if the book stays at home, versus keeping it with you at all times & potentially losing it while out & about. That of course leads to other questions like “What do I do if I am away from home & need a password?”, but that will have to be answered by the user: Is it worth carrying the book with you at all times or is it really something that can wait until you get home & can access the book.

Reasons why I run a network-wide adblocker…

In the last 24 hours…

Screenshot from Pi-Hole dashboard

For anyone else looking to run a network-wide adblocker, I recommend Pi-Hole. I have also recently started testing out AdGuard Home & will see in the long run if I decide to switch, or just leave it as a backup.

I run Pi-Hole as my primary DNS & DHCP server with an excessive number of blocklists (totaling ~4.5m blocked sites) & have no issues with it. I only started looking into AdGuard Home after a resource issue on my original Pi-Hole (it seems when I added Resilio Sync to my Pi, the system would lock up). So, I decided to replace RasPi 3 B+ with a RasPi 4, 8GB, & turn the original 3+ into the secondary AdGuard DNS server.

I definitely do like the AdGuard Home interface better than Pi-Hole, but will see if there’s actually enough there that will make me want to switch off Pi-Hole once & for all, or as my primary.

Goodbye Google Fi & Android

I find it pretty ironic that Google Fi is the reason I’m leaving Android as well. Whether it’s because of an actual Fi issue or juts a tower issue in my area, that caused me to finally switch off of Fi (something I’ve been meaning to do anyway), & I decided to switch to an iPhone to get more use out of my phone, but also so I could actually still communicate with some people on iMessage.

I guess I’ll also be looking into jailbreaking some more, especially since the phone I’m using for now is vulnerable to Checkra1n.