Using an old BlackBerry as a portable SSH or Telnet terminal(rqsall.com)
rqsall.com
Using an old BlackBerry as a portable SSH or Telnet terminal
https://rqsall.com/posts/using-an-old-blackberry-as-a-portable-ssh-terminal
16 comments
I'm really sad BlackBerry is no longer making phones. I really wanted a key2, but I think I'm just gonna have to trade the physical keyboard for something I can degoogle, because you can't root BBs.
There is the Fxtec Pro1
And also the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOJQS0IB1LA you can also root.
I'm still upset that they killed their Livermorium Keyboard plan. I bought a Moto Z with the Livermorium in mind.
A little late, but wanted to let you know you can de-google BlackBerry phones. I have on my KeyOne.
Everything from Google Services Framework to the Play Store is disabled. There's not much point striving to remove it - those are all system apps, making them easy enough to disable, and uninstalling them won't net me aby additional useable space.
Notifications still work well, battery life lasts at least a day and a half, and the phone is fast and responsive despite the older SoC and "scant" 2 GB of RAM.
Everything from Google Services Framework to the Play Store is disabled. There's not much point striving to remove it - those are all system apps, making them easy enough to disable, and uninstalling them won't net me aby additional useable space.
Notifications still work well, battery life lasts at least a day and a half, and the phone is fast and responsive despite the older SoC and "scant" 2 GB of RAM.
I do believe if you could properly uninstall them you'd be able to install replacements like MicroG (although I've never actually done this), so that'd be an upside.
Check out the UniHertz Titan, you can run Lineage on it and have all the fun you want. I have it as a backup to my Key2 in case it dies on me.
Also, having a physical keyboard with a Ctrl key makes SSHing around so much more handy. The Key2 was my first PKB and I'm here to stay as long as there's devices :)
Also, having a physical keyboard with a Ctrl key makes SSHing around so much more handy. The Key2 was my first PKB and I'm here to stay as long as there's devices :)
I've got a use Passport about a year ago and it has been my (personal) daily driver since. It has forced me to learn building new things, selfhosting, since most native apps are now useless.
"Degoogle" eventually led me to GrapheneOS.org
I mean, it's cool but what happens when GSM is no longer supported? A Pi with small screen and keyboard might be more future-proof:
keyboard: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32878312498.html screen: https://www.adafruit.com/product/338
keyboard: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32878312498.html screen: https://www.adafruit.com/product/338
Your solution leaves out the primary reason for recycling the Blackberry: all-in-one simplicity.
The Blackberry terminal he describes can be charged and thrown in a pocket for days or weeks. It can be used easily and comfortably on a subway, an airplane, or a restaurant. No wires or dongles or multiple pieces of kit talking to each other via the airwaves.
You could also hook up an external hard drive and a couple of battery packs to a Raspberry with a bunch of wires, but it's still an inferior solution compared with an iPod.
The Blackberry terminal he describes can be charged and thrown in a pocket for days or weeks. It can be used easily and comfortably on a subway, an airplane, or a restaurant. No wires or dongles or multiple pieces of kit talking to each other via the airwaves.
You could also hook up an external hard drive and a couple of battery packs to a Raspberry with a bunch of wires, but it's still an inferior solution compared with an iPod.
Another advantage of the Blackberry is that it can be thrown at a concrete floor with full force and continue working like it's nothing.
Good point.
Don’t they have Service Book shenanigans on BlackBerry?
I thought the carrier had to have BB specific APN or something to download MDM config, even for personally owned phones, much like iOS activation but can only be done over cellular.
I thought the carrier had to have BB specific APN or something to download MDM config, even for personally owned phones, much like iOS activation but can only be done over cellular.
Most of them can be unlocked. I paid some random website to brute force unlock one for about $20. It took them about 6 days. Then they sent me a code, I entered it in a secret menu and then I was able to buy sim cards when travelling and it worked great.
There's a lot of weird crap with Blackberries.
A friend of mine brought his on a trip to a Central American country and got a local 3G SIM card for the week. After returning home and switching back to his US SIM card, Internet worked but all of the Blackberry-specific stuff like email and BBM was broken.
RIM customer service said, nothing we can do. You have to ask the Panamanian carrier to change those settings, and if they can't or won't, then you'll have to buy a new phone.
A friend of mine brought his on a trip to a Central American country and got a local 3G SIM card for the week. After returning home and switching back to his US SIM card, Internet worked but all of the Blackberry-specific stuff like email and BBM was broken.
RIM customer service said, nothing we can do. You have to ask the Panamanian carrier to change those settings, and if they can't or won't, then you'll have to buy a new phone.
Very cool. Wished modern phones would still tick some of these boxes.
I think it would be awesome to have a list of things you can do with old devices.
For example, I'm using the original Nexus 7 as a MIDI interface (virtual piano) for FL Studio even though it's a 2012 product.
For example, I'm using the original Nexus 7 as a MIDI interface (virtual piano) for FL Studio even though it's a 2012 product.
Perhaps that's not what you had in mind, but I still use daily a Late 2008 MacBook Pro without any issues. With some patching I've installed Catalina on it so it will still receive security updates until.....2023 I think?
I just keep it as my kitchen laptop for playing music, watching YouTube and looking up recipes. It's completely noiseless, has pretty good speakers, and since I replaced the drive with an SSD 6 years ago it's pretty quick as well. Even the original battery still holds about an hour of charge if needed. Laptops just don't age the way they used to.
I just keep it as my kitchen laptop for playing music, watching YouTube and looking up recipes. It's completely noiseless, has pretty good speakers, and since I replaced the drive with an SSD 6 years ago it's pretty quick as well. Even the original battery still holds about an hour of charge if needed. Laptops just don't age the way they used to.
Same here with a 2009 base mac mini, upgraded a long time ago to 8gb and an ssd. My kids use it for scratch, youtube and homework. My wife uses it for online shopping. The key hardware features are dual cores, 8 gb ram and an ssd (not emmc or hdd). Anything with that kind of spec can still run modern software reasonably well.
I've also got a 2008 Macbook Pro that keeps proving to be useful; new batteries are dirt cheap too. Any links to patching or reasons for upgrading to Catalina?
I think it would be awesome to have a list of things you can do with old devices.
I have a smattering of old gear around the house. Some being used for their original purposes, and some doing things they weren't designed for.
My wife has an old iPhone 5 plugged into an AM transmitter she found at Goodwill for a whole-house radio station. When she wants to hear her music, she just clicks on the cheap-as-chips radio in the room where she is.
My wife has a four-foot-tall early 1950's console radio, made in East Germany, that she uses as both an amplifier and a stand for her state-of-the-art 2019 record player.
I have a 2002 iLamp running OSX Leopard that I use as an iTunes media server. The current AppleTV interfaces with it flawlessly.
I have a 2006 U2 edition iPod that I use occasionally to move files between computers. I found it at the bottom of an elevator shaft in 2010.
I have a TRS-80 Model 100 that I occasionally use to write stories on. Every six months or so I transfer the documents to my main computer via null modem as a backup.
The computer I use every day is a 2011 MacBook Air. (Though I plan to get one of the new ARM MacBooks as soon as they're available.)
I use my iPod shuffles (1st and 4th generation) almost every week. I think they're the ultimate music playback machines, thought the 1st generation ones don't like modern headphone plugs.
When I drove for Uber, I strapped a couple of $5 Goodwill Nooks to the headrests of my car. I put a series messages on the screensavers to display to my passengers. Things like the week's weather forecast, amenity information, and a QR code they could scan to take them to a web site with local event information.
I have a smattering of old gear around the house. Some being used for their original purposes, and some doing things they weren't designed for.
My wife has an old iPhone 5 plugged into an AM transmitter she found at Goodwill for a whole-house radio station. When she wants to hear her music, she just clicks on the cheap-as-chips radio in the room where she is.
My wife has a four-foot-tall early 1950's console radio, made in East Germany, that she uses as both an amplifier and a stand for her state-of-the-art 2019 record player.
I have a 2002 iLamp running OSX Leopard that I use as an iTunes media server. The current AppleTV interfaces with it flawlessly.
I have a 2006 U2 edition iPod that I use occasionally to move files between computers. I found it at the bottom of an elevator shaft in 2010.
I have a TRS-80 Model 100 that I occasionally use to write stories on. Every six months or so I transfer the documents to my main computer via null modem as a backup.
The computer I use every day is a 2011 MacBook Air. (Though I plan to get one of the new ARM MacBooks as soon as they're available.)
I use my iPod shuffles (1st and 4th generation) almost every week. I think they're the ultimate music playback machines, thought the 1st generation ones don't like modern headphone plugs.
When I drove for Uber, I strapped a couple of $5 Goodwill Nooks to the headrests of my car. I put a series messages on the screensavers to display to my passengers. Things like the week's weather forecast, amenity information, and a QR code they could scan to take them to a web site with local event information.
I have still a passport, it's the form factor I love most, sadly it doesn't work as a phone, reception is very very bad.
Interesting. I bought a Passport cheap last year to replace my old feature phone - works a treat, no problems with signal. I wonder if it's a US vs EU thing...?
Not sure, I'm in the EU, and it's my 3rd Passport because of the reception problems. Perhaps it's a Berlin problem.
You're commented prompted me to take out my Passport again, and we'll see if things have changed, thanks.
You're commented prompted me to take out my Passport again, and we'll see if things have changed, thanks.
cellular has bands, usually one carrier operate on handful different bands. Sometimes a phone only supports some of bands that don’t used in areas you live in.
When a phone nerds buy a phone they make sure which operator use which band or which bands are extension of which bands or which subtypes of a phone supports which bands before they proceed to buy one.
e.g. if a guy wants a phone that support Band 1, 3, 5, 7 and operator A use 2, 4 and 7 but only on rural, while operator B would use 3, 5, 9, 11 but 9 is basically 1, then he’d get a SIM from operator B.
Old Nokia had suffixes to commercial name like E71-1 for NA or E71-2 for EU and so on, as well as model number like RM-123 that each covers most bands in a region. Apple use different model numbers like A1234 for APAC, A1345 for Sprint US, A1243 for rest of US etc etc. On Samsung it’s N3546 for Korea and SM-i3456 or something like that, Sony/Sony Ericsson was XXnni for international and XXnna for CONUS at some point, sometimes completely different like “Xperia Something W12345”.
I can’t pull up BlackBerry scheme out of my memory but I think it was similar to Nokia.
When a phone nerds buy a phone they make sure which operator use which band or which bands are extension of which bands or which subtypes of a phone supports which bands before they proceed to buy one.
e.g. if a guy wants a phone that support Band 1, 3, 5, 7 and operator A use 2, 4 and 7 but only on rural, while operator B would use 3, 5, 9, 11 but 9 is basically 1, then he’d get a SIM from operator B.
Old Nokia had suffixes to commercial name like E71-1 for NA or E71-2 for EU and so on, as well as model number like RM-123 that each covers most bands in a region. Apple use different model numbers like A1234 for APAC, A1345 for Sprint US, A1243 for rest of US etc etc. On Samsung it’s N3546 for Korea and SM-i3456 or something like that, Sony/Sony Ericsson was XXnni for international and XXnna for CONUS at some point, sometimes completely different like “Xperia Something W12345”.
I can’t pull up BlackBerry scheme out of my memory but I think it was similar to Nokia.
Huh. I'm in the UK and no problems... moving to Germany in a few weeks so we'll see if I have the same problem!
Such a lovely phone though. Now that I have it I can't imagine using anything else.
Such a lovely phone though. Now that I have it I can't imagine using anything else.
I never had issues with that, but man that was the best form factor, such an amazing little weird phone.
If security is what you are after, desolder the baseband && only use wifi.
Whenever I contemplate putting an ancient device (back) on the air, I always end up finding out, that at least one of the wireless technologies/chips aboard the device has security problems, and replacement firmware (if the problem is fixable by SW/FW) is usually not available, or from dodgy sources with unknown "goodies" added.
(In those cases, I also don't trust the soft-toggle in the UI)
PostmarketOS is my current "Favorite" FW for hopefully getting some old devices back into service, mostly for interfacing with some IOT installations. They are working to get the Mainline kernel to run on many old(er) devices, since these days only a correct DTB is required to boot on nearly anything. (iiuec)
PostmarketOS is my current "Favorite" FW for hopefully getting some old devices back into service, mostly for interfacing with some IOT installations. They are working to get the Mainline kernel to run on many old(er) devices, since these days only a correct DTB is required to boot on nearly anything. (iiuec)
I’d be surprised if older blackberries had PMOS support. The OS they chipped ~with was based on QNX~, most of which isn’t open source.
Edit: TIL the original blackberry OS was a strange embedded java VM. (I’ve never owned a blackberry)
Edit: TIL the original blackberry OS was a strange embedded java VM. (I’ve never owned a blackberry)
The QNX-based OS started with BlackBerry 10 around 2013. Everything before that was a Java VM on top of a relatively small OS written by the company.
Not everything before that. Before that Java stuff RIM was shipping a bespoke platform with a C API, from 1996 to 2002. The devices had Intel 386 CPUs which sounds weird but the battery life was incredible. The model 850 ran on 1 AA battery. The model 957 was rechargeable but it ran so long you didn't need to take the charger on trips.
Yeah, devices that old should be dismantled & scrapped for parts. The screens sometimes are useful. Then you smash the flash chips, and anything else that could have cached/held any credentials/IDs. Some IOT devices cache/store previous WIFI credentials.
Can someone tell me if it's safe to store batteries as shown in the article? Isn't there a chance that the terminals get shorted by the metal box? I recently saw some (more than 50) alkaline AA batteries stored in an old biscuit tin: wonder if it's a hazard in any way?
It's allright with batteries shown in the article since the connector pads should be recessed on those, but with regular AA or or other batteries with exposed leads can - and eventually will - make a short circuit, heat itself up and leak or cause a fire.
Thanks for confirming, that's what I suspected. Time for some health and safety remedials for the family :)
I used a setup like this for a _long_ time. One of the first things I did was to build console menus with Python and ncurses for typical tasks (restart Apache, tail logs, etc.).
The next step was to setup a "monitor" user with separate keys and a restricted shell that invoked those menus.
The next step was to setup a "monitor" user with separate keys and a restricted shell that invoked those menus.
"Ciphers +3des-cbc"?? No way.
https://sweet32.info
https://sweet32.info
> We show that a network attacker who can monitor a long-lived Triple-DES HTTPS connection between a web browser and a website can recover secure HTTP cookies by capturing around 785 GB of traffic.
> In our proof-of-concept demo, this attack currently takes less than two days, using malicious Javascript to generate traffic.
> Keeping a web connection alive for two days may not seem very practical, but it worked easily in the lab.
Oooookay...
> In our proof-of-concept demo, this attack currently takes less than two days, using malicious Javascript to generate traffic.
> Keeping a web connection alive for two days may not seem very practical, but it worked easily in the lab.
Oooookay...
hehe, I'm pretty sure that's way longer than the non-stanby time of this blackberry.
Given that the attack requires capturing over 780GiB of data encrypted with the same key, I don't think that's a direct problem with this setup.
Install an info on emulator and enjoy long train rides.
You are likely to eaten by a grue though.
You are likely to eaten by a grue though.
While it's good to reuse older devices whenever possible, it really only makes sense when those devices are able to run a modern operating system for security reasons. For example, running a modern Linux distro on an older laptop extends its useful life, but getting an ancient BlackBerry OS to ssh into something across a legacy network connection just doesn't make sense to me.
I'm not seeing the problem with the legacy network, but there is a potential security issue with needing DSA and 3DES for SSH - However others below have mentioned it's probably not practical to implement attacks against those on this device due to throughput limitations.
... in which case maybe it's all good?
... in which case maybe it's all good?
For me a Nokia N900 made the best portable SSH terminal. I have two.
Excellent slide-out keyboard, great for typing fast and accurately with thumbs.
Good screen for small fonts. Touch sensitive but also pen input, never had any difficulty selecting small text in SSH for copy-and-paste.
I used to do most of my email over SSH and Mutt, using the N900 as terminal.
Excellent slide-out keyboard, great for typing fast and accurately with thumbs.
Good screen for small fonts. Touch sensitive but also pen input, never had any difficulty selecting small text in SSH for copy-and-paste.
I used to do most of my email over SSH and Mutt, using the N900 as terminal.
I never had the opportunity to use a N900, but I'm still using a N9 as my daily phone (though it doesn't have a slide out keyboard). My older N97 works rather well as a SSH terminal using PuTTY for the Symbian OS (S60 version IIRC).
I think once the Pinephone's keyboard case is released, it could be a great option for a device that you can buy brand new with active development/support.
Also, for anyone having to use SSH on a more unreliable network, like slow/spotty 3/4G, I highly recommend Mosh[0], it's been pretty much essential for me.
It keeps the connection open even if the network drops, and automatically reconnects when possible. Typing without lag is also nice (it even shows an underline below text that hasn't yet reached the server), although you'll want to use screen/tmux if you need scrollback.
The only annoyance I've had is that you need mosh installed on both ends, as well as the same font encoding/locale (don't really know much about this).
[0]: https://mosh.org/
Also, for anyone having to use SSH on a more unreliable network, like slow/spotty 3/4G, I highly recommend Mosh[0], it's been pretty much essential for me.
It keeps the connection open even if the network drops, and automatically reconnects when possible. Typing without lag is also nice (it even shows an underline below text that hasn't yet reached the server), although you'll want to use screen/tmux if you need scrollback.
The only annoyance I've had is that you need mosh installed on both ends, as well as the same font encoding/locale (don't really know much about this).
[0]: https://mosh.org/