Tags: +Games+; +Hacking+

Now, I reckon that if you really wanted a Wifi Sniffer you would have run out and bought a cheapo from Tiger Direct, but for the few of you out there (like me) who just couldn’t afford to shell out that bit extra for something we might not get much use out of, good ol’ Mario has taken care of us.

Yep, that’s right. The fat Italian plumber. Bow before his might!

You see, Nintendos new offering (Mario Kart DS) comes with the ability to connect to most wifi hotspots/access points (except any secured with wonderful WPA Security). Now, to the enterpriseing hacker, this is useful. You can use the integrated function of “Search for AP (Access Point)” to sniff out local unprotected APs (as long as the SSID is broadcast, and there’s no MAC Address Filtering, etc.). I can’t WAIT to check this out further!

I’ll try to get some pics up soon - ’till then, it’s pretty simple. I’m sure if you can find this page, you can manage to use this “hack”.

Thanks for reading!

Tags: +Technology+

Well, this is a neat little tidbit: I’m sure you all have heard of the DS Linux Project, er, rather I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before. Well, now someone has gone and started another community based project. Long has it been said that we need a TCP/IP Stack, and now someone has started a bounty for just that thing.

Indeed, if you are intrested in donating, you can just go on over to The DS Wi-Fi Bounty and drop a dime or two hundred.

Or, if you’ve the chops, here’s the current rules:

1: The implementation may not contain code from the SDK or any illegal source. If such a source is suspected, you will be immediately disqualified and will not be eligible for any later bounties from StoneCypher.

2: The implementation must compile in a free compiler (preferably GCC.)

3: It is acceptable for the implementation to use existing libraries, provided that their licenses are non-contaminating (BSD license, MIT license, LGPL are fine; GPL and MPL are not.) To that end, it is recommended that the TCP/IP Stack List be briefly perused. Remember, commercial stacks cannot be used without written special dispensation from their vendors.

Also, bear in mind that there are three different bountys:

1: Figuring out the register set to accomplish (specific list)
2: Implementing correct connect/disconnect code and implementing correct send/recieve code, each of which works both with DSes and PCs
3: Bootstrapping TCP/IP (or, icky, UDP/IP)

At any rate, get out there, and GET CODEING! The bounty total is currently up to 2000 bucks plus! Wish I knew more C++…

Thanks for reading!

Tags: +Games+; +News+

There have been a couple of BIG announcements over on The Mod Gods (http://www.themodgods.com) recently. The first is that the scene has successfully created a method to access the DS from wifi alone! Granted, it takes special wifi cards on your computer (a list of which can be found here: ) but the important thing is that if you DO have one of the cards listed, you DON’T NEED TO GET YOUR HANDS ON A PASSME TO RUN CODE!!! It’s REALLY cool.

The second thing is that a guy named Dark Fader and HIS crew have found a way to access the firmware on the DS, and it’s not too complex, either. From what I gather, you won’t even need to solder, just short it out for the time it takes to update it once, and then from then on you’re set!

So, in closeing, not only can we now run code without expensive hardware (you’re still gonna need a flash chip, but that has uses anyway, and you might have wanted one even after it was hacked), and soon we’ll have custom firmware running around on our DS’s! YAY!!!

Tags: +Technology+; +Hacking+

Have you ever had iPod envy? Well, I haven’t, but after seeing all the cool stuff they could do that my Archos Recorder V1 couldn’t, I was starting. Somehow, even though I’ve hacked into my xbox (http://www.xbox-scene.com), it had never occured to me that there might be a community of hackers out there makeing firmware upgrades to popular items. Sure, I’d heard about it on some select DVD players, but I never figured that my MP3 player might have such an option. Enter the Rock Box (http://www.rockbox.org).

It’s a complete rewrite of the firmware for a host of Archos MP3 players. It takes something that once only played MP3s (and that poorly) and upgrades it to be a crappy PDA with calender functions, calculator, games (Wormlets ROCKS!), hell, even a greyscale image viewer and movie viewer. VERY nice. And yes, it still plays MP3s. Infact, it plays them better. I don’t know why, I assume the makers didn’t take much time to make sure it worked right, but now when I fast forward to the next song, it WORKS (before, it would sometimes crash the player)! It even has a car adapter mode (which the original firm ware was sadly lacking).

Very impressive. I’m hooked. I went out and blew $30 bucks yesterday on adapters for it. My MP3 player went from almost useless (I still used it as a big moble HDD, 15 gigs is hard to pass up), to being my third most carried gizmo (right behind my crappy cell phone (kyocera KX414) and my Nintendo DS).

Tags: +Technology+; +Narcipost+

Ok, I’ve never run a blog before, but here goes. Welcome all to the Monkey Dog Cafe. It’s a little slice of heaven that I plan to call home for a while at least. You know, unless it gets insanely popular. Then I’ll rake in all the cash I can from this milk cow. Heh, I mean…. never mind…….

Well, I’d have to say that this is going to revolve around cool stuff I find. I wanted to make it all about me, but honestly, I want a larger readership then my mom and the creepy old lady down the street. Hello, Mrs. Bigby.

Now, for interesting stuff. Any of you DS owners? I hope so, because there’s a lot of neat stuff going on out there. The’ve got arbitrary code running off of a pass through, and they’re makeing more steps every day toward a version of Linux running on our precious silver and black box.

Just wanting to say, Gmail is the best email I’ve yet delt with. Free (google for gmail invites spooler to get your own), easy to use, powerful, and POP3 access to boot. Sweet.

Ok, that’s all I have time for in this post. Got to get to renovating my ‘blog. Later, Mrs. Bigby. Love you Mom. Heh…