Topic: IShow DAC hack attack

[James]

I guess I'm spoiled.

I learned pure ANSI C on a Sun workstation running Solaris. I did my homework on a Linux machine and verified that with good old Borland Turbo C in DOS.

The real sad truth is that C was written for UNIX and lots of UNIX was written in C. They were quite literally made for each other. Unfortunately almost all of the IO in C had to be disconnected for DOS and Windows because these OS just don't work the same way as UNIX; particularly when it comes to the standard concept that any device that either produces or consumes data or both is a file.

Any device to be read and understood more easily as EVERY device is a file.

James. 

[Fanny Pack]

No device is a file.  There is underlying code that makes it look like a file.  What you are talking about is the OS, not C.  That underlying code didn't autogenerate itself.

[meandean]

Well, this is probably not the right thread for this conversation, but...

 Alec must be asleep at the switch...

[Fanny Pack]

It's OK.  This thread wasn't going anywhere anyway.  I looked into the drivers for the Ishow and they are based on ezusb.sys.  I am not sure I will be able to hack into that or not.  I was hoping it would use the FTDI chip.  I'll fiddle with it a bit and see what happens.  Or, if there is a programming port and I can figure out the schematic I might be able to just create new firmware for it.  I have a feeling it will appear on Ebay for $70 though. 

[cfavreau]

2 thoughts.

Ezusb.sys is a Cypress MCU driver right? if it is a Cypress MCU then it is probably related to the LINUX laser project no?

Also the firmware is probably stored in the Ishow folder.  If it is a CYPRESS EZUSB chip then it is 8051 realted.  You could disassemble the code and figure out from there...  maybe you could email the makers of the device and get an API too?

[Fanny Pack]

Yes, it is a Cypress driver.  I don't know anything about the linux laser project.  Can you give me some info or a link, if there is one?

I just downloaded the Cypress sdk and it contains the source for the ezusb.sys so maybe I can recompile with a sniffer in it. 

Once I get the actual ISHOW and CD I will know more.  Until then I am just poking around.

[James]

Back to the point of the off topic for a moment please...

Geeeez! ... some posters... 

Anyway....

Yes. EVERY device is a file through the engineering of a driver. You are correct in the assumption that not every freakin' thing in all of creation might be hooked up to a puter and simply BE a file, but in UNIX, anything that anyone has put any UNIX thought into will have a common file interface. This happens via a special relationship, as defined by the driver writer, that exists between the kernel and it's view of reality and the user (that's you and your code) and your view of reality. You get to the goods by opening a standard file stream. This ensures that your request and the kernel's grant come from the same place as every other kernel request and grant for user to user or kernel to user, user to kernel information streaming. Once you have taken care of the formalities of the file IO stuff, you can mmap() a file descriptor to a pointer. Once you have a pointer in user space, anything goes!

BTW this is also why every command you can type at a BASH prompt that deals with file IO works in some predictable way generically with every device you know how to call by file name.......  as in all of them.

Keep in mind, the UNIX command prompt is 32-bit fully multi-user, multi-tasking.

You also have the advantage of having ALL of the OS code, including the drivers, and you are often required to include the C header files for these features in your own application code and possibly rebuild your own kernel!

Why, on God's Green Earth would you do it any other way?

James.   

[Fanny Pack]

That's great.  That's why UNIX is on every desktop these days I guess.

[James]

No. That's exactly why UNIX is NOT on every desktop.

Nothing humans do by nature is organized, fair, logical, safe or for the well being of all.

Humans thrive on the cluster-fuck full of contradiction, corruption and most of all, self interest.

That is why UNIX fails and Microsoft wins!

Microsoft makes it possible for worthless do-nothings to make a bullshit living lying and stealing.

Thanks for playing along, HUMAN.
 
Merry Christmas 

James.

PS. Perhaps that was a bit harsh. 

All the best of computer science came from UNIX. Ruin it. Put it in a box and sell it at Walmart to the common turd and call it Microsoft.

Find one other UNIX expert who disagrees with me.

[Fanny Pack]

Show me one "common sense expert" who agrees with you.

[James]

Computer science is supposed to be human knowledge.

It should not be a product completely controlled by a monopoly.

Every time a product development engineer farts at MS, they come up with a snazzy trade name for it, put it in a box and sell it as a required upgrade for the previous boxed fart you bought last year.

They charge SICK amounts of money to third party vendors to become development partners, just to allow those companies to develop code and concepts that are useless on any other platform and that might eventually become part of MS. What a deal!

They invest HUGE amounts of money into education systems at all levels all over the world to ensure that people learn only what they want them to know!

There is NOTHING about UNIX that is any more complicated than MS. As a matter of fact it is quite the opposite. MS is made to be artificially complicated in order to create a hierarchy of people with MS certifications and fictitious pay scales.

Good GOD! Imagine the quadrillions of dollars wasted on MS BS, viruses, down-time and just plain doesn't-work-bad-code. What should we do about it? How would we replace it? No one arround here knows any other way! How many people are employed in the field of IT just to support the overall ineffective nature of MS in general? Answer: nearly all of them!

It all started out as a matter of necessity. Early personal computers just didn't have the resources to run a UNIX like OS. But that time is long gone.

Saturating the whole world, including government and medical with a "personal computer" operating system that has NO WAY to protect itself on a network is one of the most horribly irresponsible things any company has ever done to all of humanity.

And for what?

James. 

BTW MS is the only modern OS left in the whole world that isn't UNIX-like.

[meandean]

That is why UNIX fails and Microsoft wins!

  I'd hardly call UNIX a failure- probably the lion's share of the Internet finds its home on UNIX or
one of its derivatives because it delivers on what it was designed to do: serve up stuff on a mainframe
with very little overhead or vulnerability. Friendly operation on Joe Blow's personal machine wasn't an
issue because it didn't exist yet.

  The failure here, is with IBM- they invented the PC architecture. Their original model was OK for the big business world, but when it came to marketing to the rest of us, IBM continued to carry on like they were selling $500 toilet seats to the Pentagon. That will cost you an arm, a leg, and your firstborn, because we're IBM! No wonder other hardware & software manufacturers scrambled to offer copy cat products that were just different enough to avoid getting their pants sued off, while maintaining some compatability... Send in the clones! If IBM had humbled themselves to offer a Dollar Menu back in the day, they would probably still have the biggest share of the PC & OS market (as McD), along BK and Wendy's for competition.

[James]

IBM designed the machine. Microsoft came into existance to provide an affordable OS for it.

In 1993* or there about, when Intel introduced the i386, DOS/Windows should have been dumped and replaced with an OS structured like UNIX. That was really the whole point of making the i386! It was the first in the x86 line to be able to do task switching and it had hardware "rings" of access to allow for kernel vs. user CPU usage.

(* see correction below)

IBM OS/2 was supposed to be that replacement OS. It was killed by Windows95.

My first job as a software engineer had me working in OS/2, Windows98, WindowsNT, and Linux every day!

James. 

[meandean]

In 1993 or there about, when Intel introduced the i386

 I bought my first PC, a 486DX-33MHz back in late 91 when I was in the service, and had nothing else better to do with my money- I blew about 2 grand for it using some leftover per diem funds from a temporary assignment in Spain. I think the 386 was 89 or 90. Anyway, it took the OS geeks a few years to figure out what to do with 32bit. IBM introduced an advanced OS, but it was way beyond what any mere mortal could afford and you couldn't just get a copy of it from the guy next door (and then they created the ungodly expensive EISA bus)- that's where they blew it...

[meandean]

 Uh-oh! Blinken's online... Busted!!!